Cutscene. In a video game, it’s a scene shown to the player when they reach a particular point in the game, such as at the end of a level or when the player’s character dies. The immense popularity of videogaming and the similarities between them and TTRPGs begs the question: Can you, or should you, utilize cutscenes in your game?
Murderhobos. It’s one of the most discussed issues in any TTRPG discussion. Players who don’t feel like there’s no encounter that can’t be solved by casting “Sword.” But what happens when your party turns out to be what we refer to as “Anti-Murderhobos”? What if the party isn’t motivated to engage and/or end the evil machinations of the Bad Guys?
Characters are the most important thing we deal with as DMs. How many campaigns suffer because the DM is tied to their story, instead of the party’s? I don’t have a number — it was meant as a rhetorical question — but it’s probably a lot. How do we get the best of both worlds, with a rich experience for both player and DM? The backstory, that’s how.
Any character worth his mettle has some sort of backstory — former soldier, disillusioned priest, etc. — but a history ignorant of the world they’re playing in leaves us with the same problem. So the task isn’t just creating a backstory, but rather creating a backstory in the world you’re given. Something to tether the character to the lore, history, and developing plot lines of the campaign world. Sounds daunting, but it’s no harder than your traditional backstory. It’s hitting the right story beats, as our friend DM Tony might say, that makes it all come together.
Magic. It’s the thing that separates Fantasy RPGs from all others. Every other TTRPG can have combat, exploration, social situations… but magic is the secret sauce that makes fantasy special. Many DMs and GMs toss around the idea of “low magic” worlds, but what does that mean exactly?
What really makes a character in any given RPG awesome? Sure, high stats help but they guarantee neither success nor that they will be interesting in any way. Maybe six years from now, you and your friends will be sitting around the table talking about how a character was incredibly strong. But that’s only if they did something with it in the game which really was worth remembering.
After running decades of games, the characters who stand out were run by players who ran them extraordinarily well. But what makes a character an “A-lister” who will be weaved into the lore of both the stories of both you and your friends in years to come? To answer this we have created a list of the seven things which will make your characters the most memorable
Gold. It’s the perfect representation of the reward mechanic from the earliest days of the White Box. Hell, it even used to represent experience! As a companion piece to our 19th episode on RPG Economics, Tony, Chris, and Dave delve into not just how to make things worth using the gold for, but also the idea of how do you, or DO you, account for the treasure that the party finds?
If there is one truly archetypal NPC, the bartender is it. Friend, confidant, drink deliverer, quest giver. They might be the first NPCs we create when fleshing out a new city, in addition to often being our player’s first roleplay interaction.
Now, everyone in your world doesn’t need to revolve around beer and crossbows (although if you feel it does I’m always looking for a new campaign), but there are fundamental pieces there that we can use to make our other NPCs more interactive and meaningful. I’d like to share three simple tips to help make all your NPCs shine like our beloved bartenders.
All kidding aside, putting the time into creating a believable, character-centric hook to the upcoming adventure does a lot of the heavy lifting for you by increasing player buy-in to the story and giving them a seriously good reason to risk life and limb to go adventuring.
We can all understand that Fighters and Rogues just get better at doing the things they do, but what about Paladins, Warlocks, Clerics, etc… characters that gain incredibly powerful class abilities that are not of this world? In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss how they make character choices in leveling matter more when it comes to BIG class changes.
Game groups fall apart. It’s as inevitable as the rain. What do you do when your current group goes south, but you still have a player who wants to continue? Do you continue with the current campaign? Do you now run the entire rest of the party, the monsters, and all the NPCs? The 3 Wise DMs answer long-time listener Jared’s question about his Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign and delve deeper into utilizing Sidekicks, DMPCs, and other tips with one-on-one gaming. And, as an added surprise, we introduce our newest co-host…
