Matthew J. Neagley | Gnome Stew https://gnomestew.com The Gaming Blog Tue, 17 Oct 2023 13:19:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.4 https://gnomestew.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/cropped-cropped-gssiteicon-150x150.png Matthew J. Neagley | Gnome Stew https://gnomestew.com 32 32 Three New Familiars For Your Game https://gnomestew.com/three-new-familiars-for-your-game/ https://gnomestew.com/three-new-familiars-for-your-game/#respond Fri, 20 Oct 2023 10:15:17 +0000 https://gnomestew.com/?p=51491 Three creatures. A golem made of office supplies, a burrowing owl with a gun and a pathetic weeping homunculus

Familiars are many and varied, with a smorgasbord of stats and powers. Each is unique and your choice says something about your character. These versatile minions are a simple way to add a little flavor or flair to your game and character. Here then are three creatures to add to your game as familiars. If you have no use for familiars, they would also make good sidekicks or low level foes.

A miniature owl badger with a ray gun. Pew! Pew! Burrowing Blaster: This critter is a strange hybrid between burrowing owl and a badger in the vein of the owlbear and other “mad wizard” experiments, but with one critical difference: burrowing blasters love guns! You can hand one a blaster pistol, or a flintlock, or a hand crossbow or anything in between and they instinctively know how to not only hold and fire the weapon but how to reload, and the basics of maintenance and firearm safety! In combat they keep themselves safe with their burrow speed, keeping their distance and popping up to fire at foes when they think they can get away with it.
A leonine golem made of discarded and broken office supplies including a stapler for a head a staple remover for a claw and a chain of paper clips for a tail Detritus Golem: These creatures are naturally born of the lost and discarded debris that accumulates wherever sentient beings live and work. They are also some of the cheapest and easiest golems for burgeoning young spellcasters to craft, making them an easy first familiar. They are unremarkable in combat, but are surprisingly durable and easy to repair with household junk and a little time. Where the detritus golem really excels is scuttling into the dark cramped places from which they were born and finding things secreted or lost within. They give their owner a bonus to rolls to search or investigate areas when then are allowed to participate, searching nooks and crannies too small for typical investigation.
A sad and pathetic little sack of flesh wailing helplessly Weeping Warbler: These soft semi-amorphous little flesh lumps are native to dark forest mushroom patches, and in their natural environment spend their days cooing and gurgling and watering the nearby flora with their copious tears. Their only natural defense is their soft constant crying that has a semi-hypnotic effect, causing predators a slight enough pause that the weeping warbler can dart into their burrow uneaten. These familiars can be taught to cry only on command, limiting the ill effects of their song. Thus trained, they are prized by enchanters as their hypnotic sobbing gives a bonus to mind-affecting magic.

A note on artwork: Recently I gave an artist the super useful prompt of “Give me 9 monsters.” No direction on style or genre or theme. The art you see here is a selection of what I got back. If you like the style, you can see more of their work on Instagram.

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A Point On Social Contracts https://gnomestew.com/a-point-on-social-contracts/ https://gnomestew.com/a-point-on-social-contracts/#comments Fri, 14 Jul 2023 09:00:46 +0000 https://gnomestew.com/?p=51277

I have a point I’d like to make about social contracts, so before I make said point, I thought I should delve into a brief intro to the topic in case someone reading isn’t familiar with the concept:

  • What is a social contract?
    A social contract is an often implicit, occasionally explicit contract about how your gaming group works. It codifies numerous topics about your game, playstyle and how your group interacts.
  • When do you make one?/When can you append one?
    Congratulations! If you have a gaming group, you already have one! Due to their default implicit nature, you get one as soon as you form a group of people. However, the basic assumptions with which individuals edge up to a table are often different from one another, so it can be useful to make some of the points explicit so that everyone is hopefully on the same page. In the case of an explicit social contract, there are two best times to make or append one:

    • During session zero:
      The ideal time to hammer out a few of the points of your social contract is session zero. It ensures that everyone comes to the game with the same type of assumptions on what type of game is being played, what kinds of safety tools are in use, and other topics.
    • Right now:
      If you missed session zero, right now is the best time to discuss social contract issues. Take some liberties with what “right now” means depending on how critical the situation is. You can probably wait till after the session for general social contract issues, but literally right now can be the right time to stop the game and discuss safety tools if you need a safety tool and don’t have them established.
  • What kinds of things can you cover in social contracts?
    Oh boy, what kinds of things can’t you cover? Themes of your game, safety tools, logistics and player issues… The list goes on. We have a rather extensive article on the kinds of things that you might cover with your social contract already, although I wouldn’t try to cover all of the ones listed. Rather, pick and choose what seems most important at the time and append later as needed.

So now onto what inspired this article: I was talking to a friend, and they were describing some behavior from someone at their gaming table that is best summed up as “being a jerk” (trying to derail the game by purposely antagonizing an overwhelming force of NPCs for no reason) and my friend said to me “I didn’t like what they were doing but I didn’t want to tell them they were having badwrongfun.”

They didn’t want to say it, but I’m happy to say it for anyone who needs to hear it: Being a jerk is not covered by the proscription to not yuck anyone’s yum and to not tell people they’re having badwrongfun.

Why? Because being a jerk is in violation of almost any social contract. Implicit in the nature of the social contract is that players are getting together to play a game and that their actions in this game should be conducive to the enjoyment of the players. To do otherwise causes players to leave and is actively destructive to the activity and is thus a degenerate case of play that leads to a dissatisfying end to the game. This doesn’t limit a game to pure cooperativism, many players can and do enjoy gaming of a competitive nature. But it does imply that players don’t actively antagonize each other to the detriment of the game or try to sabotage the game itself. Thus “Don’t be a jerk” is the default state of all social contracts and someone who is being a jerk is in violation of the agreed (explicitly or tacitly) social contract.

So what do you do with a player who’s being a jerk? Well, can you call it a social contract issue when someone is ignoring the social contract? The closest you can get there is to amend the social contract to make “Don’t be a jerk.” explicit instead of implicit. But after that the solution is more difficult. The group has to actually stop the game, point to the social contract and say “Don’t be a jerk.” There should be some wiggle room for discussion (but don’t fall for the “I’m playing in character” argument). Maybe the problem player is being a jerk because they’re bored and ninjas need to attack soonish rather than laterish. But ultimately they need to understand the cooperative nature of gaming and get with the program or you as a GM and as a group need to give them a few strikes (depending on the egregiousness of behavior) then eject them and move on.

“It’s OK to say ‘stop being a jerk’ to a player.” may be simple advice, but it’s critical nonetheless, and someone always needs to hear it.

So what about you? Regale us with your “player being a jerk” stories and tell us what you and your group did about it.

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The Twenty-one Forms Of The Five Room Dungeon https://gnomestew.com/the-twenty-one-forms-of-the-five-room-dungeon/ https://gnomestew.com/the-twenty-one-forms-of-the-five-room-dungeon/#respond Mon, 19 Jun 2023 09:43:40 +0000 https://gnomestew.com/?p=51153 A decade-ish ago, I wrote an article entitled “The Nine Forms of the Five Room Dungeon”. The premise was simple: using specific rules of construction, there are only nine topologies to which a five room dungeon can conform. Ie: there are only nine five room dungeons (IF you follow those rules). Those rules are:

  • Start with a room, the entrance to your dungeon.
  • Choose an existing room. Add a hallway that leads to a new room. (Think of a lolipop)
  • Repeat until you have five rooms.

These rules net us the following nine forms:

Readers were quick to point out that if you also abstracted the entrance, you actually only have Three forms: The Railroad, The Cross, and The Arrow.

Fast forward a decade, and reader Delsig left a comment pointing out the following: There is an academic paper on node topography that shows that without my simple rules of construction there are not three forms of the five room dungeon, nor nine, but still only twenty one.

You can read the paper here. I don’t pretend to understand the math, but the takeaway for us, is page two: the twenty one forms:

You can see the three forms from my original article in these twenty one as the 5 star, the 5 arrow, and the 5 path.

As a bonus, the paper also provides the two forms of the three room dungeon and the six forms of the four room dungeon (the one form of the one room dungeon and the one form of the two room dungeon are trivial).

So if you want a small dungeon, choose one of these forms and that’s it. There aren’t any other forms that are topologically distinct from these. Choosing one is even fairly simple. The 21 forms lend themselves to a D20 roll (just discard one you don’t like) or if you add in the 2, 3, and 4 room options, you have a D30 roll all good to go.

Knowing there are only twenty one topologies is a real time saver, but the problem with the revelation that there are only twenty one forms the five room dungeon can take remains the same as it was a decade ago: twenty one forms is better than nine, but it collapses what seemed like an infinite variety into a rather small number of options. How do we keep our five room dungeons distinct now that we know there are really only twenty one possible topologies?

Just like last time, the devil is in the details:

  • Rooms can be shifted around without changing the topography. Using the simplest example of the 5-path, the chart of the 21 forms has it in a question mark shape, but it could just as easily be a zig-zag or a straight line, or a spiral or…
  • If you make the “hallways” stairs, the straight line is a wizard’s tower. Any or all of the connections in your dungeon could be elevation changes.
  • Of course, there’s nothing saying these have to be dungeons. You can use these topographies for any purpose: ships, buildings, and so forth, as well as nonphysical representations like relationship maps, investigation trees, etc.
  • The 6th room: Adding a 6th room and its attendant connections increases the number of topographies well beyond 21.
  • Using 5 room segments as building blocks for larger structures can net you anything from a still small 10 room dungeon up to massive apartment buildings (I’ve lived in apartments with five rooms before), or megadungeons or similar.

 

Steve Lawford. Counting five-node subgraphs. 2021. ffhal-03097484f

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Interview With A Pro GM https://gnomestew.com/interview-with-a-pro-gm/ https://gnomestew.com/interview-with-a-pro-gm/#respond Mon, 29 May 2023 08:56:55 +0000 https://gnomestew.com/?p=51027

Last year for my birthday, my wife bought the two of us seats in a professionally run Spelljammer campaign. Spelljammer has long been my favorite DnD setting, but one I never got to play as much as I would have liked. We didn’t know what to expect going in, having never used a professional GMing service. Fortunately for us we are having a great time with some characters we love and other players that make the game exciting and fun. All in all, this is the perfect Spelljammer experience that I never got to have back in the 90s. GM Thor has been an expert guide to the Spelljammer universe and this made me curious about the day to day of being a professional GM. What is it like? What are his secrets? So I asked if he would answer a few questions for the readers of Gnome Stew. Here is what I learned:

  • Please introduce yourself to Gnome Stew’s readers.

    Hail and well met! Thor Goodman, level 32 Game Master currently residing in Murfreesboro, TN! 

  • Where can people find you online?

    @better_lore_thor for most socials, although I rarely post on twitter. You can also find my Pro GM page here: https://startplaying.games/gm/thorgoodman502

  • How long have you been GMing, and professionally? Is this a full time job or a side gig?

    I started out in the year 2000 as a chubby kid in the midwest. I received the DnD 3.0 starter set as a gift and was overwhelmed by the possibility. Of course, by introducing my friends to DnD, I received a one-way ticket to being a forever GM.
    I’ve been playing weekly games for 23 years now for fun and just finished my first whole year as a paid GM. As of now, it is my full-time job and sole source of income.

  • What did you expect being a pro GM to be like and how is that different from the reality? How is it different than just for your friends?

    Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. I went in with the mentality of “well, I do this all the time and I think I am quite good, what’s the worst that could happen?” I had a few campaigns and a handful of RPG systems that I considered myself proficient in. My first paid games weren’t even DnD, but Dungeon World! But certainly my biggest difficulty was (and still is) mastering the Virtual Tabletop. It adds a whole other layer of complexity to game prep. I am still learning all sorts of new things and every day presents a new challenge to be overcome!
    Secondly, I see no huge difference between playing with friends vs. running games for people online. Save for being sober throughout the session, that is. I tend to run more lighthearted games instead of gritty dark settings, and my players seem to enjoy the break from reality and have a few laughs while kicking evil’s butt.   

  • Is it still fun or does it eventually just become a job?

    It IS a job. I certainly put more hours in now than I have ever worked in a week. It’s basically unending and in need of constant repair. The work is mentally taxing and you are basically always “on call” if a player wants to chat. And of course, you get your fair share of problem players. They expect a certain level of quality. It is the Mercer Effect in an echo chamber, and paying customers will simply find better games if you fail to meet their expectations. However, this is the most fun and rewarding job I’ve had. Each day I get to meet interesting people from around the world and tell a great story together. You make friendships and forge stories that last a lifetime. I think every job has its difficulties, and to dwell in the negatives is no way to live. At the end of the day I ask myself, “What else would you rather be doing?” and I remind myself just how lucky I am to have found a job that I am both good at and enjoy dearly.

  • What skills do you use more than you thought you would? Less?

    Hands-down the biggest stumbling block is mastering the VTT. Even after you become fluent in your virtual tabletop of choice, it more than doubles your prep time. Surprisingly, most players prefer published adventures over homebrew stuff. I assume it’s because there’s a guarantee of quality from a published source, and that a random player might not have trust in your writing skills.

  • What things do you feel you do well? Where are some areas where you have challenges and how do you overcome them?

    I studied theater in college and spent a decade in a touring band. Those previous experiences taught me a lot about the art of performance and storytelling. I stick pretty close to the ‘ol Joseph Campbell and his thousand-faced story circle. I think my greatest talents lie in that realm. From what my players have said, I do amazing voices, tell a fantastic story, and encourage creativity. 
    The challenges are all self-imposed. I want my games to be the best. That can be anything from providing interactive maps full of traps and animations to creating encounters that tie directly into a player’s backstory. It’s a constantly changing workflow, and the virtual tabletops out there are doing really interesting stuff on the technical side. Keeping on the cutting edge of a burgeoning technology while providing quality games 7 days a week really is a full-time job!

  • What are some hard fast rules for your table? Do you think they would work universally?

    The “rule of cool” is my daily bread. What makes TTRPGS so fun and unique is the element of human creativity in each and every action. I’m here to tell a great story, not play a video game. I really don’t think there is a “right” way to run your games, but my players really enjoy knowing that I am their biggest fan, cheering them on from behind the screen. 

  • What hardware/software/websites do you use and why?

    I am a huge fan of Foundry VTT. It is a pretty complicated toolbox, but you can do some really nifty stuff. Virtual tabletops are still an emerging technology, and keeping on top of new developments helps me make my games the best they can be!

  • Do you still play and does it change your outlook as a player?

    Sadly no. I am a “Forever GM.” The last game I played in was Storm King’s Thunder years and years ago.

  • How many games are you running and how often are sessions?

    Currently, I am running 13 games. 11 weekly sessions averaging 3 hours each, and two bi-weekly games.

  • What systems/campaigns/modules are you currently running? What would you like to run more of in the future?

    Currently, I’m running heaps of Spelljammer in 5e. I love the cornball setting and it’s a blast. Mostly I’m running 5e right now, but also have done several paid games using Dungeon World, Pirate Borg, and Masks: A New Generation. I love PbtA (Powered by the Apocalypse) as a ruleset, but want to get into Pathfinder for obvious reasons.

  • How many hours a week do you spend on prep?

    Each game I run gets the prep time it deserves. Usually about one or two hours per week on each game, not counting the actual 3-hour sessions.

  • How do you get most of your business? Do you promote yourself and how?

    Most of my business comes from Startplaying.games. They do an amazing job of marketing, and aside from a few posts on social media here and there, I let them do the marketing. They do take a small cut of my earnings, but it’s well worth it IMHO.

  • What would you say to someone to sell them on using a professional GMing service?

    I’d say this: It’s purely for entertainment. If you have a group of friends that you love playing with for free, that’s wonderful! Inarguably the best way to enjoy the game. However, if you are a busy person who wants a quality game, guaranteed, every time without a hassle this might just be for you!

  • Do you have any advice for someone who wants to start running games as an income source?

    I’d say to be prepared to put in the work. It’s an incredibly rewarding job, but paying players have certain expectations. Think about the best game of DnD you’ve ever played and be prepared to replicate that multiple times a week. You have to be self-motivated and adaptable. But I recommend any GM worth their salt to give it a go!

     

Professional GMing it seems is not a job for the faint of heart. I wouldn’t want to do it, that’s for sure. But it brings unique benefits to both sides of the screen. For one, we’re closing in on actually completing a campaign, something that couldn’t often be said of the decades of weekends I spent around my dining room table. Given the opportunity, I would gladly foray into professional GMs again.

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On Dice And Distributions https://gnomestew.com/on-dice-and-distributions/ https://gnomestew.com/on-dice-and-distributions/#comments Fri, 07 Apr 2023 11:00:40 +0000 https://gnomestew.com/?p=50617


In an ideal universe, dice are fair. Their results follow a uniform distribution with an equal chance to land on each face.

But we don’t live in an ideal universe. In our universe, no die has the ideal uniform distribution and equal probability of landing on each face. We know this because the distribution of rolls any given die rolls is a multivariate continuous distribution, and like any continuous distribution, the probability that the results are an exact result are always 0. Instead, to have positive probability, you have to include a range of results. So a d6 cannot have a 1/6, 1/6, 1/6, 1/6, 1/6, 1/6 distribution. Instead it can have a distribution close to the ideal distribution.

A thought experiment: In order for a die to have the ideal distribution, it has to have the ideal shape. For a d6, this is a perfect cube. Every angle has to be exactly 90 degrees and each side needs to be perfectly flat. Any imperfection will have some small effect on the chance to roll one side, and because the sides are not independent,  the chance to roll at least one other side. Given current die manufacturing technology, can this perfect die exist? Or are the best dice that have ever been made merely close to this perfect die?

So no die holds the ideal distribution. Each one instead holds its own distribution that is hopefully close to the ideal.


But it gets worse. Not only is no die ideally fair and instead holds its own distribution but no die even rolls true to its own unique distribution!

See this article from Inside Science discussing this paper from the journal Chaos.

Instead of rolling true to their own unique distribution, the result of a die roll are heavily influenced by the initial position of the throw and by the amount of bounces in the roll, which depends on the type of surface on which the die is rolled.

Consider a worst case die roll: a die is dropped straight down, does not bounce, and lands facing exactly as it was dropped.

Consider the best case: the die bounces an infinite number of times and achieves its unique distribution.

Every die roll is somewhere on a spectrum between these two options.

So dice don’t roll the ideal distribution and they don’t even roll their own unique distribution. They instead roll a distribution based on the die itself as well as the conditions of the roll.


This is a lot of words to essentially say: don’t worry too much about dice rolling ideally, because they don’t, and if you are worried about it, maybe get a dice tower with lots of baffles.

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Campaign Prep With ChatGPT https://gnomestew.com/campaign-prep-with-chatgpt/ https://gnomestew.com/campaign-prep-with-chatgpt/#comments Fri, 17 Mar 2023 10:00:57 +0000 https://gnomestew.com/?p=50663

If you haven’t been living under a rock, you have probably heard about ChatGPT, the new(ish) AI chat bot released in late 2022. You can access ChatGPT for free here, though you do have to make an account.

I recently experimented with ChatGPT as a means of helping game prep and here are some of the results:

I asked it: “ChatGPT, Can you give me some bullet points on how you would be useful to a reader of gnomestew, specifically for use in RPGs?” And this is the response I got:
Certainly! Here are some ways that I can be useful to readers of Gnomestew for use in RPGs:
  • I can provide information on a wide range of topics related to RPGs, including game mechanics, worldbuilding, character development, and storytelling techniques.
  • I can offer advice and suggestions for players and game masters who are looking to improve their skills and take their games to the next level.
  • I can provide inspiration and ideas for campaign settings, NPCs, quests, and other elements of RPGs.
  • I can help answer specific questions that readers may have about rules, lore, or other aspects of RPGs.
  • I can assist with character creation, including generating names, backstories, and personality traits for player characters.
  • I can help with game preparation, such as generating encounter tables, creating maps, and developing plot hooks.
  • I can provide references and resources for readers who are looking to deepen their understanding of RPGs or find new games to play.

Overall, I can be a valuable resource for anyone looking to improve their RPG skills, whether they are a seasoned veteran or a newcomer to the hobby.

Now, looking over that list I would be wary about specific questions about rules. ChatGPT tends to have problems with accuracy in specifics. For example, I asked ChatGPT to explain the rules for critical hits in DnD to me across various editions and got a response with several errors in it. Similarly, “providing references and resources” seems sketchy to me. Every link ChatGPT has given me so far has been broken (which makes sense since it probably sees links as just another type of text to generate). I’m also skeptical about helping with maps, since ChatGPT is text only,  but the rest of this list looks pretty solid to me. Let’s look at some example requests I made and results I got:

I asked: “Hi there ChatGPT! I am working on a fantasy urban crawl and I need some generic gang members who belong to a gang called The Mumble Men. The Mumble Men are made up of mostly humans and kenku (but have other races too) and dress in all black and are perpetually silent. Secretly they are associated with the management of a local theatre company. Can you give me a couple examples please?

Note that I am being very specific and giving lots of details. ChatGPT handles details well and incorporates them in its responses. Note also, that I am starting my questions with “ChatGPT,” or some such opening. That’s not strictly necessary. It just feels natural to me and ChatGPT doesn’t seem to have any problems with it.

This is the response I got:

Sure, here are a few examples of generic gang members who belong to The Mumble Men for your fantasy urban crawl:

  1. Shadow: Shadow is a tall and lean human who always wears a black leather jacket with matching pants and boots. He is a skilled pickpocket and can disappear into the shadows in an instant. He rarely speaks, but when he does, his voice is a low, gravelly whisper.
  2. Raven: Raven is a kenku who wears a black hoodie with a large, feathered collar. He is known for his sharp mind and quick wit, which he uses to great effect when negotiating deals for The Mumble Men. Despite his small size, he is a formidable fighter and is often tasked with handling more physical jobs.
  3. Whisper: Whisper is a human woman who wears a black cloak and carries a pair of daggers at her waist. She is an expert at stealth and is often tasked with scouting out new locations for The Mumble Men’s operations. She rarely speaks above a whisper, hence her name, and is known for her cunning and intelligence.
  4. The Twins: These two identical twin kenku, who dress in matching black suits and white shirts, are the face of The Mumble Men’s theater company. They are always seen together and can finish each other’s sentences, making it impossible to tell them apart. They are skilled at deceiving their clients and have a reputation for being shrewd negotiators.
  5. Nightshade: Nightshade is a half-elf who dresses in all black leather armor and wields a pair of short swords. He is the enforcer for The Mumble Men and is not afraid to use violence to get what he wants. Despite his rough exterior, he has a soft spot for the theater and often attends performances in his spare time.

I hope these examples help inspire your writing!

Those all seem useable to me. In a similar vein I gave ChatGPT a list of the district names from my stalled urban crawl project and asked about heists and weird magic. Here is a selection of the results:

  1. The Boat Heist – In the Floating Market district, a wealthy merchant is transporting a valuable cargo of exotic spices and rare herbs on their boat. The players must either steal the cargo or sabotage the boat while it’s in transit, navigating the bustling marketplace and avoiding the watchful eyes of the local authorities.
  2. The Guild Heist – In Artisan’s Alley, a group of thieves is planning to break into the headquarters of a powerful guild and steal their most valuable secrets. The guild is heavily guarded, but the players have an advantage: they’ve been hired by a rival guild to obtain the same secrets. The players must either steal the secrets themselves or help the thieves pull off the heist without being detected.
  3. The Poison Heist – In The Itch, a notorious gang of criminals is planning to poison the city’s water supply with a deadly toxin, holding the citizens hostage until their demands are met. The players must infiltrate the gang’s hideout, steal the antidote to the poison, and either stop the gang or use the antidote to save the city.
  4. The Floating Market – In this district, the waters of the lake are inhabited by giant jellyfish that float through the air instead of swimming through the water. They’re harmless to the players but can be a nuisance, knocking into buildings and disrupting trade. Some of the merchants in the market have taken advantage of the jellyfish by using them as living balloons to display their wares.
  5. Artisan’s Alley – In this district, all of the artwork and crafts made by the artisans are alive and sentient. The paintings on the walls move and talk, the sculptures come to life at night and dance through the streets, and the textiles crawl and wriggle like living creatures. The artisans have learned to communicate with their creations and use them to perform incredible feats of artistry.
  6. The Fortress District – In this district, the walls of the fortress are alive and constantly shifting. They’re covered in eyes and mouths that speak in strange tongues and watch the players’ every move. The fortress’s defenses are also strange and unusual, with traps that turn the players’ minds inside out, walls that dissolve into acid, and doors that lead to other planes of existence. The players must navigate the fortress and its defenses to reach their goal.

The results I got from ChatGPT need an editorial eye. For example, I don’t want living art for everything produced in Artisan’s Alley, but some of it being alive is really cool (and exactly what I had come up with on my own by coincidence). You also have to pick and choose the results you like but you can always ask for more generated content until you get enough that suits your tastes.

So asking ChatGPT for adventure elements, NPCs and the like seems to give good results with a bit of editing. What about writing scenarios and adventures?

I asked: “OK ChatGPT, I am running a campaign set in a dark science fantasy game with elements of the genres of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. My character is a technomancer spy with a robot assistant and her own ship. Help me outline an adventure to run for her please.

Sure! Here’s an outline for an adventure that could fit the setting you described:

Adventure Name: The Ghost Ship

Synopsis: Your character receives a distress signal from a ship that disappeared years ago, the S.S. Excelsior, which was carrying a valuable piece of technology that could change the balance of power in the galaxy. The signal is coming from a distant planet that is said to be cursed and haunted by evil spirits. Your character must travel to the planet, find the ship, and retrieve the technology before it falls into the wrong hands.

Act 1: Arrival on the Haunted Planet

  • Your character arrives on the planet and encounters a group of scavengers who are also searching for the S.S. Excelsior. They are willing to team up, but only if your character shares the reward with them.
  • The planet is shrouded in a thick fog, and strange noises and whispers can be heard in the distance.
  • The scavengers lead your character to an abandoned research facility where they believe the ship’s distress signal is coming from.

Act 2: The Haunted Research Facility

  • The facility is in a state of disrepair, with broken equipment and flickering lights.
  • Your character and the scavengers encounter hostile creatures that have been mutated by the research experiments.
  • Your character must solve puzzles and hack computer systems to unlock doors and access the ship’s location.
  • Your character discovers that the research facility was experimenting with a dangerous technology that could allow communication with the dead, and that the ship’s crew may have been killed by vengeful spirits.

Act 3: The Ghost Ship

  • Your character and the scavengers finally reach the S.S. Excelsior, which is floating in orbit above the planet.
  • The ship’s systems are malfunctioning, and the ship is filled with dangerous traps and puzzles left behind by the ship’s former captain, who was obsessed with the afterlife.
  • Your character must fight off the ship’s security system and ghosts that haunt the ship to retrieve the valuable technology.
  • In the end, your character can either keep the technology for themselves, destroy it, or hand it over to the authorities.

I hope this adventure outline gives you some ideas for your campaign! Let me know if you have any questions or if there’s anything else I can assist you with.

That’s not perfect. For example, the ship being in orbit in act 3, makes act 1 and 2 superfluous, but with some editing this is a decent outline for a session or two. So far everything created has been system neutral. Let’s see how ChatGPT handles mechanics:

ChatGPT, the system I am using for this adventure is Fate Accelerated Edition. Can you stat out the group of scavengers from act 1 for me please?

Sure, here are some example stats for the group of scavengers you mentioned, in the Fate Accelerated Edition system:

Name: The Salvage Crew

High Concept: Ruthless scavengers searching for valuable technology

Trouble: Desperate and willing to betray anyone for a chance at a big score

Approaches:

  • Careful: +1
  • Clever: +1
  • Flashy: 0
  • Forceful: +2
  • Quick: +2
  • Sneaky: +1

Stress:

  • Physical Stress: [ ] [ ] [ ]
  • Mental Stress: [ ] [ ]

Consequences:

  • Mild: Scavenger’s Injury
  • Moderate: Scavenger’s Betrayal
  • Severe: Scavenger’s Revenge

As with all Fate Accelerated Edition characters, you can customize these stats and aspects to fit your specific campaign and playstyle. I hope this helps, and let me know if you have any further questions!

That’s not really what I wanted. This is statted out as a PC, not a mook like I was expecting. That said, it’s really good for statting out as a PC, which the game does recommend for major villains and I didn’t specify I wanted mooks, so maybe that’s on me. Let’s ask it to have another go. After several tries, the request that got the correct response was: “ChatGPT, can you stat them out as mooks using the name, two aspects, things they are good at and thing they are bad at, and stress notation please?

Sure, here’s an example of how you could stat the scavengers as mooks in Fate Accelerated Edition:

Name: Salvage Crew Mooks

Aspects:

  • Desperate and Ruthless
  • Always Looking for a Big Score

Good At:

  • Scavenging and Finding Hidden Treasures
  • Sneaking and Ambushing Targets

Bad At:

  • Fighting Fairly and with Honor
  • Resisting Temptations and Greed

Stress:

  • Physical Stress: [ ] [ ]
  • Mental Stress: [ ] [ ]

These mooks are intended to be easily defeated in combat and to serve as minions or underlings for more powerful NPCs. You can use them in groups or individually, and adjust their stats as needed for the specific encounter. I hope this helps!

Getting mooks took some work, but maybe Fate Accelerated Edition isn’t a popular enough system to get quick easy results. Let’s try DnD 5e:

Now can you stat them out for DnD 5e please?

Sure, here’s an example of how you could stat the scavengers as a group in DnD 5e:

Name: Salvage Crew

Size: Medium (4-6 members)

Type: Humanoid

Armor Class: 12 (leather armor)

Hit Points: 27 (6d8)

Speed: 30 ft.

Abilities:

  • Str: 14 (+2)
  • Dex: 12 (+1)
  • Con: 12 (+1)
  • Int: 10 (+0)
  • Wis: 8 (-1)
  • Cha: 8 (-1)

Skills:

  • Perception: +1
  • Stealth: +3

Actions:

  • Multiattack: The Salvage Crew makes two melee attacks.
  • Melee Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d6 + 2) piercing damage.
  • Ranged Attack: +3 to hit, range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d8 + 1) piercing damage.

Equipment:

  • Short sword or hand axe (melee attack)
  • Light crossbow (ranged attack)
  • Leather armor

These stats are just an example, and you can adjust them as needed for your specific campaign and encounter. Additionally, you can give them unique abilities or traits that fit their character and the setting of your game. I hope this helps, and let me know if you have any further questions!

That’s pretty impressive for a first shot and game usable. I’d consider that a win. While we’re creating content, I thought I would ask for a room for my dungeon23 (which like most of my projects has also stalled out)

A current project that is going around the internet is Dungeon23, where you create a dungeon room every day of the year. Can you create a system agnostic dungeon room for me for level 2 of a dungeon?

Sure, here’s an example of a system-agnostic dungeon room for level 2:

Room Name: The Stone Crypt

Description: The room is a rectangular chamber with smooth stone walls, floor, and ceiling. In the center of the room, there is a stone sarcophagus that appears to be sealed shut. The air in the room is cool and dry, and there is a faint scent of incense.

Features:

  • Stone Sarcophagus: The sarcophagus is made of heavy stone and appears to be sealed shut. It is engraved with intricate patterns and symbols, and radiates a faint magical aura.
  • Ancient Runes: The walls of the room are covered in ancient runes, which can be deciphered with a successful Intelligence check (DC 15). The runes describe a ritual for opening the sarcophagus, but also warn of danger to those who attempt to disturb the resting place of the occupant.
  • Pressure Plate: A pressure plate is hidden in the floor in front of the sarcophagus. If triggered, it will cause a stone block to fall from the ceiling and strike anyone in the room (Dexterity save DC 12 to avoid).
  • Hidden Compartment: A hidden compartment is located behind one of the walls, which can be found with a successful Wisdom (Perception) check (DC 18). Inside, there is a small cache of treasure (2d6 x 50 gold pieces).

Encounters:

  • Undead Guardian: The occupant of the sarcophagus is an undead guardian, awakened by the disturbance in the room. It will attack any intruders and attempt to defend the resting place. (Undead guardian stats can be determined based on your preferred system and level of challenge).
  • Cultists: A group of cultists has taken up residence in the room, drawn by the magical energy of the sarcophagus. They are attempting to decipher the runes and perform the ritual to open the sarcophagus, but are willing to negotiate with the players if approached peacefully.

I hope this gives you a good starting point for your Dungeon23 project! Let me know if you have any further questions or if there’s anything else I can help you with.

That’s not bad! It’s a little too busy and isn’t exactly system agnostic but it’s got enough material there to use for a couple rooms.

Finally, not that I’m looking to put myself out of a job or anything but I thought I would have it generate some of the GMing advice it said it could create.

Thank you ChatGPT. Can you give me some brief bullet points on how to be a good GM for a starting player?

Certainly! Here are some brief bullet points on how to be a good GM for a starting player:

  • Be patient and understanding, and take the time to explain rules and mechanics in a clear and concise way.
  • Create a welcoming and inclusive environment for all players, regardless of experience level or background.
  • Focus on collaborative storytelling rather than winning or losing, and encourage players to be creative and express themselves through their characters.
  • Help players create characters that fit within the game world and have goals and motivations that drive the story forward.
  • Provide opportunities for players to explore and interact with the game world, and be responsive to their actions and decisions.
  • Give feedback and guidance when necessary, but also allow players to make their own choices and mistakes.
  • Use your knowledge of the game mechanics and story to create engaging and challenging scenarios, but also be willing to adjust and adapt to suit the players’ needs.
  • Encourage players to learn and grow, both in terms of their characters and their understanding of the game.
  • Be open to feedback and communication, and work with players to address any issues or concerns that arise.

I hope these bullet points are helpful! Let me know if you have any other questions or if there’s anything else I can assist you with.

That’s not bad advice. Maybe I did put myself out of a job.

ChatGPT seems to be a solid tool for generating content, and a passable tool for plotting adventures. I found the following to be best practices:

  • A simple conversational style works great. No need for specific syntax.
  • Give it lots of details: genre, setting, placenames, etc…
  • Tell it what format you want: bullet points, stats, etc…
  • Don’t rely on it too much for accurate information or links
  • Don’t expect complete consistency. It can change details from paragraph to paragraph.
  • Do rely on it for creative ideas and content

If you’ve tried out ChatGPT for RPG purposes and have any tips or tricks or want to share some particularly great content it’s created for you, drop it in the comments! We’d love to hear it!

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A Review of Hasbro Dicelings https://gnomestew.com/a-review-of-hasbro-dicelings/ https://gnomestew.com/a-review-of-hasbro-dicelings/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2023 08:45:54 +0000 https://gnomestew.com/?p=50226 I’m a sucker for unusual dice, so when Hasbro announced Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Dicelings, dice that transform into monster figurines, I preordered immediately. Despite the preorder estimating that they would be shipped in March, I was pleasantly surprised to receive them early January!

Each of the dice is an oversized d20 approximately two and a quarter inches across, emblazoned with runes, and made of what feels like pretty durable plastic. Speaking of plastic, the packaging made a big deal about being plastic free except for glue and tape, which is a nice sentiment.  All the packaging was made of cardboard or a material similar in appearance to waxed paper. Each die came with an instruction sheet on how to transform it as well as a small notice that the toy is not intended for children under three years old as “small parts may be generated”. More on that later.

The first thing I attempted to do of course was to transform all the dice into their monster form.  While some of the pieces were hard to transform and it felt like the amount of force needed might break the toy, having fairly tough joints is good as they will get looser over time and you don’t want them getting too sloppy to hold a pose or shape. I had to consult the directions a few times but ultimately I got them all transformed:

The figures were surprisingly posable, with lots of articulation and ball and socket joints – especially the owlbear and dragons. They’re also fairly easy to balance, so making them stand up in a variety of poses shouldn’t be too difficult. I did have a slight mishap though. The owlbear’s foot fell off as I was transforming him (and again later as I transformed him back). Luckily, as you can see in the photo, it was simple to reattach. The foot itself is made of a soft plastic with a lot of give to it, so it was as easy to snap back on as it was to accidentally snap off.

Once I had transformed them into monsters, of course I had to transform them back into dice. The beholder was easy, but the other three were more difficult customers. Getting the position of the legs and feet just right so that the wings could properly close took a little time and experimentation, but I did eventually get them together again. One nice feature is a set of tabs and slots on the models to help guide the pieces into place and hold them there once they’re in position. This also provides a quite satisfying moment when everything lines up and literally clicks into place:

So, the toys are fun to play with and function well, but that still leaves the question that’s burning in all of our hearts: how do they perform as actual dice? That was the first thing you thought of when you saw them right? No? Just me? Well, first off, the numbers are difficult to read, especially the black dragon. However, if you wanted to use these as dice that would be as simple to fix as a paint pen for plastic, so that’s a minor issue. Despite the general poor readability of the dice, the 6s and 9s (along with 16s and 19s) are easily distinguishable. There is also a minor problem that rolling them too hard tends to slightly transform them, especially the beholder. They can be clicked back together fairly easily, but it limits the force with which you can roll them so you don’t get much roll out of them. That’s a matter of taste however. As far as how they roll, the beholder rolls poorly. It has a rounded twenty and nineteen side with protruding scales in the middle, making a one or two very hard to roll. In my test hundred rolls I got none of either. The rest of the dice roll surprisingly well. I was expecting them to be badly skewed by the weight of the figures inside but I saw no evidence of that. While I’m sure they are less fair than many other dice, they’re still table fair enough that over a set of a hundred rolls you can’t really tell… except the beholder anyway.

A note on power and what I mean by “table fair”: I frequently get comments on my dice articles that I use insufficient rolls to have truly powerful tests. This is a fair assessment, especially when I use the bare minimum roles to meet the criteria of a chi square test as I sometimes do. However, I’m not really interested in if these dice are truly fair (They’re not. No dice are.) but rather in if they seem close enough to fair for table play. ie: Are they fair enough so that within the context of a regular gaming session they seem fair?

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Review of Cyberdicegames dice https://gnomestew.com/review-of-cyberdicegames-dice/ https://gnomestew.com/review-of-cyberdicegames-dice/#respond Wed, 11 Jan 2023 08:45:18 +0000 https://gnomestew.com/?p=50184 If you’re on the internet a lot you may have seen dice by Cyberdicegames pop up in your feed. I had seen them on several sites before I finally contacted them and asked how one goes about getting their grubby paws on a set. That in itself is a story, but first, a word about the dice themselves. They’re machined anodized aluminum and in the promo pictures they look gorgeous. For example:

Well, I am pleased to say that the promo pictures DO match the look of the actual dice themselves. What you see is what you get, at least in the case of the dice I purchased:

At twelve to eighteen dollars per die, they’re a little pricey even for machined aluminum dice, but they’re certainly not the most expensive machined aluminum dice out there and if their creative patterns are something that speaks to you, you’d be hard pressed to find an equivalent elsewhere.

Now for the story about getting your hands on them: To be completely honest, I waffled a lot before ordering these dice. I kept weighing the effort of making and maintaining a Facebook page, an Instagram account, a Twitter account, an Etsy shop, and a Pinterest board for the company, some of which have dozens of photos, regular engagement and happy customer feedback vs a payment method that screamed “scam” to me.  You see, the only way to get your hands on these dice is to send a Facebook message where you will discuss which dice you want and how many. Then you must pay via Zelle, a payment method with no refund options that is legit but which you are advised online to only use with people you know and trust. Add in a few other misc. details that were big red flags and I was reluctant to make the transaction. And then they forgot to send me a tracking number until the dice were actually in my mailbox (That’s mostly on me. I should have followed up.) and I had written these dice off as a lesson learned in not falling for what looked like a well established web presence.

In the end though, it turns out that my worries were misplaced. Not only did I receive the three dice I ordered, but I received a free die that I did not order along with them! I understand that a small business sometimes has to bend over backwards to turn a profit, and I definitely understand Cyberdicegames not wanting to raise their prices to cover other payment options  etc… but at the same time, I can understand anyone being reluctant to make the leap of faith I did to acquire these dice.

Some more promo pictures. Yes, those are glow in the dark dice.:

As is standard, I ran some chi square tests on the dice to assess their fairness. Since they are machined dice instead of cast dice I expected them to test fairly well. No dice are ever truly fair, but as long as effort is made to make sure a similar amount of material is machined off of each side to create the “pips,” in theory machined dice should be about as fair as one can get. For the most part these dice bore this out. A hundred and twenty rolls per die and the p values were about what you would expect… except the blue die. The lower the p value of a test and the less likely the die is to be fair. Standard cutoffs are .1, .05, and .01. I usually use .05 as my cutoff and the blue die had a p value of .02.

To be certain, I re-rolled another set of 120 rolls for the blue die and got a new p value. This time the set of rolls looked much better with a p value of .67. Either set of rolls could be a fluke, so I went ahead and tested a third time and got a p value of .39. 

At this point I am confident enough in saying the dice are fair enough for table play, which is good enough for me. 

So, to sum up:

  • machined anodized aluminum
  • gorgeous
  • lots of creative patterns
  • concerns about payment method
  • table fair

 

A note on power and what I mean by “table fair”: I frequently get comments on my dice articles that I use insufficient rolls to have truly powerful tests. This is a fair assessment, especially when I use the bare minimum roles to meet the criteria of a chi square test as I sometimes do. However, I’m not really interested in if these dice are truly fair (They’re not. No dice are.) but rather in if they seem close enough to fair for table play. ie: Are they fair enough so that within the context of a regular gaming session they seem fair?

 

 

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Spelljammer: Comparing 5e to 2e https://gnomestew.com/spelljammer-comparing-5e-to-2e/ https://gnomestew.com/spelljammer-comparing-5e-to-2e/#respond Fri, 19 Aug 2022 09:00:34 +0000 https://gnomestew.com/?p=48688

Back in the 90s, Spelljammer was one of my favorite second edition settings and I had been hoping for a re-release during every edition since. We saw hints, but no true re-release… until now. Spelljammer for 5e has been officially released as of August 16th, and I got my grubby little paws on a copy day one!

My initial worry of course was: does this edition stand up to the second edition version? Ie: did this edition “ruin my childhood”? By way of an example: the 3e d20 minigame we got was far from faithful to the original material (but to be fair, they only had a few pages to cram content in. SOMETHING had to give). Thus, here is a side by side comparison of the 5e release to the 2e material.

Rules and Setting:

Character options give players two new backgrounds and a half dozen new races, including favorites like the Giff and Dark Sun’s Thri-kreen (not the only element of Dark Sun to make it into the box. Make of that what you will). Lizard men, a staple race of 2e’s Spelljammer, didn’t even get a mention as a major spacefaring race though the rules for them are in Volo’s Guide to Monsters if you want to play one.

Most of the rules and setting material are largely unchanged. Air works much like it used to. Gravity works much like it used to. Wildspace (the area of space around celestial bodies) is still Wildspace. The only major change to piloting a spelljammer is that mages no longer lose all their spells the moment they sit in a helm. Rules have been simplified to suit the new edition which is less crunchy than 2e was, but the concepts behind them remain the same.

Crystal shells (the giant shells that contained a chunk of wildspace) and the Phlogiston (the aether that flows between crystal shells) however are both gone. In their place is the astral plane. This is one of the few big changes to the system/setting. On the one hand, this is a major change that doesn’t seem entirely necessary. On the other, this change is a good one because it eliminates several speed bumps in the original setting. No longer do you have to grind gold to buy a portal locator to find holes in crystal spheres to leave a section of wildspace. No longer are clerics gimped the instant they enter the Phlogiston and lose access to the majority of their spells. No longer do they have to petition deities when they enter new spheres and quest to regain their spell slots. While this mechanic was certainly a springboard for adventure, it unfairly penalized a single class without providing any benefit for the extra effort. In addition, merging the astral plane and spelljamming adds reams of potential astral plane content to the spelljamming setting. So all in all, I’m happy with this change. And if you’re not, returning crystal spheres and the phlogiston to the setting is a simple enough modification to make, especially if you have the original rules handy.

One place where content is missing is planetary systems. The planetary display (the map that showed locations of planets and other bodies with respect to each other) is given a nod in the new system maps which look like pictures of planets in orbit instead of the pure text charts they used to be, but the major thing that is missing is the rules for making your own systems and the charts for the major campaign setting systems. No Greyspace, or Realmspace, etc… maps. Instead we got “There are two systems in the module. Use them as examples” and that just doesn’t cut it. This is a place where the old rules are ripe to be dropped into the new edition, and possibly an opportunity for supplemental material.

Boo’s Astral Menagerie includes a lot of old favorites like the Kindori as well as some new material such as the killer clowns. It would be unfair to expect it to cover everything from the years-long run of Spelljammer, but it’s a good start. Of note is that despite Spelljammer traditionally being a high level campaign setting, there are only a small handful of high CR monsters to be found here.

Ships:

The rules for ships are mostly similar but there are a few notable differences. First, Ship to ship combat has been incredibly simplified. It now works more like most games handle chase mechanics. Spelljammers make rolls to increase or decrease the range between ships which allows different combat options to come into play. Hidden in this is the assumption that all ships now have perfect maneuverability. Maneuverability class, and the resultant difficulty turning and bringing your weapons to bear are gone. This is certainly a major change to the system, and the reasoning behind it seems pretty clear. It keeps the role playing game a role playing game instead of turning it into a tactical wargame where not all players get to evenly participate. Whether this is a pro or con is entirely up to you and your table. If you wanted to mod this back in, it would be fairly easy to give each ship a Maneuverability Class rating and drop the battle system from 2e into your game.

The other place where rules for ships were greatly simplified is in ship options. There are plenty of ships to choose from but gone is the information needed to create your own ships. Gone are the options to modify your ship, stripping out armor, adding more rigging, changing out a ballista for an alchemical fire projector. Magical items for your ship, crew experience, and many types of weapons are gone entirely. In my mind, this is a major issue with the new edition, BUT also one that’s not too hard to fix by dropping in content from 2e, and also an excellent opportunity for a supplemental product.

Closing Thoughts:

All in all, the 5th edition Spelljammer is largely similar to the 2e version, and despite a few missing elements and a few differences in setting and rules is fairly true to the original source material, and much of what is missing can be easily adapted from the 2e rules if you have them on hand (they’re available on Drivethru RPG). If you’ve been waiting because you’re unsure if 5e will do justice to the older version, hopefully this article gives you what you need to make a decision.

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The Bugbear’s Threads https://gnomestew.com/the-bugbears-threads/ https://gnomestew.com/the-bugbears-threads/#comments Fri, 08 Oct 2021 10:00:11 +0000 https://gnomestew.com/?p=44225

Not so long ago, Troy wrote an excellent article “Losing Oneself in the Wilderness” about wilderness adventures. And just as that article was pulling at a loose thread of another, I am going to pull at the closing thread of Troy’s article.

Within, Troy makes the innocuous statement “Whereas, for gamers from our era, sometimes a raid by bugbears is just a raid by bugbears – and that was just fine.” And he’s correct. But something about it made me roll it over in my head a bit.

You see, back in the day, it was often said that a storytelling GM was a BAD THING. As opposed to today, when players expect a bit of narrative, you could often find people commenting that a GM who tried to “tell a story” was akin to railroading. This isn’t to say this attitude was right (or wrong!) but just what often was understood to be good play at the time.

And in truth, failure of the GM to provide narrative would sometimes devolve into navel gazing, or require more winging things than a planned narrative, or result in the ever dreaded “Players wandering off the map” (my players in particular seemed to make a beeline for the nearest unplanned area).

But the point of the “no narrative” playstyle wasn’t really that there was no story. There WAS a story. It’s just that the players got to write their own story. As a GM, you provided parts, and the players picked up, built, and followed any story they could make with them.

True, these stories often tended to be janky and meandering, but players don’t tend to be expert judges of narrative flow (unless you’re a group of writers and actors playing RPGs as a side gig. But who’s ever heard of that?) and games that don’t look the best zoomed out to macro level are still fun in the moment.

So Troy’s bugbears are “just a raid by bugbears” if the players WANT them to be just a raid by bugbears. What they really are is a potential story thread. Maybe the players want to track them down, free any slaves they might have, fight their leader, broker peace, whatever. Wherever it leads is fine. And at the very least: lair treasure is better than the pocket change they carry with them, right? Maybe. Maybe not. And unexpectedly good or poor treasure is an adventure hook all on it’s own.

The takeaway is, regardless of your play style: be aware of the adventure hooks everywhere. Some are just side quests. Some are major stories on their own, and some are interwoven into other stories. (WHAT!? The bugbears were being allowed by the duchess to prey on her own people so she could justify raising large armies which she planned on using to invade her neighbors???)

This is, by the way, exactly why “No plan survives first contact with the players”. They tend to invent and run halfcocked after random threads. Well… that and the fact that players are like a kid helping his parents in the garage: Not so good at holding the flashlight. (Had to dust the cobwebs off that article it’s so old.)

So how does this impact encounters, wandering monsters, etc? Without falling prey to over prepping because the chance any given thread gets followed is low: each encounter that isn’t part of an existing story thread should carry with it one or more potential new story threads. Most do just by existing, but it makes sense to spend a moment thinking about the likely ones and where they might lead.

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