New things take a while…

I was really pleased this week. I got to play in my own campaign! Of course, it was a complete new scenario, but a new GM (I mean, only recently re-started after a 20-year gap) wanted a go and I, frankly, really needed to chill. I’d fallen over in the snow/ice, and it looks I’ve put back my recovery a few weeks. Another player volunteering was just great.

Perhaps, though, we should have been a bit gentler, though.

OK: Player rule number one. Check with the DM & players the character needed. We were light on Leaders – Warlord sprang to mind. So I had great fun checking over the Warlord options and settled for a healing-biased dwarf warlord, not too keen on the dwarves oath’s of obedience, but nonetheless shocked at the horrors that the Wraith Hunters had found. Fundamentally a do-gooder; he’ll do his best. Kitted him out; he looked good. I was chuffed.

Then a player turned up who’d not been able to risk it over Christmas. You guessed it – he’d also got a Leader. A warlord, too. And a dwarf. OK, clash. The only spare was an emergency character I’d knocked up for netski’s introduction to 4e, based on a friend’s excellent barbarian build. And that would have led to too many Strikers. Oh well, we’re now doubled up on leaders…

It was good fun. RPGing al fresco. It was an old, pre-written scenario adapted to 4e – and there are some hints there. A loose link into the existing campaign and we were off. The mandatory (in character) arguments over who was top dog (dwarf) on the team; sullen sulking, quickly hidden; then we turned away from the prepped stuff and hunted round for clues in a local town, completely throwing the new GM. I’d forgotten to mention to him that our group – under any GM – always goes off the beaten track and throws up something wierd. He did well, and survived, apparently throwing us a few bones, but it reminded me of the confidence experience brings; an more experienced GM would have happily thrown in something else, a few more clues for us to reward us for being imaginative. It’s in the 4e DMG, too: reward player’s imaginations and good play.

We almost threw the negotiation with the client, too, and our poor GM was grabbing for straws. But the two warlords settled into a good-cop/bad-cop thing and it produced a bit of light-heartedness (I love laughter in a club at a gaming table).

OK, 4e’s been out for a while, now, and it should have been enouraging new DMs with it’s sound advice and smoother set-up. Passive Perception, for example, stops all those forced perception rolls at the start of encounters, it gets rid of soooo much detailed faffing around. The heavy reduction on random encounters; the advice and guidelines is now pretty much experienced-GM standard: if it doesn’t further the story, the plot or the character’s understanding, don’t have it, don’t put it in. The DCs for skill checks in challenges are carefully worked out based on level: and it works (make sure you have the addenda though!)

But remember Player Rule No. 2: The GM’s the GM. When I play, if he makes a mistake, or is unsure, I’ll mention a rule or tip he might have forgotten after the event (or durign ifi he asks), but I’m not going to argue with him. I don’t mind being corrected if I make a mistake (easy to do) as a player of DM. I’ll sometimes hint if an inexperienced DM’s forgotten something.

So I hinted with the Passive checks. “Do you want our passive checks?” No, was the answer. Ok, perhaps we won’t need them. But we did. Constantly being asked for Perception checks began to frustrate some players (ok, all of us). I don’t think we’d realised just how much we’d appreciated the 4e advice and Passive check rules. We do now, though – and it’s noticeable how much it speeds the game up, allows for surprise, and get’s rid of useless fluff. Many DMs (like me) used to ask for a series of pre-rolled Perception checks at the start of a game to keep things hidden to do the same thing, but 4e has it built-in.

Before you wonder, I’m not getting at the GM, here, as he didn’t realise it either. He’d come up on the old school and hadn’t noticed that such a simple thing helps so much. And it reminds me of just how good the DMG advice is.

Then the random encounters on the journey. They served no real purpose (it was an converted module and the encounters were in there). We did better than the GM thought, and when we announced we were going to take the (random) bandits alive, he panicked: we’ve all done it when the players have been too clever. The bad guys tried to commit suicide. With two leaders in the PC group, it just could be stopped, so we interrogated the prisoner.

The poor beleaguered GM was, yet again, stuck with not knowing what to do. He made up a back story and then watched with horror as we picked up on it and threatened to abandon the plot, go back into the town, and follow up the fabricated story he’d just come up with (I suppose we were teasing him a bit, too, knowing he was struggling with this). We ended up being nice to him (the GM) and sending the captive back to town, telling him we’d things out later for him.

It was actually an opportunity, tbh. A random encounter came up with something dynamic, something we could have followed. But for an evenings play we didn’t manage to get too far into the mainstream plot, which is sad. But that’s the way the old-school scenario had been written, without the benefit of the 4e DMG. Don’t blame the DM, here: he was restarting and new (and, anyway, if I do I might find my character pinnedup against a wall by a balrog). The old scenario just hadn’t had the benefit of plenty of experience in its design.

Yes, we should have been easier on the GM. But the group was acting as normal, off-the wall and crazy (can you tell I’m proud of these guys? It makes scenario/product testing very interesting!) The point is, it once again proved the advice in the 4e DMG. To me it proved one of the design goals for 4e, to make life easier for a GM. It does, and it speeds play up by more than you think.

The 4e DMG is good stuff; don’t ignore it. If you haven’t already done so, read it. You may not realise just how much it helps.

Advertisement