What You Feed Will Grow

What you feed will grow, and what you starve will wither.

That's the essence of Johnn Four's blog post "You Are What Your Dice Eat."  It's good advice for life in general, but Four applies it specifically to energy at the table.  I want to examine the idea a bit more, because there's a lot of potential depth there.

RPGs are social systems: They take inputs from the people at the table, process them, and generate outputs.  The game system is only part of the social system at the table.  The style, energy, personalities, relationships, and improvisational styles of the people at the table are an even larger part of it.  These all combine to create a "machine" that takes what the people at the table bring to it, processes it, and produces the game session as it is experienced by the table.

If we open the hood of the machine, we can see a lot of intricate details.  Encounter design, weekly scheduling, GM authority, stakes setting, and a lot of other components work to process the table's inputs.  Run a Game has examined a lot of those machine parts individually.  But let's close the hood again, and look at the big picture, like Four does.

Johnn Four has created a clear definition of success in your GMing, and that's what's most valuable.

Framing the question of GM success as "what you feed will grow," you succeed as a GM when what you do (the input you create) generates outputs that inspire you to do more.  It's about sustainable fun.  That's important:  It's not just "if everyone had fun, it was a success" because there are many ways you can make a fun game, but some of them sap your energy and fail to inspire you to continue.

In RPGs, like life, you have to feed what you want to flourish.  If you love it when your players fall in love with your NPCs and start involving them in things, then that's where you should devote your energy -- not to combat encounter design or drawing world maps; but coming up with voices, personality traits, needs, and fears for your NPCs.  And ways to make them useful.  

Unfortunately, like in life, it's not always clear what inputs to feed, in order to produce your favorite outputs.  In that case, focus on the "fundamentals" - the things that always seem to produce more energy at your table.  I've played with hundreds of different players in my life, and I can list some universal GM fundamentals.  But more important to your table is the question of what are your fundamentals?  What are the things that produce outputs that inspire you when you do them?

Reflect on those, and run the game that inspires you.

Reference the blog post that inspired this one:  You Are What Your Dice Eat 

LARP Writing Video Series

I came across this video series and wanted to share it with you.  It's a series of videos on LARP writing.  It looked too juicy not to share immediately!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkcfpOLbv_dpIPI0L6jkwaHwH6u2ToBnN

Let me know what you think.  I plan to watch them slowly over the next several weeks.

Guest Post

A few weeks ago, I hosted my first guest post.  This week I wrote another guest post on Chaos Engineering, entitled The GM as Craftsman.  It's a short post that should frame every discussion about game system selection.  I believe that the only mature way to discuss RPG systems is in context of what they can be used to accomplish.  I argue that RPG systems are like tools for running a game; and like tools, there are systems that are right for a game, and systems that are wrong.  Choosing the right system is an important GM skill.

Go read it!

The Five Room Dungeon

Johnn Four's Five Room Dungeon design is pretty smart.  I'll let you navigate on over there and take a look at his original idea.  You can get his ebook for free, if you like.

The benefits of a five room dungeon:

• It's a formula that's easy to follow, but generates a lot of unique adventures without seeming cookie-cutter. 
• The dungeon can be explored in a single short session of play, making it a discrete story unit.  Use two or more for longer format games.  
• You can build a larger dungeon out of multiple five-room dungeons; or use several isolated ones in a hex crawl.  
• The curtailed design eliminates a lot of the filler encounters that you're tempted to include for larger dungeons or themed dungeons.
• The formula requires you to include scenes that play to diverse strengths and fantasy character archetypes.  There's a scene for the brain, a scene for the face, a scene for the big guy, etc.
• The diversity of scenes also gives you ample opportunity to insert any kind of character plot hooks you want.  Really, there is no excuse for not doing so.
• It packs a whole three-act structure into a short time, so it has great pacing and a thrilling conclusion.
• If you're running D&D or Pathfinder, the dungeon is a good amount of content for one adventuring day, containing 2-4 combat encounters and a 1-3 exploration and roleplay scenes.  There should be no reason for the PCs to camp to recover resources in the middle of the dungeon, and no need for time pressure.

And the drawbacks are limited.  Except for Johnn Four's contest, there's no reason you can't modify the five-room dungeon formula to suit your needs.  Do you want a lot of combat?  Add two combat scenes.  More roleplay?  Add some more NPCs.  Want to make it longer?  Stick two or three five room dungeons together, or add some scenes in the middle.  More exploration?  Add a maze with some puzzles, traps and wandering monsters in the middle.

Here's a summary of the technique:

1. The PCs are blocked from getting in by a guardian.  The dramatic question is "How can the heroes get into the dungeon?" The guardian could be in an antechamber or outside the dungeon; or the guardian could be a trap, puzzle, complex lock, etc.  Combat might help overcome the guardian, or it might be useless.

2. The PCs encounter a puzzle or social challenge.  This can be a locked door with a password and a riddle, or a complex trap, or a guardian.  It seems to me that rooms 1 and 2 are almost the same, except that room 2 should not be a combat scene; and room 1 might be a combat scene.  The reason Four uses these two scenes at the beginning is that he intends to ratchet up the pace later, and puzzles and roleplay don't have the thrilling, tense nature of a direct conflict.  Try to raise the stakes in room 2, though - the challenge in room 1 might be a sealed door with guards the PCs sneak past.  The challenge in room 2 might be a locked room filling with poison gas; or an angry NPC who escalates matters to a shouting argument that the PCs can't win by killing him.

3. A red herring.  This is the most confusing room.  The dramatic question of room 3 is "Does room 3 cost the PCs something?"  It's an opportunity for the players to choose between completeness and resource conservation.  Do we clear out the zombies in the crypt or move past it to deal with the main crypt?  Do we explore the dusty, half-collapsed passage or stay focused?  Do we have to fight the trained wolves guarding the supplies or can we sneak past them?  This room adds tension by forcing the players to give something up:  If you sneak past the wolves, you keep more spells and hit points, but lose out on searching the supply sacks.

The challenge of the red herring for the GM is that the players will ask, "can we just come back here after we get to the end?"  If the answer is "we're sure we can," there is no tension.  They'll ignore the crypt, skip the dusty passage, and sneak past the wolves.  The problem is that running a red herring challenge after the PCs have resolved the main reason they came here in the first place is anti-climactic (literally opposite of the climax, in this case).  Make sure you have an answer to the question "why can't we just come back here after we finish our main goal?" but don't make it so pressing that there is no real choice.  Often the reason is hidden in room 5, and applies time pressure:  The Sapphire has already been stolen?  There's no time to search that side passage!  We have to chase down the tiefling thief!  Sometimes the reason is part of room 3:  After the necromancer is slain, the zombies will be free to wander out into the countryside.  Finally, if you made room 3 a challenge already, you can hand-wave this part:  The wolves ran off after their master was slain.

4. The climax.  This room is the "boss fight," to use a video game term; and that's probably a better name for it.  The PCs have come to the dungeon to accomplish something.  This is the opponent standing in their way.  Did they come to the old crypt to kill the necromancer?  This is the necromancer's toughest undead monstrosity.  Did they explore the Lost Caves to get the Sapphire of Destiny?  This is the Archon that protects it.  Did they chase the killer of the Baron of Radua to this abandoned hunting lodge?  This is the cloaked assassin they discover in the basement.

5. The twist.  This room might not be an actual room at all, according to Four.  It's a plot twist that changes the nature of the story and lets you end the session on a cliffhanger; or causes the PCs a setback; or just serves as an unwelcome surprise.  The necromancer re-animates the undead monster, and now you have to fight the monster again, and it has the necromancer's aid!  The Sapphire of Destiny has already been stolen?  No!  But there's a clue here as to who stole it -- a tiefling hoofprint!  The assassin turns out to be just a lackey for a greater secret organization, but he takes poison before giving up his handler!  Sometimes the twist is just new plot information.  Say the PCs were breaking an infamous pirate out of prison because only the pirate knows how to navigate the reefs to get to the Isle of Dread.  When they get to the pirate, she explains that she was able to navigate the reefs because she had a deal with the sahuagin, but when the Commodore captured her and seized her ship, he took the ivory she owes them, so they won't help until they get the ivory that they want for some reason.

Three-Act Structure and Five Room Dungeons

Like I said above, five room dungeons are great because they come packaged with the elements of the three-act story structure.

Act 1:  You need to place your plot hooks outside the dungeon, to get the PCs interested in coming here and motivated to bypass the guardian.  The guardian could be the first act twist - where the protagonists commit to the adventure.

Act 2:  Room 2 and 3 are definitely rising action.  Room 2 is a non-combat challenge which can be deadly, but doesn't have the high tension of an active, lethal opponent.  Room 3 likely has a serious threat; and in addition, it forces the protagonists to make a hard choice.

Act 3:  How you use room 5 depends on the milieu that the five room dungeon is being designed for.  You might use it as the second act twist, darkest hour (which may last all of one combat round!), and climax all in one.  Or you may use it as a second act twist for your larger adventure.  That in turn helps you decide how to use room 4:

• If your story structure spans only the five-room dungeon, the peak of the rising action is Room 4; the second act twist is Room 5; and the third act - the climax - is overcoming the new challenge.  In a one-shot, you have to wrap up the story at the end, so you have to let the PCs resolve the new problem in room 5.  The example of the necromancer reviving the undead monster so the PCs have to fight it again works well here, because they have a twist that's immediately resolved.
• If you are using the five room dungeon as part of a greater story, you can end on a cliffhanger, with the second act twist coming in room 5.  The PCs then enter the "darkest hour" where they have another adventure (maybe another five room dungeon) where they scramble to resolve the twist before the climactic showdown against the antagonist (which might be yet another five room dungeon).
• If you are using the five room dungeon as part of a greater story, but don't need to use this moment for a twist or cliffhanger, end it on a bang.  A "bang" is something exciting that happens in the story to raise the stakes.  Let's say you're using a series of five room dungeons in the rising action of an adventure where the PCs are taking down a villain's resources to make him vulnerable.  One such sub-adventure is freeing all the villain's slaves.  The twist doesn't have to be a big surprise or even a defeat:  It can be a horrific revelation that establishes the main villain's evil.  Imagine a "room 5" scene where the PCs open the slave pit where the villain kept the children to force the adults to work with threats to their families.  Describe how the PCs see the scarred, stone-faced slaves break into tears as they are reunited with their abused, malnourished children.  To make it personal, let each player take an action to heal a sick child who can't stand, or to help a panicked parent find their baby amid the confusion, et cetera.

A and B Plots and Five Room Dungeons

Previously, I showed how to build richness into a dungeon by layering an A plot and a B plot.  The A plot is the reason the PCs have come to the dungeon.  The B plot is the tale of the history of the people, place, and geography around the dungeon that has mysterious effects on the A plot.

Room 1, A Plot:  The antagonists placed a guardian here to keep meddling adventurers out.
Room 1, B Plot:  The antagonists used this place because of its pre-existing defenses.  They know the trick to getting in and out - can the PCs figure it out?

Room 2, A Plot:  There is an NPC or trap here that the antagonists left.  This NPC is not immediately hostile to the PCs - and they may want to offer the PCs an alternative way to resolve the A Plot.  If it is a trap, it stands out as different from the older architecture.
Room 2, B Plot:  If you use an NPC, it's likely to be a creature native to the dungeon or the area around it, connected to the B Plot's story, such as a ghost or an intelligent monster.  This NPC will give exposition as well as present a roleplaying challenge.  B Plot in Room 2 could be an ancient puzzle that the A plot antagonists know how to bypass.  Or maybe they don't - and the puzzle merely opens up Room 3 (there are lots of different ways to structure a five room dungeon).

Room 3, A Plot:  The obvious A Plot for room 3 is a guard that the PCs need to sneak past.  Other opportunities include A Plot treasure guarded by a trap.
Room 3, B Plot:  If you've developed a B Plot that can be resolved, Room 3 could be a red herring for the A Plot, but also the climax for the B Plot.  Let's say that 2B was a ghost who, after being persuaded that the PCs were reverential, offered to aid the PCs if they would bury her body.  Room 3 may have the ghost's bones, but the carrion crawler in there isn't likely to give them up.

Room 4, A Plot:  Typically room 4 is going to be the centerpiece of your A Plot.
Room 4, B Plot:  Because room 4 is usually an A Plot climax scene, you may not use B Plot.  If you do, it's often to show the effect of the B Plot on the A Plot.  Here's where your ghost either comes in and attacks everyone for disturbing its rest, or comes in to help the PCs defeat their A Plot antagonist as part of their bargain.

Room 5, A Plot:  If you're doing a one-shot, the twist likely relates to whatever you did in room 4.  If you're using the dungeon as your second act twist in a larger adventure, it definitely involves the A Plot.
Room 5, B Plot:  If you're using the five room dungeon in the middle of a larger adventure, you can make the twist part of the B Plot.  The room 5 twist is a great place to resolve the B Plot.  This is where you can introduce a twist or bang related to the history of the people and place around the dungeon.  This is where the volcano starts to erupt or ancient crypt opens, the ghost gets her revenge, etc.  These developments can often be surprising and exciting.  Ask yourself "What would Michael Bay do?"  (Or read this guest post to see how to run a game like a Bay film!)

Hex Crawling for Five Room Dungeons

Five room dungeons are amazing points of interest (POIs) for a hex crawl adventure.  POIs usually don't need to be long mega-dungeons.  They should be short one-session nuggets of story that the PCs encounter and investigate as they explore the map.

That's about all I have to say on five room dungeons.  May the Fourth be With You!

With Friends Like These

Today, in a collaboration with Reinhart of Chaos Engineering, Run a Game presents tips and tools for GMs to portray difficult NPCs.  These are notable named non-player characters -- major secondary characters in the story -- who the player characters interact with, but who are not perfect allies.  That is, they often cause problems for the PCs, run at cross purposes, represent challenges of their own, and make difficult demands.  

Don’t Be Yourself: Change Your Perspective

It seems obvious.  It’s the definition of “role playing” after all.  Don’t be yourself.  But taking on a troublesome NPC’s role requires you to do more than do a bad accent, describe a physical quirk, and read over a list of motivations.  You have to remember that the NPC is not the GM.  You have to pretend not to know everything that’s going on.

Let me give you a scenario.  Let’s say there’s a major NPC who works as a police community liaison.  This character is in charge of the policing efforts in the slum neighborhood (territory) your Werewolf: the Forsaken characters live in (patrol).  The morning after a particularly bad battle against a spirit of despair involving the PCs using flash-bangs and shotguns (like PCs seem to carry everywhere), she and some uniformed officers approach the PCs’ row house.  They explain that they protected the neighborhood from a spiritual incursion, and they can prove it if she’ll just come with them to the old condemned elementary school.  As the GM, you know that they actually only violated some firearms laws, but she doesn’t know that.  She probably suspects they were involved in a gang war, and while no bodies were found, that doesn’t mean nobody got killed, shotguns and grenades being what they are and all.  

The quick GM response is to call for a die roll, probably with a penalty for the outlandish claims.  A player hucks some dice and gets a few successes on Persuasion.  The end, right?

Wrong.  As a GM, you should use social skills to help remind yourself that you are not your NPCs, and your players are not their characters.  Just like a single Firearms roll couldn’t instantly solve the problem of the Despair spirit, a single Persuasion roll can’t instantly bring this cop around.  And more system is not the answer.  (The god-awful God Machine Social Maneuvers system would not help here.)  

The Basics of NPC Scenes

Interacting with a challenging NPC is just like interacting with a challenging person in real life:  You have to assess their behavior, figure out what they really want, align their needs with yours, and ensure that what you say is received as effectively as possible.  In a tabletop RPG, social skill systems only do so much here, anyway.

1. Assess their behavior and figure out what they really want:  Make your NPCs fairly simple so that the players can figure out what they want quickly.  Villains might conceal their motives, but even the most troublesome non-villain NPCs should blatantly telegraph them.  Even an NPC who has needs they don’t want to admit to should behave as if they’re hiding something (not making eye contact, stammering, hesitating, using evasive language, trying to end the conversation).  Social system might help you here, if you’re not the best actor, or if the players are stumped.  They can make Empathy, Sense Motive, Knowledge: Local, Criminology, or other such checks or spends or whatever to give them the information they need.  It’s optional, but it can come in handy.
2. Align their needs with yours:  This is Sales 101.  You can’t sell someone something they don’t already want.  Luckily, people are complicated, and while they usually want something you’re selling, they might have reasons why they can’t buy it right now.  Your goal is to help them overcome those barriers.  This is the key to fun NPC interactions.  (Aside:  This is also why the Social Maneuvers system in God Machine Chronicle is so bad.  It abstracts this part.)  
3. Ensure what you say is received as effectively as possible:  This is where players like to role-play their plea, argument, pitch, demand, or whatever.  This is also where good actors, charismatic players, and players with sales jobs really shine.  This is the only part of the social interaction that requires or even benefits from any system.  It allows the action to pause for a moment, allowing the players to bring in their Personality Traits, Alignment, Bonds, Flaws, Aspects, and other motivation traits.  Then it allows a die roll to override any social skills the player may or may not have.

You Think YOU Have Problems?

The fun of a social interaction encounter for players is the challenge of overcoming the NPC’s motivations and needs that make them unhelpful (if not troublesome).  The GM’s challenge is designing NPCs whose needs and motivations prevent them from being immediately and unquestioningly helpful to the PCs.  This is where it helps to prep for your session, because if you improvise an important NPC, you may find yourself listening to reason from the PCs, and that just won’t do!  Even GMs who like to improv should pause the action and take a minute to come up with the NPCs’ motives and issues that interfere.

Remember, only NPCs who are going to recur or who are important to the story should get this treatment.  You don’t need to turn every bartender, contact, and shopkeeper into a challenging encounter!

Here is a list of reasons NPCs might not be all that helpful to the PCs.  Each is listed with a few example ways PCs can overcome it.  Your creative players are likely to think of means we haven’t listed.

Aligned (for now!):  The NPC's goals, ideology or loyalties support the PCs' goals.  There is no conflict or issue interfering… yet.  The NPC agrees to help, but something is bound to come up that changes things.  Pick a problem or conflict for the NPC to come down with at the worst possible time.  

Solution:  If the NPC’s help is important, they might want to keep a close eye on them, in which case, they might sense trouble down the road and cut it off before it causes a problem.

Interdicted:  The NPC's goals, ideology or loyalties support the PCs' goals, but something has tied up the resource the PCs need, so they must help fix it first.  For instance, they would loan the PCs their magic rod, but the magic rod has been stolen.  Or they would send their soldiers to help defend the border, but the soldiers are torn apart by dissension and strife.  This tends to create a nesting doll quest.

Solution: The PCs need to help the NPC overcome the interdiction.  Alternately, they can use other NPCs to help, if they’re in a rush, or they can be pushy.

Judgmental:  The NPC's goals, ideology or loyalties support the PCs' goals, but they disagree with the PCs' methods and refuse to be associated with them.

Solution:  The PCs can promise (honestly or not) to mend their ways, or force a confrontation and shame the NPC into admitting his or her bias.  They can hide or deny their activities, or try to spin them.  

Skeptical:  The NPC demands hard evidence, often requiring very convincing proof, before believing the PCs' need requires anything from them.  The NPC will come around with proof.  The standard of evidence required to motivate the NPC depends on their level of urgency.  They might irrationally skeptical (or just irrationally lazy).

Solution:  Obviously this isn’t much of a challenge if the PCs have sufficient proof ready to hand, so the GM should make the NPC demand more proof than the PCs can readily produce.  The PCs can leave collect evidence, or they can try to lower the NPC’s standard for proof by impressing them with their honor and reliability, or with the urgency of the need.

Interference:  Helping the PCs would distract from, interfere with, or take resources away from the NPC's other priorities.  These tend to be important projects that would suffer greatly if they were neglected.  This is the kind of problem that comes up when the PCs ask someone to take time off work to help them.  Sure, a burger flipper has no trouble calling in sick, but what if the NPC is an important police detective and there’s a high level strategy meeting that morning?

Solution:  The PCs can expend their own time and resources to support the NPC’s other priorities in return for the NPC’s help.  Usually the NPC is going to require more from the PCs than what they get in return, because of the NPC’s particular perspective.  

Personal Problem:  The NPC agrees with the PCs, but there is a pressing personal problem they have to deal with that puts them at odds with, or at least in disagreement with, the PCs.  This can be the villain's agency ("I will kill your husband if you help those guys") or just happenstance ("I'd love to help tomorrow, but if I cancel on my girlfriend at the last minute one more time, she's going to leave me.")

Solution:  The PCs will probably try to solve this like in Interdiction, above.  But here, things are personal.  And that means that the NPC is likely to have strong opinions about their “solutions” and will at least want to be involved, if not lead, the effort to fix things.  Sometimes the NPC won’t want any help.  “You’ll just make things worse!”  In that case, the PCs have to get out of problem solving mode, and try to persuade the NPC to help in any way they can.  They may even have to urge the NPC to suffer the personal cost for them, which is awkward and definitely indebts them to the NPC.

Cross-Purposes:  The NPC's goals, ideology or loyalties directly conflict with the PCs' goals, but are not aligned with the villain's goals either.  

Solution:  The PCs need to find some common ground with the NPC, or identify a higher loyalty or cause that they both share.  "You may need to guard the tomb, and we may want to get into the tomb, but we both serve the gods of good, and they have sent us on a mission to cleanse the tomb."

Debt:  The PCs owe the NPC, and the NPC will not help them until the debt is paid.  The NPC doesn't trust them until the debt is paid.  Maybe the debt is a major favor or money that the PCs took advantage of.  Or maybe the PCs offended or embarrassed the NPC, and the debt means they have to make up to the NPC for the offense.

Solution:  The PCs can pay their debt, but that usually costs them much needed resources at a time when they’re already reaching out and asking for help from others.  The PCs can persuade the NPC that they’re honorable and “good for it” to build enough trust to get more favors from the NPC.  They can make a partial payment and hope it’s enough.  They can try honeyed words, casting the NPC as their savior; or on the other hand, try the hard sell.

Rival:  The NPCs are rivals to or opposed to the PCs themselves.  The conflict is not ideological but personal.  The rival is not a villain, though an extremely desperate rival is basically the same a villain.  A rival typically wants to prove themselves better than the PCs, which often means they're pursuing the same goal.  Imagine falling into an inescapable pit trap, expecting to die there, then seeing that odious rival’s face appear above you.  “It seems I’ve finally come out on top, so to speak…  Heh...”

Solutions:  Needing something from a rival is a hard place to be in.  Depending on the PCs’ need and the rival’s position, they may need to beg, threaten, or trick the rival.  

Frenemy:  The NPC's goals, ideology or loyalties are aligned with the villain's, but they are on friendly terms with the PCs themselves, willing to trade favors, and might be brought around depending on the urgency of their motivation.  Making deals with enemy agents is great for nuanced settings where there’s no black and white.  Making deals with enemy agents is great for nuanced settings where there’s no black and white.  

Solutions:  The PCs will need to be careful making deals with devils, no matter how friendly they seem.  Some frenimies are like Magneto:  They’re civil and fully committed to opposing the “good guys.” In that case, the trick is making a deal that avoids causing more harm than good.  Some frenimies are not so committed, and the PCs can play on their doubts.  Alternately, the PCs can trick the NPC into helping them, or use other leverage to force them.

Feelings Get in the Way

Even with all of the problems listed above, it stands to reason that if the PCs can find a solution that benefits all parties, that should wrap things up.  Reason prevails.  Everybody wins.

But it’s never that easy.

The problem with NPCs is that they're human, and have human feelings and passions. Feelings can get in the way.  Here’s a quick tool:  Pick (or randomly roll, if that’s your bag) one of the problems for your NPC.  Then decide (or randomly roll) how passionate the NPC is about it.  Below is a scale from least passionate to most, and how those feelings can really get in the way of the NPC agreeing to help the PCs.  The strength of the NPC’s passion increases the difficulty the PCs must overcome and cost that the PCs must pay to get what they need from the NPC.  The strongest passions can even make NPCs into potential villains in their own right, if the PCs aren’t careful.

Cautious:  The NPC is pragmatic and listens to reason, but may still have other priorities.  Because of their pragmatism, the NPC is likely to avoid helping the PCs do anything rash or reckless, but on the other hand, they are much more likely to listen to a plan that improves their safety and security.  This is the admiral who won’t agree to take the whole fleet off the blockade to search for the lost courier ship; or the cleric who insists that the PCs go through a week-long ordeal of purification before entering the sealed temple, just in case.

Passionate:  The NPC is eager to achieve their goals and will put them over approximately equal priorities, but won't ignore a credible danger to their life.  This NPC cares enough to be a major inconvenience.  This is the Baron who won’t release the soothsayer from the dungeon because he insulted the Baron’s wife; or police lieutenant who won’t send help because she doesn’t believe in zombies, even if the PCs produce “obviously photoshopped” proof.

Desperate:  The NPC puts their goals over significantly more pressing priorities, including danger to their own life.  They will not put others in clear danger for their own agenda.  This is the sort of NPC who will go try to save his son from the ogres, even if he has to go alone on a suicide mission; and if the PCs help, he’s going to want to come along.

Irrational:  The NPC will risk their life and the lives of others for their priorities.  The NPC will commit crimes and minor evil acts to achieve their goal, short of directly causing the death of innocents.

Insane:  The NPC may be driven to commit crimes and evil acts, even heinous crimes, to achieve their goal.  Try to avoid any implication of mental illness -- whatever makes this NPC so irrational should be a strong emotion like pride, grief, love, or hate.  Imagine an NPC who has tried to follow the same leads and quests as the PCs, but keeps coming up a day late and a gold piece short.  Their pride has been so injured that while they won’t kill the PCs directly, they might leave them to their grisly fate in the aforementioned pit trap.

Monster:  The NPC uses their personal goals and ideology to justify repeatedly committing heinous crimes.  This is the sort of NPC that is often more trouble than they’re worth.  Imagine a wizard with great magical power who continues sending curses down upon the House of Urala because Jericho of Urala was cruel to her and caused the death of her child.  What the PCs must do to get the help of a monster is often morally repugnant.  The PCs might be able to get the wizard’s help, but only by offering to kidnap an Urala child to replace the one she lost.  If the fate of the world is at stake, will they commit a heinous act to please a monster for the greater good?  This sort of situation raises the stakes considerably:  “If we don’t find some other way to open the portal, we will be forced to kidnap a Urala child for this foul wizard, so she will open it.  And time is running out.”  Sometimes it’s not that blatant, though.  And sometimes the monster is a literal monster.  “Watch your back, shoot straight, conserve ammo, and never, ever, cut a deal with a dragon.”  - Street Proverb (Shadowrun, 1989).

Tables

The fun of improvisation is that sometimes you find yourself needing to come up with an important NPC on the fly. After you've decided their name, appearance, and other features, you can use these tables to randomly determine what makes them so troublesome.

What kind of conflict or problem is there? (roll 1d20)

1-2 = Aligned (for now)

3-5 = Interdicted 6-7 = Judgmental 8-9 = Skeptical 10-11 = Interference 12-14 = Personal Problem 15-16 = Cross-Purposes 17-18 = Debt 19 = Rival 20 = Frenemy

What is the nature of the problem? (roll 1d20)

1-6 = Love (family, friends, mate)

7-11 = Money (greed, debt, poverty, class barriers)

12-15 = Power (ambition, appearances, authority, orders)

16-18 = Religion (dogma, opposed gods)

19-20 = Ideology (chaos, law, caution, glory)

How does the NPC feel about it? (roll 1d20) 1-4 = Cautious 5-9 = Passionate 10-14 = Desperate 15-18 = Irrational 19 = Insane 20 = Monster

PS. This post was composed in Google Docs and pasted in here. Do you like the formatting better? Is it worse? Leave some feedback!

Building Encounters Angry DM Style

The Angry DM has an entertaining and wise post again.  Go read it!  This post on Run a Game discusses his instructions for making awesome encounters.  You can read mine first since a lot of what I'm saying summarizes and comments on his points, but you owe it to yourself go read the original.

http://angrydm.com/2013/05/four-things-youve-never-heard-of-that-make-encounters-not-suck/

You'll also find he has an entertaining and persuasive writing style.  Speak of which, let me quote the thesis of the essay I'm referring to, directly.  He urges DMs to build encounters (whether on the fly or in prep) and run them with the following process:

"Figure Out the Dramatic Question, Sources of Conflict, and Structure; Adjudicate All the Actions, but Watch for the End of the Encounter; then End the Encounter"

Angry gives us this procedure.  Despite the title of the post, the process is more like 6 things than 4.  Let me break it down into a list, then go item by item, briefly:

1. Figure Out the Dramatic Question
2. Determine the Sources of Conflict
3. Add Structure if Needed
4. Adjudicate Player Actions
5. Watch for the End of the Encounter
6. End the Encounter

Figure Out the Dramatic Question

Angry's "dramatic question" is the objective of the scene, written in yes/no question form.  Just having a fight in a dungeon is fine, as long as you know why it's happening.  And once you know why, it may be that the players will decide to resolve the fight differently perhaps with some other means than a fight.

In addition to what Angry says, I would argue that the GM needs to make sure the players know the dramatic question.  Let me cut your obvious objection off with an example:

"Assassins leap from the shadows, gunning the envoy down with incredibly precise blaster fire, then turning on you as he drops to the floor.  They are prepared to fight their way clear, but they also seem prepared to die here."

This is a random attack and a fight to the death.  The players don't know why the scene is happening.  But if you stop and think of the dramatic question, this random combat scene suddenly becomes more interesting...  But to make sure the players have the dramatic question in their mind, it helps to add something to the introduction of the scene to communicate it:

"As he collapses, the envoy gasps, 'Whyyyy?'  Apparently even he didn't know who sent the assassins or why.  Curious..."

The dramatic question is "will the PCs get a lead as to who sent the assassins and why?"  This question constrains the combat, preventing the PCs from using plasma guns, grenades, or other weapons that will destroy evidence.  And they might try to subdue one or more of the assassins to interrogate them later.

Determine the Sources of Conflict

By this Angry means "what does everyone want to achieve in this scene?"  This creates more options for alternate resolution.  After all, if everyone gets what they want, nobody has to die.  The wolves want to protect their territory, so if the heroes can get through avoiding wolf bites by running like hell or sneaking through cautiously, they win.  He hints that social scenes need internal conflict -- that is, the NPCs need multiple motivations, so that one can play off the other.  This also works for combat:  Bandits want to get rich.  This leads them to rob the PCs, which means they have to overcome their resistance with violence.  But the PCs aren't the only people on the road, and they also want to live.  Once it's clear that it's more costly to fight than to run away, the bandits will do just that.  Tracking conflicting motivations can be done intuitively, or the DM can use game system or a kludged system Anrgy invented to track this...

Add Structure if Needed

Some games have morale systems, or systems for determining when combatants are beaten down.  Others lack these systems, and even these systems don't cover all possible situations where NPCs have conflicting motivations.  He suggests, if you feel the need for structure, writing down the NPCs' motivations, and giving them scores from 1 to 10, starting somewhere from 2-9.  The players' action choices can influence the NPCs' motivations.  Set an end condition.  His example is pretty good:

The orcs begin with a ferocity of eight and a fear of two. Each time something happens that makes them want to run away or leave, increase the fear score. Each time something happens to make them more dedicated to killing the party, increase the ferocity score. If the fear ever equals the ferocity, the orcs flee.

That's a kludged on morale system.  Note that 4e D&D's morale system is entirely up to the players -- it takes a Standard Action to Intimidate an opponent, rolling a skill check against his Will defense plus TEN to force him to surrender.  That's a terrible system.  First of all, it has no suggested situational modifiers.  Say the monster is the last orc left out of ten that attacked the party, he's bloodied, and surrounded.  Wouldn't he be thinking about surrender without it even being suggested to him?  3rd edition was even worse.  Successfully intimidating a monster gave it -2 for a round.  That's it.  The old morale systems from 1st and 2nd edition were erased and not replaced.  Pathfinder did not correct this problem.

Something Angry doesn't say, and I feel needs to be said, is that the GM needs to communicate his structure to the players.  The NPCs' motivations don't have to be obvious to the players, of course, but if they have the opportunity to move footballs in a scene, the players won't deliberately try to move them unless they know about them.  Unlike the dramatic question, the GM doesn't have to explicitly communicate this to the players, instead he should make it clear when their actions change the score somehow.  Whenever a player action changes the score, even if you're handling it intuitively instead of with Angry's 1-10 system, let the players know with some narration.  If there's an opportunity to change the score in a big way, hint at that too:

"The orcs attack with a fierce cry, 'Death before dishonor!'  It appears that they would rather die in battle than be seen as cowards in front of their warleader."

So they're going to want to take out the warleader first...

"As the warleader falls, his soldiers stop screaming blustering threats.  They turn their full attention to the thrust-and-parry of the melee, fighting for their lives now, instead of their honor."

So they're expecting that when the orcs start to see their lives threatened, they're going to look for ways out...

"Your blow opens a bloody wound on the orc's arm.  He shifts his grip on the falchion, taking more of its weight on his other arm and steps back to a more defensive posture, looking worried.  A sudden change in the tide of the battle now could spook him."

Now you gave them a clue.  They can do something flashy and scare the orcs off.  Maybe a critical hit, or a "nova turn" or a single potent spell...  Their options are wide open.  They can also decide these orcs don't deserve to live and fight them down to the last, slaughtering them to a man.  But it's up to them.  By employing multiple conflicting motivations, the players' option space has opened up

"After the fireball, half the orcs lay motionless on the floor.  They seem to be glancing around, as if looking for a clear escape route.  Now it's Orc #3's turn.  He shifts back and then runs out the door, leaving just two singed and wounded orcs facing you.  They back out of reach of your weapons cautiously, inching toward the door.  What do you do?"

If the players want to chase down the orcs and slaughter them to a man (orc), you misjudged what the players thought the dramatic question was (it was actually "will the PCs kill all the orcs?" not "will the PCs survive the orc ambush?" or whatever).  That's not bad.  All it means is the players are about to start a new encounter, whose dramatic question is "Will the PCs hunt down all the orcs that ran away?"  A creative DM might come up with interesting consequences for failure there.  Or if you're not feeling like running that scene, you can hand-wave it and let the PCs catch the orcs automatically without running it as an encounter.

Adjudicate Player Actions

Go read Angry DM's post about this.  Remember, you can prep the encounter, but you can't prep the players' action choices.  So go ahead and come up with some structure for likely contingencies, but be prepared to be flexible if the players go outside the box.  This tends to be hard on prep GMs like me.  Prep GMs invest a lot of time into designing encounters to be fun and interesting.  This is why I hate plot killing magic in games.  It's hard to predict when you've got a good dramatic scene, if a player with access to that stuff will just say "I cast X" and shortcut everything.  More on the continuum of player empowerment next week when I discuss what I call The Hunter-Horror Ladder.

Watch for the End of the Encounter

Angry says the encounter is over when one of the following happens:

• The dramatic question has been answered
• The conflicts are clearly resolved
• Most of the players have run out of decision points

The first two are already covered, and you should read the original article for more information on them.  The third is interesting.  Decision points for him are like my definition of risks -- consequential decisions without knowing all the facts.  If everything is known, then the choice is obvious.  If the decision has no real consequence, it's not important.  But decision points can also be narrative decision points:  When the players have control over which way the story goes, that's still in play.

Angry has a great analysis of a scene as a bunch of unknowns (barriers to resolving questions and conflicts).  As the scene progresses, the players take actions to resolve the barriers.  They also use up their own resources.  As their resources are consumed, their options dwindle.  As the number of barriers are reduced, their decision points dwindle.  It is possible to reach a point where the question has not been answered, and the conflicts aren't all resolved, but the majority of players have run out of decision points.  The fighters are surrounding their enemy.  The wizards are spamming the same spell (or are out of the good ones), etc.  In this case the encounter is over because the players' choices have little impact on the outcome, so they're just going through the motions.

Often the players seem to be out of decision points because they're repeating actions over and over (regardless of whether they have other choices).  This is usually a signal that the dramatic question has been answered:  The players are using the same weak attacks over and over because they know they're going to win anyway.

End the Encounter

The Angry DM recommends you use no more than three rounds from the point where you realize the encounter is over and the point where you end it.  It's usually easy to end it sooner.  This is easy with non-combat encounters, because you don't have a rigid order of actions.  Combat encounters are a little more tricky.  In my experience running D&D, the players realize they're going to win an encounter about one or two combat rounds after the DM does.  This gives the GM time to drop strong clues that the enemy is demoralized and ready to flee or surrender, and have them disengage.

In Sum

Go read the original post!  Actually it's part of a series of posts on DMing that seems to be the Angry DM's magnum opus, so to speak.  Go read them all.  They're very good.