DCR Gamer Forge Listener Email:

Name: Lord Abernathy

Comments: Gentlemen,

I want to say thank you for doing the Gamer Forge segment and helping us gamers.

My question is simple and yet complex. I am running a Star Wars Campaign and I am struggling with balancing the system. Everyone wants to play a sith or a jedi.

How can I run a fun game but limit their access to these character types because they really unbalance things.

Your continued listener,
Lord Abernathy

Gamer Forge Response:

When in Star Wars, you play, recommend, DCR does:

1. Take a hard line. We know this contradicts one of our Ten Commandments, but it's just a lot easier. It's either Jedi or Sith. The two of them just aren't going to co-mingle for any extended period of time. UNLESS, your little Dark Lord in Training Wheels can keep up a good front. But don't blame us when the gig is up and your group explodes into one giant internal conflict. But that does give some interesting plot devices. Regardless, we think its better not to open this can of worms if it can be helped.
2. Its all about the E-R-A. Not a "g" funk era with a gangsta twist. This is era in the SW timeline. Knights of the Old Republic, Mandalorian Wars, and Darth Bane eras are all kosher to have multiple Sith Lords running around, canon-wise. Rise of the Empire and New Jedi Order, not so much. Also, if you play in the Rise of the Empire time frame, remember that your Jedi players have to keep a good cover and lay low! Or they will have a heap of trouble coming in the form the Empire and some of their Star Destroyer buddies.
3. Blending in. If your players are deadlocked and cannot reach a unanimous decision about either Jedi or Sith, then one side (Sith) will have to go incognito. Meet with those players on the Dark Side before a game session and be very clear what the consequences are if they are found out by their Jedi compatriots. Which absolutely meets the criteria for another of our Ten Commandments, "Thou Shalt Respect the Consequences of Thine Own Actions." So if they want to increase their longevity, remind them of the risks. Same goes for the Good Ol' Jedi. The temptation of the Dark Side will be magnified due to the closeness of characters, who by all accounts, should be actively trying to corrupt them.

*To go the extra mile, A Guy Named Joe recommends watching Sherlock Holmes or Oceans 11. Get some good ideas about how to overlap conflicting interests and place key story elements in a way to have seemingly innocent moments more relevant to your story. Also, both movies kinda rule your face.

DCR Gamer Forge Listener Email:

Name: The Wizard

Comments: Okay I am creating my campaign and I am wondering what do you think is more fearful and a better big boss villain.

a) Dragon
b) Demon
c) Evil Wizard
d) Demi God
e) Magical creature

And why?

Gamer Forge and the Playing group know as "The Corner" Response:

The wizard wrote in a great question however you don't need a big dragon or a demon to terrorize the group.  Sometimes the best villains are meager mortals you have grand designs of their own.  Here are a few ideas for your villain creation.

When it comes to a hive of scum and villainy, DCR says;

1. Personal attacks. Have it get real personal. Maybe your villain captured and tortured one of the heroes and left them with a hand full of broken fingers. Damage something they truly value, like reputations or family. Most importantly, SHOW IT HAPPENING! Go into detail. This shows just how personal it is.
2. Attack sideways. Make your heroes do something other than blunt force smashing and straightforward assaults. They'll have to re-think their strategies. Incite a civil war in the streets of their hometown. Send in a sleeper agent at the start of the game. But make like you're playing nice to them. Its part of the illusion; you're playing dirtier than you've ever played before.
3. Terror! Do something horrific, but only do it once. A cannibal only needs to be seen feeding once to have the reputation of a cannibal. Maybe the evil lord has a human shield of no less than 5 innocent children at all times. You only got to see that once to get the hint about the guy/girl. One time is all you need to establish just how low this being is willing to stoop to win/stay alive. This brings us back to making a villain they will want to defeat.

DCR Gamer Forge Listener Email:

Name: Shadowhawk

Comments: You guys have covered just about everything its seems with the Gamer Forge. Hopefully you haven't covered my question.

1. How can I go from running games out of pre-written modules and to something of my own creation.

2. What is a good balance in world creation?

3. Is there anything as too much roleplaying?

4. And finally what is a good style to write for my adventures?

Shadowhawk

Gamer Forge and the Playing group know as "The Corner" Response:

Even though Shadowhawk asked several great questions we could only select one of these and we went with the first one.  When going from the box to a free-form jazz odyssey (Jazz Hands!), DCR says;

1. Hook! It's all about the initial buy-in. Give a reason to jump away from the module when it is time to jump away from the module. No need to rush. Once you got everyone sold on your hook, you can drop the box and move into your own efforts.
2. Bait! Entice the adventurers with something they want anyway. Think back to an early conflict where someone escaped and comes back for revenge. Take juicy tidbits from character backstory and throw them something they would want to chase. Remember, GMs/referees/DMs/storytellers/watchers/mediators, you are entertaining your players. That leaves us with...
3. Pay attention! Read your players. Know what they will do next. At least have a good idea of what they will do next. Look for seemingly harmless incidents that the players wouldn't think about later. Sometimes, the best encounters don't involve a big, bad monster, but when something bites the adventurers on the ass down the road.

DCR Gamer Forge Listener Email:

Name: Dagmar the Evil Dwarf

Comments: So what are your guys thoughts on ancient sentient artifacts? What is good enough and what is overkill? What type of personalities should they have?

Gamer Forge Response:

Not as much of a headache as it sounds, DCR says;

1. If you absolutely must have a sentient weapon, make it entertaining. If this thing is boring, nobody will want to keep it. Have it wisecrack at appropriate times. Cause a little bit of mischief. Maybe it knows a little bit about the future. Give it a funny name. But to address the overkill issue, it applies here. Remember that this is another NPC and if nobody cares about it, the kiss your game bye-bye.
2. Open lines of communication. If it communicates telepathically, make sure to use an affected voice to make a distinction when the weapon talks versus when someone else does. If its verbal, the same thing goes, but be sure to clarify that everyone can hear it.
3. Hook, line, and sinker. This weapon has a goal. It wants to used. That's how it gets around and sees things and meets new people. So think about the long term when someone starts using your talking tennis racket (or whatever the weapon might be). Throw a couple of tidbits about treasures or locations to explore. That's why you want to make it entertaining and useful. Speaking of which, try throwing some new powers to the weapon the more the character uses it. Give the adventurer every reason to keep it. By the time he/she realizes that he/she is doing the weapon's bidding, its too late. Now you have a whole new adventure to build centering on breaking the mental grip of this weapon.

Gamer Forge Listener Email:

Name: Kraven

Comments: I am having trouble coming up with a game session that involves the undead. I have been watching movies like Resident Evil, Shaun of the Dead, Zompieland, and a few others to get some ideas. But every time I write it seems to fall flat.

Can you guys help me out here?

Setup: Group has been commissioned by local church leaders to eradicate the infestation of undead that have suddenly appeared in a cathedral that is located in a small vale up in the mountains and most of the inhabitance there have been wiped out.

How do I Make this game fun without constantly throwing zombies and skeletons at them??

Gamer Forge & Terron James Response:

A good thing to remember when writing an undead campaign is how you want to pace it. Do you want a survival to the last running at top speed to get to safety game, an atmospheric scary crawl where the characters are wondering what’s behind every corner, or do you want one where they can feel true power plowing through wave after wave of thoughtless beasties. Here’s some thing’s that came to mind during my mindless rants on the show:

1.       Make the story unique and avoid cliché’s. We’ve all played /seen the, “Necromancer spell gone wrong” campaign to death; as well as “opened a gate way to (blank).”  Make it fun like that commercial about weeklong blackout causing some milk to go bad and the guy drank it anyway causing him to become “patient zero” and starting the zombie outbreak. Or better yet don’t have a fully fleshed out reason why the dead are raising sometimes these things happen without reason.  Leave subtle bread crumbs hinting as to what could have caused it.

2.       Pacing will be the key to making this campaign work. You want to set an atmosphere where the players are going to scare themselves. Take your time don’t just drop them in a town with a horde of undead in the middle of town square. Start off with the town being empty make them thing that it is abandoned get them sucked into exploring all the houses trying to figure out where everyone is then when they least expect it BAM! Hit them with a crawling, legless zombie or ghoul catching their healer by surprise.

3.       The unknown is your friend. The less you give your players the more intrigued they will become. The element that is going to scare your players more is their own imagination’s filling in the blanks.

4.       Show the danger’s in dealing with the undead. Have a NPC come along with them who will die soon into the story and have s/he turn right in front of their eyes. Show them that if you go down or die here you’re going to become one of them.

Other sources to get more ideas:

The “Paranormal Activity” movies are a great example in pacing. (PA2 and 3 don’t watch 1 that one sucked.) Play Silent Hill 2, Amnesia: The Dark Prophecy, Half-life 2 “We don’t go to Ravenholm” chapter, the “Evil Dead” movies are a good way to do a poltergeist,  and a good on line vid that talks about horror in video games but is still relevant  is Extra Credits “Where did horror go” (http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/where-did-horror-go)

Gamer Forge Listener Email:

Name: Anis
Comments: Okay this is my first time submitting a question. I have heard you talk about other emails listeners have submitted so I figured why not try. I am putting together a new game and wanted to get your opinion.

What are your thoughts on putting in a God as the antagonist of your game?

Gamer Forge & Tracy Hickman Response:

Oh, God! When it comes to making the deity a little crazy and villainous, Tracy Hickman and DCR say:

1. Don't.
2. Focus on other elements, like fun. Good storytelling will replace a powerful villain, anytime. Before the heroes are ready to take on the big challenges, they need to grow internally. Make 'em lose a few times so they can lick their wounds. Give them a romantic foil. Throw in a sprinkle of political intrigue. Maybe a rival adventuring group. All of these can add the necessary excitement to your game. Also, its important in building context.
3. No need to up the ante. To constantly raise the ante of your battles is to miss the point of conflict. The best of the best bad guys, as stated previously, are the ones that are right. Create a villain that the heroes will want to defeat. If you throw up a mountain of battle, it will be seen as only a mountain to climb to the next challenge. The mountain itself presents all the obstacles of the story, while reaching the top is part of the objective of the story. Brass ring, baby. In the words of Scrooge McDuck, "Work smarter, not harder."

*To go the extra mile, Tracy recommends watching The Fifth Element, or Air Force One. Gary Oldman's performances in those movies are what a good bad guy is all about.

Gamer Forger Listener Email:

Name: Stan the Man
Comments: I recently listened to your show were you did the gamer forge on the shadow plane. I have a simiular game going on with my group but my group has had to undertake a trip to the Plane of Dreams.
Now I have a rough idea of how to run the game there. But I thought I would get your guys input first?


Gamer Forge Response:

When walking in the Plane of Dreams (and not on sunshine), DCR says:

1. Time passes, things change. Think Inception. All that talk about how time passes differently in a dream. Also true here. The longer they stay in the dream, the more things will change around them. Spires get taller, forests get...forest-ier? This will be key in setting up for the climax as the heroes leave the dream, but more on that later. Also, the dream is a two sided coin. It should represent both a good dream and a bad one. During the daytime, have spells achieve maximum effect, travel times nonexistent, and most importantly, all the drinks be CHEAP! At night, the darkness is impenetrable, the woods go on forever, and damage be cut in half. Worse yet, things that players expect, for instance a vorpal sword causing instant death, be mitigated somehow. Opponents can heal damage that would otherwise be grievous in the Prime Plane.
2. Its going to be about subtlety, especially to get the initial shock of being in a dream. When they first enter the Dream Plane, make like nothing happened. Your heroes wake up in the same tavern or base camp or house they slept in. Its just like any other day. Play as if nothing happened. Let them adventure like usual. But then you let them keep going. Give them lots to do in a day. Battle after battle after battle. Its when they start wondering just how long they've been at it is when you begin the downward spiral. Like we said before: time passes, things change.
3. Ultimately, the dream itself is the enemy. Just how does one escape something like a dream? The players can't know that being killed in a dream wakes you up, because they've never seen the movie! Indeed, that would be textbook meta-gaming. Instead, give them cues to understand the urgency of getting out of the dream world. Bodily needs like food and water become a factor, as the food and drink in the dream world doesn't sustain them; its just a dream, after all. If you want to be a real jerk of a dungeon master/referee/storyteller/game master, if and when they escape the Dream Plane, give them only a little experience for doing so. Everything they just did was in a dream and has no bearing on their physical advancement. But only if you want to be a big jerk and have your players hate you forever.

DCR Listener Email:
Name: The Rick-Mietser

Comments: Hey guys I am having trouble coming up with a story for my gaming group. And since I see you have the gang from Writing Snippets with you maybe they coudl help me out.

I am wanting to run a game with political intrigue, a kidnapped princess, a stolen magical broach, and tyrant king. But I am not really sure where to begin let alone how to tie it all together?

Help!

Your friend and listener,
The Rick-Miester!

DCR Gamer Forger Response:
To get that magic mix of intrigue, princess, tyrant king, and a fashion accessory, DCR and Writing Snippets say:

1. Consider the possibilities if the princess wasn't really kidnapped. Maybe she left of her own volition. Maybe she was supposed to be kidnapped but escaped at the last moment. Maybe the characters thwart the kidnapping without realizing the big picture. Intrigue!
2. Maybe the magic brooch isn't magic at all, but has a significance altogether powerful. Maybe it's a symbol of the rightful ruler and the princess is stealing it from the tyrant king.
Or...
3. The king just has the reputation of being a tyrant and the princess is actually selfish and wants to rule herself. Intrigue!
4. Show the scope of the machinations. Don't include the king and princess directly, but use their servants and handmaidens and guards. These are powerful people and likely will use pawns to make their political maneuvers for them. Especially those hapless players characters. Intrigue!
5. The brooch is EVIL. The king isn't evil, but the brooch has a will of it's own and making him do terrible things. This makes for a litany of, you guessed it...Intrigue!
6. This is important: Bank on your players wanting to get the brooch for themselves. You are drawing attention to it, thus it will become the object of their desires. Plan elements of your story around this.