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Angela: I saw twelve goblins and at least six ogres.

Courtney: I don’t want to fight them in a big open room. If they surround us, we’re toast.

Shayne: Yeah, it would be a lot better to funnel them into a tighter space.

Courtney: Okay, what if we go back to the heliotrope hall and then ring your cowbell? They should hear that and come to investigate.

Shayne: That’s good. Okay, we’ll do that. What happens when I ring the bell?

GM: …nothing.

An “encounter” in an RPG can mean a lot of different things. To keep things simple, we’re going to start by just talking about combat encounters, which we’ll define roughly as “one or more bad guys that the PCs fight.” Furthermore, let’s consider the simplest possible combat encounter:

• 4 goblins

That’s it. That’s the encounter.

We know nothing about where these goblins are or how they might be encountered during the scenario, but this also means that we have almost infinite flexibility in how this encounter could be used.

Of course, we’ll often want to add more details and specificity to this encounter. For example, we might ask ourselves where these goblins are located and key them to a specific room. We could go one step further and specify what they’re doing in that room. We could even take a fairly general activity (“the goblins are painting pictures”) and make it even more specific (“the first goblin is painting a princess being eaten by a dragon, the second goblin is painting a blade of grass dripping with blood, etc.”). And, of course, all of this specificity could be done in a different way: They’re painting different pictures. Or they’re doing something other than painting. Or they’re located in a completely different room.

A specific location, however, is not the only type of specificity we might bake into an encounter. For example, maybe these goblins have been sent to assassinate one of the PCs. Or they could be keyed to a random encounter table (which serve any one of a wide variety of functions in the scenario/campaign).

As you’re thinking about how specific a particular encounter should be, there are a few broader principles that are useful to keep in mind.

First, there’s a central tenet of Smart Prep: Focus your prep on stuff that you can’t improvised at the table. If, for example, you’d be comfortable improvising what, exactly, the goblin painters are painting, then you don’t need to spend time specifying those details in your notes. (Particularly since it may never come up in play, in which case you’ll have just wasted that prep time.)

Second, there’s the electric thrill of dynamic encounters. Whether you’re using random encounters, adversary rosters, proactive nodes, or some similar technique, having the bad guys dynamically react to the actions of the PCs is a fantastic way to make the world come to life, create incredibly deep gameplay, and emphasize that the players’ choices are the heart and soul of what makes RPGs a truly special medium. All of these techniques, however, require encounters that can be flexibly and easily used in many different ways: The goblins need to be able to move around the dungeon. Or send one of their members to raise the alarm. Or split up. Or be sent on a mission to hunt down the PCs.

Third, on a similar note, there’s active play in general: You want to prep toys that you can use to actively play with your players. Set piece encounters can be fun and effective in their own way, but you can’t play with them.

PRECIOUSNESS

What we’re driving at here is a difference between specificity (additional details) and preciousness. To proffer a definition: The fewer ways in which you can dynamically alter or use an encounter, the more precious its presentation and/or prep becomes.

Here’s a classic example of precious encounter design, from Keep on the Shadowfell:

I won’t repeat the full text of the encounter here, but here’s a brief summary of how it was prepped:

• Goblin miners and their drake companions are placed in specific locations a specific room, as indicated on the map.
• The PCs need to arrive at the encounter from the staircase and their miniatures are placed on specific squares when the encounter begins.
• There’s a tiered Perception check made from the staircase, with prepped dialogue for the goblins depending on how well the PCs roll on the check.
• The goblin’s tactics, customized for this specific room and their starting locations, is detailed.
• Specific actions are scripted to the plans, ladders, and ramp.

What if the PCs make a bunch of noise approaching this room? Well, the goblins can’t leave this area or all that scripted content has to be thrown out. What if some of the other goblins in the dungeon retreat to this room? Once again, a bunch of scripted content has to be thrown out.

The encounter is precious because great value — in terms of prep and creativity — has been invested into details which are highly dependent on specific conditions and/or actions. And that value either shouldn’t be carelessly wasted or, at the very least, the GM will be unlikely to WANT to waste it by using the encounter in a different way.

We can begin to generalize here: Is the encounter tied a specific location? Does it have to be triggered in a specific way (e.g., the bad guys have to take the PCs unawares; or the PCs need to come through a specific door; or it needs to take place in a forest)? Does it require the PCs to lack specific abilities? Or have specific knowledge?

Not all specificity, you’ll note, is preciousness, because not all specificity limits the dynamic utility of the encounter. For example, we could imagine giving each of the goblins in this encounter a specific name. That prep may or may not prove useful in actual play, but it’s not dependent on the goblins being located in a specific room or meeting the PCs in a specific way.

PRECIOUS SYSTEMS

Another form of preciousness can come from the mechanical balance of tactics-based RPGs, in which PCs can usually regain most or all of their resources before every fight. This design removes the strategic play of resource-depletion over the course of multiple encounters, which also means that weaker encounters can never contribute to the challenge of the game.

Such games, therefore, have a fairly narrow “sweet spot” each encounter needs to hit: Too weak, it’s pointless. Too strong, it’s TPK. This, in turn, usually eliminates dynamic encounter design: If an encounter is precisely balanced, you can’t have the bad guys call for reinforcements because that will tip the balance.

This, of course, is a form of preciousness: Your ability to dynamically alter an encounter or use it in different ways during play is limited by the tactics-based balance.

In my experience, encounters in these tactics-based RPGs tend to also become precious in other ways: If your encounter design is already being locked into a narrow paradigm, you might as well lean into it.

TOO PRECIOUS

On this note, therefore, it’s important to remember that preciousness is not inherently a bad thing. It’s not that you should NEVER have Little John guarding the log bridge against Robin Hood, but rather that being aware of how and when you’re making your encounters precious — and also if/when the system you’re using forces preciousness — is useful.

What you want to avoid, though, is making your encounters TOO precious, something which I sometimes refer to sardonically as My Precious Encounter™ design. Broadly speaking, this means double-checking whether the preciousness you’re baking into the encounter is actually necessary, or if you’re just crippling your own prep and giving yourself extra work for no reason.

OTHER PRECIOUS ENCOUNTERS

As I mentioned, we’ve been simplifying things by focusing on combat encounters, but you can find preciousness in other types of encounters, too.

In fact, just locking an encounter into being a “combat encounter” is a form of preciousness: After all, couldn’t we negotiate with the goblins? Or trick them? Or sneak past them? Or recruit them? Or convert them?

The reverse, of course, is also true. “This is the encounter where the PCs will negotiate with Sir William” (and the encounter is designed as such) is more precious than simply prepping Sir William as an NPC whose scenes could play out in myriad ways.

And, again, this isn’t inherently a problem: The principles of smart prep, in fact, encourage preciousness. (At least, up to a certain point.) There are plenty of situations in which you can have a very high confidence in how an encounter will play out at the table and you should be prepping it accordingly.

Even in these circumstances, however, I think you will find it useful to keep one eye — if not your primary focus — on the broader utility of what you’re prepping. In other words, make precious only that which brings value.

Your toys should not become so precious to you that you can no longer play with them: Take them off the shelf, take them out of the box, and see what you can create!

Go to Part 19: Ignoring Character Backstories

So You Want To Be a Game Master includes a sample hexcrawl map centered on the border town of Maernath with cartography by Fernando Salvaterra.

In addition to the map itself, found on p. 392, there are a few other details about the region scattered around the book. For example, we know that the ancient crypt of the found of the Verdigris Order is somewhere in the area (p. 374), and there are other locations like the Tomb of the Elder Eye, Entlands, Violet Halls, Doomcaves, Kahalak Kobolds, the Burnt Ent, and Mt. Dramadand (p. 421). I also use the region for the sample Rumor Table on p. 477.

But the truth is that even I don’t know much about this region yet. It was designed for the book, and I wanted to give it just enough enigma that you might be tempted into keying its unknown depths. (I’m very excited to see what you and your players discover here!)

Four versions of the map of the map can be found below:

• GM’s Map contains the full map.
• GM’s Map – No Labels includes all the location symbols, but none of the labels.
• Player’s Map includes the region labels, but doesn’t include most of the location symbols (except for Maernath, the Old Keep, and the unknown ruins to the northeast).
• Player’s Map – No Labels includes no labels.

Two (very!) large versions of the map are also included, with and without labels.

The dimensions on the maps are kept consistent, so you should be easily able to line them up in any layer-based graphics program and quickly combine the maps to create different configurations. (For example, maybe you’d like a Player’s Map which has Maernath labeled, but nothing else.)

MAERNATH MAPS
GM’s Map
GM’s Map – No Labels
Player’s Map
Player’s Map – No Labels

Large Map
Large Map – No Labels

This scenario for Magical Kitties Save the Day is designed to be run in 20 minutes as an ultra-fast introduction to the game or as a fun micro-game for any occasion.

For players new to Magical Kitties Save the Day, you’ll want to prep a quick introduction to the system and give them a system cheat sheet. The scenario can be played with pregen characters, but character creation for Magical Kitties Save the Day is so quick and easy that you can easily include character creation in a short session.

If you’re comfortable with a little improvisation (or want to do a little extra prep), you can expand this to a 30-minute scenario by playing out the kitties discovering their missing human and tracking them to Dewberry Park.

THE PROBLEM

Pick whichever kitty’s Human is most likely to be kidnapped by an evil Witch. A young child is thematically most appropriate, but the following text can be easily adapted to the particulars of any given Human and their Problem:

Your Human disappeared while on their way home from school. You’ve been worried sick about them. After speaking with some squirrels over on the 7^th Street, however, you’ve tracked them to a small copse of trees that lies on the far side of Dewberry Park.

The land sort of dips down back here. You’ve probably been down here dozens of times, but this time it’s different: Huddled into a little clearing near the center of the trees is a quaint little hut. It has a thatch roof and a chimney from which a thin stream of smoke is drifting out. A raven perches at the top of the roof.

THE WITCH’S HUT

A witch has kidnapped the kitty’s Human. This is her hut. The raven is her familiar and he’s looking for trouble; he’ll squawk and raise the alarm if he sees anyone approaching.

GETTING IN

• There’s a door on the front of the hut and a shuttered window on the back wall.
• Generally speaking, make it a Difficulty 4 task to get into the hut without being noticed. (Even on a failure, the kitties might still get in, but get noticed by the Witch or the raven.)

INSIDE

• If not disturbed, the Witch is stirring a big, bubbling cauldron of some purple liquid.
• Nearby, the kitty’s Human has been tied to a chair and gagged.
• A fire is burning in the fireplace. There’s various shelves with books and animal skulls and cobwebs and everything else you’d expect a witch’s hut to have.

THE WITCH

• Cute Defense: 4
• Cunning Defense: 4
• Fierce Defense: 5
• Owie Limit: 3

Reactions:

• Whack: Causes 1 Owie
• Turn Into a Frog: The kitty’s Attributes are all reduced to 1 and they cannot use magical powers until turned back or the spell wears off (at the end of the scene). However, they do gain the Talents of “Jumping” and “Slippery.”
• Other Hexes: The GM should improvise any other spells as appropriate.

THE WITCH WITHDRAWS

When the kitties have successfully thwarted the Witch’s schemes, the doors and windows on the hut slam shut and it grows four bird-like legs. The legs lift it high into the air and then the whole hut goes sprinting away. If appropriate, the Witch cries out with a hideous, cackling laugh, “I’ll be back, my little kitties!”

This scenario for Over the Edge is designed to be run in 20 minutes as an ultra-fast introduction to the game or as a fun micro-game for any occasion.

For players new to Over the Edge, you’ll want to prep a quick introduction to the system and give them a system cheat sheet. The scenario can be played with pregen characters, available on the Atlas Games website, but character creation in Over the Edge is so fast-and-furious that you can easily include character creation in a short session.

If you want to give the scenario a little more room to breathe, you can expand it to a 30-minute scenario by playing out the mission briefing and/or the team’s survey of the site.

MISSION BRIEFING

You are working as a Cloak – a secret agent in the service of one of the many conspiracies crawling over the surface of the Edge. Perhaps you serve many masters. Whatever the case may be, you have received a mission from the Order of the Inverted Compass: A clockwork capsule that slips into your ear, plays a mechanically recorded message (like a music box; any digital medium would be insecure), and then vaporizes (which creates a weird, ticklish, buzzing sensation in your ear canal and which you have been assured will probably not give you cancer).

At 2pm sharp today, a semi-truck belonging to the InMech Corporation will drive west down the Boulevard de Lis in the Flowers District. Hijack the truck by many means necessary and deliver its cargo to Dropoff Alpha B21 Blackjack.

You know that the Flower District on the west side of the Edge is pretty vanilla: Lot of burgers (newcomers) find it comfortingly normal. A little poking around identifies the Boulevard de Lis as lying north of the Plaza of Flowers: It’s one block long, lined on both sides by three-storey tall brownstones, and terminates in a T-intersection on both ends.

BOULEVARD DE LIS

At 2pm sharp, an interdimensional portal opens at the east end of the block. The truck drives out of the portal, down the length of the Boulevard de Lis, and (if it is not stopped) through a second interdimensional portal that opens at the opposite end of the block.

THE TRUCK

• The InMech Corporation logo is blazoned across both sides of the trailer.
• The cab windows are so heavily tinted that you can’t see inside.
• The truck is driven remotely: A robotic lump sits in the seat, with a camera on a tripod jutting up and swiveling around.

THE BACK OF THE TRUCK

• There’s a big padlock securing the back of the truck. (Difficulty 1)
• Inside the back of the truck is a cryogenic coffin containing the offspring of one of the Roswell aliens. You can see her through the window on the top of the coffin: She’s wearing a “Britney Bitch” Britney Spears t-shirt from 2007. (She’s the cargo, in case that wasn’t clear.)

HIJACKING

• Whatever plan the PCs come up with to hijack or stop the truck is probably Difficulty 2.
• The truck defends itself by popping a laser gun on a waldo-like extension out of a concealed compartment from the side of the cab (just above the rear view mirrors). Difficulty 3 to avoid getting shot, but only Difficulty 1 to knock it out of action.

PDF EDITION FOR PATRONS

A couple weeks back, when I was chatting with Baron de Ropp for Dungeon Masterpiece, we had a fun little idea for a unique (and slightly kooky) way to think about roleplaying characters, particularly if you’re a GM who needs to roleplay a bunch of different characters in every session.

Before we can dive into that, though, I want to have a quick word with the people reading this who are looking for the One True Way™ of roleplaying games, because that’s an attitude that can create a lot of cognitive dissonance here on the Alexandrian, where my philosophy is much more about finding the Right Tool For the Job™. There are lots of different techniques you can use while playing a character, prepping a scenario, or running a game, and I’m far more interested in adding new tools to my toolbox and learning new ways to use the tools I already have than I am in trying to raise one of those techniques onto a pedestal.

Nevertheless, I still see people trying to use node-based scenario design for everything and getting frustrated when it doesn’t work. Or getting confused when I talk about how to structure a linear campaign, because I’m “supposed” to be the Oracle of Sandboxes. Or deeply angry with me because I know that Once Upon a Time and Eclipse Phase can’t be played in the same way.

The reason I say all this is that I’m really hoping you can approach this article as a fun little way to think about roleplaying. I think there’s some cool stuff to discover thinking about roleplaying this way, but I really doubt that’ll happen if we get stuck trying to think of it as the One True Way™ of roleplaying our characters.

SPELL COMPONENT ROLEPLAYING

The Universal NPC Roleplaying Template is a tool for efficiently describing significant NPCs in your campaign, organizing the information in a consistent format that (a) makes it easy to pick up and quickly start playing the NPC, while (b) making sure you don’t miss any details that are essential for the current scenario.

One section of this template is literally “Roleplaying.” I recommend including two or three bullet points here, each describing a distinctive trait of the character that you can use to bring them to life. The idea is that each trait provides a “hook” that you can very easily reach out and grab, giving you a quick grip on the character.

For maximum effectiveness, I further recommend that each trait be significantly different from the NPC’s other trait. A distinctive physical mannerism, for example, is great, but three different mannerisms may be more difficult to use or they might turn into a bit of a muddle compared to, for example, having both a physical mannerism and a unique accent.

This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, of course. But it’s a useful guideline.

But how can we know if two traits are sufficiently different? And is there anything that could help us brainstorm different roleplaying traits?

Well… An accent would be a verbal trait. A nervous twitch, on the other hand, would be a physical one. Or, instead of “physical,” we could say somatic.”

… can we classify roleplaying traits as if they were D&D spell components?

Of course we can.

VERBAL COMPONENTS

When we talk about roleplaying, we often default to the verbal components. Since we’re all sitting around a table (or in a group call) talking to each other, this makes a lot of sense.

Furthermore, a lot of attention — probably too much attention — is given to accents and other “funny voices.” Obviously, though, if you can affect a wide range of distinct vocal personalities, use those as appropriate.

You don’t need to be able to do full-blown voices or accents, though, to vocally distinguish characters. You can often create a very distinct and memorable voice for an NPC by just focusing on a single vocal character, such as:

• Pitch (a voice deeper or higher than you normally speak)
• Speed (slower or faster than your normal speech)
• Volume (e.g., always speaking in a raspy whisper)
• Vocal tic (e.g., rolling your R’s, a lisp, or stutter)

A distinctive pattern of speech can also be useful. A classic example of this Yoda is. Alternatively, you might have a character who:

• Almost always responds to a question with another question.
• Yells when they’re lying.
• Says, “Don’t you think?” whenever they finish speaking.

This can bleed over into having an actual catchphrase or unique turn of speech. For example, I played a pulp detective named Jack Hammer who liked to refer to his punches as jackhammers — e.g., “Have a taste of my jackhammers!” On another occasion, I had an elf noble who said, “Let the wizard speak!” so often that it became a running joke in the campaign.

Alternatively, you can boil this down to a single, distinctive favorite word. Pick something exotic or esoteric — perhaps even something from a foreign language (e.g., a Russian who always says “Nyet”) — and then find every opportunity you can to drop into the character’s dialogue. Distinctive epithets are great for this. For example, if I say, “By Crom!” you likely instantly know who I’m talking about.

SOMATIC COMPONENTS

Even though we’re just sitting around the table talking, there’s still a wide range of physicality you can use to embody a character.

The most basic somatic component is a physical gesture:

• Stroke your chin
• Pull on your earlobe
• Tap you nose
• Wink
• Tug your braid
• Drum your fingers on the table
• Scratch your elbow

The possibilities are almost endless! And take note that the gesture doesn’t have to be large or gaudy. Subtle gestures, in fact, can be even more useful because they can often be repeated more frequently without becoming tiring.

Another option is a physical tic, which is similar to a gesture, but is usually involuntary.

Posture can also be a powerful option. Think about how you’re sitting in your chair, where you hold your hands, and the inclination of your head.

I really like having a distinct somatic component for each NPC, because it not only provides a clear signal to the players for who’s talking; it’s also a great way for you to jump into character: Just hunch your shoulder like Rodrigo or give Roberta’s sly wink and you’ll instantly slip into the role.

If you’re struggling to come up with a somatic component for a character, think about each part of the body – head, face, neck, torso, shoulders, arms, legs, etc.: How could you use it? Move it? Touch it?

MATERIAL COMPONENTS

Material components probably the last thing most tabletop gamers think about when roleplaying, but they can pack a big punch when you can figure out how to use them. For example, when running Trail of Cthulhu games set in the ‘30s, I’ll often buy a pack of candy cigarettes. Invoking the ubiquity of smoking really brings the time period to life, and cigarettes offer a huge range of characterization — from femme fatales gracefully asking for a light to gambling addicts with nicotine-stained fingers to a nervous witness who can’t keep the cancer-stick steady in their hands.

You probably don’t want to haul around a huge chest full of objects and need to go digging through it every time a new NPC pops up, of course, but small, handheld props can provide a great touchstone for a special character: The henchmen who rolls a coin across his knuckles. The nervous damsel in distress clutching her rosary.

Keep in mind that you don’t need the perfect prop: Proxies are perfectly acceptable, whether it’s a modern quarter standing in for a fantasy gold piece or a convention lanyard serving as an ersatz rosary.

Similarly, when improvising characters, be aware of the props and proxies and you’re already carrying: Got a wedding ring? Great! The witness can be nervously spinning theirs. Wanna smoke? Light up a pencil. The archvillain should be peering at the PCs through a ruby? Pick up a d20 and pretend!

The other major category of material component is costumes. These probably need to be used with even more caution than props, and I’m certainly not suggesting you do full-fledge quick-changes at the gaming table. But one or two items you can quickly affect can have a large impact. (I once carried an eyepatch around a convention and roughly half my PCs that weekend used it for impact.)

Even better, don’t forget that you can use the clothes you’re already wearing for effect: The Picard maneuver doesn’t require you to be wearing a Starfleet uniform. Taking off your glasses and slowly polishing them can be a wonderful character affectation, as can be loosening your own tie, tugging at your collar, or snapping the band of your watch.

As a final note, if you’re comfortable doing it, mime can be a great way of invoking material components even if you don’t have any to hand: You can smoke with out a cigarette, tighten a tie you’re not actually wearing, or even gesture with a sword made out of air.

Because, after all, when it comes to roleplaying, the only true limit is your imagination.