Your town guard character is a good example for beginner DMs that some of the best NPCs appear organically during the game, and not everything needs to be plotted out in great detail ahead of time. Letting the players have a hand in deciding which NPCs are important fosters a collaborative environment and invests them in the world they help create. And not only does it make the DM's life easier, but also gives them the fun of seeing unexpected developments that they wouldn't have thought of themself.
Thank you so much! That was the main reason I mentioned it... These videos are less about telling folks about my daughter's campaign and more to hopefully provide some insight and tips into how to run a game, but I try to make it more entertaining than, "THE TEN THINGS YOU NEED TO DO TO BE A STELLAR DM!" as there are tons of channels out there with the same kind of content. Instead I try to "tell a story" and that seems to resonate with a certain type of person. And YES!!!! As a DM, I *also* want to be surprised! I never intended to make a skomorokh (the bear-trainer character named Vasilov) for this game, but he's become one of my, and the players', favorite NPCs! Thank you *so much* for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
You crack me up, Bill (or do you prefer Saba?). Thank you for watching and commenting! Having a luminary such as yourself watch one of my videos is awe-inspiring. Cheers!
Me and my group are older gamers and I recently learned that none of them have been through the Keep on the Borderlands. Listening to this and you other videos while I prepare the campaign for them has inspired many ideas. Thank you very much for this.
This is EXACTLY the kind of comment I love to hear. I'm so happy that my videos are helping provide inspiration for your new campaign and I'm also excited to hear that you'll be running a group of players through Keep on the Borderlands. Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it! If you get a chance, I'd love to have you check back in and let me know how your campaign is going.
Yep, it's a small world. You never know who you might meet. Always loved NPC's with a bit of flavor to them. Even NPC villains need a little spice to make them memorable. For our group one of the best ones was the Death Knight who made us run away in terror! We had several encounters with his minions over the years.
That's such a great way to do it! Have minions pop up over several levels/years of the campaign before meeting the main bad guy in person! I'm so glad you watched and enjoyed the video, and I really appreciate you taking the time to comment. It means a lot to small channels like mine! Cheers!
I really like how you're working with the NPCs! I'm trying to keep in mind the idea of having different NPCs approach a each PC. Ofc you never know how the relationships evolve of at all but that's a really cool idea! I'm also realizing that I don't usually have NPC's actively approaching PCs in the way I understand that you do. I've got to work on that as well. I wouldn't mind hearing more about your thoughts on foreshadowing in the future. Cheers!
Thank you! I will keep the foreshadowing thing in mind, as even while I was editing this video I was thinking that I didn't perhaps do a good enough job of explaining it. I really try to listen to my players and internalize their feedback as far as what they are responding to, and then build on it, but also when I am doing my post-game notes, think about whether I as the DM did enough to ensure I was giving every player enough individual time. Having dedicated NPCs for each player was a way for me to do that as then a lot of times it takes the work out of my hands, as the player will initiate it by saying, "Can I go talk to XYZ?" and that gives them a moment of individual time. And, as always, I really appreciate you watching and commenting. I know I say it a lot, but it means so much that you take the time to do so. Cheers to you!
@@daddyrolleda1 Thank you for your response! I really appreciate that as well. To me this community (for lack of a better word) on youtube is really important part of the hobby. Meeting super nice people like you on this shared journey that is rpg's. I get to ride along as you do the heavy lifting 😅 This connection means a lot to me! It's clear that you go the extra mile to make sure everyone feels included in your group and it's really inspiring how you do it. It's especially important when playing with young people but there's a lot we can learn DMing for anyone. I forget 90% of my intentions in the midst of DMing so that NPC idea is an excellent way to also move some of that responsibility back to the player. You did a good job with the foreshadowing but I feel that you might have more to say on that as well. But I'm sure you have a lot of other topics so keep going with what you most feel like. Thanks again and see you around!
I just wanted to say that comments like yours and a huge part of what keeps me coming back to make videos. The fact that you take time out of your day to let me know you're enjoying my comment makes it all worth it. Thank you so much for your support. Cheers! (Kippis! ??? I hope that's right - I used Google Translate)
@@daddyrolleda1 Sure thing! Yeah we say "kippis" when we hit our tankards of lager together 🍻 Well, any alcoholic beverage actually. There's a legend of that being derived from the words "keep the peace" hardworking yet rowdy Finnish sailors had to vow to to enter English alehouses. 😁
While I generally agree with the list of NPC types, I have one additional one that I liked using: NPC as background set/mood dressing. I'd essentially have a list of twelve or so vaguely described background extras that show up in passing going about their mundane lives for each meaningful town or village. If I ever need to introduce a new significant NPC, they can then also step up to those roles and a new extra added to replace them.
Another really great tip! Thank you so much for sharing! I love how the community here shares their knowledge, experience, and advice. It's making me think that in the future, I could just comb through the comments on each video and do a "sequel" of sorts with all the other ideas. Thank you so much for your support of the channel, and for watching and commenting! I truly appreciate it!
I usually think of NPCs as friends, foes, or complications. Which I guess is pretty close to PDM. Like in a game I'm running I have an npc who is the rival to one of the pcs, but she's still helpful (perhaps too helpful...), and is actively working with the party in their investigation into a daemonic cult. I usually like to "cast" my NPCs, think about who they would be played by, or be very similar to.
That is such a great tip! (Casting the NPCs). Such a great way to help with roleplaying. Not sure if you ever watched Big Bang Theory, but that idea was taken to the extreme in one episode where Howard was running a game and he affected really fun accents/speech patterns modeled after famous actors (Nicholas Cage, Al Pacino, etc.) as the DM. It was done for laughs, but when I saw it, I immediately thought, "That's a great idea!"
EVEN MORE IDEAS!... Most preperation is about having answers to questions that you will have no idea about, using things that have cropped up before and now are re-presented to players keeps them on there toes. I am afraid when I run games I do not use funny voices for the NPCs, taking the approach of the stories narrator (and rules interpreture), but you still need to have good idea what motivates them (npcs) and how the players actions will influence them. I have used many idea from D&D in my traveller games, so maybe next time play a traveller scenario as a D&D game... Argon Gambit becomes Avalon Paradox... (you ouline how to do it with your description of the Keep's power brokers)
Great ideas! I didn't always do voices for my NPCs. A lot of times, I'll say, "His voice sounds like..." and describe what it would sound like, then just talk in my normal voice, but at least they have an idea in their heads. Other times I just use the voice-quirks I talk about (so, not accents, but a whisper or shouting, etc.). Thanks as always for watching and commenting!
I know World of Darkness was good at developing NPCs of a city. It was often a relation map between individuals, factions and cliques of people and what they think of eachother. Like who is in the party crowd around a certain vampire, which clans they're in, who is on the side of the anti-prince, who is feuding with a street gang etc. Part of the game was understanding how all these people were connected, and who you could lean on safely. The vampires of a city are stuck with eachother for centuries on end with nothing to do than gossip and develop weird feuds. If you understand that half the room wants to stake the prince, and what is keeping them from doing so.
I really like this idea! I have a very early edition of Vampire (it might be a first edition - I'll need to check) but while I read most of it, I never got a chance to play it so I missed all this. I'll need to dig it out and have another look! Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 I didn't play it either, I just know friends who did. People who started out at the time mention how Vampire was a social game (with superpowers). The vampire community of a city can be small, incestuous and insular. I think White Wolf had a rule of thumb for the vampire population. One leech per 100.000 humans worldwide, with concentrations of one per 50.000 in urban centers. Even a huge city will have vampire factions the size of street gangs in pure number of individuals. With that many people, I guess it's a lot easier to draw up their relations. Not like how larger factions must be handled in other games, where you think up 1-5 key actors and the rest of sir Bob's army of 1300 dudes are spear-carriers for them. 120 vampires is enough that they could know eachothers faces, talk in between cliques, gossip about who did what.
@@daddyrolleda1if it has a comic throughout of a woman being embraced in ancient times and following her to modern nights, that's 1e. (Also I think it's the only core that's softcover - 2, revised and 20th are hardcover. I acknowledge no subsequent edition, in the same way I own no d&d book without a TSR logo on it 😉)
I hope you do! I quite enjoy it, and you can find it on streaming services such as Spotify if you don't have access to the vinyl. It's fun to listen to it and then compare/contrast to "Smokin' at the Half Note." Happy listening, and thank you so much for watching and commenting!
I found it helped a ton especially at the beginning when I realized they had no idea what a goblin looked like, and they were picturing in their heads the goblins from Harry Potter, whereas I was intended them to be the ones from Pathfinder or Warhammer!
Oh my goodness that sounds amazing! I hope you do it and I'd love to hear about it if you do. And, speaking of that, I am planning a (hopefully fun) holiday-themed adventure/video in the next few weeks. It sounds like it might be up your alley.
8:30 I used that pic in one of my videos too. Such a great pic. Miss talking with you on my channel. I was looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts. Great stuff though. Love Professor Dungeon Master's channel too.
I remember! We even chatted about that picture in the comments, as when I was watching your videos, I saw it and mentioned how I had used it, too (you get the prize for using it first). I apologize for my absence. Lots of stuff going on at home, work, and with my dad's health, so even trying to just get out one video a week and/or respond to comments is taking up the majority of my mental and emotional bandwidth. I will do my best to come back to watching and commenting soon. Thanks for your continued support and I will try to set time aside to start watching again.
Apologies for the delay, and thank you so much for watching and commenting! That FB post (also on IG and Twitter) was really just a funny joke. Taylor Swift recently put out an album, which came out on Friday 10/27, that was her original "1989" album, but re-recorded as "Taylor's Version" as a way to retain the rights to her recordings (it's a long story but she's essentially doing this with all her albums that her previous recording publisher says she doesn't own the rights to). I'm not a Taylor Swift fan by any means (I very much appreciate her talent, but I'm not a pop music fan), so I wouldn't have even known about it had my daughter not mentioned it and asked me to pick up a copy of the record at my friend's record shop. In any event, 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was released in 1989, so I thought it was a funny parody/homage, but I realized after-the-fact it was probably too obscure of a reference!
I remember the first time foreshadowing paid off in a game I was GMing... It was a family game, long since defunct as it turns out me and my brother's cannot participate in the same activity for a sustained period of time... But that's neither here nor there. But it was not a good game... At this point I only had owned RPG books for a few years and I had only run two real games and a bunch of not actually knowing the rules and just messing around. There was a far too much walking on roads and not enough of anything else... Except there was one thing: I had this grand story planned which only barely got introduced where there were these nomadic tribes of orcs that really weren't much trouble but as the party traveled north from Orlomon's Port or some such name, they found the walled village of Thnattleburg (a name my family took a particular dislike towards... But I rather enjoyed) smoldering and overrun by orcs. On top of this, there was a swath of trampled land surrounding wagon tracks approaching from the East and heading Northwest. Well, rewinding a bit... Before this, they earlier passed a procession of robed individuals who their wagon driver Rudy (who my family actually liked to a surprising degree... I think they were just amused that I gave him a western accent and he came from a port town at first, but they really seemed broken up when they parted ways with their medieval cowboy friend), anyways Rudy identified them as cultists of Masmu, a once heretical god that was gaining traction across the land... And then back to Thnattleburg, they clear the town with the help of rallied commoners, get rewarded and move on... But then they later go to a catacombs with rumors of grave robbers (which for some reason I made really empty... It was mostly rats and an undead, not sure what possessed me to do that) and when they investigated an open grave (because they were running out of places to store the bodies due to orc raids) they found the Unholy symbol of Masmu which I let one character identify because he had this whole thing about being born in hell (a Tiefling) and he rolled well... Heretical god and all, plus they saw the procession earlier. That's when it happened. The pieces started clicking together in their minds... Although, maybe I shouldn't have immediately reminded them by saying what amounts to "Remember, Remember! I said that earlier!?" but I was just ecstatic that anyone remembered anything from my game... Because despite this only being 3 or so sessions apart multiple months had passed. But, well, that whole thing never got resolved... So, it's a bittersweet memory at best, if my interjections to bemoan the sad conclusion did not already give it away.
Oh, and I completely forgot... The whole behind-the-screen reasoning for the connection was that orcs, for whatever reason in my world, never mastered magic but especially not necromancy... And this cult sort of introduced the idea to them in exchange for worshipping their god. Then I also had a whole deal where for humanoid sacrifice the clans would be gifted a half-fiend child through immaculate conception... And there was also a wizard who was the son of a now-lich wizard who did contracts in the adventurer's guild just as the players did... Which kind of got haphazardly thrown in there but he was meant to reveal he actually had allegiances with the orcs and the cult of Masmu. I just sort of came up with him on the fly as I was trying to think of colorful faces for the guild and fleshed him out later. And since I connected him to a lich I already planned to secretly "live" in the capital city, I tied him in with the necromantic cult as well.
What a great story! Thank you so much for sharing! I love hearing about other peoples' campaigns and their ideas. I'm sorry it didn't work out for you to finish the game, but sounds like you had a lot of fun ideas, and I also have to do the "Remember?" thing quite a bit, especially in my long-running campaign because we also go months in-between sessions. Thanks again for sharing, and thank you for watching and commenting! I really appreciate your support of the channel. Cheers!
Yes! You can go to the One Page Dungeon Contest website here: www.dungeoncontest.com/ Once there, head over to the tab at the far right that says "Previous Years" and you'll see each year from 2023 down to 2009. Some years have links to the actual entries (particularly the first few years). The recent years (e.g., 2023) have links to a PWYW file at DriveThruRPG where you can view all the entries. Hope that helps, and I hope to see you enter! Let me know if you have any questions (easiest is to email me at samothdm AT gmail DOT com). Cheers!
Your town guard character is a good example for beginner DMs that some of the best NPCs appear organically during the game, and not everything needs to be plotted out in great detail ahead of time. Letting the players have a hand in deciding which NPCs are important fosters a collaborative environment and invests them in the world they help create. And not only does it make the DM's life easier, but also gives them the fun of seeing unexpected developments that they wouldn't have thought of themself.
Thank you so much! That was the main reason I mentioned it... These videos are less about telling folks about my daughter's campaign and more to hopefully provide some insight and tips into how to run a game, but I try to make it more entertaining than, "THE TEN THINGS YOU NEED TO DO TO BE A STELLAR DM!" as there are tons of channels out there with the same kind of content. Instead I try to "tell a story" and that seems to resonate with a certain type of person.
And YES!!!! As a DM, I *also* want to be surprised! I never intended to make a skomorokh (the bear-trainer character named Vasilov) for this game, but he's become one of my, and the players', favorite NPCs!
Thank you *so much* for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
A subject near and dear to my cold, shriveled heart.
You crack me up, Bill (or do you prefer Saba?). Thank you for watching and commenting! Having a luminary such as yourself watch one of my videos is awe-inspiring. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 Bill or Saba...both good. You give great advice and provide some well-thought-out ideas. What's not to love?
Me and my group are older gamers and I recently learned that none of them have been through the Keep on the Borderlands. Listening to this and you other videos while I prepare the campaign for them has inspired many ideas. Thank you very much for this.
This is EXACTLY the kind of comment I love to hear. I'm so happy that my videos are helping provide inspiration for your new campaign and I'm also excited to hear that you'll be running a group of players through Keep on the Borderlands.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it! If you get a chance, I'd love to have you check back in and let me know how your campaign is going.
Yep, it's a small world. You never know who you might meet.
Always loved NPC's with a bit of flavor to them.
Even NPC villains need a little spice to make them memorable. For our group one of the best ones was the Death Knight who made us run away in terror! We had several encounters with his minions over the years.
That's such a great way to do it! Have minions pop up over several levels/years of the campaign before meeting the main bad guy in person!
I'm so glad you watched and enjoyed the video, and I really appreciate you taking the time to comment. It means a lot to small channels like mine! Cheers!
I really like how you're working with the NPCs! I'm trying to keep in mind the idea of having different NPCs approach a each PC. Ofc you never know how the relationships evolve of at all but that's a really cool idea! I'm also realizing that I don't usually have NPC's actively approaching PCs in the way I understand that you do. I've got to work on that as well.
I wouldn't mind hearing more about your thoughts on foreshadowing in the future. Cheers!
Thank you! I will keep the foreshadowing thing in mind, as even while I was editing this video I was thinking that I didn't perhaps do a good enough job of explaining it.
I really try to listen to my players and internalize their feedback as far as what they are responding to, and then build on it, but also when I am doing my post-game notes, think about whether I as the DM did enough to ensure I was giving every player enough individual time. Having dedicated NPCs for each player was a way for me to do that as then a lot of times it takes the work out of my hands, as the player will initiate it by saying, "Can I go talk to XYZ?" and that gives them a moment of individual time.
And, as always, I really appreciate you watching and commenting. I know I say it a lot, but it means so much that you take the time to do so. Cheers to you!
@@daddyrolleda1 Thank you for your response! I really appreciate that as well. To me this community (for lack of a better word) on youtube is really important part of the hobby. Meeting super nice people like you on this shared journey that is rpg's. I get to ride along as you do the heavy lifting 😅 This connection means a lot to me!
It's clear that you go the extra mile to make sure everyone feels included in your group and it's really inspiring how you do it. It's especially important when playing with young people but there's a lot we can learn DMing for anyone. I forget 90% of my intentions in the midst of DMing so that NPC idea is an excellent way to also move some of that responsibility back to the player. You did a good job with the foreshadowing but I feel that you might have more to say on that as well. But I'm sure you have a lot of other topics so keep going with what you most feel like.
Thanks again and see you around!
I just wanted to say that comments like yours and a huge part of what keeps me coming back to make videos. The fact that you take time out of your day to let me know you're enjoying my comment makes it all worth it. Thank you so much for your support. Cheers! (Kippis! ??? I hope that's right - I used Google Translate)
@@daddyrolleda1 Sure thing! Yeah we say "kippis" when we hit our tankards of lager together 🍻 Well, any alcoholic beverage actually. There's a legend of that being derived from the words "keep the peace" hardworking yet rowdy Finnish sailors had to vow to to enter English alehouses. 😁
While I generally agree with the list of NPC types, I have one additional one that I liked using: NPC as background set/mood dressing. I'd essentially have a list of twelve or so vaguely described background extras that show up in passing going about their mundane lives for each meaningful town or village. If I ever need to introduce a new significant NPC, they can then also step up to those roles and a new extra added to replace them.
Another really great tip! Thank you so much for sharing! I love how the community here shares their knowledge, experience, and advice. It's making me think that in the future, I could just comb through the comments on each video and do a "sequel" of sorts with all the other ideas.
Thank you so much for your support of the channel, and for watching and commenting! I truly appreciate it!
Great stuff, as always!
Thank you so much! I'm really happy you enjoyed it!
I usually think of NPCs as friends, foes, or complications. Which I guess is pretty close to PDM. Like in a game I'm running I have an npc who is the rival to one of the pcs, but she's still helpful (perhaps too helpful...), and is actively working with the party in their investigation into a daemonic cult. I usually like to "cast" my NPCs, think about who they would be played by, or be very similar to.
That is such a great tip! (Casting the NPCs). Such a great way to help with roleplaying. Not sure if you ever watched Big Bang Theory, but that idea was taken to the extreme in one episode where Howard was running a game and he affected really fun accents/speech patterns modeled after famous actors (Nicholas Cage, Al Pacino, etc.) as the DM. It was done for laughs, but when I saw it, I immediately thought, "That's a great idea!"
EVEN MORE IDEAS!... Most preperation is about having answers to questions that you will have no idea about, using things that have cropped up before and now are re-presented to players keeps them on there toes. I am afraid when I run games I do not use funny voices for the NPCs, taking the approach of the stories narrator (and rules interpreture), but you still need to have good idea what motivates them (npcs) and how the players actions will influence them.
I have used many idea from D&D in my traveller games, so maybe next time play a traveller scenario as a D&D game... Argon Gambit becomes Avalon Paradox... (you ouline how to do it with your description of the Keep's power brokers)
Great ideas! I didn't always do voices for my NPCs. A lot of times, I'll say, "His voice sounds like..." and describe what it would sound like, then just talk in my normal voice, but at least they have an idea in their heads. Other times I just use the voice-quirks I talk about (so, not accents, but a whisper or shouting, etc.).
Thanks as always for watching and commenting!
Amazing. Gave me a lot of inspiration. I can really feel the love. God bless!
Thank you so much for your support! I'm so thrilled to know this helped give you ideas. Cheers!
It's here! Gonna have save this for later.
I hope it was worth the wait!
@@daddyrolleda1Sure was 😀
I know World of Darkness was good at developing NPCs of a city. It was often a relation map between individuals, factions and cliques of people and what they think of eachother. Like who is in the party crowd around a certain vampire, which clans they're in, who is on the side of the anti-prince, who is feuding with a street gang etc. Part of the game was understanding how all these people were connected, and who you could lean on safely. The vampires of a city are stuck with eachother for centuries on end with nothing to do than gossip and develop weird feuds. If you understand that half the room wants to stake the prince, and what is keeping them from doing so.
I really like this idea! I have a very early edition of Vampire (it might be a first edition - I'll need to check) but while I read most of it, I never got a chance to play it so I missed all this. I'll need to dig it out and have another look!
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 I didn't play it either, I just know friends who did. People who started out at the time mention how Vampire was a social game (with superpowers).
The vampire community of a city can be small, incestuous and insular. I think White Wolf had a rule of thumb for the vampire population. One leech per 100.000 humans worldwide, with concentrations of one per 50.000 in urban centers. Even a huge city will have vampire factions the size of street gangs in pure number of individuals.
With that many people, I guess it's a lot easier to draw up their relations. Not like how larger factions must be handled in other games, where you think up 1-5 key actors and the rest of sir Bob's army of 1300 dudes are spear-carriers for them. 120 vampires is enough that they could know eachothers faces, talk in between cliques, gossip about who did what.
@@daddyrolleda1if it has a comic throughout of a woman being embraced in ancient times and following her to modern nights, that's 1e. (Also I think it's the only core that's softcover - 2, revised and 20th are hardcover. I acknowledge no subsequent edition, in the same way I own no d&d book without a TSR logo on it 😉)
Haven't run a campaign for years, but some great ideas there
I haven't listened to Smokin in Seattle. I'll give it a listen!
I hope you do! I quite enjoy it, and you can find it on streaming services such as Spotify if you don't have access to the vinyl. It's fun to listen to it and then compare/contrast to "Smokin' at the Half Note." Happy listening, and thank you so much for watching and commenting!
i'll have to get some npc artwork I never thought of that
I found it helped a ton especially at the beginning when I realized they had no idea what a goblin looked like, and they were picturing in their heads the goblins from Harry Potter, whereas I was intended them to be the ones from Pathfinder or Warhammer!
speaking og goblins, I had an idea of dire turkey riding goblins for a thanksgivings themed one shot@@daddyrolleda1
Oh my goodness that sounds amazing! I hope you do it and I'd love to hear about it if you do.
And, speaking of that, I am planning a (hopefully fun) holiday-themed adventure/video in the next few weeks. It sounds like it might be up your alley.
can't wait to see it
@@daddyrolleda1
8:30 I used that pic in one of my videos too. Such a great pic. Miss talking with you on my channel. I was looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts. Great stuff though. Love Professor Dungeon Master's channel too.
I remember! We even chatted about that picture in the comments, as when I was watching your videos, I saw it and mentioned how I had used it, too (you get the prize for using it first).
I apologize for my absence. Lots of stuff going on at home, work, and with my dad's health, so even trying to just get out one video a week and/or respond to comments is taking up the majority of my mental and emotional bandwidth. I will do my best to come back to watching and commenting soon.
Thanks for your continued support and I will try to set time aside to start watching again.
Another great one, sir! Question: On your FB, you have a post showing the return of AD&D 2nd edition. Is someone relaunching it or something? Thnx
Apologies for the delay, and thank you so much for watching and commenting!
That FB post (also on IG and Twitter) was really just a funny joke. Taylor Swift recently put out an album, which came out on Friday 10/27, that was her original "1989" album, but re-recorded as "Taylor's Version" as a way to retain the rights to her recordings (it's a long story but she's essentially doing this with all her albums that her previous recording publisher says she doesn't own the rights to). I'm not a Taylor Swift fan by any means (I very much appreciate her talent, but I'm not a pop music fan), so I wouldn't have even known about it had my daughter not mentioned it and asked me to pick up a copy of the record at my friend's record shop.
In any event, 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was released in 1989, so I thought it was a funny parody/homage, but I realized after-the-fact it was probably too obscure of a reference!
@daddyrolleda1 Awwww man. Got it. 😊🤓👊
👍🏿
Thank you! I appreciate you taking a second to do this, as you know it helps the algorithm. It means a lot to me. Cheers!
I remember the first time foreshadowing paid off in a game I was GMing...
It was a family game, long since defunct as it turns out me and my brother's cannot participate in the same activity for a sustained period of time... But that's neither here nor there.
But it was not a good game... At this point I only had owned RPG books for a few years and I had only run two real games and a bunch of not actually knowing the rules and just messing around. There was a far too much walking on roads and not enough of anything else...
Except there was one thing: I had this grand story planned which only barely got introduced where there were these nomadic tribes of orcs that really weren't much trouble but as the party traveled north from Orlomon's Port or some such name, they found the walled village of Thnattleburg (a name my family took a particular dislike towards... But I rather enjoyed) smoldering and overrun by orcs. On top of this, there was a swath of trampled land surrounding wagon tracks approaching from the East and heading Northwest.
Well, rewinding a bit... Before this, they earlier passed a procession of robed individuals who their wagon driver Rudy (who my family actually liked to a surprising degree... I think they were just amused that I gave him a western accent and he came from a port town at first, but they really seemed broken up when they parted ways with their medieval cowboy friend), anyways Rudy identified them as cultists of Masmu, a once heretical god that was gaining traction across the land...
And then back to Thnattleburg, they clear the town with the help of rallied commoners, get rewarded and move on... But then they later go to a catacombs with rumors of grave robbers (which for some reason I made really empty... It was mostly rats and an undead, not sure what possessed me to do that) and when they investigated an open grave (because they were running out of places to store the bodies due to orc raids) they found the Unholy symbol of Masmu which I let one character identify because he had this whole thing about being born in hell (a Tiefling) and he rolled well... Heretical god and all, plus they saw the procession earlier.
That's when it happened. The pieces started clicking together in their minds... Although, maybe I shouldn't have immediately reminded them by saying what amounts to "Remember, Remember! I said that earlier!?" but I was just ecstatic that anyone remembered anything from my game... Because despite this only being 3 or so sessions apart multiple months had passed.
But, well, that whole thing never got resolved... So, it's a bittersweet memory at best, if my interjections to bemoan the sad conclusion did not already give it away.
Oh, and I completely forgot... The whole behind-the-screen reasoning for the connection was that orcs, for whatever reason in my world, never mastered magic but especially not necromancy... And this cult sort of introduced the idea to them in exchange for worshipping their god.
Then I also had a whole deal where for humanoid sacrifice the clans would be gifted a half-fiend child through immaculate conception...
And there was also a wizard who was the son of a now-lich wizard who did contracts in the adventurer's guild just as the players did... Which kind of got haphazardly thrown in there but he was meant to reveal he actually had allegiances with the orcs and the cult of Masmu. I just sort of came up with him on the fly as I was trying to think of colorful faces for the guild and fleshed him out later. And since I connected him to a lich I already planned to secretly "live" in the capital city, I tied him in with the necromantic cult as well.
What a great story! Thank you so much for sharing! I love hearing about other peoples' campaigns and their ideas. I'm sorry it didn't work out for you to finish the game, but sounds like you had a lot of fun ideas, and I also have to do the "Remember?" thing quite a bit, especially in my long-running campaign because we also go months in-between sessions.
Thanks again for sharing, and thank you for watching and commenting! I really appreciate your support of the channel. Cheers!
Is there any where we can veiw current and past one page dungeons?
Yes!
You can go to the One Page Dungeon Contest website here: www.dungeoncontest.com/
Once there, head over to the tab at the far right that says "Previous Years" and you'll see each year from 2023 down to 2009. Some years have links to the actual entries (particularly the first few years). The recent years (e.g., 2023) have links to a PWYW file at DriveThruRPG where you can view all the entries.
Hope that helps, and I hope to see you enter! Let me know if you have any questions (easiest is to email me at samothdm AT gmail DOT com). Cheers!