Town Gate Guard

[d&d] Learning

2005-12-05T11:14:00.000-08:00

I feel sorry for the D&D wizard who collects thousands of books on occult knowledge. Unless it's a spell-book these books are entirely useless. And the adult training seminars must run light in the D&D world as well, since no one can learn skills from being taught them. Everyone knows that you learn to be a better blacksmith by killing mighty monsters. Imagine going to a cooking seminar and finding that instead of a kitchen your course is held in a monster filled dungeon.

Jokes aside, according to the rules, there is NO way to learn a skill through any means other than gaining a level. The fastest way to gain a level is to kill monsters and in doing that, your skills go up. This tends to be a little unrealistic and also means that characters are completely unmotivated to seek out teachers or asked to be taught anything.

So here's an idea for a system. Each session of the game as a GM you have 1 discretionary point to grant to each player (you may want to vary this time since in our group we game intensively for about 10 hours per session, sometimes longer). If a character does something really exceptional towards learning something then you might want to give them a bonus point... or not. Based on what the character does during the session decide where to place the point according to the guidelines below. Note: Players should not get to spend these themselves. You as the GM spend them for the character based on their in game actions. It's up to you whether you think it's best to inform players of the exact rules to this system or even that it exists. You may simply total these up and inform the character when they receive a benefit.

Learning a new skill: If the character is doing something new a lot, or being trained in a particular skill that they don't have spend that discretionary point to give them 1 rank in the skill.

Increasing a skill: This should be significantly more difficult. Don't increase skills just for using them (unless they're using them an awful lot), but rather when they have a chance to learn something new about that skill or receive training (or use the skill under exceptional circumstances). COST: 1 discretionary point per current rank in the skill

Combat skill: BAB won't increase through this, that requires XP, but if a character receives training in a weapon (with which they're not proficient) they can reduce the non-proficient penalty by 1 with a discretionary point. When all the penalty is gone they are considered to be proficient in that weapon (and that weapon alone).

Armour: Likewise receiving training in wearing a particular armour decreases the armour check penalty by one until the character is proficient in that armour. (though in this case I would apply the reduction to all types of armour not just that particular suit). Note that this is the armour check penalty to ATTACK ROLLS (which you get when non-proficient), not the armour check penalty to skills. If a character is already proficient in at least wearing light armour and moving towards a heavier armour you may want to have them start with a reduction already.

Multi-classing: In order to gain approval to multiclass a character must be awarded 10 discretionary points towards multiclassing. In other words for ten sessions their main non-adventuring activity should be training towards that other class.

Gaining a feat: Feats are something that's probably better to do by level but you can begin awarding discretionary points towards micro-feats, a single component from a feat. For example a metamagic feat that can only be applied towards a particular spell or school or a single one of the three-in-one feats from the complete warrior. If the player chooses the normal feat though when they level any discretionary points spent here should be given back to the player (after all it's good roleplaying for them to take that feat when they already have a partial benefit) by giving them one extra point per session until they've all been paid back.

You can put them towards other things, but those are the key components where I would consider placing them.

Young Gandalf

2005-12-05T09:35:00.000-08:00

When the GM announces that a game will be starting off at 1st level, sometimes it can be hard to find inspiration. All the heroes we're used to in TV and books tend to be at the height of their career with a long story behind them. A 1st level character, since they're usually around 16 and fresh out of training, tends to not have enough to them yet to seem to be even worth telling stories about. For people with epic scale imaginations such humble beginnings can be hard to play.

A solution that I've found is to imagine a great and powerful hero, either a new hero of your own creation or a hero like gandalf from another story. Then imagine this new game as a spin-off series like "young indiana jones", in which you're telling the story of how that hero reached their heights at which you first imagined them.

You don't have to stick to this concept necessarily. By the time you reach epic level (should the game go on that long) your "young gandalf" may have completely shifted focus away from becoming the grey wizard of legend and focused more on becoming a mighty warrior aided by his magical talents.

Every mighty hero has to start somewhere.

On Tour

2005-12-05T09:14:00.000-08:00

Most groups end up playing the traditional "adventuring party", in which you're a group of wandering heroes who travel the land righting wrongs. For groups like this, it's frequently only an out of game knowledge that "yes, we're in this group because we're all PCs" that keeps everyone together.

In the game I'm currently playing in though, we're a fantasy band on tour. It's still D&D, we still stumble across mysterious dungeons and towns in need of being saved from a dragon. However our characters have a reason to stick together, you can adventure without a cleric (just pack potions of healing) but you can't perform without your guitarist or vocalist.

As it happens not a single one of us is even a bard. We have our class, but we're no longer defined by that alone. Yes, I'm the party's sorceror but even more than that I'm the band's lead vocals. By defining your function in the group in another way, class becomes less of an issue which I feel is as it should be.

Playing a band isn't the only other option to get away from being "adventurers", you could as easily be merchants, organised crime, scholars, the inquisition, explorers, mercenaries, heralds and even a sporting team (hey, it worked in final fantasy ten). Having a defined group structure adds a lot to the game. You can consider it in your next game, or even better consider it in the game you're currently in. Ask the other players (and their characters) to define the group and see what that question adds to the game.

As a GM I've never really tried this in the past. The characters were just a group of people, united by the fact that they were going on this adventure. In short, I've always played the cliched "group of adventurers" games. Adding definition to the group structure though is something that adds a lot to a game, it's certainly something I'll be adding to my games in the future.

"Gamism"

2005-12-05T08:44:00.000-08:00

I started gaming back with the red set of original D&D. So I can be a bit of a grumpy old man (a twenty-one year old grumpy old man) when it comes to roleplaying and "them new fandangled things those kids of today are playing with". Recently I came across this strange concept called "gamism"...

Here's the definition from The Forge.

"Gamism is expressed by competition among participants (the real people); it includes victory and loss conditions for characters, both short-term and long-term, that reflect on the people's actual play strategies. The listed elements provide an arena for the competition."

And I started wondering when the power-gamers started getting good PR representation. In my day we used to tease those people mercilessly and call them munchkins (geeks have to have someone lower on the ladder than they are). Since this "gamism" thing is apparently something people these days can admit to in public without embarassing themselves, let me just make my stance clear from the start.

You can not win a roleplaying game, except by having fun.
Any "victory" belongs to your character, not to you.
Correspondingly "failure" is your character's, not yours.
The only concern of players and GMs should be to have fun and tell a good story.
Good roleplayers would prefer their characters to fail, than to break character.

Know now that I hold these to be fundamental truths and will never ever shift my opinion on this one matter. This is where I stand on the issue and it is advice dealing with this side of roleplaying that I will give you. In fact I will try to help you overcome "gamism" (or as it's really known, the terrible evil of munchkinism). If you are hopelessly addicting to power-gaming then this website may not be for you, the battlenet diablo II servers may be more your style.

Halt, who goes?

2005-12-05T07:22:00.000-08:00

In every roleplaying game you have the guards at the town gate. Everything else may change between campaign worlds but there's still those same bored characters standing there and prying into everyone else's business. It's an iconic image that represents roleplaying games and as I'm a security guard myself doing the same boring job, I thought it would be a good name for this site.

The purpose of this site is articles on roleplaying. Sometimes advice (for players and GMs), sometimes questions that I'm pondering (which you can maybe help me answer through your comments).

I don't have regular access to the internet so it'll be irregular. A lot of articles that I've written at home will spontaneously appear here on those days when I do get access to the net. So without further ado, enjoy.