Behind the Screen #2 - Villains and Consequences

Hello everyone! As of writing this I have now run 3 adventures with my party and have learned a great deal about planning, writing, and responding to player choices. Now before I get too far into todays topic I thought I would describe a little bit about the player party:

We have Mishso, a Dragonborn Noble who is at the moment attempting to conceal most of his identity and is running away from his fate. 

Nabi, a elven druid who grew tired of the traditional druidic lifestyle and is looking for more thrills in this adventuring party

Thranduil, an half-elf sorcerer who was shoved into a position of power, and only recently came into his own magical powers, he is now on a quest not only to discover the truth behind his powers but also to avenge the deaths of his retainers and reclaim what is rightfully his. 

Thorin, a dwarven paladin who is one of the few remaining members of his hometown after being destroyed in goblin raids. 

The player make up is a unique one, 3 guys, 1 gal, 2 have played D&D games before while 2 really have not. It is a unique makeup but allows for us all to have a lot of fun. 

Now to the topic at hand, creating villains and providing consequences. One of the goals I initially made was to provide compelling antagonists for the party, and while only just beginning I know that Thranduil will be thinking about one villain for quite some time as we move on into the adventure. 

Our third adventure had a former advisor of Thranduil’s father (Sadron) come into town with the intention of killing our beloved Sorcerer when instead he found his retainers and decided to hold them for ransom. 

After a series of encounters for our party, the final scene led them to a clearing in which the retainers were chained to a central metal post in which Sadron has a wand of lightning bolt. He presented Thranduil an impossible choice, to give up his name, lordship, and right to rule in exchange for the lives of his retainers. 

He couldn’t give that up, and in it’s stead the retainers were killed. 

Now, my goal is to work with this character to help make this a driving force in our adventure. The villain in this adventure (Sadron) may not be coming back for a while, but the pain and the hard decision can have far reaching impact for several adventures to come. I’m curious to see how the player rolls with it, and have some ideas of how we can loop it in to the main plot. This also provides a great hook for later adventures. 

I don’t mind using death as a consequence and I have seen that many DM’s fear this because of the permanence of it. I think it not only has a constant state of reference, but also can be a driving influence in future decisions. I bet that the next decision will be answered with much less hesitation as this one was.  The party always learns from mistakes. 

I have to be honest, I have really enjoyed playing the cast of NPCs and especially villains. While our third adventure we took a little detour to provide some detail into one character’s backstory. Adventure 4 will drive us right back into the main plot. 

Ideas on what you like me to talk about on the next Behind The Screen? Leave a comment or reach out to me via Facebook or the Twitters. 

Behind the Screen #1 - Tales from a first time DM

Hello everyone! I haven’t been writing all that much here as I have been writing quite a bit for DFAT and have busy with life and such. As fall comes rolling in and tons of new content is coming with music/games/tv and more you can certainly expect more to come over here at “Harmonious Geek”.

Which brings me to a new idea on writing about my first experience as a DM. 

After years of playing JRPG and other great adventuring exposure. I played D&D for the first time in college with some of my Fraternity Brothers and I was hooked. I have been playing off and on now for the past 7 years. I have played 3.5, 4th, and now 5th edition D&D as well as several other gaming systems as well. What I have found in my time playing these games is that while the rules are all well and good and important to make sure games don’t get out of hand, what really makes a great gaming session is the people you are playing with.

With the upcoming fifth edition coming for Dungeons and Dragons, I figured now was the time to start working on creating my own campaign and to start working on developing some skills as a Dungeon Master. I have had the pleasure of playing games with some really great Dungeon Masters and each one of them have a very unique way of running campaigns. I have some goals for my first campaign and I want to list them here just for you to see:

• Create compelling NPC’s (Especially Villains) that will help drive the story and plot. 
• Work with the party to create interesting tie-ins to their characters and to help them develop their characters throughout the campaign.
• To have mastery of 5th edition rules 
• To appropriately scale the campaign with the characters development. 

And now for a bit of a teaser of the plot, the campaign is entitled Pantheon Panic:

What do you do when you don’t know who to believe? The party is thrown in the middle of a conflict between powerful foes who both believe they are right. With the world in the balance the party will be forced to make difficult decisions and ally with with some unlikely people in order to decide the ultimate fate of the world. 

This past week I had my first adventure where I was able to introduce the party to some of the cast of characters that will help set up the ultimate plot. Their reaction to some of these characters was expected, and others were not. I’m loving the aspect of world building that is already taking place and I think that as the characters are placed in more situations I’m really looking forward to seeing how they react. 

I hope to provide some regular posts involving the trials that I have to work through in running my first adventure. I already noticed that despite the party fighting I did not consider possible loot on any of their enemies. I actually improvised one reward that ironically turned into a potential plot point. That’s the beauty of the game right?

The continuation of the party’s first adventure is next Sunday, and they will be meeting their newest party member. Looking forward to it.