Monsters without the Monstrous Stats

When I first started storytelling the mistake I almost always made was building my own monsters from the ground up. I worried about every number on their stat card adhering to the rules and double checked my math as though Gygax himself would come smite me in my sleep if I didn't. Eventually I overcame this compulsive statistic suicide and started designing my monsters with what the players would encounter.

No matter what game your playing, so long as you create a challenge it doesn't matter if the math adds up. Monsters only need the following information when dealing with players:


I Attack the Orc. No, the OTHER Orc!
This tip is a bit on the obvious side but you would be surprised how often this simple thing is easy to forget. You don't need to give every orc NPC you ever make a unique name, but if you have a nick name for the orcs with the swords vs the orcs with the bows then its a bit easier for you and your players to identify who is being attacked during a fight. Its also a good idea to list any sub types they have if the party happens to still have that goblinoid bane weapon you handed out 4 games ago.

The Bugbear boldly swings his 'Sparkling Mace of Unicorn Dust' at you with his next attack!
Every bad guy needs attacks and powers, but you don't need to do all the math. You generally know what will hit your PC's and what wont (your rulebook usually provides example challenges and attack curves you can steal stats from as well). Most monsters should always have about a 50% chance of hitting, 75% if they don't do much damage, but also have some sort of hindering effect on the PC's, and about 40% if they deal critical damage or deadly attacks. Attacks that will knock a PC immediately into a death count should only hit about 10% of the time and should always allow for the PC to save or use an extra defense against it.

And When it Comes to Spellcasters!
You don't need their entire spell list, just the highlights will do, and make sure you write out the stats for these. If you have to grab the rule book every time you cast a spell your combat will come to a screeching halt. Its okay to add a few cantrips with one sentence descriptions to this list as well. Use Light, and Detect Magic are a given success unless the PCs interrupt the spell somehow.

Health? Check. Mana? Check.
Your monster's core stats are not their strength, intellect, wisdom, and luck. You don't need these because the likelihood that they will come into play are very low. What you do need are how many hit points they have, what their armor and other defenses are, and any sight or perception bonuses they might have. Everything that has to do with the PC's finding and hitting them and everything it will take for them to hit the PC's back. When setting armor values the PCs should hit the basic monsters 70% of the time, elites 50% of the time and bosses 40% of the time. If you want a monster to last longer or seem tougher give them more hit points instead of lowering the PC's hit percent (you might even increasing the hit chance and double their health). Alternately if you want to simulate a fast or well armored monster give them the lower hit percent but also lower their hit points.

Now What?

by now you should have something that looks like this:
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Orc Bonebreaker Shaman (Oni, humanoid)
Health Points: 30, Mana Points: 15 
Heavy Armor +12, Block +10 (or whatever your game uses for defenses)

Perception +10; Low-Light Vision
Speed 6

Battle Axe
Attack +12; Damage 2d8+4

Blinding Hex (3 Mana, Casting Time 3)
Attack +15; Damage: 1d4+2 & Blinded until end of Next Turn.

Jolt (5 Mana, Casting Time 5)
Anytime someone attacks you with a Melee attack they take 5 points of Electricity Damage. This effect lasts 2 rounds.

Other Spells: Light (Casting Time 1), Detect Magic, See Invisibility (Casting Time 2).
Other Skills: Athletics +15, Mental +5, Intimidate +15, Social +5, Spell Save +10
Loot: 30 copper, 1 silver, simple battle axe, ruined leather armor, and 1 hex bag.
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This example was an easy 10-minute monster that could be recycled if you rename the fluff and tweak the stats for your desired party level. Keeping a binder (or file if you prefer computers) full of "prototype" monsters is a great way to always be prepared for a game.

You will notice I also added generalized skills and loot at the bottom. The skill lists are a catch-all if the PC's do something that requires the monster to use something not listed on the sheet. Also, note the loot is not what they will receive every time they kill this monster but a list of optional treasure and the maximum amount of coins you should ever award.

-Adam

Learning to Tell a Story: Part III

Bringing everything home can be tough. The climax is supposed to be the most memorable part of a game, right? I cant think of how many times my old players have recounted their battle with the "Warden of Dis", the battle on the roof of a sanitarium with an undead black dragon, or the time they faced off with a mind flayer shadow dancer.

All of these were excellent encounters  however some were hours of planning while others had happened by circumstance. It seemed entirely up to random chance and not up to the amount of work I had put into the encounter. I began to make a mental list of my most successful and least successful encounters and applied it to a new group of players that had never played Dungeons and Dragons before.

I cleaned up and altered the fluff of my top three boss fights and weaved them together into a new story. I planned the players would face a boss once every 2-3 sessions which lasted anywhere from 6 to 10 hours. For the first time I worked backwards and created a story and background for each villain. Next I worked out from them to their minions and the reasons they were minions. Finally, I designed how it would effect the world around them and what the PC's would encounter to lead them back to the villain.

As I kept notes, I realized what made these games great and ultimately the climaxes great was the party's anticipation leading up to the Big Evil Bad Guy. All three villains were different but they all had some form of identity to the party from the begging of the adventure.

Villain number one was a necromancer with a handful of instabilities, the party had to stay on their toes, but were able to use some of his strange ticks to their advantage and eventually foil his plot.

Villain number two was a common human who stayed as a shadow, a mad bomber that they discovered through "random chance" and assisted the city guard in disabling his magic explosives before the finale.

Villain number three was a bit of a red herring since they had faced off with her in the first adventure, but the final boss was a pure and simple monster fight that gave the party their victory while telling a dark and twisted story of dark elves grabbing for power in the underdark.

The thing that all three shared was they stayed consistent with the theme of the adventure and could be followed back to the hook. They were organic villains. So my only advice for the climax is to aim for the heart and stay logical. Even if you have to change something last minute, make sure that you end the adventure with the tone of your storytelling intact. The climax is where the bad guy only has to act natural and do the evil dance.

Learning to Tell a Story: Part II

So you have hooked the party. Now what? Well now you get to give them the adventure right? But hold on, your probably asking, "Isn't that what I'm already doing?" Well the easy answer is yes. The real answer is maybe.

Before you think I've lost my marbles, what I mean is that you need to make sure your giving an adventure every game session. This can be a tricky subject because adventure can be a pretty broad term.

The Adventure:

In writing this is called the rising action but when applied to table-top games this is best described as encounters. Encounters are cause and effect based scenarios that carry the players from scene to scene and make up the adventure. Their ultimate success or failure is what takes them to the climax (in dungeon terms that's the big bad boss) and its the most important part of the pacing.

When I was first introduced to table-top an encounter was usually a fight with a group of monsters, where success is when they die, and failure is when the party dies. However, using this cut and dry scenario gets pretty old and has become a really bad standard in most games and gaming circles. If failure is only ever defined by death then your really running small war games and never getting into what makes an RPG beautiful.

Now Wargaming is great, but don't get the two confused. Wargaming is all about battles and tactics and involves very little role-play beyond a loose story of why the groups are fighting, and perhaps a few jabs at each other in a funny accent making fun of that back story. A role playing game is aptly named for a reason, so try not to forget it when you write your encounters (and to any players who are reading this, remember that part. Your storyteller will praise you too the moon the first time you try to talk to orc mooks 3 through 8. He might also crap himself).

 An Encounter should be thought of as a chapter in a book. You have a setting or scene, protagonists, and a problem that needs to be solved.

Setting the Scene: 

• Describe everything, take notes on every facet you can think of when writing your scene, and don't just write "What" but think of "Why" and "How." If your players are going to an abandoned church in search of a lost tome, you want to know what they will see, hear, and smell, what the feeling in the air is, or any other genre specific signs they might encounter. Perhaps there is a sense of wrongness to any faithful characters in the party. Ask yourself, why the church was abandoned? Was a demon attack the only reason or did a priest sacrifice the altar boy and summon the monster? Perhaps the blood stains on the floor are still there, or scratch marks from someone trying to escape will reveal a hidden door. There are unlimited nuances you can give a scene and the more you are able to come up with when brainstorming the easier it will be to imagine and flesh out your encounters.

Protagonists: 

• The meat and potatoes of every encounter are the characters you portray. NPC's are your greatest asset and it is the most commonly wasted part of an encounter. Not every orc or bandit will want to talk to a PC but they should have at least an inch of personality just in case the party wants to talk to them or ends up in something I call an "impossible situation." When the players are investigating the church, what happens when part of the chamber collapses because of the party's antics and kills most of the bandits in the room? What if it traps the party with one or two of the bandits? Do you think the bandits will still want to fight when they are out numbered and wounded? Bringing this level of realism to every NPC is what can make your game. Storytelling, especially group storytelling, is about the social experience as much as it is about tactics and stats. 

• When dealing with protagonists you don't want to just put them in your scene either. Give them something to do, are they standing guard? Is everyone for the next 10 rooms also standing guard? Perhaps a few are playing cards and drinking in the old kitchen, or a handful are sleeping where they made camp? The leader and his lieutenants might all be standing around a map trying to figure out which parts of the ruin they can still access. 

• Will every NPC stand and fight or will they have other goals? The bandit leader might be encountered in room 1 but grabs the map and runs to room 5, barring the door behind him. That becomes a challenge, the party now needs to capture him and get his map before he can escape or dispose of it.

Problems and Challenges: 

• Bringing your scene together are the problems and challenges. Offering these to players are ways to gauge their success and failure without embracing the standard. If you assume that they can easily take on every bandit in the abandoned church then perhaps the bandits have other tricks up their sleeve. If the leader has already made a run for it with the map he might burn it when they close in on him if the party doesn't try to negotiate first. This is a chance for failure without death, since the map would really help them to find the tome they're after and explore the ruins. 
• Perhaps when the leader goes running he also gets word to the evil Templar the party didn't know was at the ruins. The big bad guy now has ample time to get away or set traps for the party and make the rest of the encounters more deadly. He might know the ritual that summoned the demon, or raise the dead clergymen to fight with the bandits. Coming up with other conditions for success are much more rewarding because the party members get to live through their failures and learn from them instead of just rolling new characters. 

A rule of thumb to follow when writing your adventure is think of a choose your own ending book. All of the possibilities and encounters are tied to the same story but not every option will be taken. Creating a linear plot is a recipe for disaster because players are unpredictable and don't like their characters to be forced to do anything (you would have better luck herding cats). And don't feel like your wasting tons of effort when the players choose the most direct route either. Anything you don't use can be recycled with a few minor changes to the flavor and cosmetics of the encounter.

In the next part I'll be tackling the climax, as well as a few other tips to tie your pacing together.

Learning to Tell a Story: Part I

Do you have trouble hooking your party? Do your plots fall apart before you even get out of the tavern? Are your players falling asleep at the table, and it's not from a lack of Mountain Dew? If you yourself asking these and other questions, then you might want to take a second look at the most important weapon in your Game Master's arsenal. The Story.

Being a Storyteller is one of many hats you wear when running a table-top game. It crosses the boundaries of genre and rules, and can make or break any campaign. For most GM's it is also the most difficult part of their job. But what makes it so hard? Like any good book you first need to understand pacing. Pacing is the framework for your game; how fast you want your party moving from chapter to chapter. If your pacing is too fast your party will become overwhelmed with encounters. If your pacing is too slow it will make your game sessions a snooze. There are several parts to a good pacing and understanding each one is where you can really jump start your career as a Storyteller.

The Hook:

Also called the introduction, the hook is where you generate your excitement. A good hook gets the players asking questions, their character's emotions running on high, and generally should be tailored to get your party involved. Simple and effective ways to do this are:

• Make them a Witness: Magic explodes across the sky, yards away a man is gunned down in the street, or maybe their arch nemesis is seen entering the police station. Making the party a witness to something as the game opens is a great way to not only get your player's attentions, but it may be the common goal they needed to see. (remember that what the characters "see" is what they will interact with).

• Make them Targets: Bandits are attacking the group's caravan, thugs or occultists have abducted the characters, something was stolen from each of the party members. Making the PC's a target is a good way bring them together and introduce your antagonist. It gives them a clear goal before letting them muddy around with the general population and usually gets the players reacting to a scenario as their characters.

• Give them an Object: The party has obtained something special. The object can be anything from a magic item they cant use without a key, to a rare breed of animal, or even the King's scepter. It also needs to be an item that has a pretty predictable course of action. In the case of the king's scepter the most obvious choice of action is do the players try to return it or do they want to sell it? Carrying the item is dangerous and would require a special buyer, and returning it would require an audience with the king. Both of these choices give the party a clear direction and allows you to elaborate on your adventure in the next scene.

• Give them Importance: A wizard of power seeks them out to do a job, the police chief is looking for superheroes to rescue the city's champion, or perhaps a powerful gangster has heard of their reputation. Making the players feel important and stroking their ego is both a good practice and a great way to get them walking right into the story. Players are always looking for a way to show off their characters.

Your hook should be simple, but don't be afraid of mixing up these tactics. It's another great way to get each party member into the game. If most of the party are easily hooked as witnesses, but that last one needs to be a target, then use that to your advantage. When that one character is abducted right in front of the others you can be sure they will go chasing after their companion.

-Adam S.

Next Time..... Learning To Tell a Story Part II: The Adventure.