One of the most important skills you can have as a DM is building anticipation in your players. When your players are excited about the game, they’re going to be more likely to really get into their roles. Not only will the “in character” aspect of your game improve, combat and technical sequences will go quicker, as well, because players will know their stats and abilities inside and out.

How do you do it, though? How do you keep them coming back for more?

The ability to build anticipation in your roleplaying game is what separates a good DM from a great DM. Here are some simple tactics you can use to help build anticipation for your games:

• Be excited. Look, if you’re not excited about playing, your players won’t be either. Chances are pretty good there wouldn’t be a regular game if you weren’t DMing (unless you’re fortunate enough to have a larger pool of players who are also willing to DM).
• Be consistent. One of the best ways to screw a campaign is to interrupt the schedule. No, you probably aren’t going to play on Christmas eve. But if at all possible, you need to have a regular day you can always come back to. On those occasions when the regular gaming day doesn’t work out, have an alternate date already planned.
• Use cliffhangers. End each session at the peak of action. Your players will want to get back to the table as quickly as they can in order to find out what happens next. The same principle applies for “gotcha” session endings, where you end the session by turning the entire plot on its head.
• Use downtime. Some games are more conducive to so-called “downtime” activities in between game sessions than others. Still, downtime can be an excellent way to keep players brimming with anticipation. Even if the party is in the middle of a dungeon, there’s no reason you can’t run a one-on-one session with a player to work out the details of an earlier life experience. At the very least, you can garner a handful of future plot hooks by getting the player to invest some deeper thought into their background.
• Keep communication going. Whether you use Obsidian Portal, set up your own forums, or just have an email thread, make sure you are keeping in touch with players, and that they have a way to interact with you and with one another, as well.

Now, from the title of this post, you might think I’m talking about Everway or Ember or one of those other goofy roleplaying game that refuse to play as God intended: with dice.Far from it. Instead, I’m suggesting a unique experience for your gaming group that you can do no matter what system you’re using. Whether your roleplaying game is D&D or Dark Heresy or Werewolf: The Forsaken, a diceless game night can be just the thing to breathe new life into your group.

I did this with my group a couple of years back, and my players still look back on it as one of the most interesting sessions we’ve ever had.

Here’s how you set it all up:

1. Decide whether you’re going to make this a one-off game or whether you want to integrate it into your regular game. If you integrate it into your regular roleplaying game, I would suggest using characters other than the PCs, as it just makes things simpler.
2. Decide the setting. If, for example, you are playing in the Forgotten Realms, you might choose the court in Cormyr, or the community of Shadowdale. In this way, players still feel connected to your ongoing campaign, and the events of the diceless roleplaying night can play themselves out in your regular game over the coming weeks or months.
3. Create or identify factions. Each player will be given a character in a faction. Each faction should have its own goals and motivations, some of which will conflict with the other factions. Here again, if you’re set in an existing campaign you need merely pull in relevant factions from the setting.
4. Create a timeline. You can do like I did, and have the game take place over a single 24-hour period while representatives of horde and alliance jockey for position over a disputed territory. At several points throughout the day certain things would happen, such as a messenger arriving with the results of a skirmish.
5. Create characters, histories and motivations. These don’t have to be elaborate; a couple of paragraphs describing who the character is, why they’re involved in the situation and what they hope to get out of it personally should be enough.
6. Formalize the character goals. Choose one or two major goals and three or four minor goals for each character.
7. Decide on special tools or resources each character will have at their disposal. This may be a spell, bodyguards, spies, or anything else you think might be useful in helping them achieve their goals.
8. Create a handout for each character, as well as a handout that gives generally-known background about the setting, factions and events.

Here is an example of the character handout I used in my diceless roleplaying session:

Garradon Thunderhoof, Tauren.

Garradon engineered these negotiation and both sides have agreed that Garradon will serve as a moderator.

You truly want peace. The tauren have become somewhat disillusioned with the horde, and would like Kalimdor to be a peaceful place once again, much as it was before the arrival of the visitors from the west.

The gruff ways of many of the orcs have bothered the tauren. They trample the sacred burial grounds of the Tauren at Brighton rock as they try to pull more and more resources out of the earth to fight their battles with the alliance. The Tauren would like the orcs to stop.

Recently, the alliance has been pushing its way further and further into Horde territory. The horde has controlled Borshan almost since the orcs landed. Borshan was a territory once controlled by the centaurs, but the orcs helped the tauren to clear out the lands of the beasts. Garradon does not want to give up Borshan.

Special resources: Garradon controls the security of the meeting place, and has a group of 20 tauren who will constantly patrol the grounds and do anything else that Garradon needs them to do.

Primary objectives (1000 XP each)
_____ Negotiate a peace agreement between the alliance and the horde

Secondary Objectives (600 XP each)
_____ Negotiate a cease fire agreement between alliance and horde if you cannot negotiate a peace agreement
_____ Keep the alliance out of Borshan
_____ Negotiate with the orcs for tauren-only control of the Sacred Grounds at Brighton Rock

Next time, we’ll take a look at how I ran my diceless roleplaying game night.

Sometimes, you find roleplaying game plot ideas in the most unlikely of places.

Over the past few months, Angie and I have been watching the Stargate: Atlantis series. It started on a whim; the first season was on the shelf in my local library, and I checked it out just to see what it was all about. I’d enjoyed the movie and watched SG-1 on and off, so it seemed natural that I’d check this out.

Strangely enough, Angie and I were both hooked.

Something struck me about this particular series, however. The main cast – or at least the “SG Team” – had all of the elements of a good D&D party, and many of the stories were perfect for roleplaying game plot ideas. Here’s the lineup, in my view:

• Colonel John Sheppard: Fighter
• Ronon Dex: Barbarian
• Dr. Beckett or Dr. Keller (depending on the season): Cleric
• Dr. Rodney McKay: Wizard
• Teyla Emmagan: Rogue

And, of course, you have Ford (the fallen party member who becomes an antagonist), Zelenka and Major Lorne (the occasional players), Todd the Wraith (NPC who alternates between benefactor and antagonist), Michael (arch-nemesis), and Weir/Carter/Woolsey (benefactors/mentors).

Needless to say, there are so many different ways this series can play out in terms of roleplaying game plot ideas. Some random ones come to mind:

• The Season 5 episode where Rodney acquires a degenerative brain disease,  ala Flowers for Algernon. The roleplaying opportunities for your know-it-all wizard to suddenly act like a moron are endless, especially if the player is into it.
• The Season 1 episode where John Sheppard is infected by the Iratis bug and the party can’t get it unattached. Great opportunities for a puzzle/quest. This plot idea keeps playing itself out, with Sheppard turning into the bug creature later on. This can be a recurring problem for the character, and recurring plot idea for you.
• The overall discovery of Atlantis – an ancient city in ruins, with all sorts of new and magical things to explore, which becomes a base of operations.

I could go on and on, of course. But you get the idea.

Feel free to add your own roleplaying game plot ideas in the comments section, or tell me about some of the sources you use to find those ideas.

And, for those of you who haven’t seen the Stargate Atlantis series, I highly recommend it. You can buy it from Amazon, or even watch individual episodes with Amazon Video on Demand:

I’ve had an article on the site for more than a year called The Best Wizard Spells in Dungeons and Dragons. On Saturday, I found this comment on the article:

ANY spell is useful. You just have to use your imagination and get creative. Just because DMs only know to to do adventures that involve killing the orc for the pie doesn’t make spells useless. A real DM knows how to tailor a game for multiple scenarios, only 30% of which should involve actual combat.

All the useful spells you picked were spells that involved simple-minded “dungeon bashing”. Just the type of dumb mentality that created stupid 4th Edition. Thanks you 4rons

I deleted the comment, of course, as I don’t particularly like to be randomly insulted on my blog.

Now, insults and creative punctuation aside, this comment got me thinking about something:

What makes a spell or power useful in Dungeons and Dragons?

There are, in my mind, a few possible criteria:

• It should have opportunity for frequent use. Decipher script is limited in its use, Charm Person is not.
• It should be useful to overcome a challenge. That challenge doesn’t have to be combat; it can be social, or it can be plot-related.
• It should be something that can’t be done with mundane means. Light isn’t nearly as useful when you have a lantern around.

I’m sure there are other things that can make a spell or power useful in Dungeons and Dragons. What do you think? What makes an ability useful, and what makes it worth choosing over another spell or ability in your roleplaying game?

One of the things that naturally comes about in a discussion of switching from D&D to another game system is Pathfinder. Because the community has embraced Pathfinder as a way for fans of 3rd Edition to continue playing their game while getting new product, there is this illusion that the whole world is in “D&D vs. Pathfinder” mode.

I think that perception may be a bit overblown. Let’s face it: most D&D players aren’t switching to Pathfinder (or anything else). They play D&D. That’s what they’ve always played, and unless it says “Dungeons and Dragons” on the cover, they’re not going to buy it.

On top of that, there are other choices. If you don’t like 4E, there are plenty of gaming systems out there. Pathfinder is one of the youngest, and it’s not the best-selling. Even without insider information, I guarantee that there are still more RIFTS players than Pathfinder players. That can, and probably will, change. But, my point is that it’s not a “D&D or Pathfinder” decision – it’s a “D&D or Non-D&D” decision.

So, why am I looking at another system instead of switching to Pathfinder? Several reasons.

Pathfinder isn’t yet a proven product

Here’s the fact: Pathfinder still sells less than most non-D&D RPGs, and it will for a long time. They’re only in Beta, and the full game isn’t due out for a year. Could the final product be better than 4E and wind up atop the market? Sure, it’s possible. But it’s not happening any time soon.

I’m not especially interested in playtesting someone’s game, and I’m certainly not interested in playtesting it for a year or more. Come talk to me when Pathfinder’s been in the game for a decade, and then we’ll talk about a long-term commitment. In the meantime, it’s a novelty worth exploring, but still a novelty.

Pathfinder isn’t D&D

Pathfinder is a fine product. It’s a good-looking game, from what I can tell. It’s certainly an offshoot of D&D. Most of the designers have professional experience designing D&D.

However, Pathfinder is not D&D.

What do I mean, exactly? I’m not writing esoterically. I simply mean this: Pathfinder is owned by Paizo. Paizo doesn’t hold the intellectual rights to Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve heard people say “4E is OK, but it’s not D&D.” They’re wrong. 4E, like it or not, is D&D. Pathfinder is not D&D.

If folks want to suggest that Pathfinder is somehow the “spiritual descendant” of D&D, that’s OK by me. But for me, the name on the box defines the product. Maybe I like the new D&D, maybe I don’t. No matter. It’s D&D.

For a long time, I’ve been a D&D player. If I’m going to switch to something else, I’m going to consider all possibilities, plain and simple. Pathfinder is one, Vampire is another.

You’ll carefully notice that I don’t hate Pathfinder or think Paizo is the devil. I hope the product does well alongside D&D. More good games make for a deeper industry, which means better product all around.

Pathfinder doesn’t solve any problems

I need a new set of rules. I’ve complained for a long time that I just can’t keep up with the sheer number of rules available for third edition. 4E solves that problem; so does Vampire. Heck, Toon: The RPG solves that problem. Pathfinder is the one product that doesn’t offer me a rules reset.

Add to that the fact that our gaming group has certain dynamics that center around D&D rules. That’s a nice way of saying I’ve got a couple of power gamers at my table. Power gaming is fine, but I’d like to see something new at the table. A rules reset is one way around that. For a while, at least, my power gamers will be on equal footing with one another (and with me as their GM).

What do you think? Are you going Pathfinder? If so, how do you see it?

When I was 13 years old, RPGs were all about killing things and taking their stuff. In a lot of ways, back then, D&D was a major precursor to today’s MMORPGs. Sure, we had some storylines back then, but they were usually pretty standard quests.

It was mostly “roll” playing, and less “role” playing. That was fine, for back then. Really, I didn’t mind.

But things changed. Eventually, I grew up, put off RPGs for a while. When I came back to them as a young adult, I found I’d changed. Suddenly, I was a lot more interested in the story than in the spoils.

Here’s the cool thing about RPGs: They are what you make of them. If you’re a 13 year-old boy who wants to slay dragons, go for it. If your a guy that wants to explore his feminine side by playing a female pixie sorceress, go ahead.

If you really must.

At any rate, my group today prefers roleplaying over hack-n-slash. Some days, though, hack-n-slash is all I’ve got in me as a DM. I’m sure you’ve had sessions like that, too.

So, let me put the question to you, both players and GMs: How do you foster good roleplaying?

I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve, and I’ll share those in due time. I’m curious, though, what you all can come up with first.