Hello! Do You Have Any Advice For Scaling Enemies? Im Trying To Create A Somewhat Epic Campaign For My

Hello! Do you have any advice for scaling enemies? I’m trying to create a somewhat epic campaign for my players to draw them into the game, but don’t want them to get squished, y’know? Thanks! =]

Alright, this one has been sitting in my inbox for WEEKS and I forgot about it.

You have my sincerest apologies. 

Shame upon me. Bad blog. Baaaad.

Now, the likelihood is that you are playing some variation of D&D, which is good. It gives me some groundwork to build off of with my attempts at advice.

The bad thing going for you is that, if you believe the books, D&D difficulty is entirely mathematical.

The good thing going for you is that this is almost entirely wrong.

There are three pillars of combat that will affect difficulty in a combat encounter and none of them are percentile adjustments or mathematical algorithms. 

These are: Damage, Duration, and Disruption 

(watch this video, it is great and will explain things rather well.)

Damage is raw HP reduction and threat. High damage is near insta-lethal one-hits, whereas low is not much, maybe even none at all.

Duration is not how long a fight takes, but how much you control how long it takes. High duration is an explicit control over when an encounter can end, such as an enemy being invincible until an enchantment is dispelled, whereas low is just letting things happen as they do without any control, such as letting a boss get one-shotted by a lucky crit.

Disruption is how difficult it is to achieve success. High disruption could be magical storms blinding everyone unless they make a high saving throw, whereas low Disruption is a breezeless football field in the middle of Idaho on a Wednesday afternoon in August.

If you want to make an encounter with lower-level monsters more dangerous, then experiment with increasing any of these three things, even all three.

eg;

Three goblins and a hobgoblin are not much of a threat to a higher level party. Perhaps more of an annoyance, like mosquitoes or party balloons - swat ‘em or kick ‘em and, nine times out of ten, they’ll go away.

However, let’s go through each pillar and crank things up a notch.

Damage: Imagine if the goblins had gotten their hands on some powerful, uncontrollable wands and were torching a village with them. Fireballs, Lightning Bolts, Acid Arrows - the party may want to treat these pests with some respect and approach a little smarter.

Duration: Could it be that the goblins are life-linked in some absurd, shamanistic ritual to the hobgoblin, meaning that he can only be wounded once all of the goblins are dead?

Disruption: Perhaps the goblins have released a poisonous gas through the area that can paralyze everyone except goblinoids? Players have to skirt about these small clouds of paralysis that float about the battlefield, and if anyone gets caught in them, the goblins all pounce at once and go for the kill.

I’d recommend experimenting with ideas, and you can easily get weaker monsters up to higher-play level of difficulty. Just be wary of making things too tough. Also, it never hurts to give a boss-monster a decent amount of HP aswell as a little higher AC and some attack bonuses if you want them to fare a little better.

Remember though, the objective is to make your players think, because then they are acting, and then they are playing and are having fun. That is the one, true objective for being a DM.

Enjoy

Pixie x

Building Character - Autonomy and Backstory

By far the worst thing that a character can do in a story, is nothing.

Whether they are kind or merciless,  devout or heretical, loyal or aloof, to act is to be. If a character faces great adversity, they cannot expect to do nothing, be polite, and never face consequences, yet for them to remain important. Masterminds act. Villains act. Even cowards act. Devices, however, obey despite everything. A character is born when they make a choice that changes their life, forever.

A harsh lesson I learned rather recently was one of structure. It, for me, defined the concept of character and their story in everything.

A character is born when it first appears, and dies once its story ends.

Now, they may still be alive, and they often are, but their character ceases to be when they no longer need to do anything, and so, the character dies and leaves the name behind. Once the villain is defeated, the world saved, and normality is reestablished, then the story ends, and with it, the character. They become the world they fought so hard to save and fade into obscurity.

Essentially, the lesson serves to reign in writers who rely on the merits of a backstory. Your character may have once saved his family’s life, or won this grand tournament, or proven herself, time and time again. But, if none of this is in the story, then it doesn’t mean anything.

You are telling the story to us, correct? So, why should we care about something that didn’t happen within it? Why aren’t you telling us that story? Why is this one more important?

You could bring any character you want and drop them onto us and talk about their powers and strengths and intelligences, but you will always fail to impress because it wouldn’t be a story.

For example, say that you inform me that your character can lift a fully-grown cow above their head. It may seem impressive, but, when compared to any superhero setting, it pales in comparison to what they can achieve. There is no challenge or tension in a backstory, and if you make a character and expect their past, witnessed endeavours to garner any compassion from your audience, then you may as well have presented them some furniture with the same name.

If you want your character to belong in the story, to be challenged and experience struggle and suffering that will change them and make them choose, all you have to do is be prepared to have them act. The moment they stand against adversity and do something about it, brave or not, is when they first begin to exist. When they choose to follow an order; choose to defy the law; choose to protect the innocent; choose to accept the bribe; choose to change something and fight for that future.

If you write a backstory, then have it so that it influences the choices to come rather than act as a ‘get out of jail free’ card to somehow justify indecision and apathy. Craft and design the events that came before so that they do not overshadow the events to come, but serve to magnify their impact. Play with broad, heavy concepts like family, nationality, prejudice, loss, wealth, guilt. Allow these things to shape and direct the character rather than conclude them and shut the book on their tale because it is easier upon the ego if everything went exactly as planned.

Let things go wrong for your character. Allow them to fail, and learn, and suffer, and grow, and choose how they do so.

But if you are happy with your character being some nameless, hopeless, and unambitious nothing, then finish their story before it happens and watch them become just another colourful piece of scenery.

*Big ol’ eBook Update Below*

On Friday the 15th of December, this year, I will be releasing a single chapter eBook of a long-term project I have been working on for a while now on ISSUU.com for free. It is an ahistorical, fantasy novel called ‘Crow Eater’ set in an alternative history colonial America, 200 years after Christopher Columbus had failed his voyage across the Atlantic. The story focuses upon individuals fighting for their lives against the wilderness, and the weird world within.

     “Not much is sacred anymore, this far from home on our oversea land of opportunity. Lisbon wails for us, mourning our departure, but I assure you, my homeland kin, that this is the greatest discovery of the millennia. The mere sighting of this continent was as if the skin of the world had been broken open, exposing fresh, red meat to all us vermin breeding on the outside. The race for the richest portions of this banquet pulled all of mankind out and over the seas. Turkey, France. Britain, my dearest Portugal; often a stream was all that separated one colonist’s territory from another, a simple step between a thousand different people and their thousand years of differences.”

                                                                                   ...   and so the story begins.

Enjoy

Pixie x

Sunday Respite - Cavernous, Ravenous Taverns of World-Wide Renown

‘Light the hearth, straighten the benches, and tap the kegs; we have a night to remember on the horizon, just threatening to be forgotten! We fist-hearted patrons of these merry houses should hold a pride at our chests for every cask and tankard emptied under this roof, and every other alike it.

So, adventurers, nomads, way-walkers and wanderers alike - to all the lost and found that my carrying voice can meet - know that tonight our doors are open wide; our tables soaped; our bards well-paid. We welcome all that can hear the call for celebration and come to meet our kin with strong, dark drinks and rancorous cheers.

May the darkness beyond the walls know of our noise - the songs of our familial might! For, until the sun rises, and even perhaps beyond that, we shall sing so loud that the sky may break and all the stars may descend to join in our harvest and feast.’

Here are three taverns from across the land, no shared soil between a single pair. They are worlds apart, yet share a common faith - maybe even a certain spirit, or two.

South Coast Bathhouse

Low set amongst the heights of the marble and granite metropolis around and above lies a single-storied structure. Its face is lined with dozens upon dozens of pillars holding up the flattened roof, and rows of squared windows of inch-thick, lead-lined glass that warp and wave perceptions, each shining with candlelight. From beneath the front doorway crack and every opening left upon its latch pours a sweet smelling tide of milk-white steam. It collects in pools against the walls, waterfalling down the approaching steps like cream from an ill-poured flask. Swaying above the door is a painted sign denoting a squat, smiling lady with rosy cheeks in a brass tub, one foot raised in laughter. Inside, where would otherwise sit tables and stools, are dozens of stonewalled baths with coasters floating atop the brothing waters, enchanted to never spill their hold. The smell of floral incense fills the heavy air. Patrons and guests walk about with towels around their waists and chests, smelling of roses and lavender. Trays of small liquor bottles rattle in their hands as they tread the slate floor and bristled carpets with bare feet toward their cheering friends.

All-the-Eyes-of-the-River

This tavern is open air; a wooden, crescent bar build upon the shallow stones of the city’s river basin. Revelers enjoy the cool waters running across their feet and the late-night swallow song as birds hunt and lash at the mayflies darting across the calm, placid surface. Spiced and honeyed drinks are heated in brass cauldrons above a cobblebrick furnace in the centre of the tables and benches. They are served in tall, crystal glasses of angular patterns by a pair of shaven-headed brothers dressed in the loose, light garments of afar priests and travelling holy men, yet they whistle and sing like the local sailors. Play fights are common in the waters. Boisterous challengers often wrestle about in the wet grasses of the river bank until one backs down and surrenders into buying the next round of golden, peppered ales for the gathered crowd.

The Maze

A peculiar, local legend - The Maze lies dead centre of the town, only a few steps downhill from the market square. It is built into a heap of exposed stone, and its front facing entrance is decorated with ever smoldering torch sconces and piles of false skeletons like the dungeons of folklore. Costumed guests in garish colours and hidden beneath hand-crafted masks swarm the doorway, holding painted glasses and luminescent necklace charms, printed with The Maze logo. A muscular titan of a minotaur holds the velvet rope shut to all but paying customers. The foyer is a wide, stone floor with a well-stocked bar opposite the entrance, manned by a jet-black Minotaur, twice as large as the doorwoman. To the left and right are dozens of narrow passages which sink away into the dark, all busy with dancing, happy people, pressed close against eachother. Every passage is flashing with dancing blooms of overhead light show displays, the walls echo with wild, heart-aching music and melodies. It is not uncommon for guests to get lost in the worming corridors and secret rooms that make The Maze such a tantalising conclusion to a midnight sprawl across town. Thankfully, the hosts know this place like the back of their bar cloths, and find all of the passed out patrons safely tucked away into warm, quiet corners for a restful sleep before they lock the place for the morning. Some regulars even have grown to learn some of the bar’s layout and can find their favourite hidey holes through memory alone. The hosts have even adorned these little cubbies with pillows and blankets for them if they like them.

Enjoy

Pixie x

I love to make my villains people.

The moment when players realise that they have come into conflict with a character going along their own story path to restore their normalcy is bittersweet. 

For a brief, beautiful moment, all of their desperation and depravity melts away, and the players see the shadow of a lost, broken person, too far gone to turn back now.

The realisation that, sometimes, a villain is just one man resisting a world that you happen to be a part of, and that you are not the hero just for fighting him back.

Monday Night Dungeon Mastering - The Surrender Fallacy

Writers can find themselves itching with an idea. This singular concept of story and narrative sits sluggishly on their minds and teases them with a feather between the shoulder blades. The writer sees their idea as a defining moment of ultimate action that must be realised to be itched. It is where the story comes to climax and the reader is struck in their seat with the awe of it. It is so pure and divinely emotional that it rattles the nerves to even contemplate it, but, if only the writer could wrangle their story into getting there.

This obsession over one moment trivialises the story as it ducks and weaves through itself. The world and characters begin bending and straining to the point of collapse to somehow allow this one moment to take centre stage. It's the ego talking. We believe our own hype, and consequences be damned. Resultantly, the narrative suffers to propagate this flawed ideal.

This issue is prevalent enough within an environment where the writer controls all input. In a novel or script the writer has sole authority over characters and their agency. The world buckles and bends to their command and reshapes as they see fit. Now, imagine a narrative setting where you,as the writer, don't control the characters ...

... not even close.

Spoilers: you don't have to. The answer is being a Dungeon Master. Big surprise.

As a Dungeon Master (and trust me, I sympathise) you will have these grandiose concepts for story and player character narrative. You want the game to be exciting. You want your players to have fun. But ... 

but.

You kinda, maybe, also might want to show off a little. Just once or twice. Y'know, put your best foot forward and give yourself something to be proud of once the session ends. You can't let them have all the fun. Maybe its your world, or an NPC or villain you are particularly proud of. So you write that in, and you build the scene in your head. You will beautifully narrate the importance of the heroes' quest, terrify them with the danger of your irredeemable - yet morally complex - villain, and show the best of the world you have poured countless hours over in your study. You have perfected every encounter, named every tavern and drink, statted every character down to the skill points and pettiest of equipment, and you are ready to blow your player's minds.

BUT THEY WON'T

SIT

STILL.

The illusionist rogue kicks away from his seat and hurries to harass your chieftain-warlord of grotesque, inhuman rage. The barbarian flips her table and rushes your undercover, double-agent assassin with a maul without an inkling of provocation. The wizard casts a counter-spell on your sorcerer as he tries to dramatically teleport away, leaving him stuck in a sad, little cloud of expended, magical smog. The bard just WON'T STOP SEDUCING THINGS. 

So you snap.

You take your player characters, sit them down, tie them up, and force them to listen. For once. You become one of those nightmarish preschool teacher who duct tapes his students to their chairs.

You set your players up for defeat, stacking the odds against them to such an insane degree that they simply have no other choice but to surrender, or maybe you don't even give them the chance to surrender and kidnap them as they sleep. Every action is batted down, every interruption silenced. You take a breath, and begin to tell your story in peace to your captives.

Do not do this. Please. It is unhealthy and can damage trust.

If you want a passive and silent audience, write a book. This just has the players feeling as if the DM has reached across the table and stolen their character sheet so she can play by themselves.

It manifests in many ways. Overbearing cut-scenes, NPC plot-armour, DM controlled Party Members, save-or-die mechanics, vetoed player actions, forced mulligans or redo’s. (Note how these are different from narrative or gameplay effects, like simply being taken prisoner, or getting knocked unconscious / paralysed in combat . The Surrender Fallacy is when the DM refuses player agency and does what he wants without allowing their input)

These are your players - your friends: people who have put aside their time and work to come to your game to play and have fun, not sit by and watch.

For one, they will hate it. They may behave like they accept it at the time, but their resentment will be immediate and sorely bitter. This is not a dynamic you want between your players and your game. If they have no control over their characters or their actions, then they will stop playing and do something else: play with their phones, talk about other things aside from the game. They will not be enjoying their time, no matter how happy you are, and eventually may just choose to not turn up.

To avoid this deathly circumstance you must do one, painful thing: you have to let go of your pride.

Your story will not be perfect - especially with players at the helm of it; it will be disastrous, chaotic, and downright sinister or even unheroic at times. But it will be their story. They will be in control of themselves. They will be acting. they will be playing, and they will be having fun in your world.

Learn to react to their shenanigans rather than demand something of them. Be happy with taking it slow, and do not get antsy when they are not chasing the plot about at breakneck pace. Don't abandon narrative altogether; continue to keep things tense and the consequences real, but understand that a memorable story is always based off of character choice, rather than having none -  understanding that taking one road of a branching path makes their character unique with the knowledge that noone else would have done that same thing.

Respect your players and their agency, and they shall respect you, and your game.

And, most importantly,

Enjoy

Pixie x

Sunday Respite - Verisimilitudinous Villains of Varying Valour and Virtues

There is often a confusion lingering upon the romantic quarters of human minds, one that follows justice about like a hungering dog at the heels of a flock of sheep. The world likes to covet away our greatest virtues and hold them out of reach of others; those deemed unworthy of goodness. The predetermined failures that are doomed to retaliate out of spite eventually succeed in nothing but affirming these twisted beliefs. And so the world keeps turning. This confusion blinds the everyman. He looks to his kin and neighborhood folk with a kind eye, thinking how could they be evil? He sleeps soundly upon his truth, safe and assured. People never learn how close our killers dwell. There are no true monsters of the deep or horrors without, stalking the dark on claw and talon. Nay, the truth of evil is that we all do well by our faith and love until the one, fateful day where enough of the world has fallen and we can justify whatever comes next. We becomes phantoms of our goodness and haunt the world to reclaim it: the stricken foal wandering lost amidst the trees for loss of its mother. We become villains of circumstance. A villain by choice is a hero in another's eye. - So, you want to inspire unbridled terror within the deepest chasms of your player's hearts? Welcome to the club. We have mediocre biscuits and some alright coffee. Here are just under half-a-dozen cretinous cruelties and devilish deviants to chase your adventurers down wind-swept streets and dirtied halls. Captain Witter Thirteen crows flay the dead as they smoulder and rot in the barely field. The houses are flaring red and high against the horizon peaks, great, black snakes of smoke and ember coiling far into the air and off with the morning breeze. The captain lingers on horseback, his men standing by with their pikes against the willow tree by the road. They have their helmets loose upon the grass and are counting coin and assessing some valuables: a belt buckle - maybe silver, maybe tin -, some ivory statuettes from a chess board, a pretty cloak-pin broach. They are waiting on their orders. Where next on this hunt? Captain Witter has not got much further to chase until he meets the coastal cliffs, and then what? Does he think his son's killers sank into the sea or hollered down a lost fisherman and paid their way across to the empire? The questions are all kept close. A loose tongue may be made example of. Besides, Witter has that ghastly look about him again - one that tells that all these questions and countless others are being juggled in that cruel head of his. The captain has the world at his disposal: written warrants and pardons for any and all acts of sin from the desk of the Margravine herself, an army to recruit from with a benefactor in the lieutenant, and a warchest to rival a petty king's treasury. Any of the men would look at Witter and see their fear. For looking upon a man who has all he needs yet nothing he wants is to look upon a man but one poor fortune away from conquering the world. Captain Witter stirrups his horse away from the massacre and off to the road. His men pocket their loot and flock behind him. Caskette Brown When the palace guard were routed, those inside were at the mercy of the storm that was the roaring mob. First were the soldiers who could not flee, then the servants and the kitchen staff, then the maids, then the teachers, and then the craftsmen. The nobility hid in their towers, hoping against hope that their stairs and barred doors could save them. Caskette was in the smithy making horseshoes when the gates were lifted by the short-lived promise of mercy. There were people tearing through the palace grounds, lynching any and all in more than rags and soil away to the town square. She watched out of her window as the guards were beaten and stripped down to skin, then the palace staff were ripped screaming from the halls and carted away by a swarm of the suffering masses, each limb held still by three different men, grips so tight the blood dare not flow. She did not offer a second thought and broke for the stables. She was not going to die here simply because she was better than them. She was not going to scream for their mercy. It was instinct fueling her decisions as she went for the two great draft horses. Fury guided her hand as she latched and fitted them to her Lord's carriage. Hatred had her lash the reins and drive into the horde. But it was justice that had her laughing all the way, shooting through the streets as bodies fell before her, tumbling beneath hoof and wheel, crushed like the ripest, most dreadful of fruit. Myndalir Brasserton A small mind given many options, little time, and saddled with high ideals can bring the world down around him. One such man found himself at the cusp of such a fate and fell hard into its abyss, lapping and wailing as he plummeted beyond retrieval. Myndalir was of a small township, barely sixty persons, and represented those who held disdain for the Baron of the lands. The hills and fields were dangerous and full of horror, yet their lord offered no respite. His patrols were far too infrequent and never came this deep into the woodland unless the taxes were due. Enough was enough, and the people threw out the town elder and succeeded from the barony. Somehow, whether through wit or witlessness, Myndalir found himself in command. He had no spine for leadership, yet was boxed into an authority he never wanted. However, when a regiment of the Baron's rosy-faced men arrived at the town, Myndalir was inspired. Rather than surrender, he redoubled his efforts and gathered who he could to scare the soldiers away. From here, he did everything with one ideal hanging over his empty, little head: defeat the Baron. His people starved, and slaved, and wept for rest. The Baron's taxes of gold compared naught at all to Myndalir's taxes of the soul as he built walls and dug ditches with them. Soon, Myndalir began running out of bodies, as people an away in the night and likely died out in the wild snow. He set about hiring mercenaries to retrieve runners, travelers, and any loner found walking the roads about town. With every passing day, Myndalir was building an empire on pain and fear, but kept his head just as high as his ideals, for he was fighting the true foe of the people: tyranny. The Baron did not even know the town rebelled and spent the winter boar hunting. Mind-Stricken Stories persist of magicians and mages. They tell of wondrous acts of arcane power that would leave pockets emptied for the spectacle, eyes weeping for the beauty, and minds astounded for days on end. The men in robes and hats, speaking of stars and demons. The common folk love stories, we all do. But what we love more than story, is scandal and horror. Rumours circulate the city hold like clouds of flies about a stinking carcass. They tell of people: wives, husbands, priests, bakers - folk who live happy, quiet lives for years without issue or cause for concern, except that a dozen years ago whilst they were young and weak of will, they met with a travelling sorcerer. This man cast upon the child a charm, hypnotising them into a commanding slumber than you do not wake unless you are allowed to. He let them sleep until they dreamt, and then whispered close into their ear a single name of some unknown person from far away. The magician would then wake them and disappear. These children would leave for home, none the wiser, and live to grow into wives, husbands, and the sort. And then, one day, a stranger would arrive in town - some newcomer, entirely innocent and unconcernable of nature. The stranger would live and work away from the person, doing their daily duties out on their side of town, and the two would not meet. Until one day, they cross, perhaps on the market or by the taphouse, and do not even think of eachother. But the person remembers a dream. They recall a sleep, and a wizard who cast it, and a name, and then a face. Their eyes glaze over with mist. They drop their tasks, and turn to the stranger. Without recompense they lunge for them. Wordless, causeless, utterly stricken with madness, they claw at the stranger's eyes, rake at his throat, and bite his flesh. In that moment, they forget who they are and know only one thing: that in that moment, it is either the stranger or them to die, and so they break and tear with their fists. Once the stranger is put out, the person awake to their senses, kneeling in gore by the street side, hands twitching in silence as if the breeze was catching them. This could be anyone. Everyone is a stranger to somebody. Enjoy Pixie x