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Isamu Dyson
2013-10-25, 06:06 PM
Myself, I like having the PCs start the adventure either on a vehicle, as prisoners, or both (prisoners escorted to a destination by vehicle).

TheTrueMooseman
2013-10-25, 06:27 PM
There is ALWAYS a conspiracy, there is ALWAYS a murder-mystery and there is ALWAYS a bad guy hiding in plain sight/ masquerading as a good guy. Whether these are the focus of the story is neither here nor there :smalltongue:.

Jaycemonde
2013-10-25, 06:28 PM
Big, impressive fortress-cities, the more foreboding and shrouded in ancient history the better.

Equinox
2013-10-25, 06:31 PM
There's a kingdom, and a king. The king's rule is a bit shaky, and there are other factions vying for the throne - either immediately, or setting themselves up as successors.

Ceiling_Squid
2013-10-25, 06:43 PM
Otherworldly dimensions that intersect almost seamlessly with reality. The party could be travelling deep into an ancient wood, or picking their way through a crumbling manor on a foreboding moor, or journeying into the depths of a demon cult's subterranean temple. If they aren't paying attention, they could take a wrong turn straight into a space where the laws of reality as they know them do not entirely apply. Slipping between the cracks into another plane.

I'm a big fan of Eldritch Locations (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EldritchLocation).

The Dark Fiddler
2013-10-25, 06:54 PM
I like having powerful otherworldly beings as either the antagonist or the plot catalyst, with ambiguity as to whether they're gods or demons or what.

I blame Shin Megami Tensei.

Grod_The_Giant
2013-10-25, 06:58 PM
Cinematic action. There are big, world-shaking events, with the players standing square against the chaos. There will be a lot of fighting, the occasional investigation, and a fairly direct (if wide and branching) path through the campaign.

Malimar
2013-10-25, 07:24 PM
All my major villains are affable (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AffablyEvil). Even the one demon who was kind of a dismissive jerk was still pretty friendly about it.

Delvin Darkwood
2013-10-25, 07:44 PM
A trademark philosophy of mine: You are free to do take any action fitting of your character, and every action has a consequence. And stupid actions earn stupid consequences.

Morithias
2013-10-25, 07:51 PM
Lots of stolen and re-purposed characters. Mostly women.

Study your Harem Animes, Visual Novels and JRPGS if you want a leg up in my world.

Other than that...nothing is ever as it seems.

The only 'world' of mine, that I dare use on this forum (mainly cause my other worlds are well...x-rated.) is Rosewood.

Rosewood has a goddess that can rip people from the 'real world' to fight threats, has had literal gods killed by adventurers, was invaded by the X-com aliens lead by the Elder Evil Hulks of Zoretha, and has a dragon diplomat who is into maid outfits, and the god of demons is a nun at a holy church!

Meanwhile every single country seems to be ruled by a princess, because for some weird reason *Ahem*thedmisuncreativewithnewcharacters*ahem* no princes seem to have been born in the last generation of nobles.

And there's a whole bunch of artifacts just lying around in buried temples, castles, and on other planes from an ancient civilization. These artifacts can do things like GIVE YOU BONUSES TO YOUR EXPERIENCE POINTS. And basically let you break the rules of the game.

Quite frankly, the worse thing you can do in Rosewood is assume the DM (me) is trying to screw you over. Cause 90% of the time, you'll travel to the artifact location, find it, discover your NPC companion is a demon...and....

...she'll hand you the artifact because "it's not one of the one's I'm looking for" and leave without a fight.

As the great Mad-eye Moody would put it.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

CombatOwl
2013-10-25, 08:30 PM
Myself, I like having the PCs start the adventure either on a vehicle, as prisoners, or both (prisoners escorted to a destination by vehicle).

Treasure is never convenient.

Piedmon_Sama
2013-10-25, 08:38 PM
Playing in a Piedmon game? You had better know that a village by definition has no walls, a tavern won't let you stay the night, that anyone you meet may or may not be a serf (it's not like they wear tags), that there is no such thing as a "police department" anywhere and criminal punishment is much more likely to involve branding you with a hot iron in the face and throwing you out of town than a stay in jail.

(I guess what I'm saying is being a medievalist sperg is my trademark)

AgentofHellfire
2013-10-25, 08:49 PM
Really major plot-twists, and wildly inappropriate encounter levels.

Basically, I really like throwing off the players' expectations of what's going to happen, in some fashion. Because frankly, a straight-up quest that they could figure out the odds and ends of would be boring.

And what would also be boring would be a "climatic final battle" that they could solve with mere die rolls. If you're not really engaging a boss, I don't think it counts. Hence! My boss fights tend to be against things you can't defeat in straight combat--the Neverborn, for any Exalted players, were one such nemesis, but I've also had or planned but never got to use an Immortal/Constantly regenerating Leshay King, an epic level ghost-dragon-fey thing, and an Elder DB (who wasn't so much undefeatable in combat as he was possessed of some incredibly good Xanatos Gambit fodder).

Moreover, most of the time my players defeat these foes, too.

Mr.Sandman
2013-10-25, 09:27 PM
Pumpkins share the same connotations as Pineapples do in our world and thus Inns usually have Pumpkin somewhere in the name.

valadil
2013-10-25, 09:58 PM
I mostly run urban games with humanoid antagonists. I use many plots at once, most of which are borrowed from my PCs' backstories.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-10-25, 09:58 PM
- You have no allies, only enemies who don't want you dead quite yet. Trust no one, least of all yourself.

- The villain will win. The road is lined with the graves of heroes much more worthy than you. The best you can hope for is that your defeat will mean something.

- The world is doomed. You cannot stop it. Trying will only make things worse.

I like grimdark stuff okay

Morithias
2013-10-25, 10:02 PM
- You have no allies, only enemies who don't want you dead quite yet. Trust no one, least of all yourself.

- The villain will win. The road is lined with the graves of heroes much more worthy than you. The best you can hope for is that your defeat will mean something.

- The world is doomed. You cannot stop it. Trying will only make things worse.

I like grimdark stuff okay

You and I are exact opposites. My world is so full of insane heroes, and when the normal PCs aren't enough, the goddess will pull a grimoire of the rift and recruit 5 nerds with attitude to beat the bad guys.

Needless to say both can be enjoyable, but I think your world might be more....'realistic'. I guess.

My world is a mix between, disgaea, power rangers, D&D, and basically every cheesy abridged series ever made.

Needless to say. I think people who tire of my games, should give yours a try.

What are your inspirations? I think I'll start a thread on that.

prufock
2013-10-25, 10:30 PM
Dimension and/or time travel are two recurring themes in my games.

There are usually shady organizations that are widespread and near-impenetrable. A church, a thieves' guild, a power company, etc.

I tend to work in real life legends, analogies with myth, and so on. For example my current supers game has numerological themes as well as ties to various religious mythologies.

I also like bittersweet campaign endings; there isn't always a "right" choice, and sometimes the big bad evil guy is right, even if his tactics are questionable. Often ending the game involves selecting the lesser of evils. I usually allow for creative "good" endings, but it's not obvious.

Oh, and I like vague prophecy that keeps the PCs guessing.

jedipotter
2013-10-25, 10:33 PM
*High fast paced action. Often. Very little down time and very little sitting around.

*Lots of Comedy.

ghost_warlock
2013-10-25, 10:39 PM
Not sure if they're trademarks, but I tend to use a lot of custom monsters and tactically-challenging combats. Those are really my main strengths as a DM since I'm not really great at improv or method acting. What I really need for my campaigns is a co-DM to handle the RP part of party-NPC relations and conspire with me brainstorm story stuff.

Hyde
2013-10-25, 11:04 PM
Is that Marty? ...no, Craft (Cheese) is way too clever for Marty.
...I feel I have to apologize for even thinking it.


After taking a poll, my trademarks appear to be scaring the living crap out of my players, creepy little girls who are somehow Japanese despite there not being a Japan or them being described as asian at all (I think it has something to do with Japan's preference for a creeping, omnipresent horror, rather than the stalky-bursty slaughterfest Americans prefer).
Dragons. Even when it's explicitly stated that all dragons are dead, and that we won't have dragons this time... dragons. Dragons dragons dragons I love dragons.

Despite being almost universally chromatic, none of the dragons are likely to fight you, unless it's a CR 9 White Dragon being repurposed (YET AGAIN, I KNOW, I'M SORRY) as... say, a raptor king or something.


And everything is as relevant as you make it. I'm a fan of Babylon 5, and I have more plot hooks available or discoverable than most gamers have sessions. There are always always always at least three ways to get where you want to go.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-10-25, 11:13 PM
What are your inspirations? I think I'll start a thread on that.

My greatest aspiration as a GM is to top to Red Wedding scene. Not really what literally takes place in that scene, but rather the punch to the throat and giant middle finger it delivers to the reader/audience.

EDIT: Oh yeah, you asked about my inspirations. Uhh... Closure (http://closuregame.com/)? If I could have a tabletop session with even 1% of the atmosphere of that game, I'd be happy with myself.

tasw
2013-10-25, 11:29 PM
The devils bargain.

At some point your characters will each everyone, some time when they are alone, be given the choice to make a devils bargain for power, literally.

There will be many other times along the road when devils bargains (not literal) present themselves to the group. That group will define itself by how they respond to those choices more then anything.

SimonMoon6
2013-10-25, 11:42 PM
Things I used to do a lot:

(1) The multi-part quest. This is the sort of thing where you've got four or five specific things to do before you can gather the results of your adventures together for the final part of the story. Like, maybe you've got to gather the five parts of a magic item, each of which is hidden in a separate dungeon.

(2) "You think he was tough?" This is the sort of thing where you're fighting one tough monster/badguy and barely survive... and then the *real* enemy shows up, which might be a main boss fight or a swarm of those monsters you just fought (like fighting one shambling mound, barely winning, and then finding six shambling mounds). This is often a precursor to running away or diplomacy or something.

I remember back in the 1980s when something like that happened in a comic, and one of my friends was like, "Hey, that's just like something you'd do!"

Zaydos
2013-10-25, 11:48 PM
A multiversal inn which serves as the ultimate neutral ground for entities.

A tendency to see how blatant a reference to media I can get away with, usually in the forms of cameos and naming things after what inspired them.

Also typically the stakes are big and Lovecraftian entities will make an appearance and be dealt with in the manner of my favorite Mythos Author (Howard :smallwink:) my five most recent campaigns:

The 3 Worlds: The PCs were stopping a secret illithid invasion which was finally ended by a duel against the Marshal of the Illithids (a recurring boss) to determine the fate of all 4 worlds (the Illithid world was forgotten).

Chikyuu: The world was divided into three bands of magical power. The PCs were initially stopping a madman from becoming overdeity but the major artifact they destroyed to stop him from using it just happened to be the cornerstone of their reality and it all started collapsing. 2 characters were Cthulhu cultists (they later reformed), the less said of what they did before reformation the better.

Planescape: Not my own setting but, I decided to spin the Great Wheel leading to the fall of Asmodeus, the rise of Moloch as Lord of the Ninth, Demogorgon with heads of opposing good-evil alignment, and the multiverse almost becoming tang. The final encounter was against a portal into the Far Realm which was the 7th Heaven of Mount Celestia.

Teaching Game: The god of Darkness was sealed away centuries ago but now has begun breaking free (a CR 11-ish dragon iirc). The gods choose a group of heroes to preserve the world. No farspawn here. But the PCs did have to save the world from a dark god and one of them became the next god of evil.

The God Game (that's what we called it): The power of the gods was usurped and the PCs have been born with fragments of it and gathered together to overthrow the usurper and return the world to what it was supposed to be. Unfortunately for both sides the Outer Gods, a group of what I can only call pirate (or more accurately raider) gods from other cosmologies sealed away by the Old Gods before the usurpation of their power were also returning turning it into a 3 way battle between the God-King, the PCs, and the slivers and aberrations of the Outer Gods. Ended with the PCs fighting a team of evil Lovecraftian abomination sentai in the middle of a giant mountain Outer God that was one of the former character from the Planescape game of one of the players.

And in all of these but the beginner game the Three Boar's Inn did in fact make an appearance.

Jay R
2013-10-26, 12:19 AM
In every game I've run - D&D, Flashing Blades, TOON, Champions, whatever -- there's been a character called Lord Victor, who is the only one who can combine magic and science. He is therefore a mage/engineer wearing full plate armor and a green cloak.

Almost no players have ever run into him, but he's always been there.

GallóglachMaxim
2013-10-26, 01:34 AM
The bad guys are always screwing around with the dead in some way. Over various games I've had three different types of zombie army (standard necromantic, mechanical endoskeleton inside a dead body filled with sand, semi-intelligent plague type), and the bad guys who didn't get a zombie army were usually up to something in that area.

Protagonists start off not knowing each other (with a few exceptions, to accommodate backstory) and begin the game all meeting the same NPC.

Getting characters drunk at some point. Did it in the first game I ever ran and it was hilarious, so there's always an opportunity now (the squad leader in my current game is bucking the trend by only occasionally sobering up, but it's a similar result).

Averis Vol
2013-10-26, 05:10 AM
Bards. Particularly battle bards will be a popular thing, and if you can guess what power metal band I've based the character off of (Even more so the actual member) you may have a better chance of getting by.

I also prefer to reward truly bombastic and clever thinking. If you do something so extraordinary that I have to stop the game for more than 15 minutes, feel free to level up and pick out a free feat you qualify for on the spot. You earned it (I plan leagues ahead.....kind of, individual encounters I wing)

I also have a tendency to make my PC's squirm I intentionally deceive them just to watch them all slap their heads and go "Noooooooooo!!!!!". This comes in the forms of using what I know my PC's won't mistrust (They're my friends of atleast 8 years, I ****ing know them :smalltongue:) like a kindly old gentleman who for no reason gives them upgraded magical gear (**** you not, they should have mistrusted Aleister Crowley, the elderly southern plantation owner who later turned out to be a shadow demon obsessed with war. Instead though, they entered the ghost woods and decided to trust the chaotic evil blackblood cultist/werewolf. They aren't the brightest bunch but i love them.) or the adorable little harpist girl. Sometimes they are right, normally not though.

I also like to bring the above mentioned deception in combat. I've had enemies cut up squares of grass, dig holes, and hide inside of them with the grass pulled over to set up an ambush. Gnolls will dig hovels in the sides of hills and just cover the doors with grass and pop out to launch a volley of arrows before running to a different hole. There's a group of gnome warblades out there who use rings of stonemeld to hide in the ceiling and battle jump the party as they walk by. stuff like that.

So yea, the overarching mark of my DM....DM'smanship? is basically that I'm a complete ****, but for some reason my PC's keep coming back.

PersonMan
2013-10-26, 05:41 AM
Pumpkins share the same connotations as Pineapples do in our world and thus Inns usually have Pumpkin somewhere in the name.

Pineapples have connotations in our world?

TuggyNE
2013-10-26, 05:51 AM
Pineapples have connotations in our world?

That's what I was thinking.

But then I figured it was probably some obscure yet somehow dirty connotation and decided the better part of valor would be not to question it.

Brookshw
2013-10-26, 06:03 AM
Funny that, my players did give me a slogan, "dm of doom, I like my coffee black and my player characters dead". Maybe I should register it.....

Stylistic: planes are fun, high end inevitably brings demons, devils & undead. Dead gnomes.

Irenaeus
2013-10-26, 06:23 AM
I'm told that apathetic guards and psychopathic warhorses is a staple of my campaings.

Most plots will move constantly witout any character interaction needed, but the characters need to change the way it's going to archieve a desired outcome.

Ridiculous amounts of time is used to make the world more plausible with regards to economics, political systems and demographics.

All to little time is used on stuff that will be in the foreground during play.

The last limitation is mitigated by me being a strong improviser, and willing to reconsider quite a lot on the fly.

Nothing is a level-appropriate encounter.

I once killed a PC with the flu. It was commonly agreed that it was awesome, and completely fitting. It hasn't happened since, but the "build a thousand bridges, shag one sheep" principle seems to apply.

starwoof
2013-10-26, 07:28 AM
I give out higher than WBL loot because it means I can run stronger monsters. I run pretty hard games though, my players get run through the meat grinder.

Mr.Sandman
2013-10-26, 09:05 AM
Pineapples are the symbol of Hospitality in America, a bit more archaic than I thought though.

Mono Vertigo
2013-10-26, 10:02 AM
- There's at least one (bad) guy doing what he's doing for his own amusement. If you're lucky, he's an NPC without real impact on the plot. If you're not, he's the BBEG... ahah, no, that's not the worst case. The worst case is, he's your questgiver (though if it's the case, I will fully support your decision to kick his ass once you find out).
- Whenever I got any say concerning the cosmology, it's going to feature reincarnation and/or cycles of existence instead of the classic "you get a soul when you're born, your soul ends up in hell/heaven, or turns into a ghost as an intermediary step right before that, your journey stops there". Whether it's important to the game is a different matter.

Frozen_Feet
2013-10-26, 01:01 PM
Random evil things happening to random characters. :smallamused:

Also, a misplaced boot hanging from a random tree branch. Never gets old.

BWR
2013-10-26, 01:08 PM
Having a lot of really cool ideas and either throwing stuff at my players they don't like or having a lot of really cool ideas but failling to fully convey them to my players.

mistformsquirrl
2013-10-26, 04:01 PM
Hrm...

1) Invariably I will find a way to include catpeople in my setting. On the off chance I fail in this regard they will probably be replaced by foxpeople instead. And believe it or not they're generally not comedy characters either; I treat them as seriously as any other race in the setting. This confuses some people but *shrug* I like em, I'm allowed.

2) The threats faced by the players are generally enormous in scope. World-spanning demon invasions being particularly popular. I'm trying to work on this because I'd like to tell smaller scale stories too.

3) My players will probably face mostly humanoid opponents. I very rarely run standard monsters, though I'm trying to get better about doing that as some people find NPCs with class levels rather boring as opponents after awhile.

4) My campaigns typically have a militaristic bent to them. Either the players are military officers of some sort, have ties to the military, or the situation is such that they require aid from the military - in any event it's an excuse to have large set piece battles as backdrops for PC action. (Everyone loves a good siege!) - I should probably make an effort to avoid this in the future at least to a degree; since I've done it so much.

5) Sadly, my depression will kick in partway through and the campaign will end prematurely. This has yet to fail; which ticks me off because a lot of the time the campaigns I write start off pretty decently. Stupid grey matter won't cooperate. Obviously always trying to work on this one. <x.x>

Jaycemonde
2013-10-26, 04:23 PM
Hrm...

1) Invariably I will find a way to include catpeople in my setting. On the off chance I fail in this regard they will probably be replaced by foxpeople instead. And believe it or not they're generally not comedy characters either; I treat them as seriously as any other race in the setting. This confuses some people but *shrug* I like em, I'm allowed.

4) My campaigns typically have a militaristic bent to them. Either the players are military officers of some sort, have ties to the military, or the situation is such that they require aid from the military - in any event it's an excuse to have large set piece battles as backdrops for PC action. (Everyone loves a good siege!) - I should probably make an effort to avoid this in the future at least to a degree; since I've done it so much.

Hey, me too! In my case it's usually goat-coyote things or others that have long faces and ram's horns, and the militarized stuff goes well with the fortress-cities. I can spend hours designing uniforms and weapons and rank hierarchies for different factions.


5) Sadly, my depression will kick in partway through and the campaign will end prematurely. This has yet to fail; which ticks me off because a lot of the time the campaigns I write start off pretty decently. Stupid grey matter won't cooperate. Obviously always trying to work on this one. <x.x>

I feel you there too, unfortunately. One way to keep adventures coming is to look to old adventure packs and role-playing magazines, or even taking the plot of a videogame or RP forum, and change the details around so they best fit into your setting. It's not the most foolproof method, but filler adventures are better than no adventures as long as you can think of something more impressive later.

Sidmen
2013-10-26, 05:04 PM
Is accidentally killing the players a trademark? It seems to happen a lot.

The one thing that I think might actually be a trademark of mine is Larry. In all of my games there is a single, white, jellybean found in some completely random place (he was first found in the center of an otherwise empty room in a starship). Larry, you see, is a immortal multidimensional being that transcends time and space.

He has no great power, and so far his accomplishments seem to be: sitting, chilling, and not talking. Once, he signed for a package delivered while the party was out of town. Another time he repaired their starship while they were busy. And most recently he provided them with a treasure map.

He has never spoken, nor has he ever moved. When they talk to him I make no facial expressions of any kind...

This has never not been funny.

Blueiji
2013-10-26, 06:28 PM
Shocker lizards, lots of shocker lizards.

Also, illiterate gnoll barbarian bookstore owners.

Alberic Strein
2013-10-26, 07:12 PM
People smoke. And they smoke Valors. A brand created after an NPC my players love.

There is always a reason for Halfies, and that reason is Alberic Strein.

Also, Sadistic choices. Lots.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-10-26, 07:24 PM
People smoke. And they smoke Valors. A brand created after an NPC my players love.

You know you're a badass when you gate in a Balor just to roll him up into a cigarette and smoke him.

Silus
2013-10-26, 11:19 PM
Making things up as I go along.

Improbably difficult environmental hazards (persistent acid cloud/rusting grasp field, liquid shadow that eats organic matter, etc.)

Over use of Shadows and other incorporeal undead.

Things that make no sense a the time until you get to the end and see everything fall into place. Those little throw-away fluff bits that nobody questions that prove to be clues should you bother to ask about them.

Never intentionally killing the characters off (bad experience when I started playing led me to dislike killing off characters).

Ifni
2013-10-26, 11:36 PM
Apparently, my trademark is making up off-the-cuff throwaway NPCs that the players get attached to and insist on dragging along with them :smalltongue:

(For Exalted players, I'm currently running a solo game for a Sidereal. This tendency of mine is interacting worryingly with Sidereals' innate tendency to gather minions, and the PC's excellent Charisma+Presence pool. He's been in Creation for a day and he's already got three heroic mortal sidekicks...)

Zazax
2013-10-27, 12:51 AM
At least one major villain, perhaps even the BBEG himself, will be an affable Magnificent Bastard with a cliche goal (world domination, deicide, omnicide, etc), but have non-cliche reasons for it. This villain will, for the most part, be familiar with the Evil Overlord List.

In a sufficiently high-level game, there will be at least one major invasion of the Material Plane (or setting equivalent), be it by fiends, eldritch horrors from beyond the Planes, or even something like an alternate universe (goatees optional).

One nation will be undergoing a succession crisis, likely involving a competent older sibling lacking support, a well-liked younger sibling who has no interest in it whatsoever, and another younger sibling who's trying for a military coup/made a pact with fiends/whatever.

Shapeshifting assassins hunting the PCs for one reason or another.

At least one nation will make wide use of magitek in their military and elsewhere; golems and other constructs, lots of magic items, airships, etc. They will either be the primary villains, or the primary force backing the PCs.

There will be one really big, never-fallen-in-its-history fortress city. Likely to be the capital city of the above nation. This means it will probably be attacked in campaign, and it's up to the PCs to take it for the first time ever (if it's an antagonist) or defend it from an overwhelming force (otherwise).

Lots of Chekhov's Guns, recurring villains, and the possibility of pulling an Enemy Mine with a familiar recurring villain to combat a new one. Backstabbing by either party after (or during) the fact optional but not required. Reverse is also true, and separate villains may team up to take down particularly troublesome PCs if they're aware of each other. Backstabbing optional-ness applies here as well.

Never, ever, start in a tavern/inn unless deliberately mocking the concept in a game where it doesn't make sense to start there.


Also, slightly off-topic, but gotta say, Morithias, your games sound hilarious.

ShadowFireLance
2013-10-27, 01:04 AM
Dragons.
:smallcool:

Morithias
2013-10-27, 01:13 AM
Also, slightly off-topic, but gotta say, Morithias, your games sound hilarious.

I try to give them a mix of idealism, action, and comedy.

One running gag I forgot to mention.

If a Grimoire game (aka the goddess rips people from the real world to fight a threat) happens, SOMEONE will end up at a magical university, with a half-vampire roommate who claims to have 'lent you her notes in exchange for some blood'.

Milo v3
2013-10-27, 02:30 AM
My settings all have:

A morally dubious science based organisation called Umbra. Generally researching powers and making living weapons.
Indestructible monoliths randomly placed throughout the universe
Every setting is a crapsack world
The word amber somewhere
Governments have a habit of using the Powered by a Forsaken Child trope
Good isn't nice

TuggyNE
2013-10-27, 03:49 AM
At least one nation will make wide use of magitek in their military and elsewhere[…]
There will be one really big, never-fallen-in-its-history fortress city. Likely to be the capital city of the above nation.

The juxtaposition of these two made it seem for a second like you meant literally fallen, as in some sort of magitek floating fortress city (of invulnerable DOOM!), which was kind of impressive.

:smallamused:

Vortalism
2013-10-27, 05:00 AM
There's a boat ride, there's always a boat ride in my campaigns. Even if we're in a primarily desert campaign, the heroes eventually get to a port city and take a voyage, sinbad style.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-10-27, 05:05 AM
I suppose I should list some more specific stuff:

- Catastrophe. The floating city falls. The sun fades. The demon hordes invade. The Magic Goes Away. Either the campaign will start already in the middle of one, or one will happen very soon. Combine multiple apocalypse scenarios at once for extra hopelessness (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItGotWorse). If the catastrophe starts during the campaign, it will be the players' fault.

- Closely related to the first, I have something of an obsession with ruins and abandoned spaces. I have a huge hard-on for environmental storytelling, and ruins allow you to easily build atmosphere by contrasting the past with the present. Especially if the ruin is somewhere the PCs visited before the place was abandoned.

- Small goals are human goals. "Find a cure for the zombie plague and rebuild society" is too big, too abstract. It's hard to put emotion into it. "Give Clementine something vaguely resembling a safe and normal childhood despite the horrible circumstances" is much better. The big stuff going on is there to serve the development of the characters, not the other way around.

- Somewhat counter-intuitively given my love of grimdark, my favorite characters are actually the pure-hearted ones. There's just something tragic and deeply admirable about a character who does the best they can, despite being in a world that will not reward them for it. It's easy to be a hero in happy rainbow sunshine land. The Actual Pacifist (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ActualPacifist) is one of my favorite character archetypes.

- Also counter-intuitively, I like PCs with a lot of personal power. The more invincible they feel, the harder it stings when they're disempowered.

Zaggab
2013-10-27, 05:27 AM
- No elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings or orcs

- Mostly humanoid enemies. Otherwise, monsters I've made up myself. I've almost never used anything straight from the MM.

- Ridiculously complex plots. One campaign, before I retconned stuff and cut plot points out so that the campaign could ever be finished, I had like 15 factions with global reach, each integral to the main plot. And most of them were secret. The players knew like 7 of them (although they had encountered almost all of them in some fashion). After over a year of gaming.

Zazax
2013-10-27, 06:43 AM
The juxtaposition of these two made it seem for a second like you meant literally fallen, as in some sort of magitek floating fortress city (of invulnerable DOOM!), which was kind of impressive.

:smallamused:
I have actually had a flying magitek castle thing once before, but it unfortunately never fell out of the sky. PCs ignored it and beelined for the BBEG instead, leaving it with his also-ignored army to do its thing, apparently.
Made me kind of sad. Was looking forward to them planning out an attack against it.

Popped up again in a sequel campaign, this time in the hands of a new, not-BBEG villain, but that campaign unfortunately died shortly thereafter.

Somensjev
2013-10-27, 09:49 AM
goblins, with surprisingly good manners and etiquette

and a very vivid description of what happens to the goblins live dinner if you interrupt their meals, with a ranged weapon

also, these goblins would rather risk their lives and finish their meals, than fight the people who just killed half the other diners

Black Jester
2013-10-27, 10:17 AM
Moral ambiguity. In my games, there is usually no clear-cut evil, nor anyone who is pristinely good; I try to write pretty much any major conflict in a way that you can turn it the other way around and have the originally intended antagonists are just as likely to be the protagonists as the original ones. Different sides with sometimes clashing, yet reasonable interests are a lot more interesting and plausible than conveniently evil villains.

Tough decisions. If there is one thing that makes RPGs stand out from other works of fiction is the possibility for the audience/participants to make influential meaningful decisions that affects the outcome of various events. As such, these decisions have to be frequent enough to matter and difficult enough to require thought and avoid an obvious "right" or "wrong" choice. I usually try to bring the players to a point where they have to make a decision that requires thought, passion or sacrifice.

Open-endedness. I often don't know what exactly will happen with a plot; and if there are several similarly likely events or outcomes, I quickly write up a short event table, and roll a dice to randomize the events. In some cases, a simple coin flip is good enough, but it helps to avoid contrived plots and adds a level of randomness that can easily create interesting plots on its own. So, whenever I think an answer is not immediately obvious, I will start rolling dice.

No Balancing. I don't care for balancing. I tell my players that i don't care for balancing and that they are free to explore the characters they want to play, as long as they do not abuse this freedom or trespass on the freedom or opportunity of their fellow players. For me, the important question is, if a character is interesting, not if they are particularly powerful.

Magic is the lesser man's crutch. If there is one theme I use more often than not, than it is how supernatural forces are by their very nature volatile, destructive and malicious, and their users are cowards and weaklings requiring extra aid to mask their inferiority. The existence of magic in itself is more often than not, an imperfection or blemish of the universe, and there is little or no difference between the supernatural or the unnatural; in any case, the world would be a much better place without any magic. Even the best magic-users tend to be petty and selfish, but the average mage in my games is pretty much a self-centered narcissist who is only too aware of his shortcomings and tries to overcompensate them.

SuperPanda
2013-10-27, 11:47 AM
I typically try to keep each game somewhat different from the last in tone, setting, plot and such. One thing I can't help but sprinkle in are cameo's, allusions, or straight out puns based off famous stories that share some similarity with the world the players are in.

Example: In an Oriental Adventures DnD 3ed game where the players were all of noble lineage belonging to the great clans, they came across a group of of 4 Kappa (Humanoid turtles) and 1 old Nezumi (humanoid rat thing). As you can guess the rat was a monk but the turtles fought with a staff, dual wielding Ninja to, dual wielding sai, and nunchuks.

For added fun I also had them retreat into their shells and then get kicked around the battle field tripping people (extra reference to Mario since they were in a water theme'd dungeon and had just come through a pipe).

In another game I dropped the players -who had been part of a survey team that got dimensionally transported to god's-know-where, the players wound up trying to diplomatically negotiate with a set of Jaffa (though instead of serving Gou'ald these ones worshiped godzilla thinking it was one of their goddesses...) Strangely the players believed that the creature was a god and wouldn't fight it when the opportunity came up later on.


Another game I managed to get the players to put excalibur into the stone for (then baby) arthur to find when he grew up. I'm still not sure why they didn't try to keep the sword for themselves, but I was happy when the story started wrapping up and they put all the pieces together to realized they'd just set the stage for an Arthurian Legend 20 years after the current campaign was done. We never got around to running that sequal.

mistformsquirrl
2013-10-27, 12:57 PM
Just remembered one other thing that's a humorous trademark of mine - rather intentionally.

Interdimensional goblin bardic-mercenaries singing "Dirty Deeds" as an advertisement for their services (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onE43h_TUUY)

Every campaign sooner or later, if the campaign goes on long enough, eventually those guys will show up to lighten the mood.

Jon_Dahl
2013-10-27, 01:09 PM
My trademark? Complete and immediate acceptance of anything the players say, without even blinking. No matter how ridiculous their proposed action is, no matter how much they are destroying my campaign, the players' choice is always respected. I do not influence or warn them in any way. My poker face is always absolute, from the moment the game starts to the moment it ends.

I think this is something that no other GM does.

PersonMan
2013-10-27, 02:12 PM
Magic is the lesser man's crutch. If there is one theme I use more often than not, than it is how supernatural forces are by their very nature volatile, destructive and malicious, and their users are cowards and weaklings requiring extra aid to mask their inferiority. The existence of magic in itself is more often than not, an imperfection or blemish of the universe, and there is little or no difference between the supernatural or the unnatural; in any case, the world would be a much better place without any magic. Even the best magic-users tend to be petty and selfish, but the average mage in my games is pretty much a self-centered narcissist who is only too aware of his shortcomings and tries to overcompensate them.

Do you enforce this with players? I.e. if someone wants to play a mage, do you say 'you can't be a nice guy, sorry'?

I assume that divine/nature magic doesn't exist in your settings.

Eurus
2013-10-27, 02:19 PM
My trademark? Complete and immediate acceptance of anything the players say, without even blinking. No matter how ridiculous their proposed action is, no matter how much they are destroying my campaign, the players' choice is always respected. I do not influence or warn them in any way. My poker face is always absolute, from the moment the game starts to the moment it ends.

I think this is something that no other GM does.

I only wish I had a quality poker face, but I do subscribe as much as I possibly can to the "roll with it" school of thought. I might laugh or have to take a moment to figure out what the implications and result of that proposal are, but hey, it's the DM's job to say yes, right? That's how you end up with organic and interesting games that the players feel personally invested in instead of just observers to.


Anyway, I have a bit of a weakness for diplomacy, I think. Generally speaking, very few enemies are willing to straight-up fight you to the death, and trying to reason with/bribe/threaten them is more often than not a more efficient plan. Which is a shame, because I actually like combat.

Beyond that... I feel like my NPCs "voices" are often too similar. There's the optimistic and genuinely-well-meaning sorts, who often end up unintentionally screwed over by the PCs and guilt tripping them for it, the drily sarcastic types, and the jerks. It's not really intentional, and I do try to avoid it, but it has a way of creeping up on me.

Angel Bob
2013-10-27, 03:09 PM
Sarcasm. The PCs can't talk to anyone and not expect a snarky response.

To be fair, the PCs say the dumbest things...

Black Jester
2013-10-27, 03:11 PM
Do you enforce this with players? I.e. if someone wants to play a mage, do you say 'you can't be a nice guy, sorry'?

I assume that divine/nature magic doesn't exist in your settings.

If the magic is a destructive force part is a fixed part of the setting and introduced before characters are created, meaning that the players are fully aware of this aspect, it is a relevant factor and might be introduced in the game; probably more in the form of "struggling to maintain altruism despite the corrupting forces tearing at your very soul". If this is not a properly declared prior to the game, then no, I use this basically as a way to establish a certain moot of corruption (namely "power corrupts, magic is among the purest forms of power") and distrust towards spellcasters. I don't like to tell other people how they are supposed to play their characters. That seems a bit too tyrannic for my tastes, but ingame events will, obviously, affect characters within the game; if one of the established facts about the setting is that magic uses to backfire, chances are high that exactly that could happen

And of course, there is divine magic; the various powers granting them are usually not as benevolent as they like to appear. In the worst cases, divine spellcasters effectively gain their powers for sacrificing their free will, and usually do not recognize how they have become mere puppets until it is too late...

Lanaya
2013-10-27, 03:19 PM
- Undead will be featured heavily, and there will be at least one powerful lich villain, who may or may not be the BBEG. At least one powerful vampire too, but they generally won't be as important as the lich. There will also be at least one powerful dragon villain.

- Whenever an adventure involves going somewhere, there will be some kind of encounter or complication while on the way. You wanna get someplace, you have to earn it.

- Grand armies, doomsday scenarios, massive invasions. The world is going to end, and only the PCs can save it.

- The PCs will be betrayed by someone, who probably turns out to be far more powerful than they initially suspected and becomes a major villain.

The Oni
2013-10-27, 04:34 PM
And of course, there is divine magic; the various powers granting them are usually not as benevolent as they like to appear. In the worst cases, divine spellcasters effectively gain their powers for sacrificing their free will, and usually do not recognize how they have become mere puppets until it is too late...

So what about ur-priests?

Dienekes
2013-10-27, 04:59 PM
Different races act as multiple countries on the map. There is no good race, nor bad race. But they have social, environmental, and political reasons for allying or fighting amongst each other.

That said, elves are nearly always opposing the PCs in some way.

NPCs have their own goals, and actions that take place entirely without influence from the PCs. If the PCs leave the kingdom to go on a mission it's entirely possible to come back finding the king was assassinated while they were gone.

If I forget a detail, the players can capitalize on it even if it ruins things, a lot. Worst example, I forgot to say the guards took all their items away. So... they easily break out of the jail.

Political intrigue. I love adding multiple levels of political intrigue. And on that front, few monsters are really encountered. Opponents tend to be humanoid.

I will try my hardest to get my players to do something terrible on accident. Though they can prevent it if they are smart enough and figure out the clues. I got my players one time to release the sealed evil, but I failed getting another to kill his own father.

Sir Nolan is mentioned. A little background. My first campaign had only 3 players, none of whom picked a frontline fighter. So in the early levels I tended to have allies show up to take the hits for them. One such instance had two unnamed guards that helped to defend the royal family. They were supposed to take a few hits, die, and let the PCs go on their merry way. One of them did this, perfectly. The other rolled 3 crits in a row and ended up being the most valuable character in the fight. The PCs decided they liked the guy and invited him to tag along, so Nolan the Guard was stated up. Now, I hate DMPCs on a fundamental level (first GM I played with ruined them for me), so as soon as a new player joined and picked a Fighter Nolan left the party. But he was still a fan favorite for my players, so every campaign since I drop a mention of the growing legend of Nolan, in some silly song of his knighting sung by a minstrel, to a story about the great knight who saved a nation, and so on. It always gets a raised fist from my players when I do so.

There will always be a frog voiced old lady who hits on one of the players characters. She will usually run a tavern, inn, brothel, or such establishment.

Razanir
2013-10-27, 05:05 PM
- Ridiculously complex plots. One campaign, before I retconned stuff and cut plot points out so that the campaign could ever be finished, I had like 15 factions with global reach, each integral to the main plot. And most of them were secret. The players knew like 7 of them (although they had encountered almost all of them in some fashion). After over a year of gaming.

That sounds fun. Now I want to spend a semester just designing and planning a campaign, just so it can span a school year or two.

LCP
2013-10-27, 07:09 PM
Multiple groups of enemies, working against each other. The PCs disrupt the balance of power.
Class is important. Society is highly stratified, and both PCs and NPCs had better not forget it.
The general population are generally superstitious, ignorant, and unsympathetic to people making outlandish claims or making work for them.
A continually rising mortality rate.
There's always a slayer (http://digital-art-gallery.com/oid/13/2000x2757_4041_Dwarf_slayer_for_warhammer_online_2 d_fantasy_dwarf_warrior_picture_image_digital_art. jpg) in a tavern somewhere.

Threadnaught
2013-10-27, 07:48 PM
A load of small, seemingly insignificant events happen early on which build up to apparently screw over the players, whenever they do anything they cause a few more of these.

Also players who go in expecting certain things to happen are likely to have those expectations used to create a series of events that is designed to screw them over.

jguy
2013-10-27, 08:17 PM
I have a few I've realized upon introspection

Tactical fights with enemies that fight smart. No fighting to the death bandits for a few copper unless there is a reason
Off the wall encounters. A memorable one would be a Flesh golem who was surrounded by Shocker Lizards trained to AoE the golem and everyone around it. Afterwards they would simply shock the golem to heal him up
A great poker face. The ability to not let on that a player is making a correct assumption or an incorrect assumption when thinking out loud
An evil, sadistic grin. In contrast to the last point, when the players have realized they were wrong and have stepped in it, they know real fast when I grin real wide.

The_Werebear
2013-10-27, 09:14 PM
1 - Two low level fighters, usually guards, occasionally more, bickering back and forth. Inspired by, and usually named after, Grigs and Scheckley from HL2:E2.

2 - Set goal, multiple avenues. My usual way to run something, from large to small, is to set the area, set the goals of the NPC's in the area, set the resources and areas available, and then set a timetable for how it would play out with no player interference. Then, get a goal from the players and unleash them on the area.

3 - Elves are bad people. At the best, they're arrogant and unhelpful. At the worst, they make the Thalmor look cuddly and altruistic.

4 - PC lives will be better if they don't involve authority. Authorities tend to be corrupt or petty, but even when they have good intentions, they tend to blunder through sensitive issues with the subtlety of a hammer to the groin.

Winter_Wolf
2013-10-28, 12:07 PM
My signature things as a GM were:

Humans are the default "evil" race. They're the youngest sentient race, they weren't invited, and they're essentially viewed as an invasive species by every other sentient. They're also believed to be mostly or completely extinct. Basically a whole race of amoral scientific geniuses who only asked "is it possible?" and never "is it wise?" Aaaand then eventually blew themselves up.

Half elves are the standard "dominant" race. Humans were mostly malevolent, but they're close enough to elves genetically that mating results in offspring, provided the elves could get past the whole "rapacious expansionism" vibe that almost all humans had. In fact the only races that can cross-species breed are human, elf, and half-elf.

Anthropomorphized "beast" creatures. Any resemblance to humans, elves, or half elves is purely superficial. They never produce offspring with anything other than their own species.

GungHo
2013-10-28, 12:56 PM
In lieu of coming up with long, wordy descriptions of people, I say, "King Ulf enters the room. He looks like Kiefer Sutherland, circa 2005, but with the mullet from Lost Boys. He is trailed by his sergeant-at-arms, The Rock, and his vizier, Mozzy from White Collar." If someone doesn't get it, I pull up Wikipedia/IMDB.

Additionally, all my on PCs when I play look like some actor or musician, somewhere. Even if they're non-human. I'm serious when I say my favorite character in years was my Orc Brock Lesnar.

Morph Bark
2013-10-28, 01:09 PM
Newspapers.

They're very handy for introducing plot hooks, famous NPCs and telling players about other goings-on in the world and backstory of various things.

Amphetryon
2013-10-28, 01:17 PM
Hordes of Undead (I've tried to minimize this, of late).

There's always an abandoned Wizard's Tower, with plot hooks the PCs generally ignore with gusto.

Hyena
2013-10-28, 01:26 PM
- There's always an evil conspiracy. Not a global one, but enough to destabilize regional politics and get stuff done. More often then not they will pose as the good guys, who fight with the corruption within the system.
- Paladins are messed up. They don't need to be lawful good - just think that they are, and therefore there's a lot of conflict between them when their opinions about what is good vary (they always do).
- Campaigns always start in a large city. Space Batman may or may not appear.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-10-28, 02:18 PM
Give them enough rope to hang themselves, and watch the fireworks.

visigani
2013-10-28, 02:48 PM
Hidden Gems.

I like to place an artifact (typically homebrew) or epic magic item within arms reach of the players in ever campaign.

I have a few rules:

1. The players have to actually be able to obtain the item.
2. The item has to be obscured intelligently.
3. The item must be wholly unknown to almost everyone (including the PCs).


I recently gave an example of a fisherman who was sporting +12 epic bracers of relentless might, another time the party set up camp and I noted that they smelled something just awful like a dead body.

Had the level 5 druid actually cast scent rather than the party giving up and moving on with the adventure they would've discovered the body decaying beneath the mantle of great stealth.

GentlemanVoodoo
2013-10-28, 06:48 PM
1. Encourage players to play what they want. Never bought into the idea of you must always this race in a party, or there must always be this class present. A good player is able to think of creative solutions to overcome obstacles despite these.

2. There is always another way to win. Example: One event I DM had the players fighting against a horde of werewolves, while escorting a convoy of peasents to a near by town. The conflict ended fighting over a frozen lake. Most of the players did the traditional "we must kill everything" mentality but one player caught notice of a hint I dropped about a tall tree almost ready to fall over. After some well place shots from his bow, the tree fell breaking the ice and releasing a giant Koi fish. The result turned the encounter into a cinematic race against time.

Fiery Diamond
2013-10-28, 07:00 PM
Hidden Gems.

I like to place an artifact (typically homebrew) or epic magic item within arms reach of the players in ever campaign.

I have a few rules:

1. The players have to actually be able to obtain the item.
2. The item has to be obscured intelligently.
3. The item must be wholly unknown to almost everyone (including the PCs).


I recently gave an example of a fisherman who was sporting +12 epic bracers of relentless might, another time the party set up camp and I noted that they smelled something just awful like a dead body.

Had the level 5 druid actually cast scent rather than the party giving up and moving on with the adventure they would've discovered the body decaying beneath the mantle of great stealth.

This is pretty cool. I like the second example better, though, simply because unless the gauntlets were obviously gauntlets and were explicitly mentioned during your description of the NPCs in the area, there's no reason to investigate. Now, if you did make a point of mentioning the gauntlets and showing the players that this man was just a fisherman...wearing gauntlets...then its all good.

FabulousFizban
2013-10-28, 07:37 PM
The Alchemist: an immortal otherwordly being of inscruptable motives who manipulates the PCs towards unknown ends in his grand game. He isn't always relevant to anything, but he is always there, usually as a wandering potion merchant.

Also, Bill and Ted: One is an intelligent mute good aligned pony who tries to help the PCs, the other is an intelligent horse who can talk and always lies.

Gnoman
2013-10-28, 08:03 PM
I have three major elements that I tend to use a lot.


1. Extinction. One race or another is at death's door or is already gone, leaving naught but ruins. Dwarves are the most common choice, but elves and goblins are also favorites.

2. Really, really long histories. For example, my current world is just reaching the Renaissance-equivalent after 40,000 years, during which there have been no less than five apocalyptic wars.

3. I tend to build on a grand scale. Mile-high mithril towers, fortress-cities that can hold (and have the fields to feed) multiple millions, multi-month battles that include tens of millions of dead, etc.

Silus
2013-10-28, 08:45 PM
Somethings I just remembered:

1) Using backstories against the characters. Character has a daughter that's dying of a disease? Yeah, she'll show up in a reality-warping Genius Loci and proceed to "die" in their arms. Then crumble to ash. Character has a dead sister? Character finds out that her soul has been bound to a sort of "battery" to power a golem and that they both feel pain and remember who they were. Oh, and they find said golem half taken apart, begging for the disassembling to stop.

2) An entity known as "The House". A reality-warping Genius Loci that acts a LOT like the room from the movie 1408. Beauty of it is that it can and will show up wherever.

3) Phenomenal cosmic power that will come back to bite the greedy players in the butt. Selling parts of their souls for Werewolf and Vampire templates? Ok, feel free to take the power for, say 5/20ths of your soul. Then they find that the BBEG is using those bits of soul to power their magic and now those players that sold their soul are taking penalties to resist spells. Oh, you sold half (10/20) of your soul? Ok, -20 to resist spells cast by the BBEG.

Arcane_Snowman
2013-10-28, 09:24 PM
Dice rolls are never fudged in the players or my favor. Sometimes that means a problem may become more than the players can handle at the moment, and other times it means that something which should have been a big problem becomes trivial.

Planning is encouraged, and sometimes necessary. A problem might be better dealt with later.

What the players do has an impact on the world around them, over and above how it might affect them. Though, oftentimes it's not good.

I will leverage every little tidbit I can against the players, although I do what I can to not be unfair.

At least one adventure is going to turn surreal.

Telok
2013-10-28, 10:46 PM
1) NPCs have lives to live and goals to seek. Some of them are ex-adventurers, others are current adventurers, and most are decent people willing to help you if you can avoid insulting them.

2) Time marches on. If your band of heroes ignores a quest or dungeon some other band of heroes will do it. If you lose a treasure or magic weapon through stupidity or ignorance someone else will pick it up. If you kill the basilisk nest a day away from the town and then travel three weeks to get a party member un-stoned, somone else will take the dead basilisks and claim the reward and fame.

3) If the guardian melee brute (golem, summons, created undead, astral construct, etc.) cannot leave the room it's in then the PCs will fight it down in melee and get thrashed and pulped. Just walking past or shooting from a safe distance is apparently not an option.

4) If the demon lord containment system has a lever labeled "Do not pulll this lever. You will die slowly and it will hurt the whole time." I really really mean it.

5) At least two PCs will pull the lever. And die slowly. And it will hurt the whole time.

6) If it's obviously a trap... It's a trap.

7) What are traps intended to do? Make you die. And it will hurt the whole time.

SassyQuatch
2013-10-29, 12:23 AM
Tucker's kobolds have a different name. Kobolds. Because enemies should act like people, not standing around doing nothing in groups in a series of locked rooms. So my enemies take advantage of cover, traps, retreating, all the things that a real enemy will do.

Gets even more fun (for me) when the PCs metagame. Like how there was a chance to cut off the evil boss (whose army and guardsmen had all been lured away) if the ninja were to go in alone through the back alley. The party decided to stick together. So they find the baddy all alone in his mansion, just leaving a room.

He runs back into the room. PCs say they will follow. Door is locked. Knock to open the door. Burst into the room and baddy now closes the next door on the other side of the room. They charge to bust down that door only to see the bad guy struggling to close the heavy door to his saferoom.

PCs tried to get in for three days trying all sorts of different spells and such before they hear the returning army. They run away ashamed at failing at their chance to stop a great evil. They also spent days trying different spells but didn't think to loot the mansion.

Should have sent the ninja around back I.guess.

DeadMech
2013-10-29, 01:09 AM
1 Biting off more than I can chew
2 Minigames everywhere!!!
3 Overcomplexity

I've only ever DM'd homebrew games so I think the prime example is a game I based off of Ogre battles. A tactical game. One where between five players there were 30+ characters divided up into several five-man squads. A game area the size of europe composing of hundreds of towns and cities and dozens of kingdoms or provinces. Also basically everytime something came up that my combat rules didn't cover I was about 50% likely to turn it into a weird minigame.

Poke around mixed barrels in the hold of a ship like a memory game. What you match in a number of turns you get as treasure.

An IM group chat where I described a street chase and yelled directions for the players to repeat back to me. If they didn't reply before I gave the next direction, did the wrong action, or mistyped I'd have them stumble in some way.

Irenaeus
2013-10-29, 02:26 AM
Hidden Gems.

I like to place an artifact (typically homebrew) or epic magic item within arms reach of the players in ever campaign.

I have a few rules:

1. The players have to actually be able to obtain the item.
2. The item has to be obscured intelligently.
3. The item must be wholly unknown to almost everyone (including the PCs).


I recently gave an example of a fisherman who was sporting +12 epic bracers of relentless might, another time the party set up camp and I noted that they smelled something just awful like a dead body.

Had the level 5 druid actually cast scent rather than the party giving up and moving on with the adventure they would've discovered the body decaying beneath the mantle of great stealth.
Hm. It's interesting, but I don't think I'm a great fan. Either the PCs don't find it, in which case I'd have nothing but a secret smugness to show for it, or the PCs find it, which feels random and anticlimactic. At least if it happened several times.

It doesn't require a lot of preparation, though, so if it keeps you entertained, why not?

Templarkommando
2013-10-29, 07:50 AM
There is ALWAYS a conspiracy, there is ALWAYS a murder-mystery and there is ALWAYS a bad guy hiding in plain sight/ masquerading as a good guy. Whether these are the focus of the story is neither here nor there :smalltongue:.

My campaigns very frequently feature someone pretending to be a good guy that's really a bad guy. This is usually the guy that is giving out quests to the party. (i.e. take this book back to the old library and put it back on the shelf. Then when the book is placed on a shelf in the library, it magically rewrites a book on lineage and sets up the bad guy to inherit some other poor schmuck's title claim. If the current holder of the title just so happens to be lying on his deathbed when the party goes on this little adventure, it's great to see the reactions when the party returns from the adventure and a herald wonders in behind them and announces that their "benefactor" just inherited a title that he "didn't know was his" until just a few minutes ago.)

DigoDragon
2013-10-29, 08:41 AM
Trademarks I've developed over the years:

1. The Catgirl: There's usually one catgirl-like NPC in the campaign. Sometimes she's a villian, other times she's just a harmless person, but she's always immune to discussions about physics. :smallwink:

2. Space: It doesn't matter the genre or system. At some point the players will end up launched into orbit or teleported to another planet for an adventure. Aliens may or may not be involved, but murderous robots are a given.

3. Night of a Million Zillion Ninjas: There will be that one session where I break open a large bag of pretzels, spill them over the battle mat, and declare that an army of low-level mooks has come for your lives. Prepare to eat your way to victory!
(by far my most popular trademark)

4. Friendship is Tier 1: A more recent one, but chances are always good that exactly one boss encounter you face was inspired by some creature from My Little Pony. It might be obvious, it might be subtle. "Tier 1" because the most infamous encounter of this type was an evil unicorn wizard that nearly TPK'd the group. The PCs didn't even recognize what they fought until I told them.

mistformsquirrl
2013-10-29, 08:43 AM
DinoDragon, that's awesome lol, I love it. >_>

Evo_Kaer
2013-10-29, 12:06 PM
Okay, I'm only running my first campaign (or better said, waiting for it to get going again :smallsigh:). But I already noticed some patterns about how I do stuff :smallbiggrin:

I think my main trademark is:
The Bigger Picture

My players haven't noticed it yet, but whatever they encounter, whereever they go, whatever they find: There is always more to it than they know of.
It all started with a small quest to vanquish some undead. And ended with them finding sth big and bad (an artifact). Which they promptly brought back to their temple to get it examined. What they do not know is what is behind this artifact. Since they gave it away to someone more capable of dealing with that thing (They were Lvl 2 mind you), they didn't think about it that much.

What they don't know is, that this thing and its origin are interwoven with at least 5 other plots that are running at the moment (yes, there is behind the scenes stuff running that the players don't know of...yet). Everything connects, even to the players. And so far they have no idea about it. Some parts they all know and some parts are only known to single ones. But so far they don't seem to conclude anything.

Another thing would be the sudden appearance of explosions. They were in the middle of the forest when it went *boom* 5 times in different directions. at each spot there was everything burned in a spherical area and in the middle there would lie one corpse each, burned to a crisp. So far they have no idea, that those were attempts from people from a far away plane to escape their slowly falling apart lands.

I would to sum it up. But it's an awful lot and might be a bit complicated. My mind is a mystery (even to me sometimes :smalltongue:)

If you like to know more about this craziness, tell me and I'l post it. I just don't want this wall of text to get even bigger


Another thing I've done only twice, but I like is to screw with the players minds. Once I had the cleric and paladin dream of catastrophies. Since they each slept in different rooms they didn't suspect anything when I seperated the group.
The cleric dreamed of the whole city burning down. He even found two children inside the house he was, who he wanted to rescue. His face was priceless when he found out that he just jumped out of the window with two barrels under his arm which he thought were children
The paladin thought they were under siege, he caught it pretty quick though

The second mindf*** is currently on its way. Next session to be exact. I'm jsut waiting for it to continue (I hope its in 2,5 weeks. Thats the next possible date, but I've already been waiting for,... 4 months? :smallfurious:)


Trademarks I've developed over the years:

1. The Catgirl: There's usually one catgirl-like NPC in the campaign. Sometimes she's a villian, other times she's just a harmless person, but she's always immune to discussions about physics. :smallwink:

Strange enough, I have such an NPC in my campaign. Just my players know othing about it, because she hides it so well. She always wears a wide robe that covers everything (since she also has a lot of body hair due to her 'condition'. Only feet, face and hands are smooth)
She wasn't born a 'catgirl' though. It was more of an accident with artifacts and experimenting. Yeah. I'm a serious guy...most of the time :smallbiggrin:


3. Night of a Million Zillion Ninjas: There will be that one session where I break open a large bag of pretzels, spill them over the battle mat, and declare that an army of low-level mooks has come for your lives. Prepare to eat your way to victory!
(by far my most popular trademark)

THAT. SOUNDS. SO. AWESOME.
I would very much like to snitch that idea if I may.

ArmoredSandwich
2013-10-29, 01:44 PM
My DM history is not that long. I have DMed a couple of intro sessions and I am now 5 sessions in a campaign. For the campaign:

* Interwoven plot, this fits the theme 'Information is a coin of power'. Everything happens for a reason and everything has consequences. Information shared three sessions ago can be used to deduce the right course of action this session. Many times my players oversee these details.

* Foreshadowing. I know what is going to happen, so I drop hints. Listen to the bards tales and songs!

* No fumbling the dice. How can a game be thrilling and exciting when you can not see what the DM rolls. If the paladin has less than 5 HP left, and the big guy goes in for the kill with his great sword. Roll it on the table!

* Crazy characters. With crazy I mean peculiar not necessarily mentally unstable. I give my characters nicknames based on their most obvious trait. And those traits should be absolutely crazy and unforgettable.

* Lot of references to music/tv shows/books. Mix ALL the great stuff together, and make it compatible for D&D.

* 'Realistic' setting. It makes no sense for the thugs to have appropriate treasure for their encounter level. Every group of people act according to their own interests and what they know. It is sometimes hard to match this with the story but I try to stay true to this as much as I can.

Amphetryon
2013-10-29, 02:10 PM
Adding to my earlier trademarks:

Elementary Chaos Theory: The actions of the PCs will have ripple effects throughout the campaign setting. If they stop bandits looting along a particular highway, trade along that route increases, while the people with whom the bandits did business start either to look for other revenue streams or for the people who cut off their income. Both of these factors can impact economics in more than one city, which in turn could impact the country, and the world.

GenericGuy
2013-10-29, 02:47 PM
Realpolitik: There are no good kingdoms and evil empires, nation states act in their best interests and at best pay lip service to an ideology.

Rebels are terrorists:The real ideologues are going to get innocent people killed for "the greater good."

Elves: At best narcissistic condescending racists, and at worst theological zealots enslaving anything they get their hands on.

Technology vs. Magic: My settings tend to be during the Renaissance scientific revolution, industrial revolution, or cyberpunk. Technology is presented as the most beneficial for people and natural to the world, while magic is a oppressive costly most unnatural and harmful to the world.

Human Father/Non Human Mother: I don't have "half-races," if two races can interbreed the children will either be one or the other, but any "halfbreeds" npcs the players meet will typically have a human father.

Angel Bob
2013-10-29, 06:09 PM
No matter what, the PCs will always end up fighting either undead or arthropods. Often both.

Eurus
2013-10-30, 01:31 AM
Tucker's kobolds have a different name. Kobolds. Because enemies should act like people, not standing around doing nothing in groups in a series of locked rooms. So my enemies take advantage of cover, traps, retreating, all the things that a real enemy will do.

Gets even more fun (for me) when the PCs metagame. Like how there was a chance to cut off the evil boss (whose army and guardsmen had all been lured away) if the ninja were to go in alone through the back alley. The party decided to stick together. So they find the baddy all alone in his mansion, just leaving a room.

He runs back into the room. PCs say they will follow. Door is locked. Knock to open the door. Burst into the room and baddy now closes the next door on the other side of the room. They charge to bust down that door only to see the bad guy struggling to close the heavy door to his saferoom.

PCs tried to get in for three days trying all sorts of different spells and such before they hear the returning army. They run away ashamed at failing at their chance to stop a great evil. They also spent days trying different spells but didn't think to loot the mansion.

Should have sent the ninja around back I.guess.

No adamantine dagger? Shame on them.

DigoDragon
2013-10-30, 08:21 AM
DinoDragon, that's awesome lol, I love it. >_>

Thanks. My players usually enjoy those trademarks, but like to poke fun at me on occasion just to keep me in check with the Space one. :smallbiggrin:



THAT. SOUNDS. SO. AWESOME.
I would very much like to snitch that idea if I may.

Oh definitely go and steal it. Sometimes it's fun to use snack food as your miniatures and treat your players to a snack-fest fight. I had the fortune of being in a game where the GM adopted my idea with a bag of candy. We ended up joking about Tootsie-Roll goblins, kobold Dots, and the stay-puff Marshmellow Peep golem.

SassyQuatch
2013-10-30, 09:25 PM
No adamantine dagger? Shame on them.
Oh, I even had one there for them to use (well, it was actually a short sword). Then they found out that the warded safe room also repaired itself. So they tried every method they had to boost their damage above the amount repaired, the aforementioned magics, etc. I decided that the bad guy wasn't going to be taken out quite yet, at least not if there were actual in-game logical reasons for him to remain safe.

The players just couldn't handle it. I mean, I gave them all sorts of loot readily at hand to make up for the loss but they just couldn't accept that their enemy could somehow be safe inside a room specifically designed to keep him safe.

It was kind of funny that you mentioned the dagger though. Afterwards they asked about the loot and I said, "What loot? You never went looking for the loot." That was when they nearly snapped, but one player then said, "At least I got me a new short sword."

I replied, "You remember when you noticed the doors healing themselves?"
"Yeah," he said.
"You remember how you were fed up and threw the sword into the corner of the room? ... I was paying attention. You never retrieved it. "

That is when they did snap.

My players need to remain thinking and have to put some effort into playing their actions. No assumptions that while you spent all your game time trying to do one thing that you also were doing something else without even giving it a cursory thought. That being said, I do try to be fair. If even one character had said that they were looking for something to loot over those in-game days they would have received some nice rewards.

Xaotiq1
2013-10-30, 10:21 PM
1: Sprawling meta-plots.

2: Entire villages/towns/cities with borderline personality disorder.

3: REFERENCES! Usually to famous D&D modules or 80's cartoons.

4: NPC casters are NEVER wizards or sorcerers.

5: Victorian magi-tech.

Isamu Dyson
2013-10-30, 10:32 PM
4: NPC casters are NEVER wizards or sorcerers.

I find this trademark to be interesting :smallsmile:.

Xaotiq1
2013-10-30, 11:50 PM
I find this trademark to be interesting :smallsmile:.

I'm a sucker for alternate magic systems. My last casters were supposed to be a cleric and sorcerer. I changed them to Binder and Shadowcaster.

Acatalepsy
2013-10-31, 12:01 AM
Posthuman revenants, computational motifs, and information overload (followed quickly by player decision paralysis).

Alabenson
2013-10-31, 12:09 AM
* Anything could be a villain. Even the cute little girl. Especially the little girl.

* Just because you kill the villain does not mean that the villain won't come back. Between raise dead and it's iterations and the various flavors of undeath, you may safely assume that if I want a villain to be recurring, they will be recurring.

GAThraawn
2013-10-31, 03:10 AM
Apparently, my trademark is making up off-the-cuff throwaway NPCs that the players get attached to and insist on dragging along with them :smalltongue:


Me too! I currently have a GMPC in a several years running campaign who started as a recurring antagonist, was outsmarted and captured on the first encounter, and rather than kill him or turn him in the players immediately befriended him and insisted on recruiting him. All my subsequent attempts to have him leave have been unanimously vetoed.

My players have a tendency to befriend antagonists and work with, rather than against, them.

VariSami
2013-10-31, 03:50 AM
NPCs, especially shopkeepers and barkeeps, with funny accents. (Do note that English is not my first language to begin with - but the dialogue of my games is in English.)

TPKs. I have a sad running record with these. Most of the time the players admit that the challenges were not anywhere near impossible although something crucial going haywire caused a slippery slope.

Dragging downtime. I have something of a problem with just getting it over with, and my preference to actually act the part of shopkeepers only makes it worse.

Volos
2013-10-31, 09:51 AM
My trademarks? There are quite a few actually...

Low Level: As soon as the PCs get any amount of wealth they wish to spend or loot they would like to sell, the next town they hit is unable to do business with them. Bandits have run amok on the typical trade routes and now only the most heavily guarded of caravans can make trade within the region. Prices are skyrocketing out of control and no one is buying any sort of loot for a reasonable price. "Nice pound of gold you have there, I'll give you 20gp for it." "Wait, isn't 50 gold coins a pound of gold?" "Fine wise-guy, I'll give you 15gp for it. Take it or leave it!" The fool gives up his gold moments before the merchant turns around and sells it for 75gp.

Mid Level: Threat of dragons being involved in the BBEG's-second-in-command's plans. The players find all manner of magical loot at these levels with very narrow uses or only a few charges left. While not needed, these items help them to defeat the Full-Spellcaster-Boss-Fight that otherwise may have mopped the floor with them. Just as they are finishing the fight, the room/mountain/whatever starts to collapse on them. They get out just in time, missing out on a whole pile of loot. The townsfolk are so grateful that they throw a huge party/feast and give the PCs a huge reward collected from the whole town. One of the BBEG's minions tries to assassinate the leader of the party. Sometimes the assassination attempt is thwarted by a new ally who choses this moment to reveal himself.

High Level: Betrayal. One of the party members or their allies has been working the BBEG all along. This may be intentionally or because they were forced to do so to save a family member or the lives of an entire region from the BBEG's wrath. Powerful undead and dragons tend to be the monsters they fight at this level, both of which have powers outside of the normal. Dragons that can breath either profane or holy energy of their type so that they always do some damage, or undead that are resistant to turning/healing energy and explode in a burst of negative energy when destroyed. The BBEG is revealed to be someone they party knew for a long time, they learn his motives and start to sympathize with him even thought they have to stop him. If they defeat him too easily, he comes back from the dead or from hell as an undead/demon/something to wreak even more havoc. After a massive battle they finally defeat him in a co-ordinated attack that systematically brings him back down to a mortal form or level. Then just as they move in to finish him off, he begs for forgiveness for his actions and accepts his fate.

...yeah, all my campaigns are very similar, but my player base swaps out often enough that this stuff keeps happening with lots of random or player driven stuff in the middle. I try to work the story into their backgrounds as often as possible, and sometimes their assumptions change the story and create completely new or different events that make the campaign unique. This is just the shell I tend to use.

Kalirren
2013-11-03, 12:24 AM
My trademark is having NPCs with divided loyalties.

Silus
2013-11-03, 09:54 AM
Cheapskate: Short of it, I've not figured out how to properly give out treasure/loot outside of the "this is a dungeon with monsters and traps and 10ftx10ft rooms" setting. As such, most players in my games don't get much in the way of loot. Though I really think that's more about me worrying about the feel and atmosphere of the locations and the difficulty of the monsters instead of the actual loot.

Morithias
2013-11-03, 10:20 AM
Cheapskate: Short of it, I've not figured out how to properly give out treasure/loot outside of the "this is a dungeon with monsters and traps and 10ftx10ft rooms" setting. As such, most players in my games don't get much in the way of loot. Though I really think that's more about me worrying about the feel and atmosphere of the locations and the difficulty of the monsters instead of the actual loot.

Want a tip?

Marketing.

Have a mage that they buy their magical items from just 'happen' to have the magical and extraordinary artisan feats, and therefore can sell his items at lesser costs.

You give them less loot, it looks legit compared to the monsters they faced, and they get the same end result.

Cicciograna
2013-11-03, 10:30 AM
Not really a peculiar trademark, but when I feature Warforged they are named after software and hardware companies such as IBM, Asus or Adobe.

Waxillium Lande
2013-11-03, 01:16 PM
Panicked, frantic improvisation, and a tendency for events to escalate extremely quickly. My pcs tend to be inventive.
Also, villains that the pcs could easily beat in a fair fight. The players just can never find the buggers!
(bards are fun!)

Eurus
2013-11-03, 02:20 PM
Want a tip?

Marketing.

Have a mage that they buy their magical items from just 'happen' to have the magical and extraordinary artisan feats, and therefore can sell his items at lesser costs.

You give them less loot, it looks legit compared to the monsters they faced, and they get the same end result.

I've done something sort of like this. Usually in the form of a buyer paying more for the objects than they're worth in pure magical value because of their age or historical/cultural value.

CoffeeIncluded
2013-11-03, 11:05 PM
Every map has a gimmick that you either have to work around, can exploit to your advantage, or both. Some of the things I've done include fighting in a burning down house where a chunk of the ceiling or wall collapses every turn and the players also had to rescue an npc passed out from the smoke, fighting on a beach that restricts movement while letting villagers escape, and fighting a mindless enemy in the middle of a street with several conveniently placed construction pits.

I try to get the biology and medicine right, or at least reasonable. Things can get gross.

Sensory perception, and food. This may just be the game I'm in now but in my game multiculturalism, assimilation, and racism of all stripes (but always ugly, and always pathetic at its core) are pretty big themes and all the different meals the players eat, all the, say, Southern Island-style curry houses and dwarf-goblin fusion fare restaurants that are slowly being built are a metaphor for the walls slowly coming down.

Also, way more of me flying by the seat of my pants and trying to find a balance between, "there is a plot and storyline" and "Wyvern rider? Sounds awesome, lets do it!" Than there should be.

Also, a heavy amount of magitech, magitech research, and magic as research.

Flayerman
2013-11-04, 02:36 AM
I love big, sweeping ideas about the universe, about divinity, and about perfection. The idea of perfection, and what it means to be perfect, is a constant theme in my games; certain characters who are perfect are always inhuman, bizarre, and fundamentally insane as far as human beings would perceive. Additionally, the illusion of perfection, and how easily it can be shattered, as well as how that illusion affects the people who believe in it, frequently shows up in my games.

I also love mythology, as in participating in mythology. I love having my players be an active hand in the birth of new mythologies - whether the birth of a god or the surrounding details or just legends about heroes. I adore that kind of thing.

I'm also pretty sure one of my trademarks is "the amusing character who pokes the fourth wall and makes the players laugh but is actually really wise and knows things behind all the comedy".

FallenGeek
2013-11-04, 08:28 PM
My trademark has to be crime - usually of the organized sort.

Its not unusual or unexpected in a superhero game, but in the Urban Fantasy game I co-run, my plots involve some kind of organized crime. Whether its the dream wizard holed up in a Baltimore project using the street gang as mundane protection or the vampire who runs a drug ring in Chicago, or the the enemy terrorist organization using a magical drug to connect all the disparate monsters into a cohesive group.

As for DnD, the main enemy in my highest rated campaign is a Mafia-esque leader - running prostitution, gambling, protection, and drug rackets.

Yukitsu
2013-11-04, 09:08 PM
My trademark is somehow killing three level 2 player characters with a CR 1/4 commoner with a wrench, or having the entire party of any level running from same.

Intentionally, my games usually have penguins in them.

Oracle_Hunter
2013-11-04, 10:23 PM
It's not so much a trademark as it is an inside joke:

The Green River Trading Company is a vast company that is not obviously evil but somehow plays a sinister role in the plot.

In a long-ago 3.5 D&D Campaign I decided it would be a good idea to have the whole campaign take place in one town. In order to make this town a reasonably interesting place, I made it a crossroad of trade: the original Green River Trading Company ("GRTC") bought from the East and sold to the West while various other independent traders bought from the GRTC and sold to the East.

For much of the campaign, the GRTC was innocuous and ignored by the PCs, but then I started what turned out to be their Final Adventure. As part of a conspiracy managed by an Evil Cult, the GRTC was used as a patsy to transport important reagents into town. The GRTC was actually innocent but, for reasons only the Players could know, the PCs were set on the notion that the GRTC was running this conspiracy and spent all of their resources investigating them.

In what turned out to be a climactic scene, the PCs (who were auxiliaries in the Watch) had managed to capture one of the honest-to-God cultists and had a short time to interrogate her under a Zone of Truth before she was hauled up for trial (where she would be released by the conspiracy).

So, in this narrow window to reveal the Conspiracy, what did they do? They asked the Cultist "tell us all about The Green River Trading Company!"

Since the Cultist didn't actually know all that much about the GRTC, she spoke honestly and at length on the mundane role of the GRTC in world trade. By the time of her trial the PCs had managed to ask exactly zero useful questions and never got their hands on another Cultist again. Shortly thereafter, due to what I call Player Insanity, the PCs decided to bust into the Thieves' Guild (through their very-public front as a tavern) and then wait there for hours while the Guild Master (behind a barricade) promised to get them the conspirators in the GRTC. Needless to say, the Watch was summoned (due to the bloody assault on the tavern) and the PCs were hauled away from the tavern's basement having been fingered by eye-witnesses for assaulting and killing the tavern's bouncer in broad daylight.

Thus ended the campaign, and as a tribute to this spectacle, I have included the GRTC in every D&D campaign I've run since. Always they have a legitimate front and while somehow involved in the inevitable Evil Plot it is never central enough that the suspicious Players can just burn down their offices and call it a day.

To date, the PCs have never managed to defeat the GRTC despite my best efforts to let them! In their latest incarnation, once of the PCs simply sold the MacGuffin they had been guarding since the start of the campaign to the GRTC in exchange for some moderately useful magical gear.
The moral of the story is that The Green River Trading Company always wins, even when the Players know they're up to something.

SimonMoon6
2013-11-05, 08:59 AM
My trademark is somehow killing three level 2 player characters with a CR 1/4 commoner with a wrench, or having the entire party of any level running from same.

That sounds like my first 1st edition campaign, in which the players fought a lich (no problem) and some beholders (no problem) but then were nearly killed by a random encounter with a pack of wolves.

Amphetryon
2013-11-05, 09:59 AM
That sounds like my first 1st edition campaign, in which the players fought a lich (no problem) and some beholders (no problem) but then were nearly killed by a random encounter with a pack of wolves.

I ran a Dragon-hunting campaign where the party consistently charged after any Dragons, and ran in fear of any big cats.

dysprosium
2013-11-05, 03:34 PM
Has the Deck of Many Things been mentioned yet?

Longtime players of mine know it is just a matter of time when the Deck shows up.

I also love to run mash up (worlds collide) scenarios--kind of a justification for some of the more outlandish requests some of my players ask for.

Silva Stormrage
2013-11-05, 06:02 PM
An undead army with a powerful necromancer will inevitably either be a major villain or the main villain. Even if I don't intended them to be (I swear the recent campaign there was ONE undead kingdom. Which was lawful good. Then the players through sheer ineptitude managed to create a SECOND undead empire but one that is ruled by an evil vampire queen and which wanted them dead..., same setting but a different group managed to anger and attack a good aligned necromancer leading a revolt against a corrupt government making a civil war a three way battle with the PC's attacking all three sides.)

The PC's will inevitably fight an encounter and almost lose to it, allowing one or two nameless minions to escape. Those minions will become the greatest threats to the party and be recurring villains.

There will be a rip off merchant who appears multiple times in the setting.

The BBEG boss fight will be massively difficult and often times will involve a few NPC's allied to the PC's fighting a single BBEG (The Players will always be the main ones in charge though).

Names blatantly ripped off of anime/literature/tv shows that I know the players don't watch. If they DO watch them I tend to subvert the traits of the character in a major aspect to prevent metagaming.

Yukitsu
2013-11-05, 06:03 PM
That sounds like my first 1st edition campaign, in which the players fought a lich (no problem) and some beholders (no problem) but then were nearly killed by a random encounter with a pack of wolves.

Yeah, it's kind of like that, except my players also would run from the lich and the beholders.

Techmagss
2013-11-05, 06:23 PM
Spires and Quest spells.