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One-Page Dungeon Contest Goodness!


Want to see a list of all entries? Follow this link to see some of the 112 entries of the contest, more are added every day.



Jul 02 2009

Friday Chat: Dealing with Aggressive/Jerk Players

bullywugA few weeks ago I got a very interesting letter.

I joined my past 2 live tabletop campaigns as a new player joining a pre-established group of players for a new campaign. In both, I’ve encountered a particularly nasty type of player that has caused no end of strife and grief, as follows:

1. Their PC immediately latches onto something about my PC, usually their race or “they act funny”, to justify constantly taunting them, insulting them, bossing them around, and shouting them down during  in-character debates with words like “You don’t get to talk, freak! Shut up!”  I don’t know how I got the horrible luck of being the victim twice, but I think it’s because I was the newest member of the gang and therefore the easiest target.

2. Their PC acts constantly angry and touchy, insulting NPCs we’re trying to work with and attacking them if they retort. The rest of the party often ends up running Damage Control for them.

3. Their PC either acts defeatist (”Screw it, we’re boned, let’s just go up there and attack them all!”) or reckless (”We need to save my girlfriend now! Plan? Eh, we’ll toss one together. Even if we fail, I will be reincarnated gloriously!”) and then try to shout down the rest of the party into going along. One of them nearly caused our GM to abort the campaign because he refused to let the party do anything other than kamikaze to get out of a bind. The other one insisted on going with a half-assed plan that we were warned would lead to us being shunted into a deadly plane; when it failed and we got shunted, he basically shrugged and said we were bound to end up there sooner or later.

Both PCs have made me ponder quitting the campaign outright, or having my PC slit their throats in their sleep.  Both GMs complained about the players’ actions in private conversations, but either didn’t bring it up to them (”He always acts like this, just have to live with it.”) or try to change them IC ineffectively (”He’ll sober up IC once he realizes his lover needs his help.” He didn’t.). At best, the rest of the party just tolerated/ignored them; at worst, one or two of the other PCs supported their half-baked plans.

OOC, they act nice enough, if snappy at times. It isn’t until they turn IC they go mean. One of them not only made a backstory justifying why he’s an arrogant, kleptomaniac, violent barbarian, but has joked about the other PCs they have lined up and how they will annoy the party and “make you wish my first one was there instead!”

I wonder if this is a common problem in RP groups. If you take in a new player, is there usually an asshole that decides to make him a target? How often does the Instigator actively try to wreck plans they don’t agree with? Is there any way to rein them in that works?

Wow… After reading that I was speechless, then I became annoyed.  You see, I have never played with such players, or if I did, they never were that aggressive and acting like jerks around me.

I started asking around on Twitter and on Gtalk and my heart sank when I realized many people have dealt with such players in their gaming groups.  And many wanted insights on how to deal with them…

Now those who read me know that I’m a moderate type of blogger.  I don’t rant often and I don’t stir the pot.  But this… I’ve no tolerance for whatsoever.

These players (if I can use the term) are the absolute paragons of asshatery.  You know those stupid griefers that keep camping your body in World of Warcraft so they could kill you as soon as you resurrect?  Well they probably play D&D as described above.

That, dear readers, is the epitome of Chaotic Stupid.  Socially retarded players who create characters that can’t function in any type of society even fantasy ones.

I freaking hate those players with a passion!  They’re the reason why so many potential RPG geeks flee the hobby and never return to it.

Do note that I’m not talking about someone getting excited or frustrated and losing his/her temper on rare occasions.  Humans have a tendency to burst when overloaded with emotions and such people usually end up apologizing shortly after that.

Now, just so you don’t think I take the easy way out of profanity, I actually have a pretty good idea of the why of such behavior.  I’m ready to bet that such players are motivated by getting the players to react to his antics.  They get their kicks by testing how hard they can push the group before it breaks.  They seek to subvert or control the group’s dynamic.

I also think that most of these players are irremediably selfish, in my mind, the worst sin of a RPG player.

Such players are probably delighted to see none of the other players confront them.  If they are confronted, they always have a plan.  First they’ll start to shout and bully opponents into silence.  If that doesn’t work they’ll start hurling insults or try to deflect the conflict.  “It’s the DM’s fault, he let me play a Drow!” à

If all else fails, he’ll try to be made the victim “That’s it, I was just having a little fun, trying to make this boring game more lively and now you’re all against me!”

If you are familiar with the techniques used by Trash Radio DJs, such players use similar techniques. And they’re very effective techniques, I’ll grant that, just not conducive to a successful group endeavor that is a RPG Campaign.

Now as I said I don’t have much experience with such players but I will share my thoughts on spotting and dealing with such players before turning the mike to you.

Spotting an aggressive player before he joins a group is kinda hard.  Unless the player proudly reveals that he’s been with 15 different groups in the last 18 months or talks about how he made super messed up PCs that pissed everyone off, chances are you can’t spot them.  However, if a player starts to challenge other player’s choices, raises his voice to quell other people’s and acts aggressively toward others either in game or out of it, there’s a serious problem in the group.

I won’t lie to you, I doubt that such players can be reasoned with.  Often, they will say that they see what the problem is or they’ll once again try to be made into the victim.  While I advocate trying to work it out with the player,  I doubt that such a player will change the motivations he seeks in RPGs.

In fact the absolute worse thing you can do as a DM is to tolerate such a player.  There is absolutely no reason to allow a player to bully others out of their fun.   I don’t care if you tell me that the player is the boyfriend of that girl who really wants to play in your campaign or that he’s the older brother of the guy whose house you play at.

The longer you tolerate that player in your group, the longer you’ll validate his behavior and the likelier your campaign will crash and some players will quit the hobby in disgust.

Having people quit the hobby because of that?  Nothing is worth that…

And just so I’m crystal clear: You should kick such kind of players out of your games, maybe they’ll finally get the hint.

What about you?  You have stories to share and/or insights on how to deal with such players?

Image Credit: Wizards of the Coast (Bully-wugs!  get it?)

Jul 01 2009

Tales of the City Within: Session 1, Part 2

See part 1 here.

(After writing part 1, I realized that I got the order of how each of the four plots were introduced wrong.  Instead of correcting it, I’ll adjust the tale accordingly. Let’s just assume that the PCs convinced the Drow to give them a few hours’ respite).

When the PCs, standing on one of the City’s upper terraces, saw that an Adamantine Dragon was eating everything it could get its claws upon, they started thinking they were in way too deep.

However, when I mentioned that the Dragon seemed to be very careful not to eat or hurt anyone,  going as far as removing inhabitants from a house before eating it all, the PCs relaxed and gathered for a little Pow-Wow.

Romero rears his head

As the PCs were discussing how to deal with the current problems I decided to drop the final bomb on the group.  While the players were chatting excitedly, I reached over to Franky and I pulled on his sleeve repeatedly.

When he looked at me, I mimed wiping a runny nose…

Snotty Kid: ” Mister Shaman Sir?  My poppa tole me to come an find you. (SNORT)  He says that some Advenchewrors died at da Inn last night and now they be walkin’ all over da place!’”

Franky (recoiling from me with horror): No, No, No, you have GOT to be kidding me Phil! ZOMBIES?

‘fraid so dear Franky…

Seeing that the dragon wasn’t killing anyone yet the PCs followed the kid to the Inn and got confirmation that it was overrun by Zombies!   They called in the city’s militia and had the Inn surrounded, strongly suggesting that the soldiers not let anything leave the Inn under any pretenses.  Dworkin (Franky’s dwarven Shaman) also had the snotty kid be placed under tight surveillance, convinced that he was the source of the Zombie plague.

How to fast talk a Dragon and blow the DM’s socks off.

The party then returned to the dragon to see if it could be reasoned with.  It was obviously ravenous and seemed to be looking for something that would appease its unnatural hunger.  I informed that players that getting the Dragon to acknowledge the PCs as a credible source of  help would require a Skill Challenge (5 successes, 3 failures) based on the Diplomacy, Nature, Arcana and Bluff skills.

What followed was a beautiful example of team play where players with low skill bonuses used ‘aid another’ so that skills would have maximum bonuses.  However that wasn’t just dice rolling.  If a player had a hard time coming up with a description of how his PC used his knowledge, other players (and myself) would suggest examples. Some were so cool that they garnered hefty bonuses.

It made for such a great narrative. Some PCs recalled reading an old legend about a draconic champion of Bahamut who was as proud as it was hungry for riches and glory.   The legend said that Kord chastised that dragon to eternal hunger until it found, somewhere in the City Within, the one thing that would satisfy it.  It slept, buried deep, for 200 years and woke up whenever the Nexus departed.

The PCs then tried to convince Carilyx (the dragon) that the curse was likely a parable and that to break it the dragon likely had to perform some sort of act that Kord would approve of.  Then Corwin sealed the deal by saying:

“In FACT I’m 100% sure that what you need to do is fight the enemies of the city in it’s hour of need!  Just stop eating for some time and we’ll give you some juicy enemies!”

All this, the players made up as they were going along.  I looked at my notes for what I had written as likely solution to deal with the dragon and then promptly chucked it away.  My player’s solution was so much cooler!

At this point I said something about not having had one fight yet, to which Math responded “We don’t need one, this is too much fun!”

What more can a DM ask for?

Carilyx accepted to wait for up to 3 days before it would start eating again (the skill challenge called for 3 days, minus 1 per failures).

Ah the sweet stench of knowledge!

With still some time on the clock before dealing with the Drow, the PCs came back to the lava problem.  It was apparent that they had to find the 5 original souls that would need to sacrifice themselves.  Jaiel (Deva Avenger) was one of them so she went out to seek the other 4 Devas that were the City’s sworn defendant.  I told them that he could easily find 2 of them.  He was also preety sure that a third one could be found in University burg.

Jaiel went there to look for the 3rd Deva but was shocked to see the whole place overruned with Zombies!!!  She promptly turned back.

Mwa Ha Ha Ha!

Drow Faceoff!

As the PCs were getting ready to face the Drow, I told Rocco (halfling Rogue) that he had learned some interesting facts about the Drow while getting ready to move his career from the surface to the underworld.  Before the event that destroyed the world so many centuries ago, the Drow were a force to be reckoned with.  But after their patron goddess failed to capture this world, her interest in it vanished and the Drow were left to fend for themselves.  All Drow cities were destroyed or were abandonned and the few remaining Dark Elves were usually nothing more than Mercenaries or Hustlers.

When I was done explaining that, all my players decided to go and confront the Drow as a bunch of frauds out to steal from the city’s overly gullible gouvernment.  Seeing their bluff being called, the drow gambled on killing the PCs.

A fight was finally at hand, but I had only one hour for it as I had a teeneaged babysitter at home.

The fight was hard, the Drow were all a few levels higher than the PCs. The details are fuzzy but I recall dropping one PCs into negatives .  By the end of the hour, most drow were either KOed or Bloodied, that’s when I called that they all surrendered.

And that’s when the players realized…

“Huh, guys?  What will the Dragon fight now that we’ve dispatched the drow?”

Priceless.

This such an awesome game!

Lessons Learned

  • The 5X5 Formula of interweaving plots worked wonderfully.
  • While I worried that I PCs would not have to make significant choices, I was wrong as players made choices and took some decisions that sent the adventure in places I didn’t foresee.
  • I need to give better descriptions of key NPCs when major scenes with them happen.
  • Part of what slows 4e is players looking at power cards and trying to find the best move. There’s not much we can do about that except keeping gentle pressure to keep things moving and ask players to prepare turns in advance.

Post Mortem

After the game I got a fairly detailled written feedback post from one of my players.  One point bears mentionning here.  The player told me that he had the feeling that the Leadership of the city was seriously lacking.  He had the feeling that the City Council was not a credible gouvernment and that should the PCs leave, he was sure that the whole place would topple like a house of cards.  He mentionned that while the Dungeon had a clear plan, the City didn’t.

He is entirely right.  In trying to make the PCs feel like badass heroes, I underplayed the role of City leaders.  My friend would have an easier time immerssing himself in the game if there was a circle of competant leaders that supported the PCs in whatever mission was at hand.

I noted his feedback and will try to work this into the main storyline when we return to it in August.

Jul 01 2009

One Page Dungeon Winners!

What started as a crazy idea in the last few weeks of Winter has finally come to its conclusion.

Since late May a panel of 6 judges: Chgowiz, Dave: the Game, Sham, Amityville Mike, Alex Schroeder and myself have slogged through 112 entries and we’ve finally arrived with the final results.

If you are curious about our judging process, have a look at Alex’s excellent post on the subject.

So without further ado, here are the winners of the first ever One Page Dungeon Contest:

Honorable Mentions - these dungeons will not receive a prize, but they are extremely worthy of note and made it into the final Judges Picks before we had to whittle the list down to the last winners.  These dungeons will be included in the Winners One Page Dungeon PDF publication. The category listed was the decision of the judge who selected these honorable mentions.

Best Aquatic Entry: The Barnacle Caves – Sam Kisko
Best Classic: Ruffthroat’s Rathskeller – Lee Barber
Best Dungeon Circa 1974: The Crumbling Dungeon – Lord Kilgore
Best Dungeon Crawl: Shrine of the Savage Jungle – John Laviolette

Most Elegant: Clockwork Crypt – Gary S. Watkins
Funniest: The Vareh’gra Depths – Gary McCammon
Best Geometry: Halls of the Mad Mage – Justin Alexander

Best Homage: The Omenous Portent of the Highlands Meteor – Tim Hensley
Best Introductory One-Shot: The Tomb of Durhan Oakenshield – Dyson Logos
Best Non-Dungeon: The Great Cloud Caper – Jonathan Lee
Best Unconventional: Traps-R-Us – Chris Torrence
Best Use of Tables: Mountain Lair of the Misanthropic Magus – Sean Wills

Runner Ups – these dungeons were the top of the Judges Picks, after we had picked the top 3 winners. Each of these represents an outstanding dungeon, showing high quality and inventive design. These dungeons will be awarded prizes as noted. The category is as the Judge picked it:

Best Hack-n-Slash: The Gray Goblin Warrens – Christopher Brackett
Prize: Random Esoteric Creature Generator

Best Non-Fantasy Entry: The Horror of Leatherbury House – Michael Wolf
Prize: Bundle of Goblinoid Games products

Best Pub: Arendt’s Old Peculiar- Antti Hulkkonen
Prize: Tabletop Adventures bundle: Bits of Darkness, Deck O’Names

Best Replayable Entry: The Infinite Tower – James E. Raggi IV
Prize: Otherworld Minatures – Pig Faced Orcs box set

Best Retro Use of 30×30 Space: Megadungeon of the Mad Archmage Gary Stu – Adam Thornton
Prize: Bundle of Knockspell and City Encounter PDFs

Best Silly Dungeon: Maze of NAMCAP – Patrick Riley
Prize: Bundle of Wizards of the Coast D&D 4e Adventures (or equivalent)

These top 3 dungeons represent a lot of hard work, imagination and a very interesting situation from a judging perspective – these 3 were the easiest to agree up on as nearly all of us had them at the top of our lists. So, here are the Best of Old School and Best of New School entries:

Best New School Dungeon: Cry of the Gravegod by Heron Prior
Prizes: Bundle of Necromancer games product, Fantasy Grounds II License, Wizards of the Coast – Dungeon Delve book and Adventurer’s Vault book, 6 month membership to Obsidian Portal, AvatarArt free artwork, Quarterly membership to DungeonADay.com

Best Old School Dungeon: Valley of the Necromancer Kings by Andrew Gale
Prizes: Bundle of Brave Halfling Production products, Demon Idol Miniature, 6 month membership Obsidian Portal, Fantasy Grounds II License, AvatarArt free artwork, Bundles of Fight On and Knockspell issues

Now here’s the best of the best! This dungeon was highly favored by almost all of the judges, once we lined up our top picks, this entry got unanimous support to be declared the grand winner of the contest…

Best Overall One Page Dungeon: Secrets of the Old City by Simon Bull
Prizes: Patron membership of Wolfgang Baur’s Open Design, Kobold Guide to Game Design, Quarterly membership to Monte Cook’s Dungeon a Day, A full License for Smitework’s Fantasy Grounds II, 1 year membership to Obsidian Portal, 50$ Gift Certificate from One-Bookshelf, Bundles of Fight On and Knockspell issues.

Also, please note that we  will also be offering passes for the Las Vegas NeonCon gaming convention to any of the honorary mention, Runner ups and Best of winners, that would like to attend.

Our next step will be to create a swanky PDF with all the entries described in this post.  The PDF will feature a  color cover to be created by the recent winner of the Erol Otus/Fight On!/Otherworld art contest: Mark Allen and will feature a scene from the Secrets of the Old City winning dungeon.  It will  also contain a few One-Page dungeon related posts that Chgowiz and I wrote and will feature a copy of the template itself.  The PDF will be distributed for free by Tabletop Adventures and will be available on most RPG PDF outlets.

We will also create a second PDF which will feature the winners and runner ups, but will not feature the color cover and additional freebies. This PDF will be placed into an archive (ZIP) file which will also have all the entries for you to download. Yes, if you want to see all 112 entries, you will be able to do so. We’ll work out where that will be hosted, but be forewarned, it’s a large 68 MB file.

This contest would not haven been possible without the tireless work of Chgowiz and the active support of the other 4 judges. I also want to thank Graham Poole who had initially signed on as a judge but got called away by real life.   I also want to thank you all dear readers and Twitter followers who have been so enthusiastic about the whole thing, making us even more motivated to see this through.

Finally, I wish to extend a big thank you to all Sponsors who have been so generous and have provided so many great prizes:

All right!  This is done!

Now who wants to hear about my “Kill Drittz for Charity contest” idea?

Jun 29 2009

Tales of the City Within: Session 1, Part 1

adamantine dragonAs mentioned last week, my next mini-campaign was going to focus on a less scripted, more improv style of gaming.  Borrowing from Dave the Game’s 5X5 design method, I created an adventure where multiple plots intertwine, forcing PCs to prioritize and chose what to focus on at any given time.

A bit like a Comic Book  ‘annual’,  the Tales of the City Within had a plot that was completely separate from the Myth Arc we’ve been building with prior sessions.

I had 4 plots broken down in 5 scenes.  Each scene was usually detailed as a paragraph and would include combat  stats if a fight was expected or a very short description of a skill challenge.

Now, just so recent readers get what our campaign setting is about:  The adventure occurs in an underground city being built within an ever expanding Dungeon.  The Dungeon is sentient and at the middle of it sits the slowly eroding prison of a Primordial.  The City fights the dungeon by growing within it (hence its name).

At  the core of the conflict, two opposing energies fight for dominance.  First there’s the Dungeon’s energy, representing the Primordial’s consciousness growing ‘feelers’ farther out.  Second is the ‘Nexus’ energy, a Divine Source of energy attuned to Erathis, Goddess of Civilization.  The Nexus protects the city and also keep the Primordial’s prison intact.

Divine Prelude to Chaos

While we were settling down, I opened up the game with a short scene where Usul (Mike’s Elven Invoker of Kord) was busy checking the flow of divine energies traveling all over the City from the central Crystal spire that was the Nexus.  While doing this, Usul felt a beefy hand on his shoulder.  When he turned around, he saw this big muscular guy smiling at him.

It turns out that this was an Avatar of Kord that wanted to tell Usul that things were going to get dicey over the next few days.  Pointing at the Nexus, he told Usul that its power (along with the power of the Dungeon) would flicker out for a few days, leaving the town without its usual protection.   With a hefty pat on the shoulder, Kord’s avatar nominated Usul as his agent to keep protecting the city in the coming days and he vanished.

I somewhat fumbled that scene.  By focusing on the message rather than on the messenger, I failed to convey the feeling of grand importance that this NPCs should have had.   My players completely missed that Usul was chatting it up with a God and that broke suspension of disbelief for a few players.

Anyway, when Usul mentioned that the Nexus energy and it’s Dungeon equivalent were gone, the party started to investigate.  I told Jaiel (Deva Avenger and one of the Divine agent that helped found the City) about a book of the Erathian prophecies called ‘The Cycle of Shadows”.  It explained that every 200 years, the Nexus and the Prison sitting at the center of the Dungeon both shifted into the Shadowfell, leaving the city to fend for itself.  The only way to bring both back was to sacrifice the Original Pentad, the five original souls present at the Foundation of the city.

At that point Yan started dreading what was coming (his Deva Avenger is one of those original souls).

Things were shaping up!

Cracks in the Foundation

I then picked up my notes and looked at the 4 plots I had ready, each a pressing problem that would require immediate attention.  Not knowing where to start, I picked up a d4 and rolled to see which one I would trigger first.  I rolled a 4.

Chatty: “You all feel an earthquake shake the whole city”

Players: “Uh oh!”

After letting the PCs do what they were doing (shopping for Magic Items, checking on the new spirits, etc) I had panicked reports come from the lower City.  A rift had opened in the lowest Delve and lava was pouring into the City, destroying everything!

Of course the PCs ran to the site of the event.  As they approached the rift, they saw a Beholder flanked by a pair of Fire Archons and a pair of Fire elementals standing on a rock island floating on the lava.  The beholder was shouting an announcement again and again in Common.  Something about it being the time to bring the traditional tithe to appease the lord of the Volcano and bring back the two opposing energies.   When the PCs talked to the beholder, asking what was the tithe was, it said that it was the City to find out and provide.  It also said that they had 3 days to do it as the level of lava would keep rising until it flooded the whole city.

Fun!

The Peace Dividend

Right after that scene, Jarl Botten, the Hobgoblin Mercenary summoned the PCs for something urgent.  A group of five Drow diplomats had appeared, asking to see the city’s Grand Council.  The PCs were required to act as a security force during the meeting.

At this point, Corwin (Math’s Halfling Sorcerer) tried to make a point that the party had much more pressing matters to attend to, what with Lava threatning to fill up the whole city.  To this, Jarl responded that the Drow were menacing to invade the city immediately if their demands weren’t met.

Corwin: Let them invade the freaking city!  It will soon be filled with lava anyway!

Somehow, another PCs, probably Usul or Rocco the Rogue, convinced the Sorcerer to calm down.  All the social characters went to meet with the Drow to stall them for time.

There they learned that the Drow were  asking for a grotesque peace dividend (i.e. pay us not to wage war on you) and had a Scrying device showing tens of thousands of Grimlocks and Spider mounted  Drow ammassed in a cave nearby.

The PCs managed to stall the Drow for one hour while they could think about dealing with the Lava situation…

That’s when an Adamantine Dragon burst out in the middle of the City and started eating everything in it’s path.

Franky: What the hell?!?!

Stay tuned for part 2!

Jun 29 2009

While Waiting to Read Me, Why Not Listen to Me?

My writing schedule is a bit in shambles right now.  I’m back at work (albeit part time) and the days I am home, I spend with my kids who are on summer vacation.

I’m also focusing on completing my freelance writing assignments and will likely send out my Kobold Quarterly article tonight.

(And I’m late in providing Wizards of the Coast with an outline for the adventure they green lighted)

However, I thought that now would be a good time to share with you links to the Podcasts I participated in recently.

So here they are in order of participation:

The Tome Show

I really need to lower the volume of my microphone in that show!

The Open Design Podcast

If you liked my participation in that last show, tell them!  I’d love to have a regular feature where I chat up a storm with my Nemesis!  While shooting the breeze with him before we recorded we had already identified 2 subjects that I think many of you would like.

All right, expect to see my game report based on the 5×5 adventure sandbox design method and the results of the One Page Dungeon contest this week.  Plus another Chatty Presents on Friday.

Have a good week.

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