Accommodating the Unrequested

I was going to call this post, "When the players change the rules" but it isn't that at the end of the day.  I used to play in a shared world with 3 rotating DMs who also played characters. This is obviously where my love of NPCs came from as when a player stepped into the DM role, their character faded to NPC status. 

One of my co-DMs favored oddball player characters, usually a druid or illusionist but he really liked the idea of an archer. The real class was Fighter or Thief depending on the stat placement, but with a bow and always unarmored. 

And it drove me nuts. 

First, he would sink into the background trying to avoid melee. Then the player would switch to DM mode after the combat and wanted to roll a 1d20 saving throw against a crushing blow for each and every arrow fired. As a DM with a table full of characters, I have better things to do. But I couldn't stop him. He would fixate on it. 

The HAPPY archer

How annoying. 

The problem was hidden and had to do with the archery rules in AD&D. He led the pack of players as archery comes before melee in the rules. From his perspective, he was making a couple of rolls and sitting idle for far too long. Eventually, he'd run out of valid targets and his combat role was nullified. 

To spice things up for him, I addressed the problem with environmental conditions. I encouraged him to carry a ridiculous number of arrows in multiple quivers. A quiver on his back, a quiver on his horse, a pair of quivers on the pack animals, and maybe one or two more on the horses of other players. I didn't want him focused on "preserving arrows" from the start. 

A firing position

The next environmental condition I presented is, that his character would have a variety of firing positions to choose from. As an archer, I figured he'd scout good positions, stuff with either cover or concealment. This was a nod to his lack of armor and cranked up the drama by having enemy missiles strike a fence, or a door, or whatnot. This also meant he could pluck an opponent's arrow out of the barrier and send it back. 

Later, I added special rules to make him feel more engaged. He had a collection of special rules that gave him a choice of pros and cons to choose from in combat. 

While this may seem unbalancing for the rest of the party, like I was making the archer more special, it did not. What it did do is break up the whole "marching order" shenanigans into something more realistic and slightly more badass. 

Ah... Ranks.

Without options, players will often place their characters into a block with the fighters in the front and the squishy characters in the back like a giant military formation. This action made sense when OD&D was a titch away from simulating armies. It doesn't make sense in a small combat action, which is what D&D does now. It also diminishes the role of squishy characters, regulating them to a boring non-combat role, even worse than the example archer character. 

With the archer acting as overwatch, the party would naturally break up into groups, with no one "in the rear", like a real tactical unit. The front is everywhere. The melee types would form up as a small group or two with the archer lending his firepower and sweeping the battlefield. By not having every character visible from the get-go, thieves and assassins were free to blindside attackers. This often created situations where the squish wizard got to engage in front-line action by having one fighting guardian and an archer overwatch. Or placed the squishies under the direct cover of the archer, seen, but unreachable. 

It really envigorated combat. 

It allowed me, the DM, to use more enemies and track them more easily. The party told me what to do with them so I didn't have as much to track. I have a table rule that characters including monsters don't die until -10 hit points, allowing me to reuse unique enemies. And unique characters remember. The players' tactics create my tactics. 

"What are they doing?" asked the party.

"One of them is approaching you. The others are looking around for something." 

"They don't see me?" asked the archer. 

"No, they don't."  

This is all very organic. 

And it adds a nice meta, which is rare and cool. We all know the trope where the players hear the DM's dice rolls, right? Well, with the characters' tactics dictating the flow of combat, this diminishes the cause-and-effect observation of these die rolls. They are never unnoticed but somehow fall into the background. 

A good example of this is skulking characters moving silently or hiding in shadows. I roll the dice, get a result, and make a choice. There is a delay between the roll and the visible action. There is nothing better than a good move silently roll resulting in an opponent turning away from a stalking assassin. 

It also hides the obviousness of morale rolls. The enemy isn't retreating because of a die roll, they are retreating from a superior force. This can eliminate the anticlimactic "we're out of targets" situations by replacing it with "how bad do we want to chase the targets?" 

Personae Dramatis - Flameheart and Jen

I use a set of standard NPCs in all of my campaigns. These folks are bearers, guards, horsemen, and archers. They are the typical NPCs the party will hire and somewhat control. Of all of them, a couple will become henchmen and followers. These are all bog standard until the players decide to ask more of them.  

I am not a fan of arming the party with a Gandalf-style NPC. I don't mind powerful NPCs adventuring with the party, but they should not provide important information and direction for the players. The party is adventuring for its own sake, they need to be Gandalf types, not following one or more of them. 

I am not entirely against offering points of refuge or safety to a party in times of need. However, these people are NOT to travel with the party for long (if at all) or provide extra oomph in a fight on demand. Usually, they have their own fully formed plans and goals which have nothing to do with whatever the party is doing. They offer a respite from an unexpected threat to the party. 

I describe them as Personae Dramatis to set them apart from regular NPCs. They are chance encounters that provide further insight into the setting of the game, without requiring the party to follow them or buy into another plotline. They tell a story outside the one the players are experiencing. And like any good story, it offers the players entertainment, news, and most usefully, a brief respite. Tom Bombadil springs to mind. 

I am not a poet, so I swing for comedy and a bit of false tension. 

In my campaigns, Flameheart and Jen Tanner are two examples of Persona Dramatis. 

Their main traits are right in their names. Jen was a runaway from her father, the town tanner. She disliked being a social pariah at the edge of town. Tanners live at the edge of town because they use ammonia for the tanning process. The main source of social stigma is the use of urine to obtain ammonia. The second source of stigma was the incredible taxes they paid. Urine was double taxed, once in its collection and once again on its sale. This created the impression of stinking, rich tanners and evil tax men. This is the real-world source of both the phrase and the trope of evil tax men.  

Ick. I love it when real life intrudes on my RPGs. 

Flameheart was a ridiculously old red dragon, one who had sunk to eating equally old cows to survive. It was only a matter of time before someone put a lance in his chest. 

Flameheart stumbled upon Jen in her attempt to escape her dull village life. It wasn't long before the Tanner family caught up with the pair. They found the whole village guard not up to the task of rescuing Jen, who very much didn't want to be rescued. 

I will save the full story for another time. Here is how I use these Personae. 

When I present Jen and Flameheart, they are encamped near the party, causing a ruckus they are unaware of. The presence of a dragon is often a reasonable explanation for a pause in the character's adventures. 

Think of Jen and Flameheart as a mobile fortress or safe area, no matter how the reactions go. If the party goes into hiding from them, so will anyone following the party until the dragon leaves. If Jen convinces the party to stay for a time, no one will approach the party. 

In general, I don't have much cause to stat up Jen. She sometimes has a potential boyfriend in tow depending on how I feel. He also doesn't get stats, unless I decide to have him join the party. Usually, the boyfriend is very pretty and less than helpful to Jen and Flameheart and might be better off in the party.  

I have given Flameheart the following stats: 

AC: 1, HD 8 (46 hp), Att: [ 2x claw (1d6), 1x bite (4d8)], or breath weapon (special). THAC0: 12 (+7), MV: 90' (30') / 240' (80') flying, SV D8, W9, P10 B10, S12 (8), ML: special, AL: Chaotic, XP: 2000, NA unique, TT: H. 

Flameheart has the following spells:  

Level 1: Charm, Light, Sleep.
Level 2: Detect Invisibility, Invisibility, Phantasmal Force.
Level 3: Dispel Magic, Fly, Waterbreathing

Flameheart shared his horde with Jen and she always carries the following when stat'ed up: 2 Bags of Holding, Bracers of Armor (AC: 4), and Boots of Levitation.  

As mentioned before, Flameheart is extremely old. To the point of weakened health. This is reflected in his HD, attacks, hit points, and saves. He will not retreat if Jen is threatened, hence his special morale.  

He has two different breath weapons due to his age. He has difficulty breathing fire. He can breathe fire on a save vs. breath weapon. On failure of this save or when he desires it, he will emit a massive jet of obscuring smoke instead of fire. It lasts 3 rounds. This may sound like a joke, it isn't. 

While the smoke does no damage, it is a very dangerous situation. He is smart enough to follow it up with one or more spells to cause chaos. He is savvy about his limitations and can turn them into true threats. He will use his spells creatively in conjunction with his smoke to terrorize victims. He may turn invisible, charm a victim, or use Phantasmal Force in the next round. 

He has a 35% chance of being asleep when discovered. Jen mitigates the danger as she sleeps as much as a typical 22-year-old woman. Jen is smart and disarming, allowing the dragon to wake or appear unexpectedly on opponents.

From a DM's perspective, Flameheart and Jen represent a minor threat and a dangerous refuge from larger threats the party might face. If the party presents itself as needy, Jen may attempt to assist them more than providing a safe haven. Due to Jen's exposure to the tanning profession, she is very money-conscious and savvy about exploitation. 

They are always chaotic, but not necessarily evil. 

Devilfish - What Makes It "Better"?

A few posts ago, I mentioned a plan to have a permanent Star Smuggler board set up so I can play whenever I like. I drew up deck plans for a gargantuan ship. The Devilfish is roughly 3 times bigger than the Antelope that appears in the original game. 

Bigger is better, but what else makes it better? It has 3 turrets, therefore 3 guns. It has two shuttles, a garage for a skimmer, and a medical station. 

But what went away? It lost its stasis box in pilotage and its concealed locations. It has no more Hypercharges than the original. 

Strangely, to hit charts and criticals are introduced in the rules. I would have a standard chart for the Devilfish: 

1. Garage, 2. quarters, 3. engineering, 4. gun turrets, 5. main cargo, and 6. the boat hold. Since some of these locations are very large, I would split the turrets into 1 of 3, the holds into port and starboard, and the engineering area into large and small. The Medical area and pilotage can't be damaged directly owing to the 1d6 nature of the roll. It seems easy enough to expand this to 2d6 in the future because it's odd that you can't hit pilotage in the nose of the ship. 

This ship clearly has the edge over the Antelope in the game. Now I have to consider what else has gotten better? 

Many or all hostile ships will have shields and ECM by default, something the Devilfish does not have at all. They will also have and make use of hoppers more often than the rules currently allow. I will have to design antagonistic ships, possibly even small fleets of them to make things fair. 

I can't wait to retool the battleship from e81. In the image I drew for that post, I think a pocket battleship would have one or more hoppers to act as spotters. It has two orbiter bays and two 45-cu cargo bays to carry even more. Imagine if it was a battleship-carrier hybrid. Even hampered as it is with the limitations from the rules, a swarm of 4 hoppers would give anyone pause. 

Another improvement is needed for ships boats and more frequent drones. The improved hopper would have a fission engine to produce life support and eliminate the need for fuel units. Ships or hoppers toting a drone or two in battle would be cool and terrifying to face down.