TEXT: Roleplaying Tips
  OMNIBUS
  Have more fun at every game!
  1
  Johnn Four
  
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  In This Edition
  Johnn’s D&D 5E Campaign Updates ...................... 2
  Making Undead Cool Again ...................................11
  Show, Don’t Tell ....................................................16
  How to Create a Critical Path Walkthrough ..........20
  Getting Back in the Game .....................................28
  GM Toolbox: Cementing, Shifting, Delegation .....32
  How Would You Bootstrap Your World? ................45
  Random Table: So You Get Drunk at the Tavern... 48
  How to Make Undead Scary ...................................51
  How To Deal With Idea Overwhelm ......................86
  Gambling Table: 1d20 Card Game Events .............91
  Last Words From Johnn .........................................94
  Campaign Design Diary 
   - Freedom, Integration, and Story ........................96
  Credits ................................................................122
  Thanks To My Wonderful Patrons .......................124
  
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  Johnn’s D&D 5E 
  Campaign Updates
  Session #4 Assault on Orc Valley
  Sometimes the dice tell the story of the session. Lady Luck gives us a 
  happy ending. Or not. Here’s how Friday’s game went down.
  It’s dark out, and the PCs are still celebrating their victory over the 
  local gang of thugs at the inn, despite the ringleader getting away.
  The wizard uses mage hand to impress the locals and harass the 
  help. The fighter woos a farmer’s daughter. The rogue entertains 
  the crowd with rowdy songs.
  A dirty, smelly dwarf saddles up to the bar and orders a drink (a new 
  PC). He gets hammered fast. When a card game breaks out with the 
  gambling-addicted fighter and the two locals he cleaned out the 
  other night, the dwarf sits in.
  Then a stranger saunters in and seats himself beside the mage. As 
  they talk, he notices the mage hand. He asks the mage to give him a 
  signal if the dwarf has a good hand at the card table, then he joins 
  the game.
  Thanks to a little arcane assistance, the stranger does OK. Then the 
  game escalates into a tense hand with a lot of coin being pushed into 
  the centre of the table. It comes down to the fighter, the stranger, 
  and a card shark local. If the local wins, the fighter has to plough the 
  
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  farmer’s field. Cards are revealed, and... the stranger claims victory. 
  Everyone at the table gets suspicious, but there’s no evidence of 
  cheating.
  The stranger takes his winnings and leaves the table with the girl 
  the fighter was flirting with earlier. Everyone drinks more.
  The next morning, the party splits up. Some are too hung over and 
  refuse the call to adventure. The paladin and monk meet with the 
  Townmaster to prepare for elections.
  The mangy dwarf, fighter, and mage decide to investigate the orc 
  bandits they heard were menacing the road up near Wyvern Tor. As 
  the three travel along the Triboar Trail, they spot the wispy smoke 
  of a roadside campfire up ahead. Then they hear the chilling sounds 
  of torture.
  The group rushes forward and discovers four hobgoblins holding a 
  goblin over a fire, demanding to know where Cragmaw Castle - the 
  goblin HQ - is located.
  It’s the party’s first encounter with these tough, soldier-like 
  creatures. Though only the druid is harmed, he nearly dies. A 
  hobgoblin is taken prisoner.
  The goblin is rescued only to be interrogated again, this time by his 
  so-called saviours. He tells the PCs the castle is to the south.
  Reviving and conversing with the hobgob prisoner reveals King 
  Grol and the Spider operate out of the castle as well. The party 
  makes peace with the hobgob, who offers to join their cause against 
  Glasstaff, the goblin king, and the mysterious Black Spider.
  
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  The party agrees. But when the hobgob is released, he immediately 
  attacks. Despite overwhelming odds, the hobgoblin follows his 
  training and honour-bound ways. He dies.
  But all the fighting draws the attention of a nearby owlbear, which 
  crashes into the PCs and starts beaking and clawing flesh.
  The druid turns into a bear, and it’s Mothra vs. Godzilla for several 
  tense seconds as both creatures stand on their hind legs and pound 
  away at each other.
  It turns out the dwarf is a strong addition to the party, for he’s 
  victorious, and the PCs grab what loot they can from the hobgoblin 
  camp and continue down the road, but not before killing the goblin.
  Two days later Wyvern Tor breaks the horizon. The tall mountain 
  is flanked by two others, giving the appearance of wings. The PCs 
  encounter an orc bandit group and dispatch the ugly, brutish 
  creatures. They track the orcs back to a valley, where an orc village 
  stretches out. A large ogre sits in the middle of the village, growling 
  orders, while orcs whip goblin slaves to work harder in the fields 
  and gardens.
  The party wonders if these odds are too much even for bears and 
  mage hands to overcome. They decide to try a divide-and-conquer 
  approach. They crawl close to the village and let loose their arrows, 
  hitting the ogre leader twice with amazing shots.
  The orcs charge, a group of almost a dozen hot on the retreating 
  heroes’ heels.
  The druid wields his nature magic to help the party hide while the 
  orcs run by. Then the PCs strike from behind in ambush.
  
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  The fight is intense. Eleven against three - 3.5 if you count the druid-
  bear.
  The fighter goes down. He gets healed and bounces up again. Then 
  the druid goes down. Then the mage. It’s just the fighter left, and 
  there are three orcs.
  The foes exchange mighty blows. An orc falls. Then another. It’s just 
  the fighter, who has only three health left, and a tall orc warrior, 
  unharmed and enraged.
  The orc hits! But the wily fighter summons all his willpower and 
  somehow survives and even gets a second wind just in time for his 
  counterattack.
  With 10 fallen orcs, the fighter knows the only way he can kill this 
  creature is to hit it with everything he’s got. Maximum damage is 
  the only result that will save the party.
  The fighter swings.
  And hits!
  We all wait to see the damage... and it’s boxcars! Maximum damage. 
  The only roll that would kill the orc in one blow.
  Everyone cheers.
  Lady Luck blew on those dice that night.
  We wrap the session up there. The PCs scout the village again after 
  resting and find it deserted. With some careful tracking, they find 
  the creatures holed up in a cave at the base of Wyvern Tor. They’ll 
  need more help to defeat the entrenched foes.
  
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  I like it when players take chances. You often get great, memorable 
  stories that way. Like this time, when only one roll could save a TPK, 
  and the group got it. Hopefully my dice are lucky next time. ;)
  We play again in a couple weeks. It should be interesting to see how 
  the cave assault goes. I’m off the plot now, with an unscheduled stop 
  with these orcs. The ogre leader is still alive, as are his best warriors. 
  This cave is a holy site to the tribe. The shaman lives there. It was 
  only out of desperation they dared retreat here with their families 
  against the evil people from the human town. There’s a surprise 
  waiting in that cave for the PCs. And it’ll surprise the orcs too...
  Session #5 Casualties Afflict 
  Phandelver
  We played last Friday and had a blast. A disintegrating blast as you 
  shall soon see.
  The session starts with the PCs resting and preparing to assault 
  the orc shaman’s cave. It is a full table. PCs missing last session 
  jumped in immediately on the premise they were getting worried 
  about their friends and went out searching for them. With the party 
  reunited five strong, they venture forth into the mists to clean up 
  the orc raider tribe.
  As they approach the cave mouth guarded by a pair of sentries, 
  screaming erupts from the dark hole. Then a clawed-up and bleeding 
  orc body flies out of the cave mouth and sails through the air over 
  a cliff. More screams of pain and terror perforate the morning air.
  The PCs advance and quickly take care of the guards. With 
  trepidation, they peer into the cave.
  
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  They see mass murder. Blood covers the walls and floor. Claw marks 
  scrape the stone walls. And a terrified huddle of surviving orcs with 
  backs turned to the characters peer into a tunnel leading deeper 
  into the mountain.
  The PCs charge. And that’s when the fighter perishes. Just as the orcs 
  and their ogre leader are falling to the chop-chop-chopping of the 
  PCs’ hatred, another wave pours from the tunnel, fleeing from the 
  unknown monstrosity. The party’s main murder hobo gets hobbled, 
  then murdered, as fresh pork overwhelms him.
  Finally, the cave goes quiet as the last orc falls. Two mysteries lie 
  before the characters as they retreat outside for a short rest.
  First, what was ripping the orcs from limb to limb? Second, what 
  was causing the strange mutations they saw amongst the orc foes 
  they just fought? One orc was orange, one had a two-foot-wide head, 
  another had 10-pound testicles.
  Just as the PCs are girding up for another foray into the cave, they 
  hear weak cries for help coming from that tunnel at the back. The 
  cries don’t sound orcish, so they advance. Passing through the cave 
  piled with orc bodies, they discover the dark tunnel is filled with 
  even more orc carcasses, plus many goblin slave carcasses.
  Hopscotching their way through, the party enters a smaller cave that 
  must have been the shaman’s room. The walls are decorated with 
  strange runes, bone mobiles, and wolf pelts. In the corner is a bound 
  man. He’s been tortured by his captors. He’s naked.
  This is the new PC for Chris, the dead fighter’s player. He tells the 
  party he saw terrifying tentacled creatures burst through a hole in 
  the wall at the back of the cave. That’s what’s been making pork pie 
  of the PCs’ enemies. Based on this news, the party piles bodies up to 
  
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  block the hole. Unfortunately, this rouses one of the creatures and 
  it begins clawing its way through the fleshy barrier. The creature is 
  fearsome, with two massive claw-tipped limbs, the body of a giant 
  lobster, and a tentacled mouth.
  The creature latches onto the druid and claws, then grapples him. 
  The stalwart dwarf fends off the poison now swimming through his 
  body and counterattacks. It’s a tough battle, but the PCs manage 
  to kill the creature by pretending to flee and retreating to a more 
  defensible position, where they whittle the monster down.
  Flush with victory, the party ventures back into the shaman cave and 
  begins looting. Roscoe the rogue discovers a secret door. He opens 
  it and finds a short passage with a solid oak door blocking the end.
  Curious, the party opens it. This is when the paladin goes down.
  The room beyond the door contains a bubbling fountain filled 
  with fetid water. The walls are covered in more shaman runes and 
  fetishes. The newest party member jumps into the fountain and 
  frolics. The druid joins him, as does the paladin’s goblin servant. 
  Meantime, the mage casts detect magic and realizes there are two 
  magic signatures in the room. One is the fountain. One is something 
  big and invisible in the corner.
  The rogue runs up to the invisible thing and touches it. It’s cold, 
  damp, and spongy. The paladin comes over to investigate, as does 
  the druid. This forces the beholder(!) to attack, making him visible. 
  A ray shoots out of one eyestalk. And faster than you can say “pile of 
  gray dust,” the paladin is hit and turned into a pile of gray dust. This, 
  just after acquiring some fine full-plate armour from the orc leader 
  minutes ago, the party’s best treasure since the campaign start.
  
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  Everyone flees. Except the mage, who takes a moment to disbelieve. 
  The beholder aims an eyestalk at him. The mage flees.
  Back to the safety of the entrance, the mage realizes the beholder 
  was not alive. It was dead. It was an undead zombie beholder. In a 
  cave. The party retreats back to camp.
  Counting their losses, the survivors consider themselves lucky and 
  head back to Phandalin. It takes three days to return home. On the 
  road back they meet a mercenary - Jason’s new PC - and he joins up 
  with the party.
  Back at the mining town, the group convalesces at the inn. They 
  drink heavily. It’s time to break out my new carousing table (I’ve 
  included it at the end of this issue).
  The dwarf wakes up the next morning with no memories, naked, and 
  lying beside the chewed-up body of a humanoid. The dwarf’s face 
  and hands are covered in blood.
  I forgot to mention that, back at the fountain, the fighter received a 
  permanent hit point after his swim.
  And the dwarf earned an intense fear of orcs. This is unfortunate, 
  because the dwarf’s most hated foe is orcs. This must have really 
  messed up the dwarf, because the body he woke up beside was that 
  of an orc.
  Roscoe the rogue wakes up with a new tattoo. Rolling a d6, Jeff gets 
  a 6. Roscoe is now the proud bearer of a unicorn tattoo.
  The mercenary wakes up with vague recollections about hearing a 
  terrible secret. But he can’t remember the details.
  
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  The mage gave all his money to someone with an incredible money-
  making scheme. The guy has left town.
  The half-orc barbarian, who makes the dwarf very uneasy, did not 
  drink, he just caroused. So he wakes up with purse, skin, and dignity 
  intact.
  We end the session there, with the party ready to follow up a lead 
  back down the Triboar Trail, questing for a ruined watch tower.
  I think we won’t play now for another month. In two Fridays is 
  Halloween, so we can’t play that night. November 14 will likely see 
  our next gaming.
  
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  Making Undead Cool 
  Again
  Johnn Four
  This month’s RPG Blog Carnival is “Things That Go Bump in the 
  Night”, and is hosted by Of Dice and Dragons.
  Undead are boring. We’ve gamed them so much they’re predictable 
  and common. But for the fantasy city campaign I’m planning, I’m 
  adding undead. Lots of undead. And I have a plan to make them cool, 
  interesting, and scary again.
  Here’s my plan.
  Give Them Leaders With a Mission
  The first thing I’m doing is hitting up my bucket list. As I mentioned 
  issues ago, I have a wishlist of cool gaming moments, elements, and 
  products I want to GM before I roll my last die.
  I keep this wishlist in a small Field Notes square grid notebook. If 
  an idea hits me away from home, I’ll add it to Evernote, and then 
  transcribe it into the notebook. I’ve just started this practice. Before, 
  I had only had a blog post and some notes spread around in different 
  books. Now I have just one simple notebook. And hopefully I fill it 
  with new ideas fast. One can never have enough inspiration.
  So in my wishlist are a bunch of monsters I want to run in upcoming 
  campaigns. I scratched tarrasque off last campaign. That bad boy 
  
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  co-destroyed Riddleport in the grand finale. I’ve got many more 
  critters on my list to go.
  And I’m taking a half dozen or so for my new game and making 
  them undead. These creatures will be the leaders of different 
  undead factions operating within the city. While each amazing 
  monster chases its own agenda, they also pursue a terrible common 
  objective. This gives me my bucket list, campaign plot, and city 
  design elements all on a delicious zombie platter.
  The tip I’d like to pass on to you is to revitalize your undead by 
  combining them with other creatures and monster types to surprise 
  your players. A platoon of githyanki ghasts dive-bombing in on 
  flying zombie dolphins might just catch the PCs unawares.
  Give your undead a driving urge or motive, too. Switch up the classic 
  situation where they are just lying around for centuries waiting to 
  animate or escape. Instead, have them animate and escape pre-
  campaign. Then give them some form of leadership and a purpose 
  for the PCs to tangle with during the campaign.
  Maybe the mummy storm giant wants revenge. The lich beholder 
  wants to resume his foul arcane experiments. And the death knight 
  black dragon has some lands to re-conquer.
  Give undead in your game a role greater than XP salad and a side of 
  ribs. Make them smart and organized. And have them pursue an evil 
  plan with the intense focus only an angry alien mind can muster.
  
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  Give Them Society
  Skeletons keep whacking until they’re a pile of bones again. Zombies 
  shuffle along until their legs get cut out from under them. Ghouls 
  and ghasts just attack until fed. Where’s the roleplaying? The 
  intrigue? The plot?
  For this campaign, I’m giving the horde some culture. I might even 
  teach the yoghurt heads some manners. I’m using my 3-Line Culture 
  technique to create several factions with interesting identities and 
  roleplaying opportunities.
  I’ll give each faction a monstrous undead leader, who will influence 
  their faction’s:
  • Goals
  • Membership makeup
  • Action style
  With culture and aims designed, I’ll give the undead intra-horde 
  conflicts on three different levels:
  • Species vs. species (e.g., dogs hate cats, vampires hate _____)
  • Leader vs. leader (territory and resource disputes, strategy 
  disputes, and rival vendettas and hatred – a terrific fruit punch 
  of strife!)
  • The horde’s common goal and what tribe or faction wins the 
  big prize first
  Last, and perhaps the best way to make undead interesting again 
  in this campaign, is they can all think and talk. Even the skeletons 
  will become NPCs. And the party can interact, roleplay, scheme, and 
  conflict with them all as they see fit.
  
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  Give Them Unexpected Mechanics
  If sentience and personality aren’t enough to surprise and entertain 
  players, I have two more game mechanics I’m going to layer on.
  Infection
  Undead are contagious. That should terrify even priests and paladins, 
  because there’s going to be at least three different kinds of infection:
  • Bite me. A good solid bite should make walking dead out of at 
  least a couple party members.
  • You’ll make a great dad. Riffing off the recent Alien article, 
  some undead will lay their eggs into PCs. A red dot means you’re 
  going to be a parent!
  • Geiger counter. Speaking of Aliens and the late artist H.R. Giger 
  who inspired them, some undead will emit radiation that erodes 
  your life force until you are one of them.
  The infection mechanics, I think, will not only change the tone 
  of the campaign to one of fear and horror, but will transform the 
  setting and nature of gameplay.
  First, I’ll create an infection meter. It will climb as the campaign 
  winds on and the undead spread, making the area ever more 
  dangerous to trespass. Just having infectious undead means they 
  become a dynamic campaign factor, a measurable tension, and a 
  looming doom.
  Second, the PCs will have to rethink their hack’n’slash approach. 
  It’s one thing to grind toe-to-toe with skellies and then take their 
  loot, but it’s another when that fight means you wake up the next 
  morning with no skin and a rattle when you walk.
  
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  Evolution
  The second mechanic has the undead evolving rapidly over time. It’s 
  another tension meter pulling at the players to act smart and fast.
  Lower undead transform into higher undead. Skeletons and zombies 
  become ghouls and ghasts that become ghosts and reapers. Did you 
  ever play the board game Titan, where monsters travel the board and 
  evolve? That’s the type of thing I’m thinking of.
  And here’s where I need your help. I’m struggling to figure out an 
  elegant mechanic for this evolution. Is it time based? Or based on 
  kills?
  Or maybe it’s a terrifying family tree based on infections and 
  spawning more. A multi-level mummification pyramid scheme.
  If this was your campaign, how would you have the undead become 
  tougher and more powerful and evolve while the PCs try to survive? 
  Hit reply and let me know.
  Wrapping Up
  Modify your undead in your next campaign to catch your players off-
  guard. Give the creatures cultures, personalities, and new mechanics. 
  Nothing says you can’t change things up and make your campaign 
  special this way. Remember, flying zombie dolphins are NPCs too.
  
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  Show, Don’t Tell
  Raldog
  Thank you for the link to “How To Be A Better Player”. I’ve been 
  GMing a group of guys who only liked hack’n’slash. Absolutely no 
  roleplaying whatsoever on their part, only on mine. A couple of guys 
  actually said roleplaying was “kinda weird,” but was okay because it 
  was different. I had, and still have, no response to that.
  I had gotten to where I didn’t really plan our games anymore since 
  all they wanted to do was to fight. I’ve been playing for 30 years, so 
  I know how to provide fun things to do, but if the party doesn’t want 
  to do them, doesn’t take the bait, or worse yet, completely ignores 
  the bait, what can I do? I’ve hated hack’n’slash forever, and here I 
  was doing it.
  Anyway, one of the main roleplaying haters was tired of my once-
  a-month game, so he decided he was going to try running his own 
  game, which he promised would be more often than mine. I didn’t 
  have a problem with that.
  Step 1: The new GM has never allowed an evil PC in the game. Ever. 
  He’s been playing 25+ years, so it took quite a bit of convincing 
  on my part, but he eventually allowed me to roll up a neutral evil 
  sorcerer. I instructed him that I would never turn on my fellow PC’s. 
  That’s not how you have fun!
  Step 2:  The first time we sat down, and he began roleplaying as 
  GM, 30 seconds into the session I did the same exact thing he has 
  
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  always done to me. “Naw!! Don’t care! Nope! I don’t care what he 
  says. I’m Not Roleplaying.” Everybody else at the table laughed 
  because they remembered him doing those things, only he didn’t. 
  He actually denied he had said such things. That went on for about 
  30-45 seconds, then I showed them fools how roleplaying was done. 
  Including him.
  Step 3: Right off the bat we were employed by a casino owner who 
  had us try to collect from some people who owned him money, which 
  we did, but boy, were they tough. Almost too tough. While we were 
  fighting the bad guys, I made it a point to roleplay my attacks and 
  trash talk.
  On our way back to the casino I began telling the party the casino 
  owner set us up. He was trying to kill us by having us go against 
  people who weren’t playing. Well, we weren’t going to play that 
  either!
  We confronted the casino owner by threatening him and telling 
  him if this was going to be amateur hour then he’d need to double 
  our pay, and pay us up front. The GM and I roleplayed that entire 
  conversation, which took about 5 minutes. The rest of the party just 
  watched in awe, and were grateful for the money.
  Step 4: Our next mission took us to the docks, where we promptly 
  got into a fight with some folks who didn’t think they owed the 
  casino anything. The last enemy standing was kicking our butts. 
  We weren’t taking him down. Only one other enemy was alive, but 
  he was on the ground and bleeding out. When it became my turn 
  I grabbed the last enemy’s attention by yelling at him, and when 
  he looked my way, I punched my dagger through his dying friend’s 
  
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  head. Then I told the enemy to lay down his weapon, which he did. 
  My group still did nothing but watch.
  Step 5: We tied up the last guy, and after questioning him, I sliced 
  open his face and instructed him to tell others there is a new group 
  handling collections for the casino.
  Step 6: We instituted a no-weapon policy in the casino, which 
  everyone minded except for a couple of members of the City Watch. 
  We roleplayed the “Don’t wear your weapon in here ever again” 
  conversation, which was pretty tense, but they got the message. We 
  spoke to their boss, and we instructed him that if any of his men 
  wore their weapons into the casino ever again, there were going to 
  be problems, official business or not. That conversation took about 
  10 minutes, and one other player actually joined in.
  Step 7: One night, immediately after closing, some thugs attacked 
  us by kicking open the doors and breaking through the windows. 
  While the fight was going on, during my turn I was yelling about 
  how much those doors and windows were going to cost, and that 
  they were going to repay us with their blood. We won the fight and 
  cut off the head of the boss thug. One of the other party members 
  suggested we load the dead bodies onto a wagon and leave it in front 
  of the compound the thugs were associated with. Finally the group 
  was learning how to roleplay.
  During my games there is a LOT of conversation about all kinds of 
  stuff which has nothing to do with the game. There was so much 
  action that they weren’t playing video games on their laptops 
  (because the fights are fun), but now that they’re learning how to 
  roleplay maybe that trend will end. We’ll see.
  
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  We haven’t played my game yet, but so far, three of the players 
  want to change their alignments from good to evil, including Mr. 
  I’m Not Roleplaying. They now know how to make D&D fun, but 
  unfortunately, I couldn’t properly voice how that should be done. 
  I could only show them. The website you’ve shared explains more 
  succinctly than I ever could. I have passed the link onto my group.
  I love your blog, but the thing I love most is your game summations. 
  I love reading those. Thanks Johnn. No matter what, you’ve made my 
  game better in more ways than you can possibly imagine.
  
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  How to Create a Critical 
  Path Walkthrough
  Johnn Four
  I initially wrote this article for a video game development website. 
  However, I thought you would be interested in this technique as a 
  useful GM tool. Hopefully it’s easy for you to replace the video game 
  angle with tabletop RPG in your head as you read. The ideas should 
  port right over.
  What is a Critical Path Walkthrough?
  Wikipedia says a critical path is “the longest necessary path through 
  a network of activities.” In game terms, it’s the longest path through 
  your game a player needs to take to complete your game.
  However, I like to look at it another way: What’s the shortest route 
  your player can take to see the end screen?
  Before you leave the planning stages of your game, take a few 
  minutes to plot its shortest course. This surfaces important 
  information about your design and gives you a chance to make 
  course corrections before investing time in coding and game assets.
  
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  Why Create a Critical Path 
  Walkthrough?
  Walkthroughs help you understand your own game better from 
  a player’s point of view. It’s an objective look at your creation - 
  normally tough to do - and so a valuable tool in your dev tool belt.
  Test Progression
  Use your walkthrough to play your game on paper from just a 
  progression point of view to see the experience you’re about to 
  unleash. For example, does your walkthrough tell a great story? Or 
  is it disjointed, boring, or maybe incomplete?
  Journey Map
  A walkthrough works like a map. Travel your game with your map in 
  hand to see what you’re putting your players through. Does gameplay 
  progress smoothly, or does it feel a bit random and confusing? Are 
  there spots of friction, no fun zones, and WTF moments?
  Find Gaps
  Look for gaps. Why would players leave the planet by buying the 
  worst ship when their coffers brim from the previous stage? Story-
  up the humble ship mandatory requirement or plan for the players 
  buying a palace on rockets.
  With the optional sliced away like cellulite, can players meet a stage 
  boss too soon?
  Walkthroughs show you the minimum route, which means players 
  might not have the prereqs they need to progress, or they might have 
  too much power too soon and play unchallenged.
  
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  Discover Dead Ends
  Discover dead ends, infinite loops, and cul-de-sacs. Your map will 
  reveal these game killers and more. Even on paper, you can spot 
  grinding or loops.
  I recently played Steve Jackson’s CYA book, The Warlock of Firetop 
  Mountain. After crossing the river I got stuck in a loop, was hitting 
  the same four-way intersection, and couldn’t penetrate deeper, even 
  though I tried every exit. Frustrating.
  Test Transitions
  Something underrated in games is transitions. These are subtle, but 
  so important. A great transition frames upcoming gameplay. It sets 
  the right expectations by the signals it sends.
  If your game fails to deliver, or serves up something else, players 
  will bail. Your design might seem logical with a smooth progression. 
  Your cut scenes might all make sense. But test this against your 
  critical path to see if players can do things in the wrong order, miss 
  transitions, or fork the wrong way after great transitions.
  Find Design Bugs
  Bugs where players can make not one more step in your game 
  without restarting will kill. They kill the fun. And they kill your 
  game. Walk your map and test each progression.
  Do players have the info and motivation they need to continue? Do 
  their toons have the equipment, abilities, and power to progress? 
  Or do surprise shortcuts put people too far into your game too early, 
  unprepared?
  
  23
  Time Estimate
  Something a bit more prosaic, a critical path walkthrough gives you 
  an estimate of minimum game play time. It also gives you time per 
  stage, letting you know if there are uneven or poor pacing moments.
  Marketing
  And something not often thought of, a walkthrough helps promote 
  your game. Don’t wait to see if a fan creates one. Do it yourself and 
  spread the word it exists. This will help stuck players, add credibility 
  to your title, and give you more content online for people to find 
  and discover your game.
  How to Create a Critical Path
  Only document gameplay essential to finishing the game. What’s 
  mandatory to reach the end screen? Cut away the optional.
  Step 1
  Divide your game into sections. Acts, chapters, levels, screens, 
  whatever logical way you’ve chunked out your game.
  Step 2
  Draw the sections. Make a map.
  Start with your opening encounter or screen. Then draw circles for 
  each new major game section, in order of critical path play. Connect 
  circles with lines where players can move from one section to 
  another.
  
  24
  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_path_method
  Step 3
  Now, walkthrough your game at this 10,000-foot level.
  • Are all essential acts, chapters, levels, and screens on the critical 
  path? If so, what does the progression look like?
  • Anything missing? Look for gaps, bypasses, and stuff buried in 
  optional play that needs to migrate into the critical path.
  • Any waste? Needless excess also kills fun.
  • Any loops or frustrating dead ends?
  • What’s the story like? Grab an empty doc and write the terse 
  story of the critical path. Then decide if it’s complete and 
  interesting, or if you need to add or subtract to improve it.
  • How’s the pacing feel?
  
  25
  At this most simple view, you can fix a lot with your design before 
  wasting resources fiddling with the smaller bits.
  Step 4
  For each step in your map, note dependencies. What does the player 
  and toon need to progress? Also top-line what players must do in 
  each scene or screen. Step back and see how this sits with you. Look 
  for repetitive play, such as similar quests back-to-back.
  Step 5
  Now we get granular. Break sections and levels into their distinct 
  screens, locations, events. It might be room-by-room, or a more 
  abstract screen or encounter series. Use your map, and break its 
  areas into their atomic gameplay scenes.
  Step 6
  Step back again. Do a quick walkthrough of each section. Repeat the 
  checks in step 3 to spot bad gameplay.
  Also check logical end points such as milestones, quest completions, 
  level-ups, and achievements. You’re looking for logic problems, 
  dependency issues, and pacing.
  For example, does an important quest happen too fast while a minor 
  quest goes on for too long? Does the player reach a milestone in 
  gameplay that’s out of synch with story or toon advancement?
  Are there multiple or parallel paths through your game? If so, 
  challenge the design of each. Would your game be better if you 
  merged sub-critical or non-critical paths? Would your game improve 
  if you cleaved a certain part into optional gameplay?
  
  26
  Step 7
  Now we’re getting closer to the traditional walkthroughs you see 
  posted online or written in books. Plot out the specific actions 
  players must take to walkthrough each screen, location, scene, 
  encounter, or event.
  In sandbox situations, run through the basic actions players can 
  take. For example:
  • Move
  • Talk
  • Attack
  • Open/Search/Smash/Close
  • Use skill or ability
  Test these core actions against expected current toon states. Look 
  for problems and fix. Also look for repetitive tasks, grinding, and 
  dull gameplay.
  Step 8
  Estimate the time each encounter will take to complete. Add times 
  up to get an estimated critical path total. How do you feel about 
  that time? Give it the Goldilocks treatment: too much, too little, 
  or just right? View this through player , game dev, and resource 
  requirements lenses.
  Tip: When you build and run your game, time-play again to see how 
  accurate your initial estimates were. Use this feedback to improve 
  your next estimates.
  
  27
  Build Walkthroughs First
  A critical path walkthrough of your game, whether done on paper 
  or in charting software, helps you see your game more objectively, 
  from an experiential perspective. Focusing on what’s essential to see 
  your end screen gives you feedback on how your game flows, how 
  your story matches up to toon and gameplay advancement, and if 
  the minimum sequence of play creates gaps or dead ends.
  This diagnostic tool will save you time and money because you can 
  spot problems in moments and fix them before digging into coding 
  and asset pipelines.
  If you update your critical path walkthrough again just before you 
  ship, as a final check, you can also publish the walkthrough online 
  as another marketing tactic to draw more attention to your game.
  Try it out and let me know how it goes!
  
  28
  Getting Back in the Game
  Da’ Vane
  RPT reader Paul sent this request about jumping back into the 
  hobby:
  I thought of an article I would read - “Been Away Too Long - How 
  To Come Back To The Game You Love.” I am in my mid-forties 
  and haven’t been involved in the RPG scene in awhile mostly due 
  to family, raising kids, etc. I want to not only play but run games. 
  Any suggestions would be welcome. :)
  - Paul
  Roleplaying Tip reader Da’ Vane has been going through similar 
  issues, and she has the following advice. If anybody else has 
  suggestions about how to Get Back in the Game, please drop me a 
  note. Take it away, Da’ Vane!
  Hi Paul,
  This subject is a matter close to my heart - I have been trying to get 
  back into the game for a while.
  Rediscovering D&D
  Now is a great time to get back into RPGs. It is the 40-year 
  anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons, and Wizards of the Coast 
  
  29
  have decided to celebrate this with the 5th Edition of Dungeons 
  and Dragons.
  In the aftermath of the Edition Wars, which started when 3.x was 
  released in 2000, and escalated even further with 4th Edition in 
  2008, it can be a confusing time to get back into D&D since there 
  are so many options.
  Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition is a good place to start, because 
  you are keeping up with others as far as the release schedule and 
  learning curve goes. Virtually everyone is a new player with this 
  new system.
  The Starter Set with the introductory adventure, The Lost Mine 
  of Phandelver, is a good way to get into game. You can also grab 
  the D&D Basic Rules for free and start playing 5th Edition for your 
  own campaign, assuming you don’t mind winging things a bit or 
  cribbing content from other sources.
  What if I Don’t Want D&D or the 5th 
  Edition?
  If you find Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition isn’t for you, a quick 
  visit to D&D Classics allows you to check out some of the other 
  versions available.
  You can also look at the D&D-esque Pathfinder Roleplaying Game by 
  Paizo, which is based on D&D 3.5. You can check out a free version 
  of the rules before investing in any of the books.
  Older editions of D&D are also popular these days. The Old School 
  Revival (OSR) movement dedicates themselves to preserving and 
  recreating the earlier versions of D&D. Described as retro-clones, 
  
  30
  you can find one of the most common ones, Swords & Wizardry, for 
  free at Mythmere Games.
  For non-D&D games, check out FATE and Savage Worlds, excellent, 
  multi-genre, rules-light games.
  You can find many other games at DriveThruRPG. Most publishing 
  companies have PDFs of their systems and supplements available 
  here. You can also find interesting things in the free products 
  section as companies like to release lite versions of their systems 
  for potential customers to try.
  Other Ways to Play
  All of this assumes you have a gaming group. If you are having 
  trouble finding a group, check Johnn’s guide to the top online Player 
  Finder services and tips for finding offline groups, Filling the Empty 
  Chair.
  What if gaming around a table is not an option for you? For many, 
  online gaming is a good substitute for tabletop games, allowing you 
  to talk and play with gamers from all around the globe. Roll20 is a 
  good online virtual tabletop.
  You might also look into playing by email (PBeM) games. A good 
  site for this is PbeM Players. It has a vibrant community of PBeM 
  gamers. In addition, you can always find out how to run your own 
  PBeM games, which might be another way to engage friends and 
  family who have scheduling issues when it comes to attending a 
  social session.
  
  31
  Commitment Issues
  One problem I have is trying to get my friends to take me seriously 
  whenever I raise the topic of running a game for them. With 
  disparate hobbies, schedules, and priorities, getting anyone to 
  commit to anything is annoying.
  The number one question always asked is: who else is going? Few 
  want to be the only one to do something, and it is too easy to let 
  the idea slide unless you can nail them down. People don’t want to 
  commit to something they are not sure they will like, and there is 
  always competition from other activities.
  So organise something social and less intensive to start with, 
  particularly with non-gamers. Try board games, card games, and 
  similar fun-related hobbies to build a gaming habit.
  Once your friends and family are used to a social group, you can 
  direct them towards different activities that lead up to you running 
  your own game for them to try it out.
  Whatever you do, the trick is to have patience and never give up. 
  The last thing you want to do is alienate people by being too pushy 
  for them to game with you. This will make the entire task that much 
  harder. Try to remain positive, engage your friends and family with 
  your hobby, and see who takes an interest.
  Conclusion
  There are many ways to get back into gaming. Finding GMs and 
  players can be tricky, so sometimes you need to look towards playing 
  the long game. If you can’t find a group, create one. And if you can’t 
  find gamers, then look at how you can spark the gaming bug within 
  people you know.
  
  32
  GM Toolbox: Cementing, 
  Shifting, Delegation
  Rickard Elimää 
  https://plus.google.com/u/0/116235159947041206206/
  [Comment from Johnn: The following article is based on a discussion 
  I had with Rickard Elimää, where I asked him the following question:
  RPGs are interactive, so we can’t get the finely groomed and 
  polished story of a book or movie. So I guess my larger question 
  is, what methods can a GM use to help produce those great 
  emotional moments a writer has the luxury of crafting, especially 
  through rewrites?
  Rickard responded with great insight, and I have compiled the 
  content into an article for your gaming edification. Take it away, 
  Rickard!]
  Sequential Play: Cementing, Shifting, 
  and Delegation
  I’m playing with either fish tanks, sequential play, or collaborative 
  storytelling. Each one has got its own advantages, and I’m even 
  mixing them up in the same session. Feng Shui (sequential play) 
  and InSpectres (collaborative storytelling) will sound the same when 
  I’m playing them.
  
  33
  It’s hard to analyze myself about how I game master, but I remember 
  one specific episode when we were playing Svavelvinter (an 
  adventure module; Eng. Winter of Sulphur) when I clearly stated 
  several times to the players that it was going to be a hard railroad. 
  One player said afterwards that he felt their choices mattered. How 
  did I manage to do that?
  I can see three techniques that I use:
  • Cementing
  • Shifting
  • Delegation
  All three are about how to structure an adventure by how different 
  information is presented, to be able to steer the players in a way 
  so they can get a sense of the plot, setting, or history. Which one 
  depends on what effect the game master wants to achieve. I’m 
  mostly into delivering a surprise through giving the players 
  an insight.
  The definition of sensation, as one of the reasons of why to 
  participate in a task:
  “To experience something. To escape from reality. To get an 
  insight or to live out a different perspective.”
  If you’ve ever watched the movie Man From Earth, you know what 
  I’m saying when I talk about seeing things in another perspective.
  Sequential Play
  Sequential play is a way of structuring how the game is played, very 
  similar — if not the same — as designing a game system. If I want to 
  present a sensation for my players, I will go with either:
  
  34
  • Linear Play: Pre-written places of interaction followed in one 
  order.
  • Assembly Play: Pre-written places of interactions that can be 
  executed in any order.
  • Ballistic Play: Pre-written start and finish, with the players 
  doing whatever in between.
  Alternatively, I will go with a combination of them. For example, 
  pre-written places of interactions that can be executed in any order 
  with a fixed start and end. Note that the place of interaction can be 
  an event happening, a conversation, or an actual place where the 
  players discover something.
  Also note that anything can happen in that place. So even if I’m 
  going with linear play, the players can still interact the way they 
  want in that particular scene. I remember one theoretic discussion 
  over at the Swedish roleplaying game community years ago, where 
  one suggested the picture frame:
  “The player can paint whatever they want, but not going outside 
  the frame.”
  I thought this was a nice analogy for one type of structure for an 
  adventure, but it can also be applied for a place of interaction. An 
  example I hate to use is when you investigate a haunted house. 
  You could run out the house and call the cops at the first sign of 
  weirdness, but that’s not how you should play Call of Cthulhu. That’s 
  painting outside the (often unsaid) frame.
  Why do I hate to use that example, even if it shows clearly what I 
  mean? Because I think it’s a flaw in the scenario design if you allow 
  that option.
  
  35
  I will talk about three techniques in three different sections:
  • Cementing
  • Shifting
  • Delegation
  I will do that by sharing some play experiences and my thoughts 
  about how I should handle them. Which one I’m going to start with, 
  because I mentioned the CoC example, is now obvious because you 
  need to cement certain things to have a better success at delivering 
  a certain sensation.
  Cementing
  An acquaintance contacted me and wanted feedback for a convention 
  scenario. The setup was straightforward:
  The players played a family with a cruel and abusive father during 
  the 18th century. The cruelness is portrayed at the beginning of 
  the scenario through several scenes, and it should lead up to one 
  member killing the father. The father awakes as an undead and 
  starts to create an army of zombies by brainwashing the citizens 
  of the village, either by magic or by killing them and raising them 
  as undead. What shall the players do to stop that from happening?
  Well, what should I do to make this happen? There are a couple of 
  events bound to happen, but it doesn’t start until the father is dead. 
  So that’s a bit I cemented: I changed the scenario so the father was 
  already dead. I wrote on each character how they killed the father. 
  One pushed him over an edge to fall into rocks into the sea. Another 
  poisoned him. A third… well, you get the picture.
  
  36
  What had happened was he had risen only to be killed by another 
  family member. The only one innocent was the one playing the 
  father’s doctor, and I wrote on the doctor’s character sheet that he 
  should investigate what happened (which, amusingly, led 3 out of 4 
  times to him being framed and often killed by the others).
  We started out playing with all characters sitting in a house. It was 
  raining outside and the dad had died. I then took the liberty to jump 
  backwards in time and frame some scenes to show the behaviour of 
  the abusive father. I cemented that too.
  When all this was done, I returned to the house in the rain. The 
  players were thinking the dad was dead. Suddenly, the door is 
  thrown open and the dad is standing in the rain, all wet, walking in 
  like nothing had happened. Imagine the players’ faces. Imagine the 
  unease they suddenly felt.
  In the adventure suite Svavelvinter the linear story goes as follows:
  Characters discover that a temple is abandoned. They are contacted 
  by a group of local barbarians. They are sent to retrieve magic items. 
  An undead king awakes, wanting his sword back, which is one of 
  the magic items they stole. They go to a castle where an evil cult 
  had their residence to kill the cult members. So why should the 
  characters want to go to the temple? Why should they want to 
  retrieve the magic items? Why should they go to the castle of that 
  evil cult?
  The adventure itself gives out a couple of goals and character 
  suggestions. One is a priest who wants to contact the temple - only 
  to discover the priests have been kidnapped (by the cult). Another 
  has a mission to look for a person. A person who the character later 
  finds out joined a cult.
  
  37
  One player, who had already played the adventure, came up with the 
  idea of playing a pathfinder guiding the characters. (And why would 
  a player want to replay an adventure? Because of the sensation the 
  adventure’s setting brought combined with my game mastering.)
  So what should be cemented to not make the characters run away 
  and contact the police in Call of Cthulhu?
  • Cementing through the use of unavoidable scenes. If 
  something must happen, start with it. It sets the tone of the 
  game.
  • Ce m e n t i n g  t h r o u g h  t h e  u s e  o f  b a c kg r o u n d 
  information. People will begin to expect something. Use this 
  expectation to your advantage. The example above shows how 
  you can break the expectation to gain an effect.
  • Cementing through the use of goals. This makes the players 
  believe that it’s what they want when it’s really the adventure 
  itself that controls what they strive for.
  Shifting
  Shifting is another structure I use when I do sequential play. Playing 
  out a story in roleplaying games is done through scenes, where a 
  new scene occurs when there is a (significant) change in either place 
  or time. There are two types of scenes:
  Resting: These scenes wait until the characters do something, 
  such as entering a place, visiting a person, triggering a situation, or 
  fulfilling any other kind of requirements.
  Delayed: These scenes will happen no matter what the players do 
  but will show up later. Something will happen after the second day 
  
  38
  has passed, or they will be contacted by an organization because of 
  the character’s (cemented) agenda.
  As previously mentioned, in Svavelvinter, the characters got hold of 
  an artifact sword. This triggered the awakening of a skeleton king. 
  During any point of the adventure, the king will step in, grab the 
  sword, and go away. (It was a setup for the metaplot later to be 
  revealed.)
  I played Svavelvinter because I wanted to playtest my now published 
  game Matiné. The characters got involved in a skirmish, and the 
  game system said a combat should come to an end after 5-6 turns, 
  otherwise the game master had to narrate its ending. Again, a 
  skirmish. The possibility it was going to end in 5-6 turns was slim.
  So when it was time for me to end the combat, I remembered the 
  skeleton king wanted his sword back. A huge army of skeletons 
  flooded the battlefield, making all participants flee or be killed. A 
  huge knight with old armor covered with cobwebs went up to the 
  character that had the sword, looked at him, took the sword without 
  a word, and went off. I could have done this scene at any time, but 
  here seemed an appropriate moment.
  What I find interesting is that I tend to use shifting while playing 
  other forms of play structures, like collaborative storytelling or an 
  open-ended fish tank. The fish tank is a model where the relations 
  between factions (an umbrella term I use for events, items, people, 
  and groups) ARE the scenario. It’s used to play out mysteries and 
  intrigues, and the players discover the story by having the game 
  master reveal the relations. I use the revelation as a reward for 
  interacting with other people.
  
  39
  When the players talk to someone, I look down at the relationship 
  map that is typical for the fish tank. I choose one or more relations 
  to be revealed and also come up with a reason why the person knows 
  that relation. Someone can always have heard of another relation 
  in form of a rumor.
  I talked about three different styles of structures within sequential 
  play: linear, assembly, and ballistic play. This is one part of assembly 
  play, where you’ve got a lot of scenes but they can occur in any order.
  • Shifting can only occur with the right type of 
  preparations. Placing a band of bandits in one place will make 
  them fixed. Having a band of bandits to throw in at any time, 
  that’s shifting. Having events waiting to happen at the right 
  moment, that’s shifting. The players will still go through the 
  scene, but when you feel it’s appropriate.
  • Shifting can be used to adapt to the players’ plans and 
  actions to reward them. Make them feel smart. Make them feel 
  like they contributed with something. Never take that feeling 
  away from them.
  • Shifting can be used to add twists. Playing out a large 
  battlefield between humans? How about throwing in a third 
  party of undead?
  Delegation
  I remember when I was in my teens and the players started out 
  imprisoned. I thought out 13 different ways of fleeing. The players 
  did the 14th. That made me realize some things shouldn’t be 
  prepared.
  
  40
  I noticed that if I ever had a solution to a problem I threw in front 
  of the players, then the possibility for me to block the players’ ideas 
  would increase. Why didn’t I like that the game master should come 
  up with solutions to skill contests in D&D 4E? Yeah, you probably 
  understand my answer to that.
  So I only come up with the problems, but never the solutions. When 
  I read about bangs, I got a similar notion. Only throw in bangs 
  at the players. See how they react. React, to take a stand where 
  your character is. It’s one way of helping out the portrayal of the 
  characters.
  When I prepare a sequential story, I do that to bring a sensation 
  to the players, but they can also give themselves a sensation by 
  portraying a character. Nothing in my preparations hinders the 
  players, but unlike bangs, it doesn’t help either. On the other 
  hand, you could cement personality traits or relations between 
  the characters if you want to put focus on either reacting through 
  personality or creating relationship drama.
  So what does this have to do with sequential play? The immersive 
  experience through the sensation of another person’s perspective 
  might seem to have little to do with it, but the process of not 
  thinking up solutions does. Even if a scene is bound to happen, when 
  I game master, the players can still choose from where to enter that 
  scene and where to end it. I will leave that up to them.
  When I play Feng Shui, it’s going to start with me cementing some 
  goals through the fight at the beginning of the session and then 
  letting the players take their own way to the fight in the end. 
  Sometimes I have scenes to throw in, assembly style. Sometimes 
  
  41
  I do a pure ballistic play where the players have a picture frame to 
  paint whatever they want, as long as they are inside the frame.
  This Is Pulp is collaborative storytelling, but it’s also ad hoc linear 
  play. All the participants will make up tropes - People, Rumors, 
  Events, and Places - as P.R.E.P. The players then form a goal to 
  follow together, based on the tropes, and the game master then uses 
  all this to come up with an antagonist. That person then frames 
  scenes using the tropes to create dangers for the characters.
  The players can do anything to overcome the danger but only affect 
  what’s happening in the scene. The game master will still steer the 
  characters, and the story, towards ending with a fight between the 
  antagonist and the characters. The game takes 1.5 hours to play, so 
  it’s not like you need diversity in how the frames are set.
  • Let the players take the responsibility of portraying their 
  characters. This will add to the general atmosphere for the 
  session. You do, however, need the players to buy into this way 
  of playing. That’s why I used the word responsibility.
  • Let the players come up with ways to come to the end. This 
  will ease the burden for you as a game master, and lets you have 
  less prepared.
  • Let the players take care of coming up with the solution to 
  the problems they face. It will make the game master more 
  open to the players’ solutions, but also make the players more 
  involved.
  • Let the players take care of coming up with their own 
  goals. In Svavelvinter, I can see the game master saying, “Hey, 
  you’re going to fight an evil cult. I want you to come up with 
  reasons to why you want that cult destroyed.” It’s their decision, 
  but based on your premise.
  
  42
  Sequential Play and Adventure Design
  When I wrote these previous sections, I began to realize how close 
  writing an adventure and these techniques were:
  • Sequential play: Following the structure of a combat round.
  • Cementing: Picking skills, setting the tone, choosing class, and 
  race.
  • Shifting: Creating a rule system that adapts to the players’ 
  ideas. The moves in Apocalypse World are an example of this.
  • Delegation: Writing background and personality for their 
  characters. Coming up with relatives.
  So I wonder, can you create a whole game based purely on the 
  structure of how you write an adventure, and why isn’t this used 
  more in roleplaying games?
  Sequential Play: Uncertainty, Investment, And 
  Reincorporation
  This is a really hard question to answer, possibly because it’s a big 
  one. If I paint in broad strokes, I would say uncertainty, investment, 
  and reincorporation. Each one is a topic of its own.
  Secrets and twists are good examples of uncertainties. Conflict is a 
  third, which is why we see so many games having combat systems. 
  You don’t have to have conflicts to weave a good plot though, even 
  if it’s a common belief.
  Investment can come in several different ways. Uncertainty is one 
  of them, where it (hopefully) sparks curiosity to find out more. 
  Making an effort to discover builds up the investment. Contributing 
  
  43
  and taking a part in the game also builds investment. Having your 
  choices made meaningful is yet another.
  Reincorporation is something that Keith Johnstone talks about 
  in Impro, but you can also find it in Dan “Community” Harmon’s 
  Story Circle. You can add new things all the time, and that will bring 
  uncertainty, but it’s not until you start to reincorporate what you 
  previously experienced that the feeling of the story coming to an 
  end begins.
  And then you’ve got narrative techniques, themes that excite the 
  audience, and similar things that are components of a good story. 
  Like I said, it’s a hard question to answer. I began to think of some 
  of my own successful experiences, and I wonder what things I use 
  that I cannot see.
  Conclusion
  I would say it depends. Sequential play is used to create a sensation 
  for the players, and there you can control a lot through cementing 
  and shifting. I should say a fish tank is instead about making the 
  players’ decisions important by showing the consequences of the 
  their actions. The sandbox is about exploration. And finally, you’ve 
  got collaborative storytelling where you thrive in creativity and the 
  feel of togetherness.
  So creating an emotional experience varies depending on what the 
  players get from playing with you. The important part is to be able 
  to mash story and game together, but also consider the players as a 
  component in the game system and take them into account.
  
  44
  Useful Links
  • Story Circle
  • My thoughts about how Impro can be useful for roleplaying 
  games
  • Fish tank (which you know about by now)
  • Some more ideas about combining story and game experience. 
  (Journey is a perfect example of this.)
  
  45
  How Would You Bootstrap 
  Your World?
  That’s the question I asked in the GM Tips group, and there were 
  several interesting responses.
  Here’s the original request I made:
  How would you bootstrap your world? I am creating a world for 
  a new RPG campaign with my friends. The game rules have some 
  links to the world, such as gods grant certain powers, cultures 
  offer certain traits, etc.
  I don’t have time for weeks and months of detailed world building, 
  as my friends would hang me to wait that long to start playing. 
  So I’m wondering if there are methods or models for creating the 
  basics and then iterating over time.
  And here are the tips from the GMs:
  Use this completely fun mini-game before the main event. It’s 
  called Dawn of the Worlds and is free.
  Use a pre-made setting that is light and portable to whatever rules 
  you’re using. For example, Beasts & Barbarians for Savage Worlds, 
  Legend of Steel for Barbarians of Lemuria, or the “Point of light” 
  ones. This saves tons of prep time to get started, but offers more 
  than enough room to insert your own stuff piece by piece when 
  necessary.
  
  46
  Plan out the culture pretty well. Make notes like NPCs for places 
  that surround where the PCs are adventuring. This will tell you 
  basic cultural norms. When the characters meet someone from that 
  culture, you know what his culture is. Then adjust the NPC based on 
  how well he would fit in.
  Just define a small area with a single town or similar. Keep the PCs 
  local for a while. Expand on it as they explore and when you get time 
  between sessions. Make stuff up when put on the spot.
  Build a story that would reduce the need for travel outside the 
  starting culture, but start exposing them to touches of other parts 
  of the world as you can.
  Let the players do some of the defining as you go along. They decide 
  to go to a town, so you ask “OK, what sort of town?” Let them throw 
  in details and riff off that. If they define things in a way too favorable 
  to them, throw in a “yes but.”
  • Everyone in this town considers wizards to be gods.
  • “Yes, but they sacrifice their gods at midsummer, and that’s 
  tomorrow.”
  • “There’s a diamond mine!”
  • “Yes, but the dirt there is poisonous, which is why no food grows 
  there, and why the zombies have moved in.”
  There is an RPG called Microscope. It lets you play out a timeline 
  for a setting and is great as a first session if you want players to 
  influence it. It’s also interesting to play as a game in itself, and a 
  great way to let players shape the tone of the world without them 
  knowing too many details of what they’re going to meet.
  
  47
  After you have the main themes, creation myths, races, geography, 
  and overall history set up, ask players what they are most interested 
  in doing. That helps you focus on a place and time. Then encourage 
  players to help build up information. For example, one might create 
  myths for her character’s people. Another might create the calendar.
  *          *          *
  Thanks to these bright GMs for their tips: Andrew Knighton, David 
  Tannen, Dirk Collins, Jeffery Ingram, Josh Pearce, Marcus Burggraf, 
  Robert Neaves.
   
  
  48
  Random Table: So You 
  Get Drunk at the Tavern...
  At least one character in my new campaign likes to get hammered. 
  Between adventures or while resting up between events, the PCs like 
  to hit the tavern, chat with the locals to get new rumors, gamble, 
  and drink.
  Inspired by the Hubris Carousing Table, I’ve created one of my own 
  for random consequences when PCs choose to drink too much...
  1. One-night stand with a half-orc. (Alternate: rival, enemy, 
  least desirable partner.) 1-2: They are engaged. 3-4: They 
  become parents in nine months. 5: PC acquires disease. 6: 
  Enraged spouse eventually hunts PC down.
  2. Became a drinking buddy with someone who shared an 
  important secret. PC has forgotten a key piece of information 
  though, and just remembers enough fragments to track down 
  the secret if they work at it.
  3. PC revealed a terrible secret to someone. Pick the worst 
  person who could learn that secret. 1-2: PC doesn’t 
  remember who they told. 3-4: They remember who but don’t 
  know what they told. 5-6: They remember everything.
  4. Picked a fight with someone they shouldn’t have. 1-2: PC 
  wins. 3-5: PC loses, wakes up with half hit points. 6: A draw, 
  PC at 1 hit point.
  5. PC sang a terrible song that offended almost everyone, 
  including someone they’ll regret offending.
  
  49
  6. PC and a drinking buddy broke into a place and stole 
  something valuable. 1-2: Buddy has the loot. 3-4: PC has 
  the loot. 5: Loot was buried in a place PC remembers. 6: Loot 
  was buried in a place PC doesn’t remember.
  7. PC offended a witch, who cursed them.
  8. PC bought the house several rounds. Total cost: 10d10 gp.
  9. PC made a bet with someone they don’t want to cross and 
  lost. They must now perform a humiliating chore or act in 
  public.
  10. PC and 1d4 drinking buddies carried back to the tavern 
  something large, something heavy, and something that 
  belongs to the 1-2: Mayor, 3-4: Villain, 5-6: Archbishop.
  11. PC woke up in puddle of vomit. 1-2: They also puked on 
  someone else last night. 3-4: Vomit contains fingers. 5-6: 
  It’s not their vomit.
  12. PC got a tattoo. 1-2: It’s cool. 3-4: It’s of a secret crush. 5-6: 
  It’s a unicorn.
  13. PC got rowdy and was arrested. Must pay 10x10 gp fine for 
  release.
  14. PC was robbed and is missing the most valuable thing that 
  was in their possession last night. 1-2: They have no memory 
  of when it happened. 3-4: They remember when and the 
  general circumstances. 5-6: They know who did it.
  15. PC woke up naked and tied to a bed. 1-2: It’s his bed. 3-4: It’s 
  not his bed. 5-6: It’s in a monster lair.
  16. PC woke up in the stocks in the city square.
  17. PC woke up in the woods near town, naked. There’s a dead, 
  half-eaten carcass nearby, and there’s blood on the PC’s face 
  and hands. 1-2: It’s a deer carcass. 3-4: It’s a skunk carcass. 
  5-6: It’s a humanoid body.
  
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  18. PC woke up with his head stuck in a soup bowl.
  19. PC joined a secret cult. 1-2: The cult is crazy but harmless. 
  3-4: The cult is crazy but dangerous. 5-6: The cult is 
  dangerous, well-organized, and well-connected.
  20. PC gave all his available money to a crazy scheme. 1-2: 
  Money and schemer are long gone. 3-4: The schemer 
  succeeds and returns in d4 weeks with 200% repayment. 5-6: 
  Schemer returns in 1d4 days for more money and a strong 
  quest hook.
  Many results on this table are nasty. To make this fair, players must 
  confirm with me their PC is getting drunk, and they’ll know a table 
  roll is coming up in the morning.
  Thanks to Joseph Teller and Tor-Ivar Krogsæter for contributing 
  ideas.
  
  51
  How to Make Undead 
  Scary
  A little while ago I shared ideas on how I’ll make undead fun again 
  in my new campaign. After years of GMing skeletons and zombies, 
  I want to shake things up.
  In response, several readers wrote in with great suggestions on the 
  three themes I presented:
  • Mission
  • Culture
  • Mechanics
  Here are their ideas - maybe they will add some ghoulish spice to 
  your campaign, as well.
  Infection & Spawning Ideas
  Andrew Y.
  As a method of evolving the undead, I like the idea of infection and 
  spawning. I don’t know exactly what you had in mind, but here a 
  few ideas.
  1) Infection Evolution
  More powerful undead can infect lesser undead. As in, a vampire can 
  turn a zombie into a vampire thrall with a bite, or mind control, or 
  
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  whatever. And slimy tentacle ghouls can lay their slimy eggs inside 
  a vampire and turn it into a clutch of baby slimy tentacle ghouls.
  Of course, zombies (now that they’re intelligent enough to act as 
  NPCs) don’t want to be vampire thralls, and vampires don’t want to 
  be slimy tentacle ghoul nests/breakfast buffets.
  2) Spawning Evolution
  Undead grow in power as they spread their curse or disease. A 
  vampire with one thrall is little better than a zombie, but a vampire 
  with one hundred thralls is a match for a soul-sucker shade. But any 
  vampire thrall that gets its own vampire thralls gains that power for 
  itself, it doesn’t all funnel to the original sire.
  And intelligent undead will be just as jealous and wrathful as 
  mortals, so they won’t just pool all of their resources under a single 
  figure, at least, not on purpose.
  3) Source Evolution
  What if your undead were being driven, not just by a handful of 
  powerful leaders, but by a natural (or unnatural) phenomenon? 
  So, the undead evolve with time, but not necessarily with age, as 
  dragons do.
  A zombie spawned on Day 1 will have x power. On Day 5, that zombie 
  will have x+4 power (or 5x power, whatever the pace is), but a zombie 
  spawned on Day 5 will also have x+4 (or 5x) power, even though it is 
  freshly spawned and not yet “finely aged,” because all of the undead 
  are evolving based on the growing power of the phenomenon-source.
  
  53
  4) Ritual Evolution
  The undead are static beings, in spite of their seemingly dynamic 
  existence (being formerly dead and all). To evolve, they must 
  individually undergo long, strenuous rituals that rip their rotting 
  flesh to engorge their stiffened muscles, burst their decaying blood 
  vessels as pure magical energy courses through them, or remodel 
  their very skeleton as spines and spikes grow from spurs along their 
  spines and arms.
  Create Energy Zones
  Joel Roush
  I thought about your undead evolution problem. Perhaps an 
  interesting way to go is to have the low-level undead grow more 
  powerful.
  According to the D&D mythology, the undead are suffused and 
  energized by energy from the Negative Plane. I conclude that the 
  more negative energy present, the more powerful the undead.
  As the undead horde of zombies and skeletons kills its way through 
  the countryside, they create more low-level undead. As a result, 
  the amount of negative energy present is greater. Therefore, the 
  original horde of skeletons and zombies becomes augmented by this 
  energy, strengthening them. Zombies get faster, skeletons earn extra 
  attacks, etc.
  So, not only is the undead horde greater in number, there are also 
  “elite” undead among them. This is also a nice way to keep the fights 
  interesting as your PCs get higher in level.
  
  54
  This strengthening can take on the form you mentioned in your blog 
  post, evolving them into higher forms of undead - ghosts and such. 
  For me, I’m not into this as much because I like the D&D mythology 
  for the function and purpose of each type of undead creature.
  For instance, ghosts are bound to specific location, a wight is made 
  from a person of great vanity and desire who calls out to a demon 
  upon his or her death, and a wraith is made from a person of great 
  evil.
  I think it’s important to keep the different flavors of undead distinct 
  so they can be used for different storytelling purposes.
  Think Long-Term
  Ashley
  I love your undead tips - they’ve inspired me and I think I have 
  something special to run for my group next time we get together. I 
  want to note two areas I see potential challenges with:
  1) Giving Every Undead A Voice
  Part of the mystique of the undead is the faceless, shambling horde. 
  Sure, maybe the zombies will have differences between them as 
  individuals (it’s practically required now that one is overweight, one 
  has long fingernails, and one is very strong, etc.) but the potent part 
  of undeath is “they don’t listen, they don’t care, and they don’t 
  stop.”
  You’ve got to be careful how you stick your personalities in - if you 
  end up with a cowardly skeleton or an artiste ghoul, it either needs 
  to be a plot point (“Maybe this one will help us!”) or else it needs to 
  
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  somehow keep the theme of alien, unyielding, familiar, grotesque 
  death.
  However, and this is what inspired me: what if all of them do have a 
  voice... and then the players realize they’ve been running into the 
  one lone type which doesn’t? Maybe someday they’ll find out why 
  ghasts only scream and never speak.
  2) Game Balance
  A mild note of caution on giving undead the ability to infect PCs 
  with undeath, especially at low levels: it will raise the challenge 
  of the encounter, possibly to an unbeatable level, if you don’t do it 
  carefully.
  Even if it’s just “don’t roll a 1 on this save”, someone’s going to roll 
  a 1 - and it’ll probably be the party paladin or cleric, with my luck! If 
  things go badly, you might end up with the players protesting, “But 
  I don’t want to play a skeleton for six levels!”
  Some ideas for low-level consequences that hopefully keep the ick 
  without the potentially expensive consequences:
  Longer-Term Stuff
  When the character dies, he’ll become a zombie, skeleton, or 
  whatever bit him. Doesn’t have to happen right now. Some players 
  might be bothered by this. Some might not care. Either way, it 
  removes the immediate “must go spend a lot of gold on a cure” 
  impetus.
  And it gives you the option of making no cure available - the players 
  might just have to try not to die for the rest of the game, while 
  engaging in the sorts of derring-do players usually perform, the 
  
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  whole while with the knowledge they might turn on their friends if 
  something happens.
  Kind of dark, but it might be what your group likes.
  An Unhealthy Connection To Death
  The character starts having nightmares, prophetic visions, 
  seeing ghosts, etc. Useful to deliver plot points if you like a little 
  supernatural in your info-sharing. No obvious way to remove it, but 
  since it’s passably useful (though under your control) the players 
  probably won’t try to remove it.
  The important thing is not to forget you’ve cursed the bitten 
  player(s). Nothing’s worse than getting a character-altering boost 
  and having everyone at the table forget about it!
  A Benefit Of Some Sort
  The character now has a nose for the undead, his wound itches when 
  they’re around, etc. One could even grant a specialized ability of 
  some sort. Track (Undead) might be amusing to see on a sheet.
  Perhaps give it a downside (though not enough to make one of those 
  “must find a cleric to remove this curse!” things). Maybe the undead 
  seek the character out and try to persuade him to their side. Maybe 
  he sees dead stuff all the time and it’s really gross. Maybe he wakes 
  up with a hit point or two less every night or his healing rate slows 
  slightly.
  PCs Can’t Get Infected
  They’re already dead and they just don’t know it yet, or they’ve got 
  the favor of the god of death, whatever. If you do this, make sure 
  
  57
  to send lots of henchmen and NPCs their way to get infected right 
  before their eyes, and don’t tell them they don’t get infected - make 
  them roll for it, and when they roll 1s, pass them notes that say 
  “Nothing happens... YET.”
  Keep the tension alive as long as possible, and if they start to 
  question, let them dig into it as a matter of plot. This might not be 
  such a good idea at higher levels, where True Resurrection is just a 
  few gold away, but at lower levels, it might save your game. Never 
  let the outcome of the campaign rely on a single die roll.
  Just be sure you have a plan to remove this mystical protection once 
  they hit the point where infection no longer holds appropriate terror 
  for them. “Oh crap. Wee Jas says she can’t protect us anymore, we’re 
  beyond the reach of her power.”
  As Big As The Sum Of Its Parts
  For the evolution idea, have the skellies visibly reconfigure 
  themselves into bigger, badder monsters at the beginning of each 
  fight with the PCs. They’re intelligent, they presumably know how 
  the other skellies died (give them little undead rats for spies), and 
  they’ll work to prevent themselves from dying in the same way.
  The image of skeletons tossing each other rib bones and clacking 
  their bones together to form massive, four-legged beasts as they 
  prepare for the PCs is enough to make my skin crawl, at least!
  Alternatively, take stats of a bigger, more powerful monster and 
  apply them to the description of the weaker monster. Maybe 
  the ghouls now have four attacks because they’ve sewn arms to 
  themselves. Maybe the zombies are getting faster and smarter as 
  the night wears on.
  
  58
  What will really make the players’ skin crawl is the moment when 
  the weaknesses start disappearing. “Crap! It’s immune to fire!”
  They Absorb Others
  Manolo Sampaio
  There are creatures called Arcbound in Magic: The Gathering. They 
  are more constructs than creatures. When one dies, the parts that 
  make him can be transferred to the others on the field.
  If you are planning to create a leader, why not use necromancers 
  to heal the dead as the priests heal the living? And by this I mean, 
  undead would take down targets to absorb what make them 
  powerful... wings, extra limbs, more muscle.
  Perhaps they are also continuously decaying, so they would need 
  more and more parts to endure time.
  Less Is More
  Michael Garcia
  I have been thinking of the undead theme a lot lately, because my 
  latest campaign (I have two running at present), which just started, 
  will give them a main role. We’re doing AD&D circa 1986 or so, and 
  one villain in the region is a modified death master (from a Dragon 
  article).
  In one way, I agree with you. I want something more than the stock 
  monsters (zombies, ho hum). On the other hand, I definitely do NOT 
  want flying undead zombie dragon-minotaurs. My players and I love 
  
  59
  the classic feel of “Night of the Living Dead,” and I want to give it 
  to them.
  The problem is that the monsters are so old and predictable. So I 
  will put a twist on them, and cause them to evolve as you suggest. 
  Yet the feel of the campaign will be much more realistic. Sometimes 
  less is more (and this is one of those times).
  I think I might approach undead evolution as follows:
  First, the corpse will be animated like a zombie, but it will also be 
  infectious from the start, so physical combat (or even contact) with 
  it is dangerous. In the beginning, its bite is the real danger. As the 
  corpse festers (after a few days), it may be able to scratch and infect 
  PCs (claw attacks).
  Side benefit: When a PC previously wounded by a claw attack now 
  sees a claw attack can infect and kill, he will no doubt wonder if 
  he is infected. Eventually, mere contact with the corpse’s infected 
  fluids or blood may even infect PCs if they are splashed with the 
  guts during combat.
  Perhaps if they do more than 6 points of damage on one, they must 
  save against poison (or perhaps they must save versus poison if they 
  deal 4+ with an edged weapon or 6+ with a bludgeoning weapon).
  Finally, when the creature’s guts liquefy, it may spawn a different 
  creature entirely (a la “Aliens”), perhaps by using a PC or other 
  human as a host. I have been dropping hints of some wyrm-like 
  creature “pale as a grave worm.”
  I have purposely blurred the wyrm/worm distinction, partially to 
  raised doubts and confusion, but also to foreshadow some vile 
  creature they may face. I imagine some ancient underground 
  
  60
  creature (which is also the focus of a local cult) to be the source of 
  the zombie infection. Perhaps it spawns little worms by means of the 
  above evolution, though I’m not yet sure what purpose these have.
  These zombie-things will not be stock monsters (that will cause 
  confusion and doubt). They will evolve (only enhancing the 
  confusion and doubt). Contact in any way will put PCs at risk 
  (making them hesitant to engage... as befits a horror movie). This 
  subtle approach should retain the desired horror atmosphere (that 
  flying minotaurs and other high fantasy tend to destroy).
  As for intelligence... this is tough. I think undead were originally 
  so horrifying because intelligent people have been transformed 
  into mindless (and sometimes cannibalistic) things. Giving them 
  back their intelligence makes them less scary, not more. There are 
  exceptions (vampires and ghosts), but smart skeletons are not scary 
  to me (they’re just brittle bad guys).
  To preserve the gist of what you wrote, I will have the death master 
  be intelligent (18 intelligence). Perhaps he can direct the actions 
  of the undead, giving them no real intelligence, but a frightening 
  appearance of group thought. For example, the zombies all stop 
  their random meandering around the fields, turn as one toward the 
  PCs, and simultaneously lumber toward them. That could be creepy.
  On a related note, years ago I took my first stab at Gothic horror. 
  I had some zombies in the cellars beneath this Dracula-esque 
  castle on a cliff. I had done a serious build-up in true Gothic horror 
  style, and these were the first supernatural creatures the PCs were 
  encountering.
  
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  In the end, they were just zombies, but the atmosphere was thick. I 
  needed them to find a certain item, and they suspected it was down 
  there. Where to hide it?
  I decided that since the undead were results of the villain’s 
  brainwashing experiments, there could exist a few that “went really 
  bad.” So in one of the underground cells, I had a zombie that was 
  frantic and strong, slamming itself against the bars like a mental 
  patient. This tiny twist horrified the players (much to my surprise 
  and delight).
  Though they had worked out a systematic way to kill zombie after 
  zombie in that cellar, they all balked at going into that room.
  PC to PC: “You want us to go IN there with THAT thing? Hell, no!” 
  It was hilarious.
  When they did enter, I decided I needed to capitalize on this. I 
  doubled its hit points and attacks. It took three of them to manhandle 
  this thing, and it dealt them savage blows before succumbing. They 
  found the statue they sought, but they were so creeped out they 
  beat a hasty retreat rather than stick around searching for treasure.
  Even better, it raised serious questions. What the hell was that? 
  Where did it come from? What is it doing down there? Are you 
  telling me no one KNOWS it’s down there?
  The whole episode cast suspicion on all the good guys living in the 
  castle, and it also raised the tension level. Great memories!
  
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  Make It Uneven
  Jeremy Brown
  In Mystara, I believe it was, there was a type of double undead that 
  appeared to be zombies, but when you killed them, they returned 
  within like 1d3 rounds as a wraith rising from the decaying corpse. 
  This made for a very nasty encounter, and a surprisingly difficult one 
  for higher level players who discounted mere zombies.
  As to how to increase your threat level throughout the game, I 
  recommend not to increase it. Instead, make it uneven.
  Create scripted areas and situations party level or lower. But create 
  other areas of the campaign deliberately too tough. Give the PCs free 
  reign. They will quickly learn to do research, gather information, cast 
  divinations, and do whatever it takes to know what kind of combat 
  they’re walking in to and how to give themselves an edge. In the 
  kind of campaign you described, I think this is a more realistic and 
  faster way of handling difficulty.
  The scripted railroad track-laden scenarios still ramp up with party 
  level. But if the party goes to Joe’s Bar at 4th level and gets their 
  asses kicked, go to Joe’s Bar at 7th level and gets their asses kicked, 
  and then at 10th level finally survive the experience, it gives the PCs 
  a lot of “Wow, we’ve progressed” moments. Further, if they kick Joe’s 
  Bar’s ass at 9th level because of clever planning and forethought, it 
  makes them feel good.
  When I ran my horror campaign, there were two situations that 
  illustrated this well. At 2nd level, my party entered a house with a 
  monster that nearly performed a TPK. The party went back at 4th 
  level, and again, near TPK. They did research, and took steps to 
  
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  protect themselves. They went back at 6th level and discovered there 
  were two of the monsters, not one. Finally, when they defeated the 
  twin perils, they were happy. I was too. I had recycled the same area 
  and the same monster for four different encounters.
  The second situation involved a haunted water tower. The first 
  two times the party went there they encountered only ghostly 
  manifestations of two boys. However, once they stirred up the major 
  evil entity of the town, the third time at the tower they encountered 
  one of its servitors, a chuul. The chuul almost performed a TPK. My 
  party, getting smart, bought fishing tackle and a spear gun. They 
  used a heavy fishing net to entangle the chuul and then the spear 
  gun to help kill it. They felt deeply vindicated by this maneuver, and 
  it helped them to see the campaign world wasn’t static.
  You could do the undead as an increasing plague or infection. 
  Perhaps the easiest way to do it would be just to make infection 
  resistance more difficult over time.
  Another way would be to make infection a simpler mechanic, akin 
  to the massive damage save of d20 modern. If a character ever 
  takes their constitution score in damage they have to save versus 
  infection. This isn’t likely to occur until higher levels, so you can 
  make the difficulty nasty.
  One last thing: if you want undead to truly be horrific, besides 
  infection, consider using some form of fear or madness. The 
  Adamant Entertainment system in the back of their Victorian 
  Monstrosities book works well for this. Or you could adapt the system 
  from True 20. Both are simple, fast to run, and use simple saving 
  throw language to determine success.
  
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  Kamikaze Ghouls
  Paul Simmons
  Have you thought that skeletons could strip the flesh off corpses, 
  then return to their enclave to have it grafted on their bones, thus 
  evolving?
  You could also use the “Black Cauldron” as a method for zombies to 
  evolve. Two or three sacrifice to create a greater undead.
  Ghouls could require a Kamikaze sacrifice that raises them as ghosts.
  There Can Only Be One
  Gary Williams
  As far as evolution goes, why not XP or the equivalent? They get 
  points for kills, but also points for story actions and successes, 
  bypassing traps, and living through PC actions. How bad is it if the 
  PCs are trying to exterminate a group but if they miss any, those 
  get stronger?
  Another idea, out of The Chronicles of Prydain, is to have the undead 
  in bands, and as you kill members, the rest get stronger? If you do 
  it right, the PCs could be responsible for creating an unstoppable 
  juggernaut.
  Combine the prior idea with a Highlander scenario, “There can be 
  only one!” and you have a recipe for an all-out undead war.
  
  65
  A Sorcerous Band
  Phil Hickey
  If you recall the children’s fantasy series The Chronicles of Prydain, 
  in addition to the Cauldron Born (who were essentially almost 
  unkillable zombies) there were the Hunstmen of Arawn Death-Lord.
  These were evil men bound together in a sorcerous band, and 
  whenever one of their number was killed, the remaining ones in the 
  band became that much more powerful, which made it dangerous 
  to kill them (obviously).
  Maybe some undead are somewhat similar in that they are created as 
  a group (perhaps having been the former bodyguard of a slain king, 
  a group of wizards, a holy order, etc.) who are even linked together 
  after death, in such a way that killing one of them results in the 
  growth of power of the rest of the group.
  Just a thought, brainstorming and all that.
  Good luck with your campaign.
  Abyssal Element
  Naoise McHugh
  I don’t know if you’ve heard about Shadow of Mordor, a recently 
  released PC RPG/hack’n’slash. Anyway, I think that’s where the idea 
  originated, but it’s called the Nemesis system. Basically, any time an 
  enemy escapes from the PCs, it gains a little bit of depth.
  So, where Shadow of Mordor takes a goblin grunt who happens to 
  get away from Talion (the PC) and makes it into a chief, the next 
  time Talion encounters that goblin, in your undead situation, you 
  
  66
  could have a generic mindless skeleton survive fighting the PCs and 
  gaining the intelligence to be called a ghoul, now with a name and 
  memories of its encounter with the PCs.
  Were I running it (and I may give something similar a try), I’d lash 
  some abysmal element onto one or more of the PCs, which starts 
  reanimating corpses. Limited exposure to it makes the zombies 
  evolve, if they get away before the party massacres them. To add a 
  little bit more depth, I’d wait until the PCs had sold a few artifacts 
  containing the elements, so as to make sure they couldn’t just 
  destroy their own artifacts and be done with the problem.
  Make An NPC Class
  Heiko Mueller, Berlin, Germany
  Thank you for the undead ideas. I also like to make them dangerous 
  again and surprise my players.
  For evolving them I see it unrealistic (oh, what word in a fantasy 
  RPG) to alter skeletons to zombies, zombies to ghouls, and on this 
  way for evolution.
  I would prefer to level them up but keep their initial stance. So an 
  evolved skeleton still looks like a skeleton but sports 1 HD more, +1 
  on attack and AC. At Level 4 they may get incorporeal. At Level 6 
  they might drain levels.
  So there might be an undead class or template for NPCs, where all 
  these abilities are described like in PC classes, according to the game 
  system used, handling attack, AC, saves and special abilities.
  For gaining levels, I think best is to base it on kills. Depending on 
  undead level, distinct kills are needed to advance. Real kills. Not 
  
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  bringing someone to -1 HP. So these do not stop if a PC or NPC falls 
  to the ground. They continue until they are really dead. That’s the 
  fuel they are longing for! A level gain also puts them back up to full 
  HP.
  A first level undead (e.g. Skeleton) needs 2 kills to get level 2. A 
  second level undead needs 4 kills to get level 3, doubling every next 
  level. For a vampire it is tough to level up, for the minions it is much 
  easier.
  People killed by these evolving undead lose more than their life. 
  Their life force is consumed on the kill. So raising them is more 
  complicated, more expensive, and riskier than normal kills by 
  normal enemies.
  Think of a horde of level 1 skeletons attacking a farmer village. The 
  PCs, even when at level 5, have to hurry to defeat them before they 
  kill many townspeople and grow stronger. :)
  Spirit-Bound
  Chuck
  Perhaps instead of all undead being intelligent, you make just 
  the leaders possess this unusual talent. The grunts might still be 
  mindless corpses.
  I’m thinking intelligent undead must have some sort of spirits bound 
  to their bodies. For some, perhaps an ancient mage who learned the 
  forbidden art of Spiritbinding imprisoned them. For others, perhaps 
  they were exposed to some source of spiritual energy, such as a rift in 
  the astral plane or a magical item bound with more than one spirit. 
  
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  Some spirits may even have voluntarily bound themselves into a 
  corpse or item of power.
  And powerful magical items and artifacts are in fact items that have 
  been infused with a once autonomous spirit, created by the same 
  necromantic rituals that bind undead.
  Evolved undead are those that have absorbed the spirit of another 
  being, such as a living person, a magical item, or another undead. 
  When an undead absorbs enough energy of its own, it can then 
  imbue a corpse or item with that energy to create or strengthen a 
  thrall or bound item, at a cost of weakening its own spirit. Mighty 
  undead almost always carry powerful magical gear.
  Desecrated Areas
  Joe Z
  I am running a campaign that has undead as one of the main types 
  of antagonists. So I happen to have some tricks and methods for 
  evolving undead.
  I don’t let undead change types unless there is a thematic “upgrade” 
  already in the books (ghouls to ghasts, for instance, wraiths to 
  specters). Instead I use “advanced” templates or add extra hit dice.
  Undead are powered by negative energy. They don’t eat or drink 
  or sleep. So, to make undead more powerful, you give them more 
  negative energy. What I use as the justification is the desecrate spell. 
  It’s an area of cursed earth that makes undead powerful. I use this 
  as a foundation for a cursed location that over time causes undead 
  to grow in power. Desecrate attunes that area to negative energy, 
  making it stronger and more easily available.
  
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  Once there, an evil priest can use his various harm spells to infuse 
  the undead with negative energy, accelerating the process. You did 
  mention having undead with intelligent leaders, right? Well, these 
  locations would need some sort of focus... so either a spellcaster or 
  some sort of focus/MacGuffin to make them work.
  The longer one of these sites is allowed to infuse the undead, the 
  more powerful they become. So, this allows you to tailor the power 
  level to the PCs. The last one of these locations will usually be the 
  one that’s been around the longest and so the most potent and nasty 
  undead will be found there.
  This also gives the players a sense of satisfaction as they take down 
  not just some random undead but the cursed site that makes them. 
  It also gives them hints and clues as to what to look for... for others 
  like them.
  Roleplay It
  Bryan Crosswait
  I think undead advancement should be roleplaying-based. You 
  mentioned skeletons and zombies will become NPCs. How about 
  companies, squads, and platoons?
  The undead are separated, either based on who and what they were 
  in life (an entire platoon of soldiers killed specifically so they can 
  fight in death) or in death.
  This creates some fun opportunities:
  The 3-Legged Dog Squad. Losers of this undead army, front-line shock 
  troops never meant to “live” too long, led by a ghoul determined to 
  show his leadership skills will eventually pay off. Even though the 
  
  70
  ghoul suffers defeat after defeat, he manages to gather around him a 
  group of ragtag irregulars that eventually get ”promoted”. But being 
  more than monsters, now these ghasts and ghouls have a unique 
  power or two, something to throw the PCs off and add character. 
  An insignia or badge is a must, as is some lovable/hated character 
  tropes - think Inglorious Basterds.
  On the flip side, you have the Elite Troops, a division or battalion 
  expected to do well from the word go. These guys are tough. And 
  while they started out like everyone else (zombies and skeletons), 
  muscle memory and training helps them rise to the top. The twist is, 
  their leader and his commanders rise to match the PCs as they grow. 
  They are Lawful Evil, they live (unlive?) by a code, they respect tough 
  opponents, they salute accordingly. They are, in a way, the dragon-
  rider that killed Sturm in the Dragonlance books. Like everyone else, 
  they also have a badge. The players know what they are facing when 
  it helps the story. Certain mid-level leaders will become apparent 
  over time (Gragnock likes to ambush, Lyndon leads from the front, 
  at least for the first three rounds, Zorn and his devil-dogs use missile 
  weapons to great advantage).
  By using badges and symbols, players will get to know who is who. As 
  the leaders manage to escape to fight another day, the PCs will begin 
  to identify them. The players will get to plan while the baddies do 
  too. Now everyone is plugged in, the players and NPCs are plotting 
  alike, and as the players level so do those that lead the legions the 
  players have thrown themselves against.
  The final battle(s) will seem like a pre-ordained event, a homecoming 
  of sorts, until the players encounter their first surprise and realize 
  these undead are actively thinking and have the players in their 
  cross hairs.
  
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  Acheron Brandy
  DM Atticus
  Is your undead settlement relatively tolerant of the living? If I’m 
  not mistaken, most undead according to D&D lore despise the living 
  to the point of murdering them on sight. So why not introduce 
  some alchemy in the form of a scheming drug peddler? Humanoid 
  settlements definitely have issues like these lowlifes.
  The alchemist creates a potion or consumable goo. Let’s call it 
  Acheron Brandy. It gives people horrifying mutations like extra 
  limbs, whip-like tongues, eyes on all sides, incorporeal-at-will 
  powers, life-draining skin, etc. However, the undead who receive 
  this goo have been targeted because of either their station or 
  usefulness, as the last dose the dealer gives them also enslaves them 
  to a particular type of mind control, maybe off of a command word.
  Watch this cutscene from Bioshock (a major spoiler if you ever plan 
  to play it, but it’s a good idea to use and abuse).
  The now enslaved and hyper-mutated undead serve as assassins and 
  obstacles for the party, controllable by the alchemist and perhaps 
  whomever hired him to go through all this trouble. The undead 
  begin to evolve more and more as the party mills about the town 
  by the day, or by the encounter. Make them feel like they can’t just 
  spend all day shopping for a designer mithril waffle iron by having 
  some of those recently slain undead that jumped them in a back 
  alley return with extra parts sewn or grown on them, and make it a 
  recurring encounter! If the party finds a way to slay them for good, 
  throw in a few more with different abilities that test the party’s 
  prowess in different ways (the plagues you mentioned in the article 
  would work nicely for sure!).
  
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  You could roll a d% for this type of encounter starting with a certain 
  number (let’s say 15%) and add on 10% every time they go from 
  place to place, resetting it to the base number after each encounter.
  Another idea is to have the undead evolve into higher tier undead 
  because the party’s very presence in an undead town causes it. Much 
  like mice wandering into a house full of cats, the undead are tame 
  until they see living flesh, which make the gluttonous ones (I’m 
  looking at you, ghouls!) turn mad for fresh meat. Some may visibly 
  try to resist the urge so the party understands it’s not just typical 
  undead doing what typical undead do, but rather their presence 
  alone causes problems here.
  You could also have a town that remains civilized only because of 
  magic or alchemy that sates those supernatural urges to devour flesh 
  and gives the mindless undead some sentience too. Though when 
  the party arrives, they soon find out the undead are slowly leaning 
  towards those typical tendencies because the magic that kept the 
  undead civil has been tampered with or stopped altogether. The 
  party will have a fire under their butts to complete their adventure 
  when all the friends they’ve made begin turning on them out of lack 
  of self-control.
  Also, I think it would be cool to have an undead with some kind of 
  fungus growing in them that gives them unique powers, like spores 
  for hallucinations, control over other creatures (and undead), etc. 
  The fungus is the one doing the controlling and spreading around 
  of its own kind. Perhaps this could be the plague you mentioned in 
  the article?
  
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  Four Ideas
  KindredWolf
  Idea #1: Plotting
  Create a stronger undead by applying the “Entropic Creature” 
  template from the Planar Handbook (pg 122-124) (Level Adjust +2).
  Use the Necrosis Carnex from MM4 pg 104 with the above template 
  for added oomph.
  I would run intelligent undead as field commanders and spies in 
  an RP-heavy game where the end results of failed missions or 
  encounters on the PCs’ behalf would allow the undead to attain 
  specific military/cultural growth points.
  For example: Main low level villain defeated... but the unwholesome 
  site becomes a desecrated evil place without further PC intervention, 
  allowing the villain to return as undead.
  Above-ground random encounters start including more underground 
  type creatures. (Umber hulks, bullets and purple worms are being 
  controlled or manipulated into new areas and disrupting local 
  underdark environs to create a necropolis.)
  Clue the PCs into the disruptions through underdark NPC 
  interactions.
  Branch out from there with various plots and devices to hook and 
  snare the PCs.
  Branches in plot each carry consequences that might bite the PCs 
  in the back, sometimes taking several adventures to fully realize. 
  Perhaps bolstering the city guard at the gate during a nighttime 
  
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  attack allows a vital NPC to die or run away (no longer accessible 
  in a later fight). Taking the time to properly disperse an undead’s 
  remains allow its multiple lesser henchmen to get away and wreak 
  havoc through the countryside - causing the local military to be 
  unavailable for the final fight. Directly influencing the mayor to 
  leave office and become a professional whatever results in worsening 
  town conditions due to the new mayor being a pawn of the big bad 
  evil guy.
  Assign new sub-commanders at specific party levels, maybe 
  removing old ones (use them up as a means of party harassment or 
  plot development), and perhaps boost or hinder the enemies when 
  certain party goals are achieved/failed. This is slightly different than 
  the above plot branches - running independently of plot points.
  Idea #2: Monster Template - Antipodean
  Can be applied to any undead creature whose life is based on 
  negative energy.
  Creature subtype changes from Evil to Good, any aura and energy 
  effects the creature has based on negative energy are now based on 
  positive energy - healing instead of damaging living creatures (and 
  damaging instead of healing undead).
  Uncontrolled mindless undead will actively avoid an Antipodean. 
  Free-willed undead will seek to actively destroy an Antipodean.
  You’d have to use a little imagination when creating an Antipodean 
  Vampire. Perhaps its draining bite becomes a kiss of life?
  
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  Idea #3: Ritual Enhancement
  Certain rituals created or discovered allow battlefield enhancements 
  to everything undead (like an entropic field, linked undead health 
  pools, negative level slam attacks, turn resistance, etc.).
  Rituals can be disrupted, stolen before use, falsified, sabotaged, or 
  modified further by a ritual of the PCs’ own.
  Idea #4: Mirrored Evolution
  Give the big bad undead guy a direct soul link to one or more of the 
  PCs (think Harry Potter), but it directly affects what class, level, or 
  power the big bad guy and his minions have.
  Perhaps a Mirror of Opposition is what spawned the villain to begin 
  with, and revelation of this fact would cause lots of reputation loss 
  for the party.
  BTW - I’ve had this idea in the back burner zone for a loooong time: 
  the big bad is a Lich (perhaps a former living rival) who found or 
  created a mirror of opposition and has already defeated her own 
  duplicate, thus placing her phylactery jewel as the top center piece 
  of the mirror’s frame. Would be extra fun if the lich/PC specializes 
  in mirror magic.
  A Consumable Resource
  Scott
  Maybe there’s a special resource that must be consumed somehow, 
  like life-force or gold. And if it’s based on a special resource, the PCs 
  might even be able to control or slow it down (and others might try 
  to speed it up) somehow.
  
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  Or you could work it so the change is inevitable, based on the phases 
  of the moon for instance. Once the PCs are aware of it, they know 
  how much time they have and will be keenly aware as time runs out. 
  Perhaps at every new moon, all the undead advance one stage. That 
  gives the PCs plenty of time between evolutions, maybe partially 
  being taken up by travel or endangered by other important obstacles 
  or obligations.
  Borrowing from the previous idea, perhaps different factions of 
  extremely powerful wizards or druids exist that could be convinced 
  to speed up or slow down the phases of the moon? In this case, 
  they might create even more adventures, some of which may 
  be impossible to complete by combat (the Circle of Nine can be 
  convinced to temporarily alter reality, for a price, but they can’t 
  be attacked or threatened into doing anything!). This might spawn 
  more adventures (the price is the ancient MacGuffin of Doom that 
  must be recovered).
  Additionally, what will the gods think of such things? Maybe each 
  deity will sponsor a champion to see the evil plan fail or succeed 
  (thus keeping it “fair”), creating built-in character concepts for PCs 
  and NPCs.
  The more I think about it the more I want to run it!
  Ghoul Friends
  Brent Davis
  The last Savage Worlds game I ran was a fantasy city-based thing. 
  In the undercity (mega dungeon) there were ghouls. The ghouls 
  were ruled by The Baron. I took a lot of inspiration from Lovecraft, 
  in that a Greater Ghoul could assume the form of anyone he (or she) 
  
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  has eaten a significant portion of. They also gain a portion of the 
  knowledge of whomever they eat. I figure in a level-based game they 
  could have forms per hit die.
  Lesser ghouls were like D&D ghouls, with paralyzing touch and 
  infection if killed by one. I had it where if a character took a wound 
  per SW rules then they had to roll to fight off disease. To become 
  a Greater Ghoul they had to eat people. The more they ate, the 
  stronger and wiser they became.
  The Baron had a pact with the King of the City State. The ghouls 
  were NOT allowed to kill anyone. They could only eat “unclaimed 
  dead” that had been left for more than three days. The Sewer Patrol 
  knew of and protected the ghouls, as long as the pact was kept. The 
  first time the PCs encountered the ghouls (a pack of lesser ghouls), 
  the creatures cowered away and hissed about “the Pact, the Pact” 
  and wouldn’t fight back until a few were slain. Then it became no-
  holds-barred mayhem because SW ghouls have hella high Agility.
  Brought before The Baron, he explained the Pact, sort of. I kind of 
  took a bit from the Vampire/World of Darkness type games with a 
  sardonic undead thing that looked like a handsome teenage boy. 
  The Baron alluded to food or something to convert the PCs if they 
  slew any more of his subjects and told them to get out of his area of 
  the undercity. My twisted mind had the idea of the milk of a female 
  ghoul forcibly fed to the character to “peacefully” convert someone 
  to being a ghoul.
  Anyway, after that a female ghoul was encountered in one of the 
  dance clubs of the city in the form of a woman the PCs had tried and 
  failed to protect. She came pretty close to seducing one of the PCs. 
  Not sure what kind of repercussions THAT might have had... ghoul 
  
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  infection maybe? I did have the clue that, no matter what, a ghoul 
  always smells faintly of death. I figured they level up just like a PC. 
  Doing whatever ghoul society things would gain them experience 
  points, and eating people to gain knowledge and powers.
  It did make a more dangerous monster out of something my ex-D&D 
  players thought of as a pushover.
  There was also a faction of ghouls who had split away from the 
  Baron and were involved in the manufacture of a narcotic called “the 
  Blue.” It’s a euphoric hallucinogen that slowly turned the user in to 
  a ghoul, slowly and painfully as they started to rot and have leprosy-
  like symptoms. It’s a fine blue powder. Coincidentally, the color of 
  ghoul milk is blue. The drug was being distributed by the city guard, 
  through a married troll couple who lived in the undercity. They had 
  a “pet” young boy they used to catch children to eat.
  Flesh Currency
  James Singaram
  I thought of a possible mechanism for advancing undead. In a similar 
  way to how souls grant power to fiends, flesh could grant power to 
  undead. All undead would have the capability to cast a Flesh Harvest 
  Ritual on humanoids and beasts slain within the last ten days. For 
  each minute, one unit of flesh is collected, up to a maximum amount 
  determined by the target’s size:
  • Tiny - 5
  • Small - 20
  • Medium - 50
  • Large - 200
  
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  • Huge - 500
  • Gargantuan - 1000
  The ritual would preserve the flesh harvested with necrotic magic 
  to prevent decay. Harvested flesh would be used for currency with 
  undead as well a system for advancement. All undead would have 
  a second ritual, Consume Flesh, that would allow them to merge 
  flesh with their body at a rate of 1 unit per minute. Undead would 
  then advance through the ranks by how much flesh they have 
  cumulatively grafted onto themselves.
  • Skeleton - 0 (all undead start here)
  • Zombie* - 50
  • Ghoul - 200
  • Ghast - 500
  • Mummy or Wight - 1000 (undead’s choice)
  • Vampire Spawn (if Mummy) or Wraith (if Wight) - 2500
  • Vampire (if vampire spawn) - 5000
  • Lich (if vampire) - 15000
  At a cost of 250 flesh a Mummy may be transformed into a Wight, 
  or vice versa.
  Weapon and skill proficiencies are retained upon advancement. For 
  example, a zombie would be able to wield weapons after advancing 
  from a skeleton.
  Flesh could also be used to create more specialized undead, taking 
  one minute per flesh consumed in the ritual.
  • Shadow (Wraith only) - 100
  • Specter (Wraith only) - 200
  
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  • Will-o’-wisp (Wraith only) - 500
  • Banshee (Wraith only) - 1000
  • Flameskull (Vampire Spawn, Vampire, or Lich) - 1000 + humanoid 
  skull
  • Revenant (Vampire Spawn, Vampire, or Lich) - 1000 + humanoid 
  body, decays after one year
  • Flesh Golem (Vampire Spawn, Vampire, or Lich) - 2500
  • Demilich (Vampire or Lich) - 10000 + ashes of a slain lich*
  • Dracolich (Lich only) - 25000 + skeleton of a dragon
  * Phylactery destroyed
  All undead created through these rituals are bound to the undead 
  that created them. There is no limit on how many creatures an 
  undead can raise, giving rise to entire armies created over centuries.
  All undead above ghasts are able to create a skeleton using a fresh 
  corpse. There is no cost in flesh to raise a creature; however, the 
  flesh on the corpse cannot be harvested before or after the ritual. 
  The time taken is two minutes per available flesh on the corpse. For 
  instance, a mummy could raise a recently slain human by casting a 
  100-minute ritual. No flesh would be collected or consumed during 
  this process.
  Undead follow a hierarchy in a similar fashion as devils. Lesser 
  undead would collect flesh for and carry out the will of their 
  leaders, who would in turn reward skill or loyalty with flesh and 
  advancement. A lich would rule over an entire undead realm with 
  a dozen or so vampire underlings. Each vampire would lead a city, 
  assisted by a half dozen vampire spawn and upwards of twenty 
  wraiths. Vampire spawn and wraiths would both lead mummies 
  
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  and wights, who would in turn command ghasts. They would direct 
  ghouls. With only the faintest spark of intelligence, zombies and 
  skeletons would be at the bottom of the ladder.
  Ghasts and higher undead would deal with disobedient or treasonous 
  underlings by using the Flay Flesh ritual, taking one flesh per minute 
  cast from the target undead, possibly demoting the victim in the 
  process. Skeletons and zombies possess neither the cunning or 
  inclination to cheat their masters for their own progression, so such 
  measures would primarily be used against higher undead.
  Because demotion is a real possibility for undead who fail their 
  master, some commanders will flay their underlings to advance 
  themselves and complete their objective. Having its flesh stolen 
  is the only time an undead feels pain. Upon being demoted to a 
  skeleton, an undead will lose all memory of its previous existence. 
  These memories will be missing even if the undead advances in the 
  future. Because of the violent nature of this ritual, only 50% of flesh 
  taken is salvageable.
  Certain undead enlist mortal followers in their armies. Often these 
  mortals appear slender and gaunt. To prove their loyalty, they are 
  required to make a flesh sacrifice to their master. In addition to 
  providing useful skills, such as spell casting, they do not require 
  payment in flesh and are more easily able to infiltrate mortal 
  settlements. In times of need, these mortals can be harvested for 
  flesh.
  Some undead prefer a peaceful existence over that of domination. 
  In these rare circumstances, undead will seek out alternative 
  methods of flesh collection. Cattle farms and fishing ships crewed 
  by skeletons are not unheard of. More advanced undead might 
  
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  seek employment in a morgue where they can steal flesh from 
  their clients. In exceptional cases, advanced undead will live with 
  subterranean humanoids, such as kobolds. In exchange for the 
  colony’s dead, they provide magical support in times of need and 
  alleviate the need for corpse disposal pits.
  All listed undead above were created using the 5E MM.
  Check Rolemaster
  Alex Ulmer
  You might want to check out Rolemaster’s treatment of undead. 
  They use many levels of the same basic undead type (5 or 6 skeleton 
  levels). As the undead gain strength, they also gain powers. 
  Rolemaster also says the stronger undead drain constitution points. 
  In a d100 system, draining 1-5 points per round doesn’t kill the PC 
  quickly, but it does drive home the point that the constitution drain 
  will be deadly in the long run. For a D20 based system, you might 
  increase the time before the drain happens, maybe points lost per 
  minute instead of per round.
  Another thought would be to have monsters imitate undead. In my 
  campaign, I have a band of goblins that prey on grave robbers, using 
  a puppet ghost, chains, and moaning horns. They selectively target 
  victims one at a time, picking them off. The goblins use the dark of 
  night and tombstones to hide their actions and gain cover.
  
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  Evolve Through Death
  Mark of the Pixie
  I have used a slightly different method in one of my games: undead 
  get more powerful when they are destroyed. Doesn’t work well on 
  the lesser undead, but a wight (weakest of the higher undead in my 
  game) who is killed can later come back as a spectre or a wraith 
  (both more powerful types of undead). If the soul of the person is so 
  strong it can come back from death, then odds are it can do it again.
  Go Mythic
  Paul Frische-Mouri
  I too wanted to have an evolution mechanic that would make the 
  lesser zombies still a threat. My solution is using the Pathfinder 
  Mythic rule set. I’m treating the zombies as being reanimated and 
  sustained by a magical disease that will be the source of their mythic 
  powers. Perhaps the PCs share a genetic anomaly that allows them 
  to resist the transformation, or they discover an ancient antidote 
  in the crypts of the castle that halts the progress of the disease but 
  doesn’t leave them completely unaffected. Either way, the players 
  will be infected early on as the city is quickly overtaken. Their mythic 
  progression represents the disease evolving in them, and thus will 
  be the tracker for the rest of the infected (think Resident Evil).
  For the lower minions I’m planning on making a progressive 
  template. For a few tiers it will be universal in adding some buffs 
  to the base creature. But it soon begins to branch into different 
  “species” of undead creating fast zombies, strong zombies, smart 
  zombies, zombies with extra limbs, zombies that explode, zombies 
  
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  that cast random magical spells, flying zombies, invisible zombies. 
  I plan on making a table and rolling for the templates used. This 
  means each encounter could have some nasty surprises if the players 
  aren’t careful and don’t scout.
  The big bads will have their own tiers in addition to the templates. 
  What I hadn’t considered until your email was the idea of having 
  these different species creating a society. This opens up so many 
  possibilities! I could see clan wars or even civil wars sprouting from 
  this.
  And since the undead will be animated from a disease and not from 
  negative energy, positive energy will not harm them (and might 
  actually heal their wounded, dead flesh). This is my explanation as to 
  how the disease spreads so easily, catching those wielding positive 
  energy completely off guard as they are overwhelmed by undead that 
  defy all their training! Should be a good initial surprise to the party.
  Have you ever used any kind of sanity rules? I haven’t but would like 
  to incorporate that with the PCs and NPCs as the destruction of their 
  way of life and the horrors of the evolving undead weigh on them.
  Reply From Johnn: Just in a Cthulhu game. We went crazy pretty fast.
  A simple mechanic would be a pool based on PC WIS score. After any 
  horrific event, PCs make a save. If they fail they get +1d3 Insanity. If 
  Insanity ever matches WIS the character is insane but can be healed. 
  If Insanity exceeds WIS the character is permanently insane.
  Then I would create several adventure-based triggers for healing 
  Insanity, like elven glens and halfling parties and magic pools. 
  Maybe an ancient potion or two.
  
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  I would also make an insanity table that allows players to continue 
  playing their insane PC, but like the Confusion spell where a roll 
  determines how a PC behaves temporarily, a roll on the Insanity 
  table determines PC actions for awhile. Also add some triggers so 
  the player knows when insanity rolls can be expected.
  Hope this helps!
  
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  How To Deal With Idea 
  Overwhelm
  Johnn Four
  This issue is full of a ton of ideas. I get overwhelmed when I read 
  articles like this or when I find long forum threads full of awesome. 
  How do I grapple with all these ideas, put them into some kind of 
  order, and integrate them into my campaign? Here’s my iterative 
  process.
  Step 1: Set Up Your Idea Container
  Paste all the content and ideas into MyInfo, Evernote, OneNote, or 
  tool of your choice.
  Create a container for these ideas so they are separate from your 
  other notes and you can find them quick.
  • In MyInfo, create a parent document in the tree and file your 
  ideas underneath as child documents.
  • In Evernote, create a Notebook for your campaign and create 
  new notes in it tagged “Idea”.
  • In OneNote, create a Page in a Section of your campaign’s 
  Notebook, and paste ideas into themed sub-pages as you go.
  
  87
  Step 2: Paste Ideas In
  Copy the article, posts, or content into your ideas container. Also 
  paste in the URL or make a note about the source in case you want 
  to refer back to it later. For example, “Undead Ideas RPT #629”. Then 
  make all the text italic. I do this so I know the text isn’t my writing 
  (for copyright, attribution, etc.). It also helps separate my thoughts, 
  which is important for a later step.
  Step 3: Read & Comment
  With a good, findable, and reliable spot for all my ideas created, and 
  text pasted in from an article and italicized, next I read through the 
  text and write ideas inline as I go.
  I keep my ideas in regular text, not italicized. You could make your 
  text bold, red, or whatever you like to identify it as your writing.
  As I read, I write any ideas that come to mind below the text that 
  inspired me. So eventually the article is a bunch of alternating text, 
  with the original article interspersed with my thoughts and reactions 
  and ideas.
  If there are long passages I don’t find useful or inspiring, I delete 
  them. You don’t have to do this, especially if you want to preserve all 
  the original text. But I do this to shorten up my docs, as I’m focused 
  more on the ideas I produce from this exercise than on keeping a 
  library of articles.
  Comments I make include ideas that pop into mind as I read, 
  thoughts on how I’d integrate the ideas into my campaign, and who 
  or what the idea might get attached to.
  
  88
  For example, if an idea is good for a PC, I’ll write the PC’s name 
  at the start. “Roscoe: undead pick HIS pockets.” In my current 
  campaign, Roscoe is a rogue, so it was an amusing idea to me.
  I might also “tag” ideas with NPC names, locations, “history”, region 
  names, “treasure”, and any other labels that might apply. This just 
  gives me an idea later on where my head was at with the idea. “OK, 
  past Johnn, how were you thinking of applying this to the campaign? 
  Oh, this is a trap idea - got it.”
  In addition, I can search by keyword or tag now, and find ideas by 
  topic fast. For example, I can just search for “Trap:” or “Roscoe:” and 
  hit search again and again to cycle through all related ideas.
  Step 4: Iterate & Crunch
  I’ll keep doing pass-throughs from top to bottom of the article and 
  flesh out my notes and ideas more as I re-read each time. Ideas that 
  suck I delete or leave alone. The best ideas I highlight or add even 
  more details to.
  As I iterate and refine worthy ideas, I make notes about crunch 
  needs. At the end of each note or idea, I’ll write something like, 
  “Class: XYZ” or “NPC: ABC”. This means I need to do some game 
  design and create rules or crunch for these particular ideas. I don’t 
  need crunch for history, plot, or kingdom ideas, but if the idea is 
  for, say, an NPC that might see combat, I’ll need a full combat stat 
  block for them.
  In other words, I flag stuff that needs prep so I don’t get caught mid-
  game. I will also add background colours to idea labels and crunch 
  tags. Plot and encounter hooks get highlighted in yellow. NPCs in 
  pink. Fluff and history in orange. Treasure in gold. Etc.
  
  89
  In addition, as I re-read and update good ideas, I’ll start weaving in 
  campaign details, especially pronouns. Names of people, places, or 
  things the idea relates to.
  Step 5: Integrate
  OK. I’ve now got a doc full of great ideas. And I know which ideas 
  are the winners. Next, I have to decide what to do with them. There 
  are three options:
  • Leave them in this doc for future inspiration
  • Copy them into standalone campaign notes for future use
  • Integrate them with existing campaign notes to help flesh out 
  my campaign right away
  Some notes I’ll leave in my Ideas Bucket because they have no better 
  place right now. When I get stuck, I will read through my Ideas 
  Bucket for inspiration. There’s always something there, so this is a 
  fantastic resource I build up for myself over the life of the campaign.
  Other notes will be awesome future campaign additions, but they 
  aren’t needed yet. So I just file these into my 5 Campaign Buckets 
  (Gazetteer, Cast of Characters, Quartermaster, Plots, Rules) ready 
  for gameplay when needed.
  And last, ideas that build on stuff I’ve already created get added 
  to existing notes. I’ll “pile and file” first, then go back if I have 
  time and integrate, re-write, or update the info to include the new 
  developments.
  This way, with these three tasks done, I have my ongoing ideas 
  bucket in its own area of my campaign information - an R&D lab 
  where I snarf stuff from the internet, use it for inspiration, and see 
  
  90
  what bubbles up as useful or interesting for the campaign. Then I 
  have future content ready for use when needed. And then I have 
  refinements and additions to existing canon so my campaign info 
  is always up to date.
  *          *          *
  This sounds like a lot of work, but that’s because I broke the process 
  into steps to explain it all. It feels pedantic, but really I’m just using 
  stuff from Roleplaying Tips and other sources to fuel ideas for my 
  campaign. I write ideas down as they come to me, flesh them out a 
  bit, and then slot them into my campaign notes.
  There’s a big added benefit to this approach as well. As I read, write, 
  re-read, and refine, I’m cramming more stuff into my long-term 
  memory. I find I often don’t need to refer to my notes during games 
  with this stuff, because I’ve gone through it and processed it a few 
  times. This means I ad-lib and improv much better, and I GM faster 
  because I don’t need to look stuff up as often in my notes.
  So even though it’s fun getting inspired by great articles and ideas 
  from others, it’s also fun having this stuff in your brain’s back pocket 
  to summon up on command whenever you need ideas.
  
  91
  Gambling Table: 1d20 
  Card Game Events
  Johnn Four
  A character in my campaign is addicted to gambling. So I made this 
  table up for him. Maybe you can use it in your game too.
  1. Magical cheating (dice enchanted to roll certain numbers, 
  cards are enchanted to change face, partner working the 
  table & “sending” card hands held to one of the gamblers).
  2. Pickpocket works the table.
  3. Rumours, gossip, and news. 1-2: False information. 3-4: 
  True information for current adventure. 5-6: Hook for new 
  adventure.
  4. Item is offered as a bet. 1-2: Cursed, stolen, forged, or 
  malfunctioning item. 3-4: Relevant to current adventure. 
  5-6: Hook for new adventure.
  5. Something swoops through a window and tries to snatch 
  up the pot. 1-2: Wild animal. 3-4: Summoned creature. 5-6: 
  Familiar.
  6. The City Guard bursts in! 1-2: Gambling is illegal here. 3-4: 
  They make an arrest. 5-6: They want dealt in - and they’re 
  sore losers.
  7. One of the players goes into a trance and forecasts the future 
  for one of the players at the table. 1-2: It’s bad news. 3-4: It’s 
  false news. 5-6: It’s good news or a solid clue.
  
  92
  8. A PC has a lucky winning streak. However, other gamblers 
  are making this happen to make a fortune on side bets when 
  the winner gets fleeced.
  9. A casual comment at the table is interpreted by another 
  player as a deadly insult.
  10. Stickup men crash the card game, knowing there will be lots 
  of money on the table. Everyone assumes one of the other 
  players tipped them off, and a wild, multi-sided fight ensues.
  11. Someone throws a gem, ring, or identifiable item into the pot 
  that comes from a hoard the PCs are searching for, or which 
  is strangely familiar to one of them.
  12. A local variation of the game requires players to play while 
  getting progressively drunker. Someone cheats and uses a 
  magical form of toxin resistance.
  13. Someone figures one of the player’s tells. 1-2: The PC has 
  the tell. 3-4: It’s between two NPCs. 5-6: The PC spots an 
  NPC’s tell.
  14. A card from a divination deck is drawn instead of a standard 
  card.
  15. You can bet immaterial things like years, love, joy, or talents 
  this one time.
  16. The money the PC wins is fake.
  17. One of the card players dies. 1-2: Heart attack. 3-4: Natural 
  causes. 5-6: Poisoned/assassinated.
  18. This isn’t a card game, it is a ritual of a secret cult. If the PC 
  wins, something bad happens to the city. If the PC loses, it’s 
  a bad event for the PC. If the PC folds, bad event happens 
  to an ally.
  19. One player is a doppelganger.
  
  93
  20. A player bets something awful. 1-2: A slave. 3-4: The antidote 
  to a poison he put on the money during previous hands. 5-6: 
  A talking skull.
  Thanks to the following for their great ideas: Ivan Sorensen, Kabuki 
  Kaiser, Brett Slocum, James Holloway, MoonSylver.
  
  94
  Last Words From Johnn
  How To Avoid Prediction Railroads
  Quick tip: Players like certainty. They try to pin you down about the 
  future with divinations, tarot readings, prophecies, and other means.
  You can avoid getting into a fixed path with this simple trick.
  Whenever it’s used, just change the word “prediction” to “forecast”.
  It works for weathermen every time.
  Freelance Traveller Reviews Faster 
  Combat
  Timothy Collinson vivisects my book, The Game Master’s Guide 
  to Faster Combats, for the Freelance Traveller zine. It’s the most 
  detailed review of my course yet. His main question is, are the 
  lessons and information of value to Traveller and non-D&D GMs?
  His answer is in this PDF, starting at page 21. [http://bit.ly/freelance-
  traveller-fc-review]
  Also, if you are a Traveller GM, you can get all the back issues of 
  the Freelance Traveller zine here (it looks like a fantastic resource). 
  [http://bit.ly/freelance-traveller]
  
  95
  New Books On My Shelf
  The postman brought me something grim, gritty, and dangerous 
  this week.
  Dungeon Crawl Classics just hit my mailbox and it looks like a great, 
  old school game.
  Character creation is fabulous. The premise is you start with 0 level 
  characters. Farmers, peasants, and commoners who are somehow 
  involved in risky adventure. Perhaps their Baron has recruited them 
  for a dangerous mission, or they’ve shipwrecked on a mysterious 
  island and must band together to survive, or their village is attacked 
  and they are the sole survivors and homeless.
  Each player gets a few characters and tries to help as many survive 
  as possible. By the end of the intro adventure, only the strong or 
  lucky are left, and these become first level PCs with a class and your 
  standard PC abilities.
  This approach is like gaming your character’s backstory. It’s low 
  fantasy and gritty, which I’m finding a nice break from the high 
  fantasy stuff I’ve been consuming in recent years.
  Anyway, thanks to Noble Knight Games for the fast shipping and 
  excellent packaging of my used edition. The book came through 
  with nary a scratch.
  
  96
  Campaign Design Diary
  Freedom, Integration, and Story 
  Johnn Four
  My campaign design diary today clocks in at almost 6,000 words, 
  or nearly triple what I aim for in a feature article. But rather than 
  splitting it up into parts, I’m sending the whole thing to you today 
  as November’s and December’s Patron Exclusive combined.
  This article will also be included in the Roleplaying Tips book for 
  December, along with this month’s other articles, all in one easy 
  place for your future reference.
  With this today’s tips I have a small announcement to make - the 
  name of my new campaign.
  I think most GMs name their campaigns. But since our D&D 5E trial 
  has now become a full-fledged campaign, I want to stop calling it 
  our “5E game” and give it a more evocative title.
  Once we’re done the Starter Kit adventure, Lost Mine of Phandelver, 
  I’ll be transporting the PCs out of the Forgotten Realms and into a 
  new world, which will be the official setting of the new campaign.
  
  97
  And The Name Of My New Campaign 
  Will Be....
  Duskfall!
  Duskfall is a ruined city on a long-forgotten continent discovered by 
  explorers just a few years ago. It has many mysteries and dangers, 
  so settlement has been risky and tentative to date. That’s where the 
  PCs come in.
  Duskfall also has many, many treasures to give up for the brave and 
  foolhardy. That’s also where the PCs come in. :)
  The city spans the banks of a deep, winding river in the heart of a 
  dense, dark forest. It is over 2000 years old. Several civilizations have 
  used its ribs to live, enchant, and war.
  Each culture has left wondrous discoveries, secret places, and 
  dangerous legacies stacked upon the ancient cultures before it in 
  the ground, in the river, and in the surrounding lands.
  There is much to discover, as no one knows what lies beyond the 
  few acres of the urban ruins. There is much to fear for the same 
  reason - and that terror, which feeds the settlers’ dark dreams each 
  night, is justified.
  Design Is Important
  I have thought a lot about what I want Duskfall to be. It’s part 
  campaign, but it’s also part inspiration for Roleplaying Tips. I want 
  to make something you can steal ideas from liberally for your own 
  campaigns. I also hope to get tips and ideas back from you as I 
  journal the campaign’s progress in the newsletter.
  
  98
  So the setting and campaign have a couple of audiences to intrigue 
  and entertain.
  And today’s article is about how I’m approaching the design of 
  Duskfall to make it my best-ever campaign, and to have even more 
  fun at every game.
  I hope sharing my Duskfall design thoughts will help you with your 
  own campaigns.
  This is just the start. I’ll continue to explore Duskfall in play and in 
  design with Roleplaying Tips fans as the campaign wends deeper 
  into the ancient ruins and the dangerous lands that hide them.
  Duskfall is in its nascent planning stages right now. I only have 
  vague ideas about what it is and what I want it to be. Notes fill a few 
  pages in notebooks and Evernote. Links, images, and articles also 
  eagerly accumulate for inspiration.
  But before I even started dreaming and researching, back in the 
  summer, I sketched out my recipe for how I will approach this 
  campaign’s creation. Fresh off the heels of publishing the Campaign 
  Seeds and Campaign Creation Guide books, plus having just done a 
  bunch of research for the newsletter, I had a specific design approach 
  in mind for Duskfall.
  What follows is my plan – my recipe – for creating an epic new 
  campaign from scratch.
  Who Will Have More Fun?
  I’m starting with the audiences and who I want to entertain, inspire, 
  and have fun with.
  
  99
  And it turns out Duskfall has four audiences to please, in this order:
  • Game Master 
  • Players 
  • Readers 
  • Customers 
  Game Master
  If I am not inspired, I won’t want to build the world, design the 
  adventures, and prep for games. That means more cancelled 
  sessions, less enthusiasm, and an almost guaranteed mid-campaign 
  abort next year.
  It was awesome gaming Riddleport through to it epic conclusion. I 
  want to experience that again.
  A friend and reader also planning a campaign put it well to me 
  yesterday when we had a quick online chat: “Yeah, I am planning 
  out areas and stuff behind the scenes, but I won’t actually run the 
  campaign unless I can be the consistent one in the campaign, lol.”
  That is a great mindset. Be the standing stone, the driver, and the 
  leader of the group, always ready to get some gaming done.
  It pays to know thyself and what makes GMing fun for you so you can 
  embed those elements into the campaign. Design your own rewards!
  Players
  The second audience is the group. I asked my players at the end 
  of Riddleport what they wanted next. The answer was more of the 
  same. More fantasy, D&D, factions, NPCs, dungeon crawls, intrigue, 
  cool magic items and treasure, combat, and roleplaying.
  
  100
  One player’s comments were quite interesting: “A city game is great 
  as long as the party is focused. I don’t want to waste game time 
  debating what we should be doing next each time. So give us some 
  kind of guidance to keep the adventures going.”
  And another player said during coffee one day, “Johnn, just tell us 
  what to do. I’m here for the guts and glory!”
  What I’m hearing with these comments and other, similar ones made 
  repeatedly in the last few weeks is my group doesn’t want to debate 
  endlessly on plot. They want to focus on the adventure and get into 
  encounters to keep gameplay moving along.
  They are all great roleplayers, and they enjoy good party discussions 
  in-character. But Riddleport did cause a lot of “OMG what do we do 
  now!?” type of long discussions. The open sandbox created many 
  options, which resulted in many ideas, points of view, and conflicting 
  opinions on strategy.
  My group wants to experience more story and debate less about 
  it. They want more great gaming moments, especially awesome 
  character moments.
  I hear this and will make this part of my design.
  Roleplaying Tips Readers
  Much feedback has poured in saying to keep up with the session 
  reports. Readers like to hear how the campaign is going along.
  Unfortunately, the feedback does not go more in-depth. I’m not sure 
  if you’d like focus to be just on the story, or if you like the out-of-
  character stuff that goes on, or if you like the occasional self-analysis 
  I do on sessions.
  
  101
  Maybe it’s a combo, or perhaps there’s another element you like I 
  haven’t listed or don’t realize.
  Let me know if you have any additional feedback about session 
  reports in the newsletter.
  From my perspective, I enjoy writing them as session logs. It creates 
  a campaign journal for reference, which I found helpful during 
  Riddleport. I often went to my session reports in the newsletter to 
  recall events rather than my GM notes, lol.
  Also, writing out session log style helps me remember more about 
  the campaign, which means faster and more consistent GMing.
  Customers
  I would like to turn Duskfall into one or more products some day.
  I will be creating at least one adventure for it, as that’s a product I 
  promised to Gamer Lifestyle members in 2013 (Gamer Lifestyle is a 
  course I periodically open to teach people how to break into the RPG 
  industry and publish their campaigns, worlds, and RPG creations.)
  I also run Roleplaying Tips as a part-time business, and my 
  campaigns always serve as fantastic inspiration when I’m writing 
  books and courses.
  What do customers want? Well, last year I ran an adventure product 
  reader survey. It received hundreds of responses and I spent hours 
  parsing through all the data and feedback.
  Three clear themes emerged, which I’ll share shortly.
  Bottom line for me though is, gaming and fun is top priority. If 
  there’s an option to turn Duskfall into a Kickstarter or product in 
  
  102
  the future, that’s a bonus. But the GM, players, and Roleplaying Tips 
  readers come first.
  The Three Campaign Meta Themes
  Out of the intensive adventure research from my Roleplaying Tips 
  reader survey, three themes kept popping up. One of the questions 
  was, “What bugs you about published adventures?” and nearly every 
  answer had one or more of these three themes:
  • Freedom and non-linear adventures. No railroads please. 
  • Integration. Content you can use in your own worlds and 
  campaigns. 
  • Story. Interesting plots and gameplay. Inspiration. 
  It was amazing how freedom, integration, and story made up 95% 
  of the responses! Readers stated this in various ways. For example: 
  “I ran the Pathfinder adventure paths for ages until I finally got 
  fed up with them and started writing my own (mostly thanks to 
  a subscription to Roleplaying Tips which keep coming out with 
  good ideas!). I’ve put my gripes about the Pathfinder modules 
  above, but one thing they do really well is have a good story. 
  Usually an epic story. Sure, they’re not very good at tying the 
  pieces together neatly, but the kernel of an epic story is there.”
  “Also, I like a hybrid of sandbox and train-track adventures. If it’s 
  a complete sandbox I find people tend to eventually lack direction 
  and give up, but if it’s too linear they object. Pathfinder tends to 
  vacillate so strongly between the two that I get frustrated with 
  both.”
  
  103
  And:
  “Vastly unbalanced crunch, logic holes/design flaws I have to 
  work around (worse: on the fly!), poor character backgrounds, 
  and stereotyped or by-the-numbers story design. Failing to treat 
  NPCs as ”real people” with backgrounds, motivations, alliances 
  and resources to match their power/influence.”
  “Anyone can throw some numbers together and index a map. 
  Those adventures are a dime a dozen (well, maybe in 1940’s dime 
  equivalents). I’m sure you can create a compelling story with 
  fascinating, believable characters and include dynamic, exciting 
  encounters.”
  And:
  “Most are too linear and don’t provide much choice for the 
  players as to what to do after the start of the adventure.”
  “The other challenge is that they tend to be too setting specific, 
  which makes them hard to adapt to a custom campaign. It is 
  fine to have them set in a particular campaign, but if everything 
  hinges around specific parts of the campaign that are extremely 
  difficult to scrub the names off of and rebrand based on my own 
  campaign versions, then the adventure becomes a great idea but 
  too much work to use.”
  We can see the three themes strongly represented in those 
  comments.
  The thing is, I want story, integration, and freedom as a GM too! 
  And my players already expressed a desire for two of those themes, 
  as well.
  
  104
  And because the survey was only answered by Roleplaying Tips 
  readers, I know these themes directly represent their wishes, too.
  So, if Duskfall fulfills great story, easy integration with other settings 
  and campaigns, and freedom for GMs and players, each audience is 
  served and a rousing campaign also gets gamed.
  Brick By Brick, Hex By Hex
  To accommodate the three meta design requirements, Duskfall will 
  take on a Lego-style design. Here’s how.
  • I will create the pieces as standalone game elements (Freedom) 
  • I will provide suggestions and opportunities for interactions 
  between the pieces (Integration) 
  • And I will provide at least one critical path or meta-plot (Story) 
  The players can do what they want. They can explore, become 
  merchants, intrigue with factions, roleplay, fight. They can do 
  whatever they want but with one constraint: they need to stay 
  within the region.
  Colour Between The Lines, Please
  I won’t put impenetrable mountains, forests, and oceans around 
  all the map edges to keep the PCs trapped inside. No rocks fall and 
  everyone dies. They can technically wander deeper into the lost 
  continent or sail back to their homeland.
  But as a tacit agreement with players, their characters will stay 
  motivated to stick around and adventure. Whether it’s politics, 
  
  105
  treasure hunting, power-mongering, questing, simulating, or other 
  mode, it matters not to me. As long as they stay in the region.
  This means I can focus my planning. I can eat the elephant one 
  bite at a time, as they say. And I can re-use the game pieces I create 
  over and over to save me prep time and add depth to the story, until 
  they’re destroyed or otherwise rendered unplayable.
  Sans Tracks
  By asking my players to help with this, I don’t have to railroad them. 
  It’s their choice, as part of the campaign’s make-up, to play within 
  the sandbox. And by asking them this up front, they can play this 
  out from the beginning, by adding the proper character motivations, 
  backgrounds, relationships, and details to ensure they get what they 
  want from the area and campaign in general.
  If instead I popped this on them as they neared the edge of the 
  sandbox, for example, it might be a problem. A character or player 
  might have become invested in seeing what’s on the other side. Or 
  they might not like the sudden and arbitrary new restriction.
  Instead, this all gets framed up as soon as the PCs reach Duskfall, 
  and expectations get set so we understand the boundaries and 
  opportunities from the beginning.
  This also means you can integrate the setting in whole or in part into 
  your worlds and campaign easily. Duskfall lives on a lost continent 
  within a thick forest. Those are only soft requirements, on purpose. 
  You can put Duskfall anywhere you like within your world. It’ll fit. 
  And the plots I have in mind are self-contained. You don’t need 
  a certain location, villain, or situation to be able to run Duskfall. 
  
  106
  However, there will be lots of ways you can tie in existing campaign 
  elements to what Duskfall will offer.
  Flipping things around, you can steal all the ideas from Duskfall 
  without major interruption or inconvenience to your campaign 
  because they will be localized. You can globalize what you like, 
  connect what you like.
  And it’s possible because the site is self-contained and the Lego-
  style design approach I’m taking. You can make anything with Lego. 
  :)
  Likewise, you can add or remove NPCs, locations, items, and events 
  as you see fit for your different campaign or your version of Duskfall, 
  because that’s how Lego works.
  The Game Pieces
  I’ve just mentioned the core game pieces I’ll be prepping for the 
  campaign. Here they are again:
  • NPCs 
  • Locations 
  • Items 
  • Events 
  NPCs
  Different factions compete for limited resources as they try to 
  expand their territory in the ruined city and its surrounding lands. 
  They try to gather resources like food and water and raw materials, 
  and defend their borders.
  
  107
  At the centre of these factions will be the PCs’ faction, trying to 
  eke out an existence and improve their lot. In my world, the Empire 
  initially sent troops, craftsman, pioneers, and explorers over by ship 
  to settle the lost continent.
  They discovered Duskfall and set up camp there, taking over the 
  ruins of a small keep on the edge of the city and fixing it up. Then 
  the ships stopped coming. Now the settlement is on its own. It must 
  not only compete for resources with the other factions, but try to 
  make peace and alliances where possible, and figure out what the 
  other factions are up to.
  Some factions will be aware of the major plot arc and quests it 
  spawns. Some will not.
  Neglecting the plot means a faction has little chance of making 
  certain discoveries, earning various rewards, and “leveling up” their 
  settlements. That doesn’t mean a faction can’t go in and steal a 
  major new discovery or sabotage a new advantage. Instead, it 
  means it will be harder to do that as the campaign winds on and 
  the strongest grow even more powerful.
  With this design, still described in abstract terms here, there are 
  many opportunities for cool NPCs and roleplaying. Plus, each faction 
  can present a tasty villain and various lieutenants to hate and foil. 
  And there will be conflicts galore.
  Should the PCs get involved, they can become peace brokers, be spies 
  and join the intrigue, or be secret weapons. Whatever they want.
  I will ask players for another design constraint here. I will ask them 
  to be loyal members of the Empire faction. At least, to start. This 
  again helps narrow my planning, and I can focus more on developing 
  Empire NPCs at the beginning.
  
  108
  As the game plays out, if the PCs switch sides or become neutral, 
  that’s ok. I just need a little support at the start to help me plan 
  and prep easier, and anticipate with greater accuracy various party 
  choices and actions.
  *          *          *
  I will save additional details on NPC and Faction design for future 
  tips articles. TPK Patrons voted Factions as a topic for the newsletter, 
  so keep your eyes peeled for faction tips in RPT on that front.
  My question for you now is, do you see the design pattern at play 
  here? Can you see the Matrix, the GM’s hand in how there will be 
  plot despite major character freedom?
  • We’ve created an environment where several game pieces are 
  present (the factions). 
  • The pieces all share something in common to tie them to the 
  campaign (competing for scarce resources to survive). 
  • The pieces can all participate in and affect the major plot arc 
  (explore and discover). 
  • The pieces and plot matter to the PCs (defend the Empire’s 
  settlement, keep up with plot developments or become relatively 
  weaker). 
  You can take this pattern and plunk it into your existing campaign 
  right now if you want.
  • Step 1: Figure out the factions 
  • Step 2: Figure out the common thing they compete after 
  • Step 3: Hook them into your plot 
  • Step 4: Put the PCs in the middle with table stakes 
  
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  I love NPCs. They are at the heart of all my campaigns now. Even if 
  a campaign is just a megadungeon, NPCs and factions will form the 
  skeleton of the meta plot for me.
  Locations
  I am coining Duskfall a CityCrawl campaign.
  It’s a urban sandbox hexcrawl within the ruins of an ancient city.
  Duskfall sprawls both horizontally and vertically.
  Each faction has claimed a portion of the ruins as their territory. But 
  the ruins are expansive enough that these settlements only account 
  for 25% of the area. The rest of the city is largely unexplored. Therein 
  lies opportunity for exploration and adventure!
  If the PCs choose, they can leave the safety of their keep (and this is 
  the Chaos Keep I was talking about in earlier Roleplaying Tips issues 
  – it’s a setting within the setting – more on that in the future) and 
  venture into the unexplored hexes on the map. They can go block by 
  ruined block, exploring the buildings left standing. Some buildings 
  will offer single encounters. Others will be 5 Room Dungeons. And 
  a few will be large dungeons.
  The party will encounter expeditions from the other factions this 
  way, too. Some factions are still undiscovered to the Empire. Other 
  factions are strange, mysterious, and sometimes dangerous.
  As I mentioned, the city has had several civilizations occupy it. Each 
  culture had its own architectural style. Some built towers. Others 
  built ziggurats. Some dug tunnels. Each civilization added its own 
  style of locations to the city. And these offer not just horizontal 
  exploration opportunities, but vertical ones too.
  
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  Beneath Duskfall are several strata of tunnels and buildings, built 
  and buried over time. PCs who dare descend deep into the ground 
  will battle strange creatures, uncover lost artifacts and dangerous 
  secrets, and discover one or two disturbing factions making their 
  way to the surface with evil plans.
  And if the party wants to go up into the pyramids, towers, and other 
  tall structures above ground, they’ll find lots of adventure there too.
  But wait, there’s more. If the PCs leave the city, there’s the 
  surrounding forest to explore. While settlements are just starting 
  to clear very small portions of the forest near the edges for wood, 
  plants, and animals, the forest is pretty much unexplored and a giant 
  unknown to all. Naturally, there are many things to discover - and 
  run from - within the gloomy area.
  There’s also the river. Upstream, downstream, in, and beneath the 
  river are more adventures to face. A couple more factions, lots of 
  monsters, lots of cool encounter locations. A little treasure, too.
  Outside the forest is, well, an entire lost continent....
  *          *          *
  With this design, the many ancient cultures have created a variety 
  of adventuring sites. Plus the wilderness beckons. And the continent 
  awaits discovery.
  For your campaign, I am hoping you could add a lost continent 
  without many integration problems. It’s the most flexible design 
  approach I could think of.
  If you want to stick with The Known World, find a spot where a 
  ruined city could exist and remain unexplored for a long time. For 
  
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  example, in the heart of a forest too dense and dangerous to civilize 
  yet. Nearby nations would choose easier pickings for expansion.
  The river is optional. It’s a way for me to get the PCs past a point 
  of no return. Well, actually, in my campaign an ocean serves that 
  purpose, and the forest and river make it very difficult for all factions 
  to just expand elsewhere. Plus, the lure of the CityCrawl and finding 
  ancient treasures and powers keeps them in the area, fighting it out.
  I have also not defined the factions yet. And that’s on purpose, 
  because you don’t need those details to use this design pattern. 
  You just create a site where multiple cultures or civilizations have 
  dwelled over various ages.
  This gives you a believable way to add different architecture and 
  types of adventure locales. If you want pyramids, have such a culture 
  be one of the city’s past inhabitants. If you want Middle Eastern type 
  buildings, no problem, that’s another culture who lived in the city 
  for an age. Greek architecture? Aztec? Spanish? Keep adding layers.
  Again, the goal here is freedom and integration. Take major 
  civilizations from your world’s history and camp them out in the 
  city for awhile. Let them leave their fingerprints on the ruins.
  We also have our choice of terrains here. Duskfall offers players 
  dungeons, wilderness, water, sky, ruins, and civilized locations to 
  explore. Up, down, all around. They can CityCrawl their hearts out, 
  or they can just stay in Chaos Keep and explore the secrets that exist 
  there. A setting within a setting.
  Items
  I think of items a couple different ways. First is equipment and 
  supplies versus treasure. Second is mundane versus magical.
  
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  Mundane
  In Duskfall, the Empire’s settlement has several craftsmen. These 
  folk will supply the PCs with equipment upgrades, standard 
  equipment, and specialty items as listed in the game rules. In my 
  world, the Empire is commerce oriented, so even though Chaos Keep 
  is far from the motherland, trade still happens via coin exchange. 
  This is also true for a couple of the other factions.
  Also, coins are made from pure metals (modern currency and past 
  currency, as a house rule). So certain factions will take coins as 
  payment just to get the precious metal for various purposes.
  I’ll double prices listed in the rules to represent lower supply in 
  the settlement. There are only a limited number of craftsmen. And 
  early in the campaign, this will help make mundane treasure more 
  valuable, both as PC acquisitions and as saleable items either to 
  Chaos Keep folk or to other factions.
  If PCs ask to buy unusual or rare items, I’ll roll for availability:
  • 1-3: Item not available
  • 4-5: Item available in Chaos Keep
  • 6: Item available only from another faction
  In this way, mundane treasure becomes special. Even at high levels, 
  if the PCs find a box of well-made tools, they can help Empire folk 
  a lot with such finds. This will hopefully be quite rewarding for the 
  party, even when money gets to matter less to them.
  Magic Items
  There might be one or more magic item crafters in Chaos Keep. For 
  sure there will be in other factions. I’ve always liked offering healing 
  
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  magic, spellcasting, and one-off items for purchase for PCs to spend 
  treasure on. It’s a nice way to offer tactical choices, a rewarding 
  feeling of upgrades (from mundane to magic), and treasure siphon 
  without it feeling like a penalty.
  Magic capabilities will make other factions more dangerous and a 
  source of treasure.
  Magic offerings offers diplomacy, trade, and intrigue options if the 
  PCs lean that way.
  For magic items as treasure, the location and NPC design gives 
  plenty of ways to make this happen. However, I also plan to add 
  different magic item types to the campaign over time. Things like 
  socketed items (gems become power sources and currency), legacy 
  items (PCs bond with an item and they both grow in power), and 
  ritual items (recharge and super-charge with proper sacrifices).
  With multiple cultures buried in the ruins, again we have a nice 
  way to integrate such items into the campaign when the time is 
  right. These become surprises and special rewards, instead of just 
  yet another +1 sword, or just another thing out of the standard magic 
  items list in the rules.
  I’m also planning a black market that buys and sells magic. I prefer 
  magic to be rare in my campaigns, for a grittier sword & sorcery 
  feel. Rather than players finding umpteen magic items over the 
  course of their adventures, I’d like them to become aware of the 
  black market and trade in weaker magic for more powerful items. A 
  bit of campaign recycling means a smaller amount of items in play 
  overall. This also creates a bit of competition over availability and 
  prices, which means more natural treasure siphoning, cool conflicts, 
  and more intrigue.
  
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  I don’t know who runs the black market yet. It might be one of the 
  factions, a faction in its own right, or something dark tied to the plot 
  to be revealed later in the campaign. Give everything a secret, right?
  *          *          *
  Duskfall does not depend on equipment or magic scarcity. If you 
  want to go four colour fantasy, power levels scale no problem. 
  There’s nothing in the design that needs low or high magic, low or 
  high wealth. At some point, money can only do so much. You can 
  only grow gardens so fast, log the forest at a maximum rate, explore 
  at certain speeds. Whether you have long or short adventuring days, 
  the setting doesn’t care.
  Even if you have so much magic and prosperity that the settlements 
  thrive, they will still compete and conflict over territory, discoveries 
  in the ruins, and the major plot arc.
  I just prefer low fantasy, so that’s the flavour of my design. But 
  you have the freedom to integrate Duskfall in whole or in part at 
  whatever power level you like.
  Events
  Events have a special place in my GMing heart. I feel slow because 
  I’ve only recently joined the party on this design approach in the 
  last couple of years. They are a fantastic way to do campaign design 
  and session planning, so I’m going to break Events into their own 
  section here.
  Events are encounters, which are the building blocks of adventures 
  and game sessions. Three death knights and a treasonous secret 
  in a room? That’s an event when the PCs enter. When two armies 
  
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  clash - that’s an event. When the PCs try to negotiate peace between 
  kings, that’s an event too.
  If it’s an encounter - past, present, or future - it’s an Event.
  Not everything is an event. Narrating over the course of five minutes 
  the PCs’ journey through a war-torn wilderness is not an event, 
  for example. There was no encounter there. Just monologue and 
  description.
  Let me know if this is unclear.
  Every event has four components:
  • Date & Time
  • PCs & NPCs, Monsters, or Foes
  • Location
  • Conflict
  There’s an optional fifth component: Items.
  Let’s dig into each of those event elements.
  Date & Time
  An event is not theory. It’s something that has actually happened 
  or is happening right now.
  It can also be a potential something that will happen. This is a key 
  anti-railroad GMing tool worth noting. More on it in a bit.
  In all these cases, there’s a time element.
  Past events are known as Background if you did not play it out. Else, 
  they are part of the Campaign Log.
  Current events are called Encounters.
  
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  Future events I call Plot.
  By giving each event a date and time stamp, you can organize them 
  into chronological order and make sense of them. And when you put 
  them in order, you have Story!
  PCs & NPCs, Monsters, or Foes
  Events need action. Action needs resistance. NPCs, monsters, and 
  “foes” are your source of resistance and challenge in encounters 
  and events.
  I put “foes” in quotes because the PCs might struggle against nature, 
  time, a trap, or some other opponent not technically an NPC or 
  monster.
  As long as some thing, force, or agency creates an uncertain outcome 
  for the PCs, we have a sufficient foe.
  Location
  Every event needs a place. It’s required by physics. :)
  Some locations have sub-locations that might be easier to think of 
  as just one place.
  For example, a small group of connected caves. When the PCs arrive, 
  all cave inhabitants react and coordinate together. In this case, I’d 
  consider this one location, not a separate location per cave.
  A location to me is something I’d govern with a single combat 
  or initiative roll. Or, if the PCs leave it, the encounter would be 
  considered over. That to me defines the boundaries of what a 
  location is.
  
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  Also, for Background and Plot events, it’s OK to name regions, cities, 
  dungeons, or big places as locations. Unless exact coordinates are 
  critical to understanding an event, you can go with bigger areas.
  Items
  In addition to people and places, events might have notable things. 
  Magic items, artifacts, treasure, special equipment, plot devices, and 
  such.
  I do a poor job of adding interesting items to events. That’s one of 
  my GMing goals for next year - to design better items and treasure. 
  Specifically, minor mundane and magic items.
  Anyway, items add great details to events to make them more 
  challenging or memorable.
  Build Events With Lego
  Let’s put all these tips together now into how I’ll actually design 
  and manage Duskfall.
  With the Lego approach, I’ll start by designing a bunch of the game 
  pieces independently.
  Create The Lego
  I’ll create factions, NPCs, monsters, items, and locations. Most will 
  be standalone. I’ll also use anything cool I find in my game books 
  or online. It all goes into the Lego box.
  This makes my design and prep job a whole lot easier!
  
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  Because now I can just build standalone game pieces whenever I 
  have time. I don’t have to worry about integration or plot at this 
  point. I’m just making ingredients.
  For NPCs, I’ll start with figuring out a few factions. Then I’ll create 
  faction leaders. The leaders will likely become villains, but they 
  could become allies if the PCs game it that way.
  Then I’ll create minor NPCs. I’ll raid my NPCs pile from MyInfo. (I 
  put all my past campaign NPCs into MyInfo for later re-use.)
  I’ll also create independent NPCs as ideas come to me. I always like 
  wizards and sorcerers doing mysterious things in their towers, for 
  example.
  I’ll also draw a rough map of Duskfall and place the factions. Then 
  I’ll sketch out a map of the city. And I’ll start pinning locations to it.
  And any special items that come to mind, I’ll make notes on and 
  flesh out.
  After awhile, I’ll have a big (sand)box full of game pieces ready to 
  use!
  Combo Into Events
  Once my box gets filled enough, I’ll start creating events.
  I’ll do a Timeline, and note important Background events.
  Then I’ll do a Plot line, and prep seeds for future events that will 
  possible become encounters.
  And using Loopy Planning, I’ll create current events to be Encounters 
  for next session.
  
  119
  What I want to draw to your attention here, in case I’ve described 
  this poorly, is you are not designing anything very linear here. It’s 
  all anti-railroad.
  You are also not committing to over-planning anything. This 
  approach will make maximum use of my limited prep time. Game 
  pieces I don’t use next session will be there for future sessions. 
  I can add and destroy any game pieces whenever either through 
  gameplay or through Plot without worrying about ruining a linear 
  story progression.
  To prep for sessions, I just need to focus on having game pieces 
  likely to be used ready for use.
  And here’s the keystone to the whole thing:
  During sessions, I only need to manage Events.
  Reacting to the PCs becomes figuring out what event will trigger 
  next because of PC actions.
  If gameplay stalls, I’ll whip up an event based on my Loopy Planning.
  Like a chef in his kitchen, I only need to grab a few ingredients, mix 
  them together, and throw them into the oven with the PCs to cook.
  In my experience, events form on their own. I don’t have to try very 
  hard to create them. It’s usually the PCs going somewhere or doing 
  something that triggers events. And when that happens, I just need 
  to grab the game pieces involved and start the encounter. I don’t 
  have to worry how things will end, or force things in any direction. 
  That takes a huge load off my back. I’m just cooking up events based 
  on ingredients the PCs draw in themselves.
  *          *          *
  
  120
  This whole approach makes the game flexible for everyone.
  It takes a lot of stress off me, and saves me a lot of time, because I 
  just need to create the Lego pieces. The PCs will take care of most 
  of the plot for me.
  With the exception of the overall plot arc, which I’ll talk about 
  in another article, I don’t need to steer things in any particular 
  direction. So I can just focus on creating and polishing the game 
  pieces.
  With a box slowly filling with great game pieces, I can be a nimble 
  GM, confident I can react to just about anything.
  At the big picture or meta level, I’m asking my players to stay within 
  the sandbox for me, so I can be more efficient and effective with the 
  Legos I make.
  And the nature of Duskfall’s design means I’m really just responsible 
  for creating city ruins and what might be in those ruins => NPCs, 
  Locations, and Items. That’s pretty simple and doable given my tight 
  schedule.
  I also feel this design approach gives any type of gameplay the PCs 
  want. Dungeons, politics, wilderness, exploration/hexcrawling, 
  combat, roleplaying, intrigue, resource gathering, puzzles.
  Last, I feel this design approach will please all four audiences. I’m 
  excited about running this campaign. And hopefully my players will 
  enjoy gaming it, and Roleplaying Tips readers will enjoy reading 
  about it. From a product point of view, the campaign is sure to 
  inspire.
  *          *          *
  
  121
  Thanks for reading! I know this was a long article. Once you get 
  it in book form, hopefully it’ll be easier to re-read, highlight, and 
  bookmark.
  Let me know if you have any questions about anything in this article 
  or how it might apply to your own GMing.
  
  122
  Credits
  Tipsters
  Alex Ulmer, Andrew Y., Ashley, Brent Davis, Bryan Crosswait, Chuck, 
  Da’ Vane, DM Atticus, Gary Williams, Heiko Mueller, Ivan Sorensen, 
  Kabuki Kaiser, Brett Slocum, James Holloway, MoonSylver, James 
  Singaram, Jeremy Brown, Joe Z, Joel Roush, Johnn Four, Joseph 
  Teller, KindredWolf, Manolo Sampaio, Mark of the Pixie, Michael 
  Garcia, Naoise McHugh, Paul Frische-Mouri, Paul Simmons, Phil 
  Hickey, Raldog, Rickard Elimää, Scott, Tor-Ivar Krogsæter
  Layout and Cover Design
  Craig Judd
  
  123
  
  124
  Thanks To My Wonderful 
  Patrons
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  Hyde, John Romero, Jon, Jon Mattison, Jon Mayo, Jonathan, Jonathan 
  
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  Nichols, Robert Ojamo, ronn, Rune Christensen, Ryan OMeara, Sam 
  Commadeur, Scott Adams, Scott Palter, Scott Stokes, Sean Stumpf, 
  Shane Slamet, Simon Hunt, Sina Svestad, static, Steve Bollenbaugh, 
  Steve Gilman, Steve Johnson, Steve Thompson, Terry Smithwick, 
  Thalia, Thomas Drevon, Tim, Tim Densham, Todd Landrum, Tom 
  Drake, Toni Severon, Trevor Lomas, Twila Price, Tynesha Carriere, 
  Vincent Arebalo, Vorona, Wes, Wine Guy, Zach.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Old School Revival (OSR(ic))/[Adventure Design & Dungeoncraft]/GM Advice & Writing/Roleplaying Tips Omnibus 1.pdf