What tools go into your GM toolbox?

Written by Michael Beck, with contributions and editing by Da’Vane.

GM’s Toolbox, looks at tools, tips, and techniques you can use to improve your games. Toolbox offers you a skeleton for running a campaign, rather than fleshed out tips. This series is presented in a discussion style, and we ask you to contribute with comments about your own tools, tips, and techniques at the end of this post.

In this category I want to talk about tools you use during the game. A GM has to do a lot of things when running a session.

In part I, we covered creating and establishing the right mood, for both the player and the GM, since being in the right frame of mind will significantly improve the experience of the game.

In part II, we covered how to handle notes and note taking, which every GM should get into the habit of doing.

In this part, we will explore rules and combat resolution, which is one of the main tasks a GM has to deal with during the game, and often at the heart of running a game.

Character Information and Quick Rules

In a lot of systems you want to do rolls for your players. To do this, it is practical to have character information of the PCs at hand. Also, quick rule cheat sheets often help a lot for the GM and players.

If there are rules which you can’t remember or frequently refer to, or which include rather large tables, sometimes having them at hand outside from the rule books is much more practicable than skimming through the books again and again.

Typical tools here are the laptop or the traditional inside of the GM-Screen.

Michael: In my Cthulhu campaign I use the GM Screen. I like it, because it is in landscape format which does not so strongly separate you from your players.

In my D&D campaign, I use a laptop, hence I have a PDF file of short rules. One can find these on the net, or you can write these up yourself.

For the Savage World campaign, I don’t have a short rule system yet, but I provide my players one of these free test-savage-world-right-now-booklet, and am thinking of marking the most important rules with post-its in the books.

For keeping track of the PC information I need, I just create a table and let it get filled in by the players.

Da’ Vane: At the start of each session, I normally collate relevant PC information so I have it on hand during the game. Depending upon the system I am running, I will normally use whatever quick rules sheets are provided.

Besides that, I try to make my notes as complete as possible, by including short rules for my encounters directly in the encounter information. A common trick here is to make sure all the relevant abilities for a character have details for how they are used. For the encounter, I expand this for terrain and other rules as well.

I also like to maintain the character sheets for my players, and as part of this I will include quick rules for their abilities as relevant, so they have little need to go near the rulebooks at all.

The only time we’ll normally have the rulebook open during play is when we’re learning a new system, which we normally do together, so everyone can see what’s going on. Otherwise, I’ll translate what the PCs want to do to the rules as best I can, and when in doubt, I’ll simply make it up to keep the game moving.

Running Combats

Running combat is somewhat like a game inside the game. Depending on the rule system, you will have to crunch numbers, keep track of hit points and initiative, use ammo and spell slots, keep track of distances, and record a dozen or so different possible modifiers and conditions for your PCs.

As GM, you may be responsible for a lot of different factions with totally different abilities, which make this even more complicated.

There are many tools out there for helping you run combats.

Michael: I trust in my players here and outsource as much as possible. In the D&D campaign, they have to keep track of their hit points, who is coming next, ammo, spell slots, how to resolve their magic attacks and so on.

This lets me focus on using the feats of my foes to their best and give players a tough time (and a fair battle).

In addition, a combat matrix is helping a lot. It’s a table with the combat rounds as columns, and Effects/PC/NPC/monsters in the lines. Everything that has a start or an end can be put in here, like durations of spells.This gives me a nice overview what is happening in each round.

Da’ Vane: Since I am dyslexic, I find running combats difficult, as I am slow at processing all the information and keeping track of everything that needs to be maintained.

I try to find a way around this, and the best tool for this is actually a custom built spreadsheet. In this way, I can record information and update it, while taking notes about statuses and other things.

One of the advantages of using a spreadsheet is that I can sort the characters into initiative order, making the information a lot easier to process. It also allows me to use a number of initiative variants that I have, which I feel improves play for various styles.

Minis/Whiteboard/Battlemats

Using minis with a whiteboard or a battlemat brings many advantages to your gaming table. One can use minis not only for showing relative distances, but also absolute distances, effects on the terrain, and conditions of the characters.

A whiteboard or a battlemat not only gives you a place to position your characters in a combat, but can also provide rough and quick maps, can be used as a spreadsheet, or to jot down some other relevant information, like initiative or hit points.

Michael: In my D&D campaign, I use a self-crafted battlemat. For my Savage-Worlds group, I also use this, but besides that I also use a big three-dimensional model of the ship the PC own built by LEGO-blocks.

It’s a cool model, and every time I bring it to the table, I can see the expression in the eyes of my players when they realize their characters have something really cool: Their own ship!

My Shadowrun group has a big classroom-size whiteboard on the wall, which is awesome. We used it to build a huge diagram resulting from a complicated adventure with a lot of factions. I just love this diagram. Every time we look at it we laugh about the crazy names we gave certain persons and places, and about the wild complexity of it.

Da’ Vane: Space has always been a premium in our games, so we’ve never played using minis or battlemats. We’ve only ever managed to get the room to play board games a few times before running out of space.

So, we normally have to make do with mapping via paper, and using dots to mark our positions on the map. This way, we get to use it at a scale related to the size of the space we have available.

These makeshift maps can get messy at times, but they are fun, and they are better than nothing.

Most of the time we play games where maps and minis are optional anyway, which reduces the tactical options but also the tactical complexity of encounters. It makes for quicker encounters in a playing style that we tend to prefer.

Mapping

Like pictures, a map can say a thousand words. You may give out large, nice looking detailed maps of countries or continents to give an overview of the setting.

Other times you want to hand out a scribbled goblin map, showing not much more than a few lines. There might be mysterious treasure maps, full of puzzles, leading from one danger to the next.

Sometimes you just need an overview of the combat location. For different levels of detail, you may need different mapping tools.

Michael: Cthulhu is a great product. It provided me with all maps I need, so no work for me here.

Where I actually use a tool for creating maps is in my D&D-campaign. I got a tablet notebook and drawing maps on this thing is just enjoyable, even with the ordinary paint of windows 7.

The thought of using a real drawing program on a tablet notebook blows my mind, so I haven’t tried it yet.

For spontaneous in-game maps, I use a small piece of my battlemat. I seldom use maps not drawn by myself, when I do, I find them here.

Da’ Vane: I suck at drawing maps, so I generally avoid them at all costs. If I can’t get around them, I will normally use one of two approaches – I will either hand draw them on squared paper, and scan them if necessary, or I will use a simple bitmap editing program to create simple maps.

However, I have recently picked up both Dungeonographer and Hexographer – two great mapping programs I have already had much enjoyment playing with, although I can’t say I’ve actually used them in a campaign properly just yet. But from what I have seen, it is only a matter of time before I do.

About the Authors

Michael Beck considers himself a novice GM, but is encouraged in sharing his tips at www.spielleiten.wordpress.com (German language). Having played RPGs for roughly 10 years now, he accepts the challenge of living with his girl-friend, two cats, a non-finished PhD-thesis and two running roleplaying campaigns.

Da’ Vane, or Christina Freeman in the real world, is the owner of DVOID Systems, and the primary writer of their D-Jumpers series of products. With an academic background in science, especially socio-psychology, she is what many would regard as a “know-it-all.” However, the truth is that she doesn’t know everything about everything, but she knows a lot about a lot, especially about her passions which are games, stories, learning, and people. She is a consummate geek goddess, and yes, she is single if you feel like tracking her down and hitting on her some time….

Paul, about three years after the events described. Click on the banner for games suitable for kids.

Today I’m going on a journey a long way down memory lane, in support of the Kids In Gaming initiative at RPGNow. Specifically, I am trying to remember what it was like GMing for my brothers Paul and David.

It must have been around 1981, which means that David would have been about 15, and Paul must have been ten, though in my mind he was younger than that. And it would have been late in the year. I had returned from my first year of University studies disillusioned and reconsidering the path I was taking toward my chosen career. But I was completely captivated by the new hobby I had encountered, Role-playing games, and for the next several weeks or months I introduced them to the hobby, and to the game at the heart of it in that era, AD&D.

You may have to bear with me a little, as my memories of 30 years ago are a little fuzzy now. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then.

Play proceeded virtually every day over that spring & the early part of summer. I remember that Paul at the time was a few years younger than was considered the minimum age for the game, and for that reason I was initially a little hesitant about including him, but his enthusiasm convinced me. I can clearly remember sitting down with Paul early in the character generation process and talking with him about how we could customize his character to make it easier for him.

Paul had chosen a human Fighter – probably the simplest class in the book to play. We talked about whether or not he wanted his character to be a little less smart so that he wouldn’t have a case in which his character understood a situation and he didn’t, and offered to trade some of the character’s INT for a better Strength. He thought about it for a while and wouldn’t have a bar of it; instead he suggested that his character come from the country and not know everything that was going on.

In many ways, selling the fantasy and wonder was an easier job with Paul than with David; already a craftsman with his hands, my middle brother had a very different take on Gaming. To him, it was closer to a more traditional board game – without the board and with a lot more flexibility. But for Paul, the fantasy world in which his character adventured was as real as the one around him, and a lot more interesting.

After a brief framing narrative, I pitched my pair of players into module S1, the Tomb of Horrors. Despite being five to ten levels short of the recommended character standard, and two instead a full party of four, and lacking any serious magical capabilities – either clerical or arcane – they managed to hack their way through it, defeating challenge after challenge with grit and determination.

While David was old enough to consider the practical aspects of game circumstances – hit points remaining, healing potions on hand, and so on – Paul was all exuberance, except when approaching something a little more supernatural. At such times, David was compelled by his interpretation of what a Paladin was like to charge in while Paul hesitated and held back with a little more caution. On at least one occasion, each of them had to bop the other over the head and stun them to carry them physically out of the dungeon.

In the latter part of the campaign, David’s character got into the politics of the kingdom, and trying to hold together an unstable alliance against Drow subversives and their Bugbear catspaws, while Paul dug deeper into the high fantasy, trying to understand the way the Elves thought and why they sometimes did things that even he could see were stupid – like celebrating “beardless day” (when they won their last war with the Dwarves) while encamped in the Dwarven capital (having been chased out of their forests by Bugbears and Orcs under Drow control).

There were definitely times when David had trouble visualizing what I was describing, because he tried to build up his picture intellectually, while Paul seemed to get the idea very quickly. There was sometimes a pronounced conversational lag in which Paul and I would be several minutes ahead of his grasp of the situation and staying there. By the same token, there were occasions when things went the other way, and David’s greater experience with the world enabled him to grasp things more quickly. Of course, as soon as I realized that one of them wasn’t keeping up, we would pause to let the other get a handle on whatever the situation was.

While to David, the game was just a pastime, and a novel diversion, Paul’s interest in the game continued after I left home and went to work, and after the family had moved, finding his own group to play with. After high school, he had to let gaming go to concentrate on his planned horticultural business. He might have eventually found his way back to the hobby but for the intervention of a terrible car accident; he stopped breathing for eight minutes, was in a coma in critical condition for two weeks, and suffered considerable brain damage as a result. One of the things that I most regret about my life is that I was unable to be with the family in this period. Paul went on to make a recovery that was nothing short of miraculous, but he was still changed by the experience; though I know from conversations with him that he still looks back on those days around the kitchen table, hacking through the Tomb of Horrors, with pleasure and affection.

Some lessons

There are a number of lessons for anyone else contemplating gaming with kids that can be extracted from this reminiscence and the experiences that accompanied the events it describes.

• Don’t compromise more than you have to. I’ve seen a number of people GMing with children in the years since, and they all seem to pitch their narrative at the youngest in the group. Don’t. Instead, pitch the narrative towards the average age. Those who are younger may not fully understand what’s going on, but they will extract an age-appropriate interpretation of events from what they perceive anyway; and kids can smell condescension a mile off.
• Don’t talk down to them. Just as would be the case with any other player, respect them as people and participants.
• Mind the rating. That doesn’t’ mean that you shouldn’t censor yourself just a little – aim for a G-rating or (at worst) for a PG-rating for cartoon violence. In many ways, D&D and other fantasy games have an uphill battle being age-appropriate, though kids seem to mature faster these days so it is less of an issue; a superhero game might be easier, because morality is easily simplified and the action-adventure aspects of the game have a greater chance to shine.
• Play to their strengths. If you don’t think they have any, you aren’t paying enough attention. Whether it’s immersion, or a more free-wheeling imagination, or simply an enthusiasm that can’t be matched, find what they are bringing to the table and work with it.
• Design the character, not the character mechanics, to suit the player. This is exemplified by Paul’s suggestion that his character be from the backwaters instead of made more stupid. This works because kids grow up fast and learn faster, and tomorrows’ limitations are not going to be the same as today’s. If the limitation derives from the character and not the characteristics, it can still be accommodated as the child grows.
• Be Patient when necessary. Kids aren’t stupid; it just takes them longer to understand something, sometimes. Be prepared to explain things a second time or answer questions a little more readily than you would when gaming with an older player.
• Don’t forget the funny – or the fun. But beware of the silly. Children are more sensitive to the entertainment value of what you’re offering. There will be times when everything else should be sacrificed on the altar of fun, like the time Paul tried to catch a ghost in a glass vial that had held holy water and had both David and I rolling on the floor with laughter. Silly, on the other hand, undermines the fun because it makes the kids feel foolish; in the long run, silly will categorize the hobby as juvenile, something to be discarded.
• Take your cues from what they read and what they watch. This is the best way to avoid over- or under-pitching to a child’s intellectual level – pick something they like to watch or read, and talk to them about it. The characters, the plotlines, why people do things. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you’ll find yourself revising your targets upward in terms of complexity and depth and characterization. And, as a bonus, you’ll gain referents that you can use to help them connect with the game. Two of my abiding memories are watching The World At War in the early 70s and Life On Earth in the late 70s with David – neither subjects that interested him particularly before or after, but things on which we connected at the time – and both of which helped me couch game events in terms that he could understand.
• Give ’em what they want.Everyone games for a reason, finds something that they want to experience in the course of a game session – or stops playing. Part of the GM’s job is to identify what the players want (even if neither side can articulate it) and deliver that. Nor should he exclude himself from this, either – there’s no game without either players or GM.

What tools go into your GM toolbox?

Written by Michael Beck, with contributions and editing by Da’Vane and Johnn Four.

GM’s Toolbox, looks at tools, tips, and techniques you can use to improve your games. Toolbox offers you a skeleton for running a campaign, rather than fleshed out tips. This series is presented in a discussion style, and we ask you to contribute with comments about your own tools, tips, and techniques at the end of this post.

In this category I want to talk about tools you use during the game. A GM has to do a lot of things when running a session.

In part I, we covered creating and establishing the right mood, for both the player and the GM, since being in the right frame of mind significantly improves the experience of the game.

In today’s part, we will cover how to handle notes and note taking, which every GM should get into the habit of doing.

In part III, we will explore rules and combat resolution, which is one of the main tasks that a GM has to deal with during the game, and often at the heart of running a game.

Making Notes

During the session, you will want to take notes for remembering what happened and to jot down ideas as they come along. This can be strongly related to the way you organize your GM notes.

You want your notes to be easily and quickly done, and you want to find and understand them, when the session is over and some days have passed by. This sounds easier as it actually is.

You may write something down during session using shorthand, because you think, “This is clear, I will remember.” Then time goes by, maybe the next session-date gets cancelled, and one day before the next session you look to your notes and have completely forgotten what the circumstances have been, when you took your notes.

Michael: In my D&D campaign, I try to put new ideas directly into OneNote, since this is the main reason for the category: “Reminders”. I force myself to not only to write down the crucial information, but also the circumstances. This takes a little bit more time, but it helps a lot.

In my Cthulhu campaign, I use a totally different method: I record the sessions and listen to them afterwards, taking notes as needed in all the time I need (this helps also a lot in judging your own game from a different perspective).

In my Savage Worlds group, I stick to old-fashioned pen and paper. Nevertheless, currently I’m learning to write in shorthand (not especially for GMing though), and this will hopefully improve my notes here.

Da’ Vane: If you use a campaign wiki, such as Obsidian Portal, then you can often find this a useful tool for note-taking during the game, as well as recording information afterwards.

Formatting and polishing of the information can be done afterwards, and it’s got the added advantage that if you are in practice of using a wiki anyway, you will already be creating the topics you need to write about to share with the players.

I find this an incredible boon for online games if the players don’t mind a slightly slower pace, since you can write up descriptions and details and copy-paste them to various programs as needed.

Also, encourage players to take their own notes at the table as well, since this not only eases the burden on you as a GM, it gives you an indication about what they feel is important in the game, as well as their own perspective on events, including their own theories and ideas of what is going on.

Johnn: I too have used all the methods: PC at the table, iPad, players, index cards, Post-Its. I’ve also tried a ton of software, including journaling software, OneNote, Word, My Info, Access Database, Hero Lab, WeatherMaster, Masterplan, and more.

Use what works for you, because as Michael says, the only gotcha is your note capture solution renders your notes useless in the end.

Here is the ultimate combo that works for me. During sessions I just use a lined note book and pen. The note book is spiral bound so I can flip the book in half to take up less table space.

Here’s the key: I write a fusion of point form notes and mind maps. Mind maps might feel awkward at first, but GMs you need to try these out and master them.

Mind maps make note-taking a little easier and faster sometimes, but their true value lie in reference and recall. Our brains work with the word pictures better than lines of text. Our brains are wired for image recall in a big way, and mind maps breach that gap to turn your notes into something akin to a graphic. And you brain loves that.

Between sessions, I mine my session notes for details and update my My Info campaign file. If I have time, I also write a campaign log for Roleplaying Tips. Re-counting a session’s events helps me remember a campaign’s details better, and it often inspires ideas as I write.

Organizing GM Notes

Normally you will need some tool for organizing your GM notes. If you think about how many sections we already talked about in this series, most of them come along with some notes.

Having a practical system to organize these notes will make your life as GM a lot easier. Lots of GMs start out having only a minimal system for organizing GM notes for a relatively long time as they learn to be a good GM.

By getting their notes in order, they take one of the biggest steps forward in GMing they will ever manage.

Michael: My best organized GMing notes are in my D&D campaign. I use Microsoft’s OneNote here and I love it.

Having categories like “NPC”, “Locations”, “Adventure”, links between pages and easy copy and paste methods is just awesome.

A similar approach would be using some kind of wiki. These solutions require a PC at your gaming table.

In my Cthulhu campaign, I use a non-electronic method. I have a binder using a similar structure as in my OneNote for D&D here.

Because I think this to be quite important I will give you the complete list of my categories:

• Reminders (small bits of information I want to use in next sessions)
• NPCs
• Lists (including a timeline, where to find the name generators for different cultures, a list of buildings which can be found in cities, and so on)
• Locations
• Metaphors (as said I’m using the newspaper-method for world building)
• Maps
• Monsters
• Items
• Prestige-Classes
• GMing Tips
• Players
• House-Rules
• Tales and Myths
• Log

Da’ Vane: If you use the same system for organizing notes as you do taking notes, you will have saved yourself a lot of trouble, but this is not always the case.

The best system to use will always be the one which is most effective for each person, and that means organizing it for the purposes that you use it for. There’s a lot of things to consider when you design an organizational system for yourself – and this shares a lot of traits with creating an effective work or studying environment where you can deal with information.

The top priority should be your ability to get to information quickly and easily. A GM only has a limited amount of time for various things, such as world building, and if you spend all your time trying to find the notes on a certain place brought up in last week’s session, that link on your laptop regarding tribal customs, or that reference book on castle layouts, then your system isn’t efficient.

Another top priority should include how you intend to use that information. Storing it is one thing, but if you never go back to it, it’s a waste of time. So, your organization system should make it useful to bring that information to bear to generate lists of ideas for plot hooks, encounters, world building, and everything else you need.

If you can put all this in one place, so much the better. For example, if you can use an information organization program to create bullet points of plot hooks, then being able to print out the plot hooks for use as rumours that you can literally provide as handouts is great.

But failing this, even if you have to rewrite sections by hand, being able to create a list of bullet points for rumours to include in future sessions is still a very handy outcome for your organization system.

Johnn: Good point Da’Vane. Michael, I used OneNote for a campaign as an experiment, and I agree that it’s great GM software.

I prefer MyInfo. I find it more flexible than OneNote. I started with a plain text file. That worked awesome, and was cheap. J

But as Da’Vane predicts, my text file soon disintegrated into sections and little hacks to make reference easier. Eventually, my plain text file collapsed under the weight of what it was trying to do for me.

However, My Info has never let me down and I use it for every campaign, world, NPC, adventure and session.

Check out a separate article I wrote about how to use My Info for becoming an organized GM.

Recap Previous Session

Recapping the last session is a basic method to get the players focused on the game. There is hardly a group that comes together that sits down at the gaming table and starts playing without doing at least a few minutes of chatting and catching up.

By having a recap, you bring the players into the game from this relaxed social mood, and refresh important details of the last session, along with whatever plans that were forged at the end of the last session. This is useful so that the players don’t have to rediscover the events from the previous session once again.

Michael: In my different campaigns I use different recapping tools. The classic way I use in my Savage Worlds campaign: I let a voluntary player tell the others what happened last time and watch out that he or she is not forgetting anything important (or unimportant, just to make sure my players don’t get to know the difference that easily).

Of course, this requires some notes from my side. In my Cthulhu campaign, there is one player who likes to make detailed notes about the sessions. So she is the logbook of the group. I start the season by playing the same mysterious song and she reads out her notes to the others. I can lean back here and prepare in my mind evil plans to scare my players.

Da’ Vane: I often use the recapping of the past session as a means to give me a little extra time to finalise the last decisions about what is going to happen in this week’s session, and try my best to get my players engaged in recapping via a question and answering process.

That way, I can see if there’s anything the players misunderstood and that needs clarification, what they considered important and not important, and so forth. I quite often like to close sessions with a recap of the session in a similar manner, since this is an ideal time for taking notes and getting a handle on what the players thought of things, while handing out session experience and rewards.

Johnn: We do session recap the classic way, as well, with one or more players describing what happened last session and the current state of the group.

In addition, players update their campaign wiki and I often publish a recap at Roleplaying Tips.

My Riddleport campaign started with the introduction of a large number of NPCs and hooks. So my players created a special section on the wiki called Loose Ends, which is a to do list of people to talk with and places to go. They recap what’s on that list during sessions, as well, if the group needs focus.

About the Authors

Michael Beck considers himself a novice GM, but is encouraged in sharing his tips at www.spielleiten.wordpress.com (German language). Having played RPGs for roughly 10 years now, he accepts the challenge of living with his girl-friend, two cats, a non-finished PhD-thesis and two running roleplaying campaigns.

Da’ Vane, or Christina Freeman in the real world, is the owner of DVOID Systems, and the primary writer of their D-Jumpers series of products. With an academic background in science, especially socio-psychology, she is what many would regard as a “know-it-all.” However, the truth is that she doesn’t know everything about everything, but she knows a lot about a lot, especially about her passions which are games, stories, learning, and people. She is a consummate geek goddess, and yes, she is single if you feel like tracking her down and hitting on her some time….

First Impressions

The Hero Labs Character Generator for Pathfinder is an easy to use piece of software both to install and use.

Creating a character with it is as simple as selecting the appropriate action on a series of tabs. Each item has a window that can be brought up to describe the mechanics of the item in question, making decisions and understanding the mechanical applications easy. The help menu is well laid out and easy to follow, though I found myself not needing to use it all that often.

Game System Accuracy

One of the biggest targets that a character generator must achieve is that the mechanics and maths are all correct. This may sound like an obvious observation to make, but all too many characters have erroneous mechanic entries and do not factor in all appropriate numbers. Fortunately, I have yet to come across any mechanical or mathematical errors in the Pathfinder character generator, so that is a big tick.

Visual Appearance

The screens are fairly bland, the graphical interface being no frills and basic. The left half of the screen contains the work menus and the right half contains the numerical character data.

This arrangement manages to be both simple and crowded at the same time, and may be a problem at lower screen resolutions – mostly a thing of the past, but if you are stuck with an older monitor, it’s something to take into consideration. While the interface simplicity helps with speed of use, application size, and shortens the learning curve, it makes for a bland experience. When all is said and done, though, this is a character generator and not a computer game, so many won’t take issue with this.

Click on the image for a larger version in a new window

Operation

This is a screen-shot of the first screen you come to after loading the program. It lets you choose what game system content you use and don’t use, as well as choosing the starting level of the character and starting wealth.

Next are the main generation screens, the first of which covers class selection, and gives you the option to increase the number of levels your character has (if only it were that easy in-game!)

Click on the image for a larger version in a new window

The left half of the screen is the work area where you make your selections and the right half holds the specifics of your character based on your selections thus far.

Pay special attention to the warnings down the bottom of the screen, they serve as reminders of areas where you still have to make a selection. The status message at the bottom of the screen-shot reads: ! You must pick an Alignment for your character. **Hero: You must pick a Race for your character. **Hero: You have enough XP to gain a level. It’s time to level up! ** Warnings Encountered.
The panel to the right – divided here into Basics, Skills, Feats, and Weapons – shows both the best and worst of the user-interface. Everything is there, it’s a complete summary of the character; and yet things run off the side of each column. The less experience you have with the game system, the harder these will be to interpret. “Sleight of Har”? “Use Magic D”? “Handle Anima”? A beginner might find these confusing.

Click on the image for a larger version in a new window

You will notice at the top of the page a row of tabs; to assemble your character you simply go into each tab in succession, selecting the desired options for the character, and moving on. This is the “fighter” tab, where you choose fighter bonus feats. My GM would like the way it specifies at which level the feat was received, and therefore the order, rather than just lumping them all into a list.

Once again, the message in the status area serves as a reminder of tasks that are not yet complete, and other warnings, and that are relevant to the content of the page. In this case, there is only one message: ! Fighter: Add more Bonus Feats. ** Warnings Encountered.Having been critical of the usefulness to beginners when describing the right-hand panel of the window, I have to admit that the left-hand panel shown here represents the other side of the coin: Not only are the mechanics of each bonus feat summarized, but throughout the character generation process you will notice small grey circles with white question marks in them. Clicking on one of these brings up a description of the game mechanic it is attached to. This could actually help a beginner learn the game system.

The menus above the tabs are utilized mainly for saving, printing, importing, exporting and adding further content for the software.

Click on the image for a larger version in a new window

At the end of the process, you are left with a preview of a 2-page character sheet, which you can print or save. This is the one and only character sheet you can get from the process.

Customizability

Aside from the “what supplements am I using” menu when you open the program, there isn’t any at first glance. My GM is very fond of another character generator because – while you can’t tinker with ALL the game mechanics to incorporate house rules – you can alter some of them, and you can input new magic items, new languages, new character classes – and you can bundle the availability of these variations by campaign, so that they are all available. (He’s not sure whether you can add new feats, but given that list, it would not surprise either of us).

In fact, flexibility is the biggest issue with the Hero Labs product. It doesn’t appear to let you do any of this. The product description page suggests that the functionality is there, I just didn’t find it. That in itself might indicate a problem.

That said, I’m a lot less of a fan of house rules than he is, so this particular problem bothers me a lot less. For him, it would be a deal-breaker; for me, it’s just cause to say “meh,” and move on.

The Output

My single biggest issue with this software is the character sheet. To be more precise, the fact that the layout of the sheet is unalterable. I know that most character generators share this fault, but I am sure many people using these generators would like the ability to alter the character sheet layout to suit their personal tastes. I would at this point settle for a choice from several set layouts rather than no choice at all. The default isn’t at bad – but there’s not enough flexibility. You can’t even insert space to make room for my GM’s beloved house rules – or for anything else.

Click on each image for a larger version in a new window

Verdict

The software loads quickly and smoothly and is very stable. I have yet to have any faults due to software whilst using this generator, and (as my hardware and operating system is fairly basic) I do not envisage many others having issues either.

Overall I give the Hero Labs Character Generator for Pathfinder a seven out of ten. It is quick, accurate and easy to use, and yet it’s bland and the character sheet issue is a real let-down.

About The Reviewer

Ian Gray resides in Sydney Australia. He has been roleplaying for 25 years, usually on a weekly basis, and often in Mike Bourke’s campaigns. From time to time he has GM’d but is that rarest of breeds, a person who can GM but is a player at heart. He has played many systems over the years including Tales of the floating Vagabond, Legend of the five rings, Star Wars, D&D, Hero System, GURPS, Traveller, Werewolf, Vampire, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and many, many more. Over the last couple of years he has been dirtying his hands with game design and is currently eyeing the idea of module design. He was a significant contributor to Assassin’s Amulet, the first time his name has appeared in the credits of a real, live, RPG supplement.

What tools go into your GM toolbox?

Written by Michael Beck, with contributions and editing by Da’Vane.

GM’s Toolbox, looks at tools, tips, and techniques you can use to improve your games. Toolbox offers you a skeleton for running a campaign, rather than fleshed out tips. This series is presented in a discussion style, and we ask you to contribute with comments about your own tools, tips, and techniques at the end of this post.

In this category I want to talk about tools you use during the game.

A GM has to do a lot of things when running a session. In this part, we will cover creating and establishing the right mood, for both the player and the GM, since being in the right frame of mind will significantly improve the experience of the game.

In part II, we will cover how to handle notes and note taking, which every GM should get into the habit of doing.

In part III, we will explore rules and combat resolution, which is one of the main tasks a GM must deal with during the game, and often at the heart of running a game.

Getting Into the GMing Mood

An enthusiastic GM brings the game to a much higher level than a tired, distracted or even bored GM. Hence having tools, which get you into the GMing mood, can increase the fun of your games, for all involved.

Michael: Here are a random collection of tools I use for getting into the GMing/PCing mood: Being fit (GMing while ill sucks…); Don’t be hungry, but also don’t eat too much.

Drink a beer, but don’t get drunk; Caffeine may help. Watch some cool/funny action scenes or movie trailers. Remember game-sessions that went great and awesome (as player or GM).

Da’ Vane: Remember that being a GM is supposed to be fun, not a chore. Therefore, you should only do what you need, concentrate on the parts you enjoy.

If necessary, find someone to co-GM with so you can focus on what you enjoy doing. For example, if you like creating worlds, but don’t enjoy running so much, team up with someone who prefers running over world building and adventure preparation

Failing that, try to find way to make it fun, and limit the things you don’t enjoy doing as much as possible. The GM also needs to be having fun at the gaming table, and beyond it, otherwise they are more likely to suffer GM burnout and cause the game to break up.

Johnn: Images offer great mood food. Hit Deviant Art, find your genre, get inspired.

Another mood trick is Tarot. Give yourself a reading. It can open your mind to new possibilities.

Creating Moods Like Horror and Tension

This is somewhat a setting-related tool, but even in settings which do not go explicitly for horror can benefit from a horror scene now and then for a change of pace.

Creating an atmosphere of horror or tension is much harder than it seems, and it’s hard to grasp sufficient conditions for creating that atmosphere, in which every player becomes very quiet, leaning forward and almost falling from their chairs, occasionally cold with fear.

Sometimes it just works and sometimes it doesn’t, no matter how hard you try. It’s like being too relaxed and happy to get scared by a horror movie.

For tension, it is a little simpler, but here there are no works-for-sure tools either (at least not known to me. If you know, please share!).

Michael: For building up a horror scene, I loosely follow a three stage plan.

Foreshadow the bad thing by some stories. This could be spooky stories told, an entry in a diary or an article in a newspaper. It should roughly describe something terrifying without actually naming it.

The information gathered from this should be vague.

In stage two, I go for a mild encounter or a witness of the bad thing, again giving only vague information. This is for excluding rational explanations and poking the fantasy to come up with bad imaginations of the bad thing.

In a third step, the actual confrontation takes place.

This three step process works for me quite well.

For creating tension, I follow just some rule of thumbs: Put players on the clock, go for big stakes (more than just the life of the characters), and foreshadow the dangers (similar to creating a horror atmosphere).

Da’ Vane: Creating horror and tension comes from instilling a sense of fear into the characters, and often the players. This can be hard to do, because there is always the idea that this is just a game, the GM is invested in the game and doesn’t want to wipe out the party, and if all else fails, the players can always create new characters.

Plus, most systems have a sense of transparency between the GM and the players, with players knowing the rules as well as the GM, and therefore able to call the GM out on abuses, such as creating enemies the PCs cannot handle.

Most of these are crutches for players, and horror games simply do away with them – bringing back that sense of fear.

Therefore, the easiest method for creating horror and tension is to do the same thing – without telling the players beforehand.

A GM can smite players for no apparent reason, but it’s the threat that creates the fear, not carrying it out.

Think back to some of the more devious, lethal tricks of “old school” roleplaying games to learn how to create fear. A room that instantly kills without warning upon entry doesn’t create fear, because there’s nothing to be afraid of, and no survivors around remain scared.

However, legends of a dungeon with such rooms beyond which lies ancient treasures – now that creates fear. The PCs know about the rooms beforehand, but they’ll never know exactly which rooms are safe and which aren’t….

Handling Music and Sound

Music is key for creating a certain mood at the table. It is the soundtrack for your game.

Imagine a movie without a score and you see (or rather hear) what your game is missing. Music isn’t the only thing that can be used. Sound effects can also produce atmosphere, for example in a tavern.

You actually need two tools here: One for handling the music during the session, one for getting the music/sound effects.

Michael: My favourite source is www.audiomicro.com, especially for sound effects.

For handling the music, I successfully use my cell phone, which helps a lot since I don’t use a PC in every group, nor do we play always at my home. In my cell phone I have folders for the different moods, like confrontation, creepy, and so on.

Da’ Vane: I rarely use music or sound effects when I run my games, because the majority of my games take place either online or in public places, at a roleplaying games club where there is normally more than one game going on.

But this doesn’t mean that I never use them. Even simple sound effects generated at the table by the GM can be effective when used properly. For example, tapping a glass or slamming a book can put a dramatic touch to an otherwise bland encounter.

The key is to use what you can to enhance your game, rather than feel that you must use everything or you are losing out. Be aware of the simple sounds you can easily make already at the gaming table; it helps immensely.

You can always hum a soundtrack, snap your fingers to a beat, drum on the table with your fingertips, or stamp your feet to make appropriate sound effects and music.

Johnn: I ask my players to make soundtracks. I have an MP3 dock from a couple Christmases ago, and players plug their MP3 players into it and queue up their playlists.

I would love to do sound effects some day. I purchased a CD set of effects ages ago, but have yet to use them during a game.

About the Authors

Michael Beck considers himself a novice GM, but is encouraged in sharing his tips at www.spielleiten.wordpress.com (German language). Having played RPGs for roughly 10 years now, he accepts the challenge of living with his girl-friend, two cats, a non-finished PhD-thesis and two running roleplaying campaigns.

Da’ Vane, or Christina Freeman in the real world, is the owner of DVOID Systems, and the primary writer of their D-Jumpers series of products. With an academic background in science, especially socio-psychology, she is what many would regard as a “know-it-all.” However, the truth is that she doesn’t know everything about everything, but she knows a lot about a lot, especially about her passions which are games, stories, learning, and people. She is a consummate geek goddess, and yes, she is single if you feel like tracking her down and hitting on her some time….

Well, it’s that time of the month when, following a Blog Carnival, the hosting site compiles a list of the blogs posted on their chosen subject and officially passes the baton on to the next host. Hold on a minute – this month the person that has to do that is me! I guess I had better get busy…

The subject this month was “Making The Loot Part Of The Plot” and a lot of people had a lot to say on the topic. In fact, we had 39 submissions…

Campaign Mastery

I’ll get our contributions out of the way first! We kicked things off with a post entitled Making The Loot Part Of The Plot which was – to be honest – little more than a list of possible articles relating to the subject. As the person who populated that list, you can imagine that I had something to say about each subject, but time was limited. I include this link more out of a sense of completeness than anything else, and to show how much more there is to write on this subject!

Despite being distracted by the then-imminent release of Assassin’s Amulet (have you bought your copy yet? and if not, why not?), we were able to tackle a number of them in the month that followed. In Loot As A Plot Mechanic, I wrote about changing the way GMs think about the loot, and then listed many different types of reward and how they could be used as Plot Mechanics.

This was followed by a two-part excerpt from one of the eBooks we’re preparing in support of Assassin’s Amulet, A Player’s Guide To Legacy Items: Part 1 summarized the concept of a Legacy Item, how they come into existence, how characters acquire them, and the process by which the item moulds and shapes the character. Part Two talked about the powers a Legacy Item could contain, how players could access those powers, what the effects were, and how the presence of the Legacy Item became part of the campaign’s overall plotline.

In Making, earning, Finding, Analyzing, using, Selling, and Destroying Loot, I looked at all the things that characters might want to do with ‘the loot’ and the plot potential of each (I also vented a few times on issues that annoy me every time they crop up – and talked about ways around them).

This was followed by The Value Of Magic, I attempted to come up with a rationalized basis for the value of Magic Items – a big topic in itself! – and came up short. But along the way, I described a nine-step general classification scheme for ranking magic items in terms of their value to a character, listed all the other factors that should be considered in pricing a creation cost, and showed that this was a useful contribution to the subject even without being able to take the final step.

Johnn closed out the month with Why I Fell In Love With Staves Again After 10 Years, in which he discusses the myriad aspects of using, recharging, and designing staves in terms of the plot points they contain. Then, as a cherry on the top, throws in another half dozen or so great ideas on making the command words plot points, and giving them non-magical functions – each of which gives a staff a further plot point. While much of the article is devoted to Staves as they appear in the Pathfinder RPG, an awful lot of it is good advice in D&D as well.

Elthos RPG

VBWyrde uses the baking of loaves of bread as a metaphor to describe ways of making the loot something the PCs want to interact with in his post, also entitled Making Loot Part of the Plot. The metaphor might be slightly quirky but there’s some solid advice in this post.

Dungeon’s Master

Ameron offers 7 Adventure Hooks for Making the Loot Part of the Plot which are worthwhile in themselves, and even more so if you analyze each looking for the reasons the Loot is significant in each case. But the piece-de-resistance of this article is the “related reading” on offer. Since it’s entirely possible that this was automatically generated and not-handcrafted – our system works in a similar way – I’m going to list the suggestions on offer when I checked out the post:

• Even a Regular Item can become and Adventure Hook
• The Little Details make a Big difference
• Intelligent Magic Items
• Your Coin is No Good Here

All relevant, all worth reading.

Hunter’s Quarry

Medieval Mike offers Loot as Part of the Plot in which he talks about how he personally achieves this in his game, and some really interesting ideas that he’s come across for doing the same. The “Book Of Martial Forms” that he describes is so similar in principles to our Legacy Items that it would be easy to convert, but Mike offers a wrinkle that hadn’t even occurred to us – custom-designing each new power to fit the character’s objectives at the time it is granted. The article is obviously written from a 4e point-of-view, with its mention of Healing Surges and Action Points, but the advice is solid for any FRPG – and the ideas are top-notch. And be sure to read the comments for even more ideas!

Game Knight Reviews

Fitz’s contribution is The Gassy Gnoll: Where’d that come from?, in which he posits the notion that an item’s history might be its magic – and that this magic can only be accessed once you know about that history. That summary really only scratches the surface of a really great idea. Once again, check the comments for some added brilliance courtesy of the RandomDM.

In a seperate article, Fitz links to a new ‘Legends & Lore’ article by Monte Cook at Wizards of the Coast which he thinks is relevant to the Blog Carnival, and I have to agree.

The RandomGM, Johnn, and I discuss in the comments section of Making The Loot Part Of The Plot (and yes, that is a redundant recurrence of that link) the results of the survey discussed in the article, given in the follow-up ‘Legends & Lore’ post, and their significance.

Fame & Fortune

In all that glitters…, Satyre warns against overload, then offers six suggestions for adding plots through loot that can really capture your player’s attention. Some of the advice is, quite frankly, brilliant. All of it is worth the time to read it.

Berin Kinsman’s Dire Blog

Berin has also entitled his post Making Loot a Part of the Plot, but don’t think that he is treading the same ground as everyone else – he isn’t. As his article shows, there mere fact that there is loot to be had at a location, and that there will be something trying to stop the PCs from getting it, is enough to make past loot part of the plot – and yet, this is a post about what tomorrow might bring to the PCs. Every player and GM should read this contribution!

The Githyanki Diaspora

have offered Mo’ Gold Pieces, Mo’ problems in which Judd The Librarian expounds on the possibilities of plots that begin where most GMs would think the story ends. I’ve done this myself for my Rings Of Time campaign, and it provides a great way to jump-start an adventure. And I love the dilemma posed by Verrain in the comments: “the only thing left to decide is if I want to run this or beg someone else to run this.” You don’t get much higher praise for an idea than that.

Casting Shadows

Runeslinger (great name for an arcane supervillain!) gets deeply philosophical in Looting Characters about what makes a great game, and how “loot” factors into that question. If you’re looking for quick-fix simple solutions, this is not the place to find them – but if you’re looking to go beyond those in any direction, with any game system, this article will be thought-provoking, stimulating, – and, perhaps, a little daunting. Highly recommended.

Five Fictive Fantasies

FiveFictiveFantasies seems to have been genuinely inspired by the subject and has offered many posts to the blog carnival.

The first is Mark Of Station which posits the consequences of making “the loot” badges of office, and how that immediately makes it part of the plot – no matter what the relationship is between the wielders and the PCs. An elegant proposal that I will have to make greater use of in my own campaigns!

Second up, we have No Printing Press in which literacy combines with the concept of ‘books as treasure’ in a number of extremely useful ways. If you can’t draw new inspiration from this article, you have no imagination.

The third in this series of posts is The World Is Loot, and it describes the insight of a paradigm shift in the perspective of the players. Whether we realize it or not, this is the goal that we all strive for as GMs of our campaigns – but it’s a lot harder to reach a destination if you don’t know where you’re going.

Next up, we have Magic Shouldn’t Work So Hard. I have to agree completely with these proposals – consider them snaffled for my campaigns!

And this blog isn’t done with the subject yet: Overpaid Killers (an ironic title, given that I’ve just co-authored an e-book on assassins) talks about the art of painlessly separating PCs from their accumulated coinage. This post works brilliantly in conjunction with the submission from The Githyanki Diaspora cited earlier.

Zombie Toast

Orion’s first foray into a Blog Carnival, The Importance Of Branding, discusses the use of symbolism and historical context to add to the allure of treasures and makes the loot a conduit to game history and culture. This article touches briefly on some of the same ground as the first of Five Fictive Fantasies’ first blog post, but only tangentially, and is an excellent contribution. Again, the points that Orion makes are things I’m going to have to keep more strongly in mind in the future!

Sea Of Stars Design Journal

Sean Holland offers Magic Items as Plot Devices in which he breaks down this variety of plot device into three types, then considers the strengths and weaknesses of each, and the style of campaign for which they are best suited. There’s some very practical advice here. Sean also touches on the risks and liabilities of using goodies as plot devices, an important point to consider.

Houserule

Edward at Houserule poses questions about the value of money, and the impact of character wealth on a game, in If I Were A Rich Man. His tips are definitely worth considering, especially when setting up a new campaign.

After notifying us about the article above, Lee Dvorak was sufficiently inspired to add Iconic Weapons, or give everybody the Sword of Kas!. This article also tackles the subject of Iconic treasures, but takes the conversation in a slightly different direction – in the process inadvertently offering a solution to one of the vexing problems that I vented about in one of my own posts for the carnival, and one that should have been obvious to me. Absolutely topnotch.

And then another of the bloggers at Houserule, Jeff, was inspired by Lee’s post to write Loot: Mystery and Freedom, which also tackles the proposal for iconic treasures, and moves it into an interesting and innovative direction. For those that care, be warned, it contains some Drizzt spoilers.

Exchange Of Realities

What Loot Can Do With Your Plot is another blog post to take a look at aspects of the overall picture and the types of plot that loot can engender. The key point to emerge involves the relationship between successful use of Loot as a plot device and forward thinking and planning. Success is not something that often happens by accident!

Ravyn followed this article up with a second, Impress Me With Your Shinies, describing how GMs can make their items iconic. This is essential advice for exploiting many of the other carnival posts to the full. And, as a bonus, the implications of one of Grimtooth’s traps (discussed in the comments) are totally fascinating.

Late in the month, Ravyn added a third article, Impractical Applications (Swag!), which offers a couple of interesting items, and how they figured into the plotlines, and by extension, how someone else can do the same. For someone who was “almost surprised [he] made it to this month’s [blog carnival]”, she certainly made a substantial contribution – well done!

Hack & Slash

Another writer who seems to have been genuinely inspired by the subject, -C weighed in with no less than 5 posts for the carnival, starting with On Magic Weapon: A Table part III which offers a d% table for giving your weapons a purpose. This is the sort of thing I’m hopeless at producing, so this was a nice contribution to the carnival! Oh, and there are links to parts I and II of the table at the bottom of the post. Oh, and don’t forget to check the links on the RHS of the page for “On The Magic Amour: A Table” parts I and II, if this stuff is your bread-and-butter.

This was followed by On Riches Causing Ruin. Actually, this post preceded the other, but I’m listing them in the order -C did when he advised us of his blog’s contributions. This article poses the question, “have you ever ruined a campaign with treasure?” – too much, or too little. As a consequence, much of the value lies in the ensuing discussion.

The third post for the blog carnival at Hack & Slash was On The Distribution Of Wealth which tackles the placement of loot within an adventure or campaign – and offers a great deal of game-mechanics insight and history along the way. It’s those insights that power most of the comments, so don’t skip the discussion.

Continuing the line of discussion concerning the placement and distribution of treasures is On Sample Hoards, which offers two sample stacks of loot, old-school. Personally, I thought the cannibals (“Exhibit A”) had too much coin but everything else was reasonable. I’d have cut the coin allotment and replaced them with a pouch of herbs on one of the cannibals that – when chewed like tobacco but not swallowed, functioned like a healing potion – after five minutes of chewing. Divide the value of the removed coinage by the value of a healing potion, round up (because you’ve made the potions slightly less useful) and you have the number of doses or ‘charges’. Add an extra one or two to that tally for good measure, and to keep the players happy. These examples are worth studying because they show how to integrate a treasure cache with the environment of the encounter – a key part of old-school gaming that is all-too-often overlooked.

The final submission from Hack & Slash completes the discussion of the placement of treasure with On The Generation of Treasure, which walks the reader through the process of treasure placement that -C uses. Again, this is old-school stuff, and -C specifically warns new players against reading the post – something I disagree with. C’s approach is very similar to a proposal I articulated a while back in Objective-Oriented Experience Points –
he’s talking GP-value and I was talking xp, but according to the old-school paradigm, they are one and the same. The approach still works even in a modern campaign (with, perhaps, a little less randomness to the process) – you just have to recognize what it is that you are distributing, and into how many ‘parcels’. Rather than suggest non- old-school readers turn away, I would encourage them to read the post and see what they can glean from it to benefit their games.

Surprise Round

4649matt connects the topic with that iconic event of the month of October (at least in North America, and spreading) – Halloween. His article, Trick or Treat contains lots of good advice and interesting ideas, some of which can be taken even further than the blog suggests – such as using the ‘allure of the shiny trinkets’ to lead players into traps and away from something that is to be protected. Another must-read.

The Random DM

The Hoard Project was an ambitious project to prove that tables can build a cohesive story and emergent behaviors. Still incomplete, and clearly something that RandomDM is determined to finish, even the tables that have been completed so far offer value to the carnival, offering a bunch of tables to help develop a big pile of loot – with meaning.

Wrathofzombie’s Blog

This almost got missed because WrathOfZombie didn’t send CM a link to the post, which would have been a shame – it’s a great contribution. Fortunately, I noticed it as a “related post” while revisiting one of the other submissions. In Loot Part of The Plot, the suggestion is made for the loot in question to come as a choice: a tangible reward, or a favor to be called in at a later time. A convincing arguement is then mounted that “favors” – which would include debts and obligations – are under-represented in many campaigns. Finally, the post shows what those campaigns are missing out on.

Roleplaying Tips

In addition to his post at Campaign Mastery, Johnn also offered a carnival entry through his other site, Roleplaying Tips, How To Create Great Magic Items In Just Three Minutes. This offers a system for the generation of memorable, even iconic magic items.

To go with it, he is also running a
contest to create items using the system. While he intends to compile the entries and give them back to the gaming community afterwards, if you want something to use in the meantime, there are several offered in the comments to the contest, and a few more offered as comments to the template that he posted, so be sure to check the comments to both articles!

(I would echo the advice of Satyre from Fame and Fortune and warn against placing so many of these unique items that the uniqueness gets drowned out. Choose your targets carefully! One per PC per adventure, plus (perhaps) one for the big bad guy per adventure, should be ample).

The Wrap-up

The October 2011 blog post barely scratched the surface of this topic and still produced some great posts. Every single one of them had something that the others didn’t, and that’s absolutely brilliant! I hope that everyone enjoyed the carnival, and my thanks to all the contributors.

From here, the Blog Carnival migrates to the website of one of this month’s contributors, the Elthos RPG Blog and their subject, ‘Tricks & Traps, or How to think like a Villain’. Take it away, VBWyrde!

(Oh, and don’t forget – you can sign up to host a round of the Blog Carnival (2012 dates have just been opened), and check out all the past carnivals, at the Archive Page hosted by Nevermet Press).

Staves have not been part of treasure piles in my recent campaigns, which is a travesty. I’m not sure when I stopped using them as treasure or NPC possessions, but that’s going to stop today.

When I played first edition D&D, staves were given out like candy. Oh how we loved to roll them on those treasure tables in the DMG. Staves were so darn useful. With their range of spells and powers, they were our magical Swiss army knives for adventuring. Then times changed.

It’s time to bring them back again. Here are several tips on how you and I can get the most out of staves our Pathfinder games. (Some advice is useful to D&D 3.5 GMs too.)

A New Staff Holds 10 Charges When Created

Staves offer excellent game balance. Hand them out more often without fear of building undefeatable PCs.

10 charges is pretty balanced. Consider how wands have up to 50 charges, and rod powers are usually on demand or on all the time. 10 charges offers limited impact on an ongoing campaign.

Even better news is many staves have powers that cost 2 or 3 charges. The Staff of Life has a function that costs 5 charges! The PCs will blow their wads in just a few encounters and the magic items gets spent.

There’s a big campaign design opportunity here: hand out staves more often.

Here’s why.

1. Character Uptake

First, more supply encourages PC use. When supply is low, PCs tend to horde, then forget. When supply is generous, they’ll use up charges freely.

2. Up the Fantasy

Second, with staff powers flying around, encounters become more fantastic. Cool magic creates cool effects. That’s a sure recipe for fun.

3. More to Think About

Third, deeper puzzle skills come into play, which delights many types of players. With a wide range of options for each staff, characters have more ways to make an impact. Groups have new options to trick or harm foes, rescue the hostages or overcome hazards. Imagination gets rewarded.

Those are only a few reasons. With some staves, combat goes faster, characters get more adventure out of a day, or more roleplaying takes place during encounters.

Note I said a new staff holds 10 charges.

Hand out staves with less than 10 charges to tweak more balance if you need it. Plus, when do PCs get magic items that have just rolled out the factory doors? The previous owner would have likely used the staff at least once (just to test it works, at the least).

All optional, though. You pull the strings. Could be no one has figured out how to operate the staff since its original owner lost it to war, bandits, gambling….

Oh, I neglected to mention what I think is the biggest benefit to increased staff use in your games.

Variety. With more staves floating around, getting used and getting used up, you have more magical things of different types happening in your games.

I don’t care who you are, a +5 Vorpal sword becomes just a numbers bump after a hundred swings. But when a new staff enters the game, something cool and shiny captures everybody’s attention again.

Recharge Your Game

You can recharge staves. This puts a bit of a concern on game balance, but not much. Here’s why.

First, you need a spellcaster who knows a spell from one of the staff’s powers.

Second, the spellcaster must be able to cast a spell that’s at least as high as the highest level spell the staff can cast. That means you can’t farm out recharging to a low level caster.

For example, the Staff of Adjuration can cast Repulsion, which is Wiz/Sor 6, Clr 7. The PCs would need access to a 13th level wizard or sorcerer, or a 15th level cleric to recharge the staff.

Third, you can only recharge a staff with one charge per day. It’ll take awhile to get an expended staff up to 10 charges again. That also means at least a two or three day delay to regain 2 and 3 charge powers in a fully spent staff.

Fourth, a caster can only charge one staff per day. That means get in line buddy, if more than one staff needs a boost.

Fifth, the recharging caster loses for a day a spell of the highest level the staff can cast. That is a big deal for adventuring spellcasters.

And if the PCs are hiring a caster for recharge service, the caster will charge them according to the spell slot expended, not the actual spell cast, and that gets expensive. Actually, it gets terribly expensive.

How Much to Hire A Recharger?

Let’s say the PCs need to put 10 charges again into their Staff of Abjuration. The highest level spell the staff casts is Wiz/Sor 6, Clr 7. The PCs, only 7th level, opt to pay a 13th level wizard over the next 10 days to power up their beloved magic twig.

Spellcasting costs: the caster level x spell level x 10gp. So, 13 x 6 x 10 = 780gp.

10 charges will cost 7,800gp!

On the bright side, that’s better than paying 82,000gp for a shiny new one.

And it will take 10 days, hardly the fast food style of service that adventuring PCs demand.

The GMing Opportunities Here

That brings us to yet more campaign design opportunities.

Let’s assume the characters have one or more staves that need recharging. A simple rule of thumb is one staff will need a recharge per adventure completed.

The characters can spend their loot to recharge an empty staff or top up a used one. In my campaigns, that means cashing in other magic items, equipment, gems, and valuables earned while traipsing around helping people solve their problems or questing for the Big Kahuna (which, with any luck, is a staff that needs future recharging).

That gives you a great campaign economy. Not only are the PCs spending their treasure, but they are using it to make something they already have useful again.

I would also offer recharge services as reward. NPC favors or bartering makes great plot hooks, plot lubrication and roleplaying. It makes interacting with spellcaster NPCs worthwhile for yet another reason.

Going outside the box a bit, let’s look at another GMing opportunity.

Treasure that recharges other treasure. This sounds like excellent quest material to me. How about you?

• Perhaps a sacred spring in the wild north is rumored to recharge divine staves with a simple ceremony.
• Perhaps a special oil, whose recipe requires rare and dangerous ingredients, can be crafted to recharge a staff three charges per batch (I’m always on the lookout to use monster parts to fuel rewards).
• How about a Staff of Charging?
• What about a legend of an ice volcano that charges arcane staves?

Here’s a bizarre one. What about an NPC with the gift of recharging a staff once per day just by laying hands upon it? What would happen to that NPC in your world and campaign? Would he be kidnapped by villains, cloistered away by greedy priests or seconded into towers by powerful wizards? Would the NPC try to escape or seek help? What kind of plots and adventures would the presence of such an NPC spawn? And, naturally, the great reward at the end is a recharge of the party’s staves. Wow, that could be worth 6 figures in gold pieces to the PCs!

Wide Range of Physical Properties Gives You a Rainbow of Flavor

The rules say staves are 4 to 7 feet long. Think about that for a second.

The first thing that comes to my mind, design-wise, is you can tailor staves to suit individual PCs. Players love stuff designed just for them. For example, short characters get short staves, tall PCs tall ones.

Further, short or long, a staff is going to be hard to hide or stow.

And a PC will need to carry his staff in his hand when he wants to keep it ready for use, which will likely be always. That’s noticeable.

Roleplay to the Hilt

There’s a roleplaying opportunity there. First, the staff can become part of the PCs’ identity. What would happen if you walked into work each day with a 6’ staff that you parked in your cubicle? You’d become known as that staff guy.

So too it could be with NPCs reacting to the staff, asking questions about it, talking about it amongst themselves, and best case…speculating about it. “What is it? What does it do? It doesn’t look like a regular walking stick, so what powers does it have?” I love juicy NPC gossip!

Then think about the tallest staves. 7 feet long. Holy cow. That’ll make an impression.

Impressive Thickness

Did I mention the rules say staves are 2 to 3 inches thick?

A 7 foot long staff that’s 3 inches thick is going to make a huge impression. It’ll be heavy, strong and imposing.

Even a 2 inch diameter, 4 foot long staff – the minimum specs – is cool. I’d be tempted to go to the hardware store, buy a piece of dowelling, and cut it to length. Great prop, especially painted and engraved. At the least, your player will get a real feel for this thing his PC carries and brandishes.

Construction Material

Now we get to the best part yet. “Many staves are wood, but an exotic few are bone, metal or even glass.”

This great range of materials lets you further customize rewards to PC kits. It also lets you keep rewards interesting. The number of materials you can use to make each staff distinct is amazing.

• Just think about the different types of metals there are in our world, not to mention the possible fantasy metals.
• And wood–how many types of trees are there, including special ones unique to your world?
• There’s a type of bone for every boned critter out there.
• Even glass comes in different colors and opacity (get out your old marbles or look at your kitchen glassware for design inspiration).

Hand out a swirly purple and white glass rod, then an oak one, then a stonewood staff, then a tarnished copper one formerly used as a stewpot stirring stick.

Shape is Up for Grabs Too

“A typical staff is like a walking stick, quarterstaff or cudgel.”

Even more design options, with two of them as potential weapons.

Imagine the great surprise when a player who gets the magic cudgel realizes it’s also a staff. Double the love by giving a quarterstaff Staff of the Woodlands to the druid, or a cudgel Staff of Conjuration to the wizard (assuming the wizard can wield a cudgel like a club).

NPCs should always use the tools at their disposal, not hide them away in treasure chests. So give staves (intended as treasure) to NPCs who initially surprise PCs when the magic item gets used. The leader of the alley ambush suddenly uses his cudgel to summon a swarm of spiders. That’ll sap the strength of the PCs, for sure.

As an aside, when NPCs wield magic items, try to make the most of the opportunity to build up excitement or suspense.

For example:

• The PCs might hear about deadly swarms of vermin afflicting the area in the past two days.
• In a later encounter, they meet a witness who saw a swarm of spiders just disappear into thin air, which clever players can deduce were magically summoned creatures.
• Then, talk about a robbery reaches the PCs. People say robbers brandished a strange medallion and threatened to summon demon spiders to kill the victim unless he gave up his purse and jewelry.
• Finally, the group gets robbed by this gang. The medallion is brandished and the game is on. The leader will use his cudgel Staff of Summon Swarm only if necessary.

As GM, you can play up the fake medallion and look for opportunities to deceive the PCs for maximum surprise. Maybe the rogues have captured five black widows and release them as “the swarm” if combat erupts, further muddying the truth.

Add Chocolate Sprinkles and Nuts

“A staff often has a gem or some device at its tip or is shod in metal at one of both ends. Staves are often decorated with carvings or runes.”

This is icing on the cake. A special GM treat. You can dress up your staves with all kinds of cool end pieces to truly make your magic items cherished.

“…some device at its top…” gives you leeway to put a skull on your staff, a wondrous snow globe, a flag or anything else you can imagine, be it functional, valuable or for decoration and roleplay only.

Further, you can put runes and carvings on the item. That gives us the exciting opportunity to turn staves into puzzles! This just keeps getting better and better.

You can make a rune puzzle reveal the command word. You can make the runes into a prophecy puzzle, in which the staff is a key piece (leading to plot advancement or a new plot).

You have a one-two punch opportunity here to make understanding the runes or carvings the first puzzle. Then you make the message they deliver into another puzzle or plot. This is great GM stuff.

Activate More Gameplay

Staves use the spell trigger activation method. That means just a command word and class casting ability of the same type the staff uses. So, spellcasters only, please.

This gives you opportunity to reward some classes where magic treasure is a bit harder to target. Druids are sometimes tricky to find that something special for. Now you can give them a staff – or three.

Here’s an old GM trick you can use a number of clever ways. The command word that triggers the staff is up for grabs for each design. The rules advise not using common words else risk the staff going off unintentionally. (But if that happens which spell power releases? I’m not clear on this logic.)

Nevertheless, you can do neat things with the command word.

• You can give the command word a second meaning. Turn it into a clue.
• You can make the command word for multiple staffs form a sentence (when ordered correctly) that is the command phrase for something new and awesome.
• You can make the command word something awkward for the group. “Die humans!” is a nice one when in the city, for example.
• You can make the command word awkward for a PC. “Orcus, come to my aid,” is a good one for, well, good people.
• You can also make the command word important to NPCs, especially enemies. Imagine an enemy who learns the command word of a PC’s new staff might be a clue for him. If the bad guy has brass balls, he might attack the PCs (or have his minions attack, more likely) just to get them to use the staff and command word. Nice encounter hook, that one.

The rules advise making the command word gibberish or something foreign. I advise you turn it into a great game element.

Play Staves Up

The wielder must hold his staff in at least one hand. That seems like a good opportunity to use disarm. Foes might want to steal the item. Build a NPC or two with Improve Disarm, then attack and see how it goes.

Along similar lines, challenge the PCs with foes who have Improved Sunder. There’s nothing better than scaring players with destruction of their prized possessions.

Give leaders in various parts of your world magic staves. Make them part of a leader’s symbols of power. Give them ceremonial uses, especially during holidays and political events. Give them to kings, popes, and leaders of creatures and cultures. In this way, staves are celebrated and woven into the fabric of your world. They help world design, and are part of your world’s design.

Create a Staff Today

Hopefully I’ve built a good argument for bringing more staves into your campaigns.

I suggest we go to our GM place right now and create at least one using the tips above. Make something special and unique for a PC and drop it into your campaign as treasure.

While you are at it, submit this creation to my Magic Items Contest over at roleplayingtips.com. Over there I blogged about a 3 Minute Magic Item template. With this effective template you can work on your campaign during the commercials of your favourite TV show.

Great RPG books and software are up for grabs. Check out the template and enter your staff creation for a chance to win.

3 Minute Magic Items contest >>

How much is a magic item worth? Well, there’s the book value, which can be obtained by cracking open the sourcebook to the relevant page. But that just gives its price – I want to talk about how much it is worth. What is it’s value to its owner? What’s it worth from a character point of view?

This is a much harder question to answer than it first appears, even taking the most general perspective and classification system possible. In fact, it is so difficult that I can’t even begin to answer it in any universal fashion; what I can do, and have done, is attempt to craft a classification scheme, assign an approximate order of values within that classification scheme, and focus the issue into some more specific questions of valuation that can then be discussed and considered.

A Classification Scheme

The place to start is with that general classification scheme, and with the ordering of relative values. This ordering is necessarily a little vague and fuzzy, for some very good reasons.

Number One: as will be discussed a little later in the article, when I look at the internal hierarchy of values within a category, each of these actually represents a range of possible values combining a number of different factors and considerations. An item that scores highly within that range in a less valuable category will almost certainly be of greater value – probably vastly greater value – than a low-level entry in an inherently more valuable category.

Number Two: there is a difference between perceived value and actual value. Some characters will want one magic item over another simply because it better fits their character or plans and ambitions or style.

Number Three: Item functions are often founded apon fuzzy, misunderstood, or imperfect game mechanics, and that vagueness translates into a difficulty in valuing a quantified improvement in capability within those game mechanics.

There are other reasons that could be mentioned, but those three are more than enough to illustrate the situation.

So, with those caveats understood, let’s look at the general classification scheme. It consist of 9 categories, ranging from the undesirable to the most desirable. Some of the categories will not be obvious in definition, but they will make sense once those definitions are understood. The nine categories are:

1. Impairment Items
2. Useless Items
3. Abilities that grow
4. Capped Abilities: Specific
5. Capped Abilities: Universal
6. New Options
7. Tactical Boosts
8. Foundation Shifts
9. New Abilities

Let’s take a look at each one in detail:

1. Impairment Items

At the bottom of the valuation ladder are items that impair the character. That seems obvious, but there are some subtleties possible within this category; it contains everything from outright impairments, like cursed items, to mixed blessings, to items that offer a short-term gain for long-term penalties, to items that offer long-term gain for short-term penalties. What? You’ve never heard of those last two? Well, let’s deal with them in order:

Outright Impairment items are useless to the character unless he can get them into the hands of his enemies. Characters frequently have to pay to get rid of such items, their values lie in the negative, or at best are a token worth.

Mixed Blessings are items that have a positive effect on one factor or ability and a negative effect on another. I have these in my Fumanor campaign: Sigils and seals that can be bonded to weapons that grant -x on one ability (usually damage, but there are exceptions) and +(x+1) on another (usually to-hit, but again there are exceptions). A limit of one to a weapon, and the ability to move them from one weapon to another as a full-round action makes life interesting by opening up new tactical questions for the players to consider.

More subtle combinations are possible. Impairing reflex saves and boosting movement rates, impairing a characteristic bonus (and hence all skills and abilities based on it) for a boost in another characteristic bonus or a boost in a specific skill of value (or vice versa)… the limits are those of the imagination. Clearly, some of these will be desirable to some characters, while a different character could not get rid of the item quickly enough.

Short-term gain for long-term pain items offer a quick boost when the character needs it and a balancing detriment later. Consider, for example, the value of a potion that grants a character an extra X dice of hit points (NOT an extra X hit dice, which carries connotations of improvements to hit and so on) – but which remove, permanently, 2X dice of hit points when the potion wears off. This clearly has value when the character is in a tight spot, enabling him to survive fights he would otherwise be forced to flee – but the price is a long-term infirmity that will hinder and impair for a long time to come, and that price will certainly mitigate the value.

Long-term gain for short-term pain items are the other side of the coin. An item that permanently removes X dice of hit points, but that increases the number and/or size of the character’s hit dice for the next X+1 levels can be tempting. The smaller the hit dice size of the character, the more tempting it becomes, in one respect; a mage might certainly be tempted to give up 2d4 hit points in order to gain d8 or d10 hit points for his next three character levels. On the other hand, a character with a lot of hit points, like a higher-level fighter, might not miss 3 dice of them all that much, and would certainly consider such a Faustian bargain.

Clearly, not all of these are worthless to the character – though they fact that they all come with a price-tag attached is enough to give characters pause.

2. Useless Items

Simply because some of the first category of items have values of less than zero, the second category has to be those with an inherent zero valuation – items that are by definition useless to the character.

Even these are not completely worthless, of course; the item will have value to someone else, and hence can be traded for material worth (at least in theory), or given away for influence and goodwill.

3. Abilities that grow

Advancing one rung higher on the valuation ladder, we come to items that grant a bonus to numbers that go up in time anyway. With each level (or every X levels, in the case of some character classes) saves and to-hit values go up. Items that boost these numbers have an obvious value to a character.

The shortcoming of such items is that they are very vanilla in flavor.

They also have markedly different valuations in epic vs. non-epic campaigns – simply by virtue of the fact that when you can no longer gain in levels, your ability to improve over time is also curbed. As characters approach the level cap for the campaign – whatever it might be – these items actually shift out of this category and into one of the two categories that follow.

4. Capped Abilities: Specific

The next highest valuation class belongs to items that improve an ability that is capped or maxed out, save for improvements in a base stat. This class has actually been split into two subclasses – Specific, which refers to a capped ability that only a specific type or group of character classes can access, and Universal, which anyone can access. An example might be increasing the number of fighter bonus feats that a character can achieve provided that the character can access fighter bonus feats in the first place. Or an increase in the number of Favored Enemies a Ranger could take. Or an increase in the number of extra dice of damage a rogue does on a backstab. Or an increase in the number of spells of a given spell level a wizard could cast, or something similar for a sorcerer. This class gives a character more of some ability that is unique to his class or to a group of classes which includes his character class.

The value comes in offering more of something the character can have no more of, a trait that makes these items quite desirable – and that increases that desirability as the character approaches those limits.

But the value is limited because not everyone can access the benefits – you have to meet the conditions, whether those be character class, or a characteristic minimum, or alignment, or whatever.

5. Capped Abilities: Universal

The Universal variety of boosts to capped abilities is slightly more valuable because of that universality. And, interestingly, this is where the damage bonus of magic weapons resides – anyone (whether they have or can access the proficiency requirements or not) can use any weapon, it’s only a question of how clumsily they will do so – and that means that anyone can access that bonus. But this also applies to other capped abilities such as initiative.

There is a further subcategory within this area that is very hard to pin down to a label. I call them Metagame Magic Items – but that term also comprises items that fall into some of the categories that are still to come, so it’s not a fully adequate term. These are magic items that permit a character a specified number of exceptions to a specific rule, and they are rare in any campaign. In the context of this category of magic items, they refer to the rules concerning stacking limits on numbers.

Consider an item whose only ability was to permit the change of definition of one bonus that must be inalterably chosen at the moment this item is activated from whatever type it already has to a Miscellaneous bonus.

The idea is both arcane (in a non-game sense) and abstruse, but once you get your head around it, the appeal to a creative player is obvious. These are potentially campaign-wrecking items, so they should be approached with caution – and always with the philosophy of ensuring parity of opportunity between PCs and their enemies (that’s the principle that says ‘if a PC can do it, so can an NPC, and vice versa’).

6. Mew Options

The next category in this journey of valuation are items that grant a character new options. That’s not to say new abilities – those come a little later; these items simply offer a character doors that he can choose to open.

In my Rings Of Time campaign, for example, there was a Belt of Dwarvenkind. It’s sole power was that it permitted the wearer to be considered a Dwarf in matters of racial heritage, access to feats, and access to character classes (there were a few such). The same privileges could be conferred by the Dwarvenking by naming characters citizens of his Kingdom, even if this was an honorary title.

These ideas grew out of the conviction that the “flavor text” describing feats and classes were rules just as much as were the game mechanics of character advancement. If that flavor text said or implied that only Dwarves had access to the capacity in question, that was the rule concerning it. Coupling that with the concept that magic items existed to violate or distort specific game rules and mechanics in precise and defined ways made this new type of magic item inevitable. This had the effect of moving the qualification requirements for unusual feats and classes out of the realm of game mechanics and into the realm of roleplaying – where the overt approach might be blocked, a more circumspect approach might be available, should the right NPCs be approached in the right ways. A character could attempt to be anything he wanted; the only questions were how difficult it would be to achieve, and where the path to success would be found.

Quite obviously, these are Metagame Magic Items every bit as much as those discussed in the previous category.

7. Tactical Boosts

There are a number of categories at the high end of these valuations that are susceptible to one common, extremely broad, definition – that of permitting the character to do things he would not be permitted to do without the item. That such a broad definition is even possible indicates that, even more than at the lower levels, the valuations of these types of item overlap, and relative minutia of differentials are what decides whether one item is more valuable than another.

Occupying a section of middle ground in the heart of that broader spectrum are the magic items that grant characters a tactical boost.

• Items that mean the character is always considered to be flanking anyone with whom he is in combat – useful in the hands of any melee specialist, priceless to rogues or anyone with Backstab capabilities.
• Items that grant the character a free standard action if they perform a full-round action – either limited to a specific free action or a universal choice.
• Items that permit an extra attack in melee under certain circumstances.
• Items that permit a quick-change in choice of weapons or otherwise make a specific type of action a free action.

….the possibilities are endless, and often extremely subtle. The reason, of course, is because the game mechanics relating to combat are so detailed and well-developed that it is easy to craft an item making specific alterations to the game rules for a given individual.

Because such items grant an ability of some sort to the character using them immediately, they are inherently slightly more valuable than those which merely grant a character opportunities for development that they would otherwise not have; but the sheer variability of value in the tactical options opened means that the value of these items is also extremely variable.

8. Foundation Shifts

This category contains a few magic items of highly abstract conceptual natures. An extension of category 6, “new options”, this category contains items that recast abilities that the character already has. This not only opens new options in the same way as the examples within category 6, it provides a retroactive conceptual alteration to the character’s existing abilities. For example, the ability to cast clerical spells as though they were arcane spells, while prohibiting the casting of any spell castable only by sorcerers and wizards results in a very different character architecture, stripping the clerical spells so cast of any theological content.

In some of my campaigns, clerical spells have contained the ‘signature’ of the deity invoked, something that is invisible to non-clerics but instantly recognizable to other clerics. Some magic items (and some spells that could be cast in advance) would disguise or inhibit the perception of this signature, but by-and-large, as soon as a cleric let fly with a spell, you knew which God or Demon or whatever stood behind them.

These items require some original thought on the part of GMs and players in order to extract the value from them, because they are abstract in nature, and have to be perceived in relation to other concepts within the individual campaign while at the same time shaping those concepts. They can be extremely powerful weapons in the individualizing of campaigns while still retaining the absolute rules and game mechanics contained within the core sourcebooks, or they can achieve absolutely nothing.

Provided that the GM has thought the implications through with sufficient thoroughness, they can be wonderful tools for dealing with rules lawyers, taking their propensity for ‘the letter of the law’ and turning it both on its head and to the benefit of the campaign. I have seen one instance of such a player personality shocked into silence for the entirety of a game session while he tried to come to terms with the implications.

A similar, and related, type of magic item can shift the foundations of an ability. Consider the implications of a magic item that permits or forces characters to base their ability to backstab an opponent on their INT instead of their DEX or character level. Or a character’s Attack modifier on their Wisdom instead of their STR. There are precedents in the class abilities of Paladins.

This is a way of packaging house rules that keeps them neatly contained and accessible, and that is generally acceptable in any campaign for that very reason. It can be as blunt as a giant’s club or as precise as a scalpel; but ultimately they have the effect of transferring power out of the published rules and into the creativity of the GM while still retaining the structures and game mechanics of those rules.

Their abstract nature clearly means that the value of these items depends on how useful a given character will find the shift, which in turn bases the value of the items on the perceptiveness and creativity of player and GM. To those who are very literal-minded, they may have virtually no value; to those who are prepared to seek out the potentials, they may be exceptionally valuable.

This category is in eighth place within the rules because these items are clearly more valuable than the equivalent items of the sixth category, by virtue of the fact that they do everything those items do and something more. That something more can be either more or less valuable than the items of the seventh category, so they clearly belong above that group as well.

9. New Abilities

The final category of magic items are those that grant a new ability to the character who uses them. Often, these are class abilities extracted from other classes, and this can be an excellent way to bring some of the concepts of a class into a campaign where the class itself is too powerful, too weak, or simply unsuitable for some reason. Items that grant a Sorcerer the ability to Turn Undead as a cleric, perhaps of lesser level. Items that permit a cleric or Druid to lay on hands, as per a Paladin. Items that permit a wizard to use a longsword or plate mail without penalty.

These represent a selective blurring of the distinctions between classes when the abilities are those of a class already present within the campaign, and an expansion of capabilities when the powers of the magic item derive from some other source. Because they immediately grant a character an ability that they did not have before, and all the tactical and gaming options that go with it, these can be the most valuable class of items of all.

Questions Of Valuation

So, with the different categories of magic items defined, we next come to the different criteria that control absolute valuations within each of the category. Once again, I’m going to consider each, without regard for relative merit compared to each other.

Gradated Scales

This is quite straightforward: +2 is better than +1. More is better.

How much better? Is it a straight multiple? Is it the square of the improvement? Suddenly, it’s not so straightforward.

Resistance

Some effects are more easily nullified or resisted than others. The more easily the effects can be overcome, the less valuable the item.

Repeatability

Potions are one-shot. Scrolls are usually one-shot. Wands have limited charges. Some items have limited uses per day, or per week, or per battle. And some work each and every time unless there is something unusual going on. The more limited the number of charges are, the less an item should be worth.

Convenience

Some items are convenient to use, and some aren’t. This is more than just activation mechanisms; it’s about magic item slots and relative effectiveness of different items.

Difficulty Of Creation

Some items are more difficult to create than others, or at least, they should be. Caster level should be part of this factor.

Why does it matter?

So, who cares about understanding why items have a particular value? What’s the significance, why does it matter – especially given that the intent to create a universal master system of valuation didn’t survive the practicality test? There are some really good reasons…

The emplacement of loot of desire

The first is that by understanding the relative value of items, you can discern the relative value of items to your players and their characters – and that means that you can emplace loot that they will want. It also means that you can deliberately place loot that is valuable but that a character will not want if they are progressing too quickly. This can be a more subtle and less contentious way of adjusting the power balance within a game. (One reason why I have tackled this subject is because I haven’t done as well in that regard as I would like; this is an attempt to develop a system and perspective to improve that performance.)

A spur to originality

I’m quite sure that amongst the examples I’ve offered in the different categories, there are some that most GMs have never heard of. Any classification system, by its nature, reveals holes in the existing list of objects within that system, which spurs creativity to fill those holes. In other words, knowing what’s possible can be inspirational.

Making The Loot Part Of The Plot

And here’s the ultimate reason: by selectively enhancing character capabilities, the GM can make the loot part of the plot by making the characters part of the plot.

Sounds obvious, right? The best tricks always are.

Consider, for example, a clay tablet in which the characters can ask the Gods one question a day, with only a yes/no answer permitted. Any other response, or if the answer cannot be answered clearly with a yes or no, yields no answer. How could that be used to enhance the GM’s ability to bring the plot to the characters?

Or how about a book that reveals one random fact a day? Sometimes it would be trivial, sometimes it could give the players a clue or piece of background information, and sometimes, just sometimes, it could be used to lure them exactly where the GM wants them to go – because he controls what the ‘random fact’ is, and whether or not it is truly random.

A system of classification of magic items – which is what we’ve ended up with – offers a new way to make the loot part of the plot: by simply putting it in the game, and letting it simply be – the loot!

Today, I wanted to once again cast a glance over the subject of this month’s Blog Carnival and try to give a general view of the many number of ways that Loot can be made part of the plot, without getting too deeply into specifics.

This article is intended to be a companion piece to my earlier article which analyzed the types of loot that could be made part of the plot, “Loot As A Plot Mechanic”; instead of focusing on what the loot might be, this will look at the different types of activities that players might get up to in terms of loot. While there will be some emphasis on magic items as a central variety of loot, I’m going to try and retain a slightly broader perspective than that.

The title of this article lists seven activities, and those seven activities will be the major headings under which the discussion is organized. So lets dive into the deep end, shall we?

Making

Everything that exists has to have been made by someone or something, even if the ‘craftsmen’ are the forces of nature. That truth is common to everything from a weapon to a meal to a gemstone. Even a title deed had to have been made by someone – in two separate senses of the word – crafting the document itself, and the granting of ownership that the document codifies. Who made something can sometimes be more important than anything else associated with the loot, for example in the case of a famous artist, a renowned chef, a powerful wizard, a nobleman’s rank, or a forger.

Giving the maker an identity can open doors for involving the players with old rivalries, forbidden practices and techniques, hidden agendas, court politics, revolutions, and/or criminal activities. There is a transference of plot significance from the item itself to the maker.

I was going to add an additional phrase to the preceding sentence, “an NPC” – but then the possibilities of building a plot around something that a PC had made in the past, or had paid another craftsman to make in the past, started presenting themselves to my imagination. Hidden extras, dodgy shortcuts in materials or construction that were not immediately obvious, compartments built into wagons to make the PCs unwitting accomplices to smuggling – there are significant possibilities here that should not be overlooked.

The makings of tomorrow

Of course, those all stem from casting the making of an item into the past sense. Casting it into the present sense doesn’t afford many story opportunities, I’m afraid, but casting it into the future tense is a very different story!

Future Tense plotlines that fall under the heading of “Making” involve the PCs either as supporters, opponents, or collateral damage. If supporters, the possibilities fall under the umbrella of obtaining materials (perhaps illegal ones), raising funds, hiring craftsmen, negotiating prices, deliveries and escort/protection services, dealing with anyone who might oppose the creation, and so on. If opponents, then the possibilities are of preventing or complicating the above. The last category, collateral damage, involves the PCs simply being bystanders when something dangerous is created, or potential victims when something extremely dangerous (possibly necromantic) is created.

Recreating

Another subcategory that holds similar plot potential to the “future tense” creation plots lies in the possible plots surrounding the re-creation of something that was destroyed. This could be the recreation of something evil, to be opposed by the PCs, or something good, to be supported by the PCs (and possibly even granted to one of them).

Modifying

And still another subcategory of plots deals with magic items whose nature can be modified, for good or ill. The armor of Ashen-Shugar comes to mind. But these are fairly obvious, so let’s move on…

Earning

Well, speaking of obvious. Plots in this line range from the sword in the stone (or equivalents) on. Even being granted a title qualifies as “Earning”.

To wring any original plots from this line, a GM has to really get creative. Prophecies and time loops and ironies have to be central to the GM’s thinking – anything, in fact, that can unhinge the perceived inevitability and predictability of the outcome. Metaphors and other literary tricks must be utilized, because there is very little that’s worse than being predictable.

Finding

At first glance, this describes the standard dungeon reward, but we want to at least glance beyond the traditional limits. Doing so brings up a single plot hook apon which many things can be hung: the unexpected.

Finding something that doesn’t belong. Finding something that is not where it should be. Finding something that is exactly what was promised – but that is nevertheless not what was expected. This is taking the loot, making it a plot device, and then adding a plot twist. It immediately raises questions of why, and who, and how – and questions and surprises are the heart of plotlines.

Picture the following: The PCs break into the room that supposedly contains the greatest treasure of a notoriously greedy and evil noble, having overcome traps and guardians to reach it and discover:

• The noble’s daughter, who has been imprisoned there; or
• the imprisoned figure of the true noble, whose role has been played by a usurper for decades; or
• the portrait of Dorian Gray (or whatever the noble’s name is); or
• a passageway between worlds; or….

…well, you get the idea. Any of the above qualify both as a ‘treasure’ in that they are something that can be stolen (or, at least, used) by the PCs, and yet they are clearly plot developments, first and foremost.

Analyzing

Identify: A Venting

<venting>

In the old days, a character found an item which they knew to be magical, and then had to work out what it did by trial and error and research and, well, by play. Some GMs were generous enough to associate the strength of response of a “detect magic” spell with the overall potency or value of an arcane object, but even that was not mandated by the rules.

This entire plot structure was demolished by the creation of an “Identify” spell in D&D 3.0. On the objective level, I can acknowledge how logical it was that people living in such a world would develop such a spell, if they could; but as a GM who wants his story-telling armory stuffed with as many plot hooks as I can lay my hands on, I deplore it.

And yet, to be honest, it isn’t the existence of the spell that irks me – it’s the infallibility, cheapness of casting, and comprehensiveness of the spell that is the biggest problem. It’s not as though there was no middle ground that could not have been found that was more acceptable; but that middle ground, which would have preserved (even if not unchanged) the plot potential was left terra incognita.

If the detect spell had a chance of failure, that would have made it the equivalent of taking the magic item to an expert – a sage or bard or whatever. The chance of failure could even have been tied to the caster level. Or perhaps the identification of powers could cost a certain amount – say, 100 gp, doubling for each subsequent power. Or 1000gp. Or 10,000gp. Again, this is the equivalent of paying an expert to render an opinion, it’s a labor-saving device; it might void the roleplay of interacting with a possibly-mendacious expert, but something is preserved. Or perhaps a table would determine a smaller amount of information to be accurately related, instead of all details required. Heck, even making the answers a little cryptic would be an improvement. Or making the spell 9th level, so that very few had access to it. Even tagging it as a “Greater identify” and offering a more flawed version at lower levels….

The identify spell is an overt case of pandering to the videogame generation, but it totally kills the potential of plotlines relating to the analysis and identification of magic items, confining the creativity of the GM and the skull sweat that used to be required of players; and in the process, it kills any sense of wonder or mystery about Magic. (Part of the objective in the creation of Legacy Items was to restore that mystery and magic… time will tell how well we have succeeded).

My players will NOT use a magic item until it has been “identified” completely at least twice (they know how I feel about the spell and don’t trust me not to come up with some sneaky way around it – like a magic item with the activation phrase ‘Hastor Hastor Hastor’). Where’s the interest in that? The story potential?

</venting>

Looking outside the box

Without restoring that mystery by weakening or eliminating “Identify”, we are again forced to look outside the box to find potential plot hooks in the analysis of treasure. The most obvious is using the results of “Identify” to raise questions about the previous owner, ie as a plot device for the imparting of player briefing. If the players capture the sword of an enemy and subject it to “identify”, they might discover that it may only be used by Demons, or by Outsiders. Suddenly, what was a plot endpoint is transformed into a plot launchpad. Even so, there are obvious limits to this type of plot.

Things change for the better when we consider other types of loot that might need to be analyzed. Tapestries and paintings and books and scrolls can all contain clues, puzzles, hints, or background information. This in turn can complicate seemingly-straightforward situations and enrich a plotline. I once hid part of a treasure map on a wall, part of it in a scroll, and part of it in the filigree of an otherwise unremarkable suit of armor that had – incongruously – been given a place of pride ahead of more obviously-deserving treasures of the type. To see the completed map, characters had to take a rubbing of the armor on a sheet of (thin!) parchment, shine a lantern through it so that the dark lines from the map were cast apon the wall, and do likewise at the same time to the scroll. Only then would the complete map appear on the wall – and it still had to be transcribed, translated, analyzed, and comprehended. For days, the characters were plagued by two nagging feelings: that the loot they had found was a twentieth of what was expected, having less value than the resources used to protect it; and that there was something that they had missed. Eventually, they figured it out… I was subjected to many dark looks for the rest of the day!

Then there are the potentials for codes and hidden messages, such as a series of alchemic formulas disguised as recipes – unless you knew the code (‘chicken’s feet = silver amalgamate’, ‘crushed basil = saltpeter’, and so on) it was totally worthless – but someone who knew the code, and that the formulas were hidden in the book kept trying to steal it or buy it from them. And every failed attempt deepened the mystery, and the players’ unwillingness to let go of it. The only fact the players were able to determine was that the book’s contents were somehow proofed against scrying. One player made the mistake of memorizing it – ‘just in case’ – and of course, he had no such protection…

Using

The plots that come under the heading of “Using loot” all revolve around the question of who is using the loot. Is it the PCs? Is it their enemies? Is it a third party, who will complicate their lives?

These plots frequently put the cart before the horse, to good effect; a villain has certain unprecedented powers; players surmise that these are due to the magic items that he is using; players set out to find equivalents, or to steal the villain’s goodies, or to find counteragents. The one caveat to such plots is that the GM must reckon on the items eventually finding their way into the hands of the players, and plan accordingly – and without playing the “Bad guys only” card too frequently.

Selling

Fantasy Economic Assumptions: A Venting

<Venting>

This should be a lot harder than most GMs make it. “I have a 10,000gp gem that I’d like to trade in for gold pieces”. “I have a +2 dagger to sell.” “How much will you give me for a Sphere Of Annihilation?”

How many NPCs will have 10,000gp on hand? Of those that do, how many are willing to tie it all up in a single valuable? What is that money supposed to be used for? Who will object to it being used in this way? Who will object to the PCs having such a valuable and wish to redistribute the wealth? Can anyone else lay legal claim to it? Is there a legal requirement to make change when claiming payment for goods or services? (you would be astonished to learn how many countries have no such law – just the tradition of doing so. It is taken for granted…

For every seller, there has to be a buyer. And one of the first questions a GM should ask is “why” does this NPC want to buy the loot? How much is he willing to pay? What expenses will he incur? How much can he expect to make on the deal?

Fantasy economics generally has a number of holes in it in this department. In modern times, a typical business has a profit, annually, before tax, of about 10-20% of its turnover – call it 15% for convenience. In theory, that equates to its markup, or profit margin, on the products and services that it provides; in practice, there are variables that this doesn’t take into account. And a successful business will have 5 years of profits – after taxes – as a cash reserve. So, a suit of full plate costs 1500gp according to the PHB; and it might take a skilled armourer a month to make such a suit. That gives 1500gp x 12 = 18000gp a year income. Ten percent of which is 1800 gp. Apply a modern maximum tax rate of, say, 50%, and you get 900gp per year. Five years at 900 gp gives the NPC a cash reserve of 4500 gp – applying modern standards.

How about less generous standards from a bygone era that is more directly comparable to the game setting? Profit margin: 30%, but 1/3 of the production (perhaps more, especially in times of war – and when isn’t a medieval society at war with someone?) goes to the Lord for free. Three years is a more appropriate cash reserve, because unexpected expenses are much higher and eat into the character’s money. And the tax rate is going to be more like 70-90% – call it 80%. Work out the numbers: 1500 x 3 = 4500, less the profit margin of 30%, means that the levee by the Lord costs 3150gp a year. 1500 x 9 = 13500, times 13% = 4050. Minus that 3150, leaves a net profit of 900gp a year. Take off taxes of 80% and we have net income of 180gp a year. Out of which the NPC has to buy food and pay rents and replace damaged tools and what have you – which might leave 130gp a year, being generous, or (more likely) 80gp. Three year’s reserve equals 240gp. That’s how much the armourer can afford to spend buying unwanted adventurer castoffs, no matter how much he might be able to eventually sell it for. He can’t afford to speculate; the people who might want to buy it from him might take ten years or more to come up with cash (Nobles and governments are notoriously poor at keeping accounts current).

</Venting>

The Cup Of Dewarr is one of eight example Legacy Items included in Assassin's Amulet

Assassin’s Amulet is now on sale!

For more information on how and where to purchase it, just check the link at the bottom of this article!

But first:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Legacy Items are one of the conceptual planks that form the infrastructure of the Legacies series.

“A player’s Guide to Legacy Items” excerpts 15 pages from the 300 that comprise AA and contains everything that a Player needs to know in order to receive and use a Legacy Item in play.

Because it fits the theme of this month’s Blog Carnival, and because it’s cool content (IMHO), today’s blog post presents the second half of a two-part excerpt from the ‘Player’s Guide’. This won’t tell anyone everything they need to know about Legacy Items, but it will speak to the concept of making the Loot Part Of The Plot, and – by way of example – illustrate how this can be done. This article will pick up right where we left off…

And yes, there will be an expanded GM’s guide offered as free to purchasers of Assassin’s Amulet – past, present, and future – in the near future.
 

The Powers of a Legacy Item

Legacy Items have multiple powers, from minor to major, that they grant to the wielder. Initially, the wielder will not even be certain the item is granting a power, so unreliable are the benefits while the character is unbound to the item. When the binding process begins, the character gains access to a more reliable ability, appropriate to the nature of the Legacy that the Legacy Item represents. This advantage is known as the First Inheritance.

As the wielder and Legacy Item bond together, the character levels gained mark the passage of time as the bonding experience proceeds. When sufficient time has passed, the bonding is complete and the character gains the benefits of a power referred to as The Second Inheritance. The power level of the Second Inheritance determines the number of levels to be gained before the bonding is complete, and so on.

At the GM’s discretion, the character may experience flashes of the Second Inheritance in advance of its being reliably available to the character, under circumstances especially appropriate to the Legacy. When such circumstances are present, the GM should roll a dX, where X is the number of levels remaining before the bonding is complete; on a roll of ‘1’ the power may be called upon, once, and immediately.

Once bound to a Legacy, the character gains the opportunity to unlock additional Inheritances as he gains additional levels, presumably while representing the Legacy. There may be many such Inheritances of a minor nature, or few of more substantial power, or some combination of these two extremes.

Base Inheritance rankings

Inheritances are ranked on a scale of 2 to 6. Each increase in ranking indicates the Inheritance is more powerful—roughly doubling with each +1.

A table describing the ranking of specific powers is provided in Assassin’s Amulet. The table offers usable examples but the list is not exhaustive. Powers and restrictions not listed are possible and acceptable, limited only to the GM’s creativity.

Inheritance ranking modifiers

The base ranking of one or more Inheritances are then adjusted by applying Ranking Modifiers, which reflect how well the power(s) express the unique nature of their Legacy.

The GM determines the ranking appropriate to each Inheritance after listing the powers he wishes the Legacy Item to confer.

Total Legacy Ranking

The modified rankings of individual powers are then totaled to determine the Total Legacy Ranking. Most Legacy Items have a total of 16-20 total ranking; some, suitable only for an Epic Campaign, might have as many as 40 total ranks.

The greater the total, the more powerful the Legacy Item will become when the character has mastered the powers it offers.

Valuation of a Legacy Item

The value of a legacy item consists of two parts, which are totaled:

• 20,000 gp x the total ranking of revealed powers;
• plus, if the total ranking of revealed powers is less than 16, an additional 50,000 gp.

A Legacy Item with 8 power ranks revealed has a value of 210,000gp—mostly for the abilities it is already known to confer, plus a lump sum reflecting the certainty that there are more to come.

Unlocking Powers

Until an Inheritance is unlocked, a power only exists as a potential—something the Legacy Item may grant in the future, but which it does not yet bestow. The number of levels a character must gain to receive an opportunity to unlock the next Inheritance equals the modified power ranking of that Inheritance.

For example, if the modified power ranking of the Fourth Inheritance is 3, the character must earn 3 levels before the character can attempt to unlock the Inheritance, starting from the point at which the character had his first opportunity to unlock the Third Inheritance. The character must use the Legacy Item as the primary item of its kind throughout these levels. If the Legacy Item is a sword, for example, it must be the character’s primary melee weapon.

Players should not know how many levels they have to achieve before they get the opportunity to unlock a further inheritance. Nor should they be informed when they have unlocked the last Inheritance of an item.

Unlocking an Inheritance Power requires more than merely achieving the character levels specified. The possessor must also complete one or more tasks, skill checks or quests specified by the GM as the key to unlocking that power. These tests are known as an Unlocking Challenge. After the possessor succeeds at the Unlocking Challenge, the power becomes unlocked and readily available to the character.

As soon as a character qualifies to attempt an Unlocking Challenge, the process of earning levels toward unlocking the next power begins.

Roleplaying requirements

Unlocking Challenges are required because they encourage players to roleplay the effects of the Legacy. Legacy Items are powerful, but the price of that power is an influence shaping the character’s opinions, reactions and thoughts. This manifests in game mechanics as a roleplaying requirement.

The Legacy carried by a Legacy Item is as much a part of the personality of the wielder as any other. It need not be dominant, but it must not be secondary.

The GM and the player should agree on the nature of the personality effects of the Legacy when reaching the point where character can no longer discard the Legacy Item (unlocking the Second Inheritance).

The GM should formulate background elements prior to this event to serve as the foundation for this influence, and use the binding period to give the player—and the character—fair warning in-game of what lies before them.

One of the major reasons for the binding period (during which the character is not committed to the Legacy) from a metagame perspective is to facilitate a considered decision in this matter.

The GM defines the Legacy and the powers it grants. The player determines how that Legacy will shape the character.

The GM must enforce these mutual decisions, and should review the actions and decisions of the character each time a character levels up to ensure the Legacy is being properly reflected in the character’s behavior.

This does not grant the GM a veto over the choices of the player; however, it does require him to point out that failure to act appropriately will have consequences for the character, up to and including the possibility that the level just gained will not count toward unlocking the next Inheritance. In this respect, the Legacy is not unlike an alignment restriction or the code of behavior to which a paladin should adhere.

Unlocking a new Inheritance Power is akin to an end-of-year exam in the subject of “behavior appropriate to the Legacy.” It is not enough to overcome whatever Unlocking Challenge the GM places before the character with a skill roll or a battle; the manner of the solution is as important as the answer itself.

Unlocking challenge difficulty

Assassin’s Amulet contains a procedure for the GM to use in determining exactly how difficult a challenge the character must overcome in order to unlock an Inheritance. Unless it is important to the specific Legacy, there is no requirement for the character to solve the problem or defeat the challenge unassisted by other PCs.

In general, it is fair to say that the difficulties increase with successive Inheritances and with the power level of the Inheritance that the character is about to attempt to unlock.

The challenge should consist of a mini-adventure or subplot whose length and difficulty reflects these factors.

Depending on the player and his inclination and ability to contribute to the overall metaplot of the campaign, the GM may permit the player to assist in the design of this mini-adventure/side-quest/subplot, or may spring it on the character blind. It may form part of the ongoing plotlines within the campaign, or it may be a side-quest completely divorced from those plotlines.

GMs should bear in mind it is not enough for the character and his companions (if any) to overcome these purely mechanical challenges; the roleplay component is just as essential, and the design of the Unlocking Challenge should provide an opportunity for that roleplay.

Impact on characters

When discussing these notions with playtesters, the question was posed whether these challenges should be real events, with substantial impact on the lives and history of the world and the affected characters, or whether they should take the form of dreams or illusions with no external effect.

Opinion on this question was divided. Some argued the training during the bonding stage had established a precedent, while others took the position that, since the Legacy and its powers were real, if metaphysical, so should the challenge be, and that enforcing some impact on the outside world of the character coming to represent the Legacy was appropriate.

While each GM is free to rule on this matter as he or she sees fit, a consensus eventually emerged in the aforementioned debate:

• Whenever possible, the GM should undertake to make the challenges real, with real impact on the game world.
• Where this is not possible, the Legacy will twist the perceptions of the possessor (but not his companions) to make events seem relevant. For example, making the population of a town appear to be bugbears, trolls or other race appropriate to trigger Legacy-derived behavior.
• If this is also not possible, only then should the challenge take place entirely within the confines of the character’s mind. In this case, the GM should enlist the assistance of the other players at the table.

There is an important distinction between these options which deserves emphasizing. With the first two alternatives, there are genuine risks, and hence there should be genuine rewards and consequences, especially to the characters not wielding the Legacy Item. In the third case there is no risk—a character who is killed simply wakes up from the dream—so there should be no rewards beyond the unlocking of the Inheritance or not.

That means the character should gain no experience points for success, just as he loses nothing in the event of failure; his sole reward is the activation of the next Inheritance, his sole punishment for failure the lack of activation of the same.

Furthermore, the GM can interpret the middle ground as imposing circumstances that make an encounter more difficult. If this is the case, he may offer additional rewards.

The Effects of a Legacy

Legacy Items are high-fantasy plot devices that have been designed to be sufficiently manageable and flexible to operate even in a low-fantasy world.

By virtue of the ‘fingerprints’ that significant actions impart onto the game world, they form a different type of connection between the campaign history and the contemporary gaming environment, a new set of plot threads the GM can weave into an existing tapestry.

GMs can use Legacy dreams as a conduit to additional game world background, revealing past events and campaign briefing material as it becomes relevant. This offers an advantage for roleplaying by sheltering players from the omniscient awareness of the past conferred from a more substantial historical overview, while presenting the information to them when it becomes important.

Furthermore, the existence of Legacy Items implies a connection and cohesion to past events and primal conflicts that can serve as motivation and a source of plotlines, a metaphysical backdrop of which contemporary events are a modern consequence. They not only imply high-fantasy cosmic conflict, but they can place it at arm’s length from the campaign, permitting the GM to enjoy the best of both worlds.

The effects and implications of a Legacy Item extend far beyond the immediate consequences upon the campaign. They can provide a vehicle for a wider narrative, enriching the campaign and making possible stories that would otherwise be beyond reach.

Contemplate a vast historical conflict between two ideologically opposed forces such as Good and Evil, Order and Chaos, or even Centralized Authority versus Liberty and Independence.

For convenience, we will abbreviate all such conflicts as Left versus Right. These two forces, Left and Right, fought a war-to-end-all-wars in the distant past, with no clear winner. The extreme adherents of both causes battled each other to the point of annihilation. However, the Legacies of these ideologies lives on, forming a central spark that drives the evolution of the societies that have arisen from the ashes. This shapes those cultures, drawing those more sympathetic to one side than the other into alliances and coalitions, until two factions once again emerge, one the embodiment of Left, and the other of Right, each wielding their respective Legacy Items. Then once again, the two sides will clash in the latest incarnation of their never-ending conflict, seeking to resolve the irresolvable, until both are again destroyed, and the cycle starts anew.

The clash between these two forces is high-fantasy. However, any other point in this cycle of never-ending conflict can serve as a background template for mid- or low-level campaigns possessing the scope of the high-fantasy concept without the baggage.

This is but one of many ways Legacy Items can connect past with present to enrich a campaign. Any philosophy, ideology or point of collective identification, if held strongly enough, can perpetuate itself beyond its history into a contemporary game era by using a Legacy Item as a vehicle.

On a character

Legacy Items provide a method for character development in-game beyond encounters. The impact of the Legacy on the character—from a bias to an abiding influence that must be constantly battled to a complete consumption of the original personality—offers a choice to the player, in consultation with the GM.

No matter how limited the change, every character possessing a Legacy Item should be marked in some way by the burden. He will see that which no living eyes have apprehended, hear sounds from an age long past, experience events from long before his time.

These might have little relevance to the contemporary era or be directly relevant. They might reinforce character flaws or teach wisdom, or both. At best, a Legacy Item should be a mixed blessing.

There is always a downside, some price to pay, for possession of such a powerful object. The character is the focus for incomprehensible and implacable forces from a different time who sees the world in absolute terms; the character should feel the impact of these circumstances.

Not everyone leaves a legacy

It follows from the rarity of Legacy Items that most groups do not leave a Legacy. No one knows the exact combination of obsession and circumstance that create one. Some have even speculated that an epic magic of unprecedented ability has propagated through time from the distant future (since there is no evidence such a spell has been cast in the past). Perhaps he tried to ensure the survival of a specific Legacy, and was indirectly responsible for the creation of all the others as a side effect.

Analyzing, encountering and destroying a legacy

Legacy Items are artifacts for the purposes of Mordenkainen’s Disjuntion and similar spells. They are magic items with reference to Detect Magic and similar spells. Only powers that have been Unlocked, plus the next Inheritance to be unlocked, can be analyzed using Identify and similar spells.

That makes them difficult to destroy. Only unbound Legacy Items can be destroyed and it is an epic task akin to the destruction of the One Ring. The safer course is to lock the item up somewhere, place guardians and traps around it (self-sustaining ones if possible) and then try to eliminate all knowledge of where it is hidden—to create a dungeon, in other words. One could even create more such depositaries with no exceptional treasures and scatter them around, just to make it harder for anyone searching for the Legacy Item to pick out the right one.

Nevertheless, the majority of Legacy Items encountered in a game should be encountered in the hands of an NPC. A GM should never permit a PC a Legacy Item during character creation without careful thought.

There’s still more information contained in the full player’s guide, which will be available free to prospective purchasers of Assassin’s Amulet very shortly.

It includes rules on Reshaping and breaking bondings – something I’m sure you’ll all be very interested in knowing about!

I hope this two-part preview has been both inspiring and enticing.

And now, back to the big news:

Assassin’s Amulet is now available!

The price is just US$20 and you can pay using Paypal, or most major credit cards, including AMEX, Visa, or Mastercard.
Just head to the Legacies Campaign Setting site and you’re on your way!

We hope you enjoy it!

Something of a filler post today, with Assassin’s Amulet still occupying most of our time and attention. Sorry…

The news

The astute and regular reader here at Campaign Mastery will have noticed that – with the exception of one Ask-The-GMs that we had ‘in the can’, and co-authored excerpts from Assassin’s Amulet – it has been some time since Johnn posted a blog entry – since late July, as a matter of fact. No, he’s not gone; first he was on vacation, and then we had a heap of guest articles to post, and then he got caught up in preparing to launch AA. But with time limited, we’ve had to rationalize our activities a bit, and for the time being at least, that means that Johnn is going to be kept busy behind the scenes instead of posting here.

I’m a firm believer that key ingredients in keeping a blog successful is to post regularly, and post quality. We started Campaign Mastery off intending to keep a twice-a-week schedule and we’ve worked hard to maintain it. We don’t intend to let it stop, now. But it does mean some changes to what will be appearing here on Mondays (Alberta time).

More Guest Blogs

We’re going to continue with Guest blogs, at least one a month, for the next several months at least. Ian Gray will be providing several of these, and so will some other players and GMs of our acquantance.

More Reviews

I have a vast library of game products and supplements that I have downloaded from the net and never seem to find time to read. I’m going to try to do something about that over the next few months and years, and the tool to be used is to write a review of the product. Whenever I review something, I’m going to try and track down where I got it from, if I can, and provide a link to it. There might be the occasional game-related movie or DVD review, as well, just to mix things up a bit.

Ask-The-GMs

Between one thing and another, we’ve gotten seriously behind on these despite our best efforts and intentions – so much so that I’ve been sending quick replies by email rather than making people wait. I’m going to have another attempt at getting through the backlog; and Johnn is tackling some of them in the pages of Roleplaying Tips as well. Something I’m keen to try is soliciting the opinions of the other GMs that I game with in a quick bull session once a month. So Johnn will collaborate on some answers, I’ll do some on my own, and we may have some more collective answers as well.

Campaign Masterclass

I try never to let anything go to waste. As part of a project that Johnn and I were planning, I came up with a number of ideas for short columns (a couple of thousand words each, max) which I would be able to put together fairly quickly and easily. The first of these is the Campaign Masterclass – which is basically going to be me creating a campaign as I go. No idea won’t get written down, no step in the creative process will be ignored. And I’ll try to explain, each step along the way, the reasons behind each decision along the way.

Panning For Gold

We all love the occasional bit of eye candy, right? I have a clip art library with an image count in the 5 figures – many of which are copyright, retained for private use only. But there are others that are in the public domain. Every now and then, when I come across something especially tasty, I’ll share it – and every possible way to use it in-game – that I can think of. This is an exercise in creativity and throwing ideas out there for public consumption.

The GM’s Bookshelf

In addition to all those downloaded RPG supplements, I have hundreds of old-style paper-and-ink supplements and modules for various game systems. For this series, I’ll crack something open to a random page and see just what I can squeeze out of the contents – adventure ideas, campaign ideas, encounter ideas, new monsters, new treasures, new locations, new rules, new ideas of any and every sort. Nor do I intend to restrict myself totally to RPG supplements – if I get an idea from, or am reminded of an idea by, a page that I’m reading in a magazine or non-game book (fiction or otherwise), I’ll throw together a quick blog post about it. This is a second exercise in creativity for the public benefit.

Pieces Of Creation

I also have hundreds, if not thousands, of pages of referance material that I have put together for my own campaigns. From time to time I’ll excerpt some of it for public consumption. The intent is to be consistent about this; if I start posting my hundred-page opus on the Origins of Orcs in Fumanor (still unfinished, and I need it to be done by 2012 for use in-game), I’ll put up a portion a day until I catch up with myself, or finish writing it!

Ghosts Of Blogs Past

I actually started blogging at Yahoo 360, and a number of my posts were both gaming-related and evergreen. Before that blogging service went away, I archived the blogs with the intent of eventually revising and re-releasing them here at Campaign Mastery.

Melodies And Rests

I’m also a composer (when I find the time) and have a large music collection. No, make that an incredibly large music collection. I would have somewhere on the order of 10,000 LPs and CDs and Cassettes and ’45s and Cassingles and… well, you get the idea. And the amazing thing is that when you dig into any given group of pieces of music, you are sure to find some gaming ideas if you look hard enough. If I ever get stumped for something to write – or want to do something completely different – I may do a post extracting the creative juices from one or more LPs. You may not share my musical tastes – few people do, though I would have something in common with most readers’ preferances – but good gaming ideas are something we can all share, regardless of the source or starting point.

The D-Regency Campaign

Another possibility being contemplated is taking advantage of the fact that my superhero campaign is about to reboot. If I can con one or two players into drafting a campaign synopsis each session, I could pad it – umm, make that ‘annotate it’ – and post it here, for other GMs to mine ideas from. Campaign synopses have been very popular when they have appeared here at CM in the past… We generally play once a month, most months of the year. With the overall campaign now 30 years old (!) all the obvious stories have been told, so what’s left should be fairly interesting.

Johnn

And oh yeah, Johnn will still post something from time to time. Like I said at the beginning, he’s not gone – just busy.

Shoehorning

If there are four Mondays in most months – occasionally five – then there is no way all of that will fit each and every month. That’s 10-11 items – We’d be lucky to squeeze that much in every couple of months!

That means that some of them are going to get backburnered, inevitably, while others will occur more frequently. I intend to use three criteria to decide which ones fall into which category: Ease of writing, my level of interest, and the reaction I get from our readers. If you want to see more of something, drop a line to say so! Or hit the tweet, or the google +1 button.

Over the next two or three months, I’m going to give each of these ideas a demo run. The ones that tick the most boxes in terms of those three criteria will get priority listing the next time around, the ones that don’t will get downplayed.

So stick around – with so many sources of articles to draw apon, there’s sure to be something of interest to everyone! One thing’s for sure, it won’t be predictable…

The Crown Of Thorns is one of eight example Legacy Items included in Assassin's Amulet

We continue to inch closer to the release of Assassin’s Amulet. From months, the time scale has compressed to weeks, and now is being measured in mere Days (how many of them is still being decided). It’s so close, we can taste it!

One of the ambitions that we have for AA is to break the content up into slices of particular value to a campaign, and to the Legacies series in general. These “Players Guides” and “GMs Guides” will be offered as free bonus publications to anyone buying the source E-book, and some may be offered as freebies and samples as well. One of the first of these, to be produced is “A player’s Guide to Legacy Items”, which excerpts 15 pages from the 300 that comprise Assassin’s Amulet and contains everything that a Player needs to know in order to receive and use a Legacy Item in play. This has been carefully edited to remove any game mechanics that the player doesn’t need to know – those will be in the “GM’s Companion Guide to Legacy Items”.

Because it fits the theme of this month’s Blog Carnival, and because it’s cool content (IMHO), I have decided to present here the first half of a two-part excerpt from the ‘Player’s Guide’. This won’t tell anyone everything they need to know about Legacy Items, but it will speak to the concept of making the Loot Part Of The Plot, and – by way of example – illustrate how this can be done. And hopefully, it will entice a few more people to take the plunge when the time comes…

An excerpt from ‘A player’s Guide to Legacy Items’ – Part 1

Legacy Items are powerful arcane and spiritual objects that occupy a middle ground between relics and artifacts on the one hand, and ‘ordinary’ magic items on the other. Legacy Items begin their existence in a campaign as mundane pieces of equipment, and gradually rise in power as their owner grows in ability and prestige.

What is a Legacy Item?

Shared experiences leave a metaphysical fingerprint on the world. Some fingerprints are bound to the location of the events, and can be relived in dreams at those places. Others are bound to concepts, philosophies or personalities that resonate with those who experienced the events. This type manifests as paranormal experiences or extraordinary bonuses in support of, or more frequently in opposition to, others who represent the concepts or philosophies.

A few strong imprints can coalesce within an ideal object relevant to the source of the imprint. This transforms it into a connection that binds the Legacy of the experience to the individual who wields the item. As the object manifests greater and greater power in the hands of the individual, it subtly shapes the personality and ambitions of the possessor until they come to embody and represent those who shared the original experience, becoming heir to their thoughts, dreams, aspirations greatness and, yes, their flaws.

When the heir passes on, the Legacy begins anew to bind itself to a new inheritor. Over time, the term Legacy comes to apply to the original imprint and the current bearer of that imprint. Such a Legacy might embody any philosophy or emotional state.

The Legacy of a group dedicated to peace might become less willing to engage in battle until all other avenues have been exhausted. If the group whose Legacy this is were betrayed by orcs, there might be an exception made in their case, where the item possessor will come to instinctively distrust the race and all its representatives, and will encourage acts of aggression and violence against them.

A Legacy can be simple, such as “Death to trolls”, or as complex as desired by the GM. However, it always represents the philosophy and ideology and traumas of some long-lost (and possibly forgotten) group whose beliefs were strong enough to survive the destruction or failure of that group, and which find themselves a new home in the Legacy Item.

How is a Legacy Item Created?

In technical terms, a Legacy Item is a masterwork item that, unbeknownst to the creator, serves as a symbolic representation of a past group or race. Expecting the item to become enchanted, both mage and craftsman are astonished when the enchantment fails to take.

The binding of Legacy to “Home” must be complete for the potential enchantment to be consumed and bound to the Legacy, making it appear as if the enchantment has failed. If the process of enchantment is initiated prior to this binding being complete, the capacity for the binding is consumed by the enchantment, and the item becomes an ordinary magic item. This means there are few opportunities for Legacy Item creation, and even then they items are rarely recognized because this is not the only reason enchantments fail. If the enchantment is not performed correctly; if there is a hidden flaw in the item being enchanted; if there is any sort of disruption in the arcane or spiritual energies being infused in the item; if any of a dozen things go wrong, the enchantment will fail.

Sometimes, the process of the failed enchantment destroys the item. Other times the failure just mars it, leaving an ordinary and non-enchantable item. The enchantment might also become twisted and produce a cursed item. On rare occasions, the failure is the result of the intervention of an outside agency—producing a Legacy Item.

Most of the time, crafters and possessors discard Legacy Items as cursed or flawed. The items are never used long enough for others to recognize their true power and worth. And even when a Legacy Item’s powers and influence are known, they often become a closely held secret.

Legacy Items shape the user, making them the heir to everything that defined the particular group whose Legacy the item represents. Those who recognize this can use this shaping to their own benefit by inciting involuntarily reflex reactions from the Legacy and not from the wielder. As a result, wielders learn quickly to preserve the secret source of their enhanced abilities.

On rare occasions, a Legacy Item can be deliberately created by having such an idealized representation constructed at the exact location where a fingerprint resides, an echo of some great past evil or good. More frequently, though, happenstance and coincidence create them.

How Does a Character Acquire a Legacy Item?

Any non-enchanted masterwork item might actually be a Legacy Item. The only way to know is to use the item for a period, foregoing the advantages of using an enchanted item. If the wielder’s personality, motives or objective harmonizes enough with the Legacy Item, it will begin to bind itself to him.

Without sufficient common ground in these areas for the item and the character to relate to one another, the item remains seemingly inert. In these cases, the item begins to influence the character subconsciously, raising doubts and creating confusion until the character opens up to new concepts, ideas and ideologies. The item then exploits this opening to mould the character into the being the Legacy needs him to be.

If this process proceeds too slowly, or if the character proves resistant, the item will attempt to influence those around the wielder in a subtle manner. While the wielder is subject to overt and cumulative effects, those around him find their reactions and inclinations become stronger or weaker, which puts the wielder into circumstances more appropriate for the Legacy Item’s perspective.

It is usually in the Legacy Item’s best interests for the character to survive, so it will not go too far in these manipulations. It is also in the item’s best interests to avoid having its nature discovered by the wielder before the binding is complete, so it will be as subtle as possible.

It is also worth noting that a Legacy Item is not intelligent, though it may become so as the power of the Legacy grows. The effects described above are more like instinctive prompts on the item’s part, making the nature of the Legacy harder to discern.

Legacy Items in the hands of an unbound character

When initially wielding the item, a character gains no direct benefit. However, he will find that using the item feels ‘right’ in some indefinable manner, that it imbues him with a sense of confidence and certainty he will be a significant individual in the future with power and influence. He will feel his destiny being shaped by circumstance into something greater.

This confidence can manifest occasionally as a minor benefit to the character: a +1 initiative, +1 on a bluff or diplomatic skill check, +1 on a Fear save, +1 to hit, +1 to damage, and so on. These benefits manifest just on occasion, perhaps one time in ten, when possible. Each such manifestation counts as one aiding of the character—a total the player needs to track for reasons explained in the next section. When an aiding occurs, the character feels the item has made the difference between success or failure, or at least, made success easier to achieve.

When confronted with an opportunity to act in accordance with the Legacy when he would normally not do so, the character should make a Will save at DC 10 to resist instinctively following the influence of the item. This is true even if the character is normally immune to, or resistant to, mind-altering effects.

If the character is actively opposed to the philosophy and objectives of the Legacy, the Legacy Item will begin subtly interfering in the judgment and reactions of those around the character. These effects are more subtle, as described above, but are also harder to resist as a result; surrounding characters are required to make Will saves at DC 15 to resist.

Note that at this point in their journey together, the item’s influence is not strong enough to force the character into an alignment violation. However, it can imbue a desire to find a way to achieve a certain objective within the character’s alignment restrictions.

Binding a character to the Legacy

Ultimately, the time will come when the character makes some form of positive declaration of ownership or destiny relating to the item or the innate Legacy objectives.

In game mechanics, this occurs involuntarily when the item has aided the character a number of times equal to the character’s Wisdom score.

The declaration signals that the process of binding the character to the Legacy that item contains, with the item serving as an intermediary, has commenced.

When the character sleeps, rests, or meditates, he will begin reliving key moments of the past that is represented by the Legacy within his dreams or reveries. When he awakens, he will have difficulty remembering specifics, no matter how much he tries.

• Recollection is vague and general: Will save DC 10
• Recollection is an overall impression: Will save DC 12
• Recollection is a specific event, bereft of context: Will save DC 15
• Recollection is fragmentary and incomplete: Will save DC 20
• Recollection is random and irrelevant to the current situation: Will save DC 22
• Recollection is specific and relevant to the current situation: Will save DC 25

Until the binding process is complete, the character can still give up the item and its Legacy, though he will usually resist doing so once the binding process has begun, perhaps to the point of violence.

At the same time, the influence of the Legacy over the character will continue to grow. This first manifests in areas about which the Legacy directly relates. For example, a revenge-obsessed Legacy of violence toward dark elves would only trigger in circumstances where a dark elf was directly involved, and the save DC to avoid the prompting of the Legacy rises from 15 to 20.

Legacy Items can influence either the possessor or those around him, but not both at the same time. The item is no longer capable of influencing those surrounding the wielder while it directs its energies towards achieving a binding between the character and the Legacy.

It will prompt the character to take a more active interest and involvement in the affairs of significance to the Legacy. Those who know the character well or observe him closely may realize he struggles with some inner battle or temptation; sometimes he wins, and sometimes he loses. They may note that he acquires an interest in subjects that were never part of his activities in the past, or spends a growing part of his time pursuing new hobbies or avocations.

Over time, the Legacy will influence the character in situations where its motivations are only indirectly related. At this point, the character may even blame those against whom the Legacy is directed for what he is experiencing.

Eventually, the Binding will be complete. This is signaled when the character takes an action not previously within their personality, purely because of the influence of the Legacy Item. This action is in complete violation of his normal character, beliefs and alignment.

The speed with which this process proceeds depends (in game mechanics terms) on the power of the first significant ability granted by the Legacy Item. In Game mechanics, this is a number determined by the GM by means of a process described within Assassin’s Amulet.

In the interim, while the process of binding the character to a legacy remains incomplete, he will gain the benefits of an initial minor power, known as the First Inheritance. This is simply one of the unreliable benefits described previously: +1 to initiative, +1 on bluff or diplomatic skill checks, +1 on fear saves, +1 to hit, +1 to damage. However, the character can now use this power whenever he uses the Legacy Item.

Binding the Legacy to the character

When the binding process is complete, the character becomes the guardian and last representative of the Legacy. While he remains in control of his actions and choices, he will be aware of the inclinations of the Legacy he represents and feel urgings to behave in accordance with the beliefs and attitudes he now embodies. He gains a substantial ability, referred to as the Second Inheritance.

From time to time thereafter, as he gains in character levels, he has the opportunity to unlock powers, known as Inheritances, within the Legacy Item. Should he succeed in doing so, these powers are his to call upon thereafter; should he fail to do so, the power will not be available until the character next succeeds in unlocking a power within the Legacy Item, acquiring in the process not only acquire the new ability he has just unlocked but also the power he failed to unlock previously. The greater the power, the more difficult the challenge of unlocking that power will be.

And the subject of the powers of a Legacy Item is something that will be covered next week, in part 2 of this sneak preview…