Pintas y Dados - El podcast

Una de las cosas más gratificantes de ser un Dungeon Master es ver como toda la preparación previa al juego resulta en una historia divertida y asombrosa a la hora de jugar. El proceso que cada DM sigue para prepararse y escribir la historia antes de contarla difiere de DM a DM. A algunos nos gusta improvisar, a otros nos gusta planear todos y cada uno de los puntos de la historia, otros lo planean pero dejan que la decisión dependa de una tirada de dados… En fin, todos tenemos nuestro “librito” que seguimos a la hora de correr nuestros juegos.

Por otro lado, una de las cosas más gratificantes de ser un jugador de DnD, es que tu Dungeon Master no te mate.

HAH!!

Pero no hay nada mejor que encontrarse con tus amigos luego de un juego y hablar sobre lo cool que fue el juego, o las diferentes formas en las que podemos correr otro juego la próxima vez que nos toque ser DM.

Con esto en mente, dos amigos y yo nos pusimos de acuerdo para crear “Pintas y Dados”.

Pintas y dados, el podcast, es básicamente una ventana en la que Fernando, Moisés y yo les hablaremos sobre varios aspectos de nuestro hobby favorito: Los juegos de Rol. Hablaremos de Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Fate, Numenera, Legend of the 5 rings, y muchos otros sistemas de juego, mientras comentamos sobre los monstruos, las reglas, las historias y las ideas que pasan por nuestras mentes a la hora de preparar una sesión de juego. Todo esto mientras nos tomamos una que otra pinta :) .

Además de esto, con la ayuda de nuestro grupo de amigos, grabamos varios juegos de rol que presentaremos como una historia en episodios. Así como cuando nuestros padres escuchaban radionovelas? bueno, así mismo solo que con nerdos, dados, sin guiones, y un humor mucho más cuestionable.

El día de mañana (29 de Junio) presentaremos nuestro primer episodio, gracias a nuestros amigos de Patacoins, ustedes, mis muy estimados lectores, podrán encontrar el podcast en el sitio de patacoinstv.com y así también en iTunes y cualquier aplicación de podcasts en Android (yo uso Podcast Republic, es gratis, soy pobre)

También si tienen alguna pregunta, o algún tema que les gustaría que comentemos en el podcast nos pueden escribir a pintasydados@gmail.com, o encontrarnos en twitter como @Pintas_y_Dados y en Instagram como pintasydados. En un futuro grabaremos un capítulo con sus preguntas y comentarios, asi que envíennos todas las ideas que quieran escuchar en el podcast!

Estamos muy entusiasmados con este proyecto y esperamos que les guste lo que tenemos preparado para ustedes.

Cheers!

Julio

The fine line between challenging and impossible - DM THOUGHTS

Ever had a game of DnD where your Dungeon Master seems to be out to kill you no matter what?

First round: Everyone’s surprised, the enemy spellcaster casts Hold person on both the fighter and the cleric. Don't question it, he just does. The rogue suddenly realizes he is in a place with absolutely NO place to hide or run to. The enemy hard hitter hits the mage for infinity hit points of damage and kills him. Now it’s the party’s turn, but the rogue now has a mage down, a Cleric and a Fighter on hold for 7 to 10 business days, and a mage, two Barbarians, and a pack of wolves on top of him.

Don't be this douchebag...

Another (less extreme) example

The players prepare for a Dungeon crawl. They enter the Dungeon and immediately spring a trap. One player fails his reflex check and dies. The other three continue and enter a room with a deadly encounter with a vampire. Just as the name of the encounter suggests it, another player dies. The remaining two decide to exit the dungeon for now, and return with a different approach and two other companions. Just as they start to leave, the doors close and water starts to flood the room. 2 rounds later they are drowning, and a few failed Constitution checks later, it's a TPK.

Ugh... why?

The first thing that comes to mind when a DM sets his players up for failure like this, is "Why would he do that?".

- Players were getting cocky, the DM needed to show them that death was very possible.

- Nobody likes an easy game.

- Encounters are meant to be challenging

- I don't want to make it easy on them, my games are always hard.

These are ALL valid reasons to make a game harder, more difficult, or more challenging. However there is a fine line between making it challenging and making it impossible. Encounters should be challenging to keep your game interesting and your players awake. However, once you start throwing deadly encounter after deadly encounter, eventually one of them will die, and will probably resent the fact that you seemed to be trying to kill them from the beginning.

As a DM, one should be mindful of this balance, after all the idea behind a roleplaying game is to defeat an objective using everyone's abilities in creative ways. You do this while playing what is essentially a part in a story. you, the DM, are ALSO playing a part in that story. However you get to play everyone else in the world. and here's where you need to make a distinction.

It's not a game of "the players vs the DM".

The moment you start seeing the players as your enemies, it will be easier for you to start enjoying it every time you put an impossible obstacle in front of them, because then you "win". And where's the fun in that?

Yeah, I know... it's pretty sweet...but hear me out

There's just one DM and at least 3 or 4 players. If in the end you're the only one having fun at the table, then you have failed to make it entertaining for the majority of those at your table. This eventually leads to players asking themselves why they are doing this in the first place... subjecting themselves to hours of frustration just so YOU can have a laugh everytime they fail, and once they realize they don't like it, they leave and stop going to your games.. So how do you avoid this?

Try this: the players are not your enemies, see them as your allies. Sure, you're the one who places the problems in front of them, and you probably have an idea of how they could overcome that problem. S use that in your advantage. Your attitude should be "Ok guys here's the situation, how are we going to move the story forward?". If they give you ideas that are creative and inventive, then reward them with a positive outcome and move the story forward. It's a lot more fun to do this than just throw in a random no-win scenario and have them all die.

This does not mean that there should not be any impossible tasks in your world. A level 1 party that stumbles upon a dragon's hoard should be very aware of the fact that they are in for an almost guaranteed death if the dragon finds them. This is common sense. But placing nothing but extremely hard or near-impossible tasks between the players and their ultimate goal will get boring for them really fast.

So in conclusion, keep your games balanced, give your players the opportunities to shine and solve the problems in front of them. Don't go easy on them. And don't go out of your way to make their lives miserable either. Balance. Balance is everything.

Thanks for reading!

Fudging Dice - DM Thoughts

Generally speaking, Roleplaying Games are games where you don’t necessarily win or lose. You just move the plot further through either success or failure. There are many plot devices and narrative tools that a DM can use to move the plot along, some of these can be shared with the players, others… not so much.

Today I’d like to talk to you about “fudging dice rolls”

Example:

Dominic: Ok guys the enemy mage fires a fireball, roll me a dexterity save.

Patrick: ok… 3

Vanessa: Ugh… 6

Jules: I got this… ok, no I don’t…8

Nataniél: 9… oh wait no… that’s a 6

Dominic: ok…

At this point Dominic has a choice to make. He can let the dice fall as they may, and call the full damage of the fireball on his friends. Or he can roll the dice and give his friends a chance to regroup and mount a strategy by calling part of the damage rolled by the dice. You might think “But why would he do this? Dom needs to put his big DM pants on and roll like he means it” And in a way you’re absolutely right.

However, like I’ve said before, D&D are games that revolve around telling a story, and sometimes you may need to help the story along. Or you just simply don’t want the story to stop. A couple of bad rolls on the player’s side, and a couple of good rolls on the DM’s side could end very quickly on a Total Party Kill (TPK), meaning your players would all need to get their act together, create new characters, make new backstories, and you would have to explain how these new characters are filling in for the dead ones. Depending on the type of game you’re playing this means you might have to change the story a bit, a lot, or not at all. You might want to fudge the roll only to keep the current game going. You might also want to see how far these characters can defy the odds

Now, how do you fudge dice?

Words to live by

You’re the DM and don’t need to give out explanations for every roll you make, let’s start with that. Also if you don’t want to use a DM screen then fudging is out of the question. Let’s see how Dominic handles the situation:

Dominic: Ok… the mage raises his hand, points a finger at you, and shoots a small bead of fire towards you. You are all unable to react in time and the fireball explodes close to where you all are, dealing… (Rolls 3d6 behind the screen, the outcome is 15, which would kill all 4 lvl1 characters) 7 fire damage!

Patrick: Well I’m almost dead, my character only has 1 hit point!

Vanessa: My fighter still has a potion and could probably cover you guys, but I’m going to need some healing… only 3 HP left

Jules: I’m down to 0 hit points. Shit… do I roll death saves now or at the end of the round?

Nataniél: Hey wait… I’m a Tiefling, I have fire resistance. He only does 3 damage to me! I can heal Vanessa with Cure wounds. Just make sure you hit that mage with all you’ve got before he fires again!

Dominic: Well you guys seem to have things under control *smiles evilly* Roll me a death save Jules…

So Dominic does not kill the party outright, but he does put them in a challenging situation that might end up either in a TPK or in an amazing victory, that depends on what the players decide to do next. As you can see, fudging dice is simply handling the dice results in such a way that keeps engaging the players to come up with different strategies and ways to beat the obstacles that you present to them.

The alternative? Well you could just kill them and narrate the dramatic events that follow the heroes’ failure to beat the evil mage. In the end, the decision to fudge or not to fudge the dice roll depends on the type of game your players want to play. Maybe they specified that they preferred a more hardcore experience, where all traps are deadly and every single room has at least one vampire in it. If this is the case, then by all means, roll every single dice in front of them and watch them fall like flies.

Thanks for reading

Cat Herding - DM thoughts

We’ve all been there.

Scenario #1

It’s the day before the gaming session, your friends have all been looking forward to this particular session, since every plot line seems to be heading to their respective ends. Your characters have all gone through some type of development, and on top of that you are very close to leveling up. This is it guys, this game is going to change everything. After this session, our lives will be completely different, for the sole fact that so much awesome stuff is going to happen in it, that your very way of playing RPGs is going to be completely redefined.

Oh.. what’s that? Billy can’t make it because he has a family party to attend to… Oh well, no problem, it’s a shame Billy won’t be there to witness the awesome, but oh well… you really can’t expect him to leave his family hanging right?

Oh wait… If Billy can’t come, that means his girlfriend Vanessa, can’t come either. And she’s the fighter, so… oh wel we still have a reasonably strong party without the mage and the fighter right?

Wrong, because now Franck is feeling kinda sick, and he’s the healer (oh irony, thou art a soulless bitch). Virginia actually feels more like going to the beach on Saturday, and Patrick hasn’t picked up the phone in FIVE (5) DAYS!  GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER PATRICK!

By now the party feels like they should wait until everyone is able to play. So you postpone the game until everyone is able to make it to the game. Then Patrick shows up at your front door, because he didn’t know the game had been postponed.

That’s because you didn’t pick up the phone Patrick. You didn’t pick up the phone…

Get it? COZ HE LIVES UNDER A ROCK!

Scenario #2

You’ve been preparing this game for MONTHS now. About a year ago you bought the core books for a new tabletop RPG that seemed interesting at the time, but you never had the chance to actually play it. So at one point you get your friends together and mention that you have a game that you’d like to play. You get them hyped explaining the way the system works, and how the character creation process is the coolest thing since Eskimo pies. You even go as far as creating a character for each one of your friends, just so you don’t have to waste a whole night in character creation. You set a date. The weeks go by… you’re ready for this…

5 days before the game

“Hey dude, sorry but I TOTALLY forgot I had this thing I have to go to. I know the game is like a week away, but you guys can play without me right?”

4 days before the game

“Hey, I’m not sure I can make it to the game on time, there’s this thing I have with this [girl/boy] and I might be a little late, is that ok?”

3 days before the game

“Yo, can we play on [xday] instead of [the day we agreed on 2 months ago]? There’s this thing I want to go to on that day…”

2 days before the game

“Hey guys, good news. I can make it to the game, but only for like… 2 hours, I need to leave after that because of things and reasons”

1 Day before the game

“Hey has anyone seen Patrick?”

There is a Patrick in every group... right Patrick?

So you postpone, pick a better date and hope against hope that everyone will show up this time.

This, my friends, is called “Trying to get a group of geeks together to play a game of ANYTHING”. Also known as “CAT HERDING”. Now, this is not a post about how to make your friends go to ALL of your games, and get rid of scheduling problems for the rest of your life.

No, my sweet summer children…

This is a post where I tell you how to deal with this situation and learn to cope with it. In all my years as a Dungeon Master and gamer, there has always been one thing that does not vary. And that is: We geeks have a hard time getting together to play a game. There’s always a thing that gets in the way, and let’s be honest, the older you get the less free time you have to play a game. So having a job, being married, having kids, and maybe another hobby in your life will inevitably take up some, if not all of your free time.

This is a thing that happens; this is life, and there’s nothing we can do to change that. What we CAN do is develop some flexibility, tolerance and understanding.

If you players can’t get to the game, you can try to re-schedule to a date that fits everyone in the party. After all it’s no fun to get to a second session of a campaign and then suddenly you realize that some really important stuff happened while you were gone and you weren’t there to witness it. Always try to get everyone to play in your sessions. Work around your schedule and have everyone agree to a date in your calendar in which you can all play.

What if it keeps happening?

If up to 3 of your party members keep having to re-schedule or simply don’t show up. It may be time to have a serious talk with them and let them know that their absence is felt at the table. You will probably have to remove them from your group in the kindest way possible, and open up their spots to other people who might be able to play on those days. It sucks because you probably wanted to play with them, but if they can’t, then there’s no way around it.

What if I have too many games?

Maybe you have more than one game that you’re running at the moment. Sit down and analyze how much time you actually have in a week. Take away the time you need to spend on your job, then your family life, then the time you need to spend on house chores, and finally add to that the preparation time for your games. If you can barely make time to run 3 or 4 games in that week, then it’s more than likely that your players also don’t have the time to play them all. Give it some thought, and learn when to drop a campaign. No DM likes it, but hey, sometimes it’s the smartest thing to do.

What about Patrick?

Kick Patrick out of the group. He’s a great friend, we all love him, but if you’re going to be MIA for weeks and then when you do show up you mess up the gaming schedule, just let him know that once you all finish the adventure, he may re-join when you play another game as long as he commits to showing up on time and be involved in the game. But right now he’s just messing with your schedule.

In conclusion, Cat herding is always going to be present in our lives, simply because we cannot spend all of our time gaming around a table. We’re human beings and as such we all have our basic needs and sadly, tabletop gaming cannot possibly fulfill each and every one of them. As gamers (and especially if you’re a Dungeon Master) we need to be able to understand that sometimes, game night is just not going to happen. But there’s always another day, another weekend, another chance to get together and play. And if your game is interesting and compelling, your players will go out of their way to make time to go to your games.

Thanks for reading!