Ultimately, Deep Horizon lacks the space it needs to tell the story it wants to tell.

Review Originally Published June 27th, 2002

Designed for 13th-level characters, Deep Horizon is WotC’s sixth Adventure Path module. Skip Williams, the author, takes us into the Underdark with this one, revealing a developing struggle between beholders, salamanders, and the long-forgotten civilization of the desmodus (a race of bat-like humanoids).

CONTENT

Warning: This review will contain spoilers for Deep Horizon. Players who may find themselves playing in this adventure should not read beyond this point.

One consistent weakness in the Adventure Path modules have been the character hooks, and this remains true with Deep Horizons: They’re tepid at best. You’ll be best off, in my opinion, using them as a way of foreshadowing the adventure.

Of course, part of the reason the hooks for these modules are weak is that, in general, WotC’s authors are not attempting to convey a plot. The Sunless Citadel, for example, is not a module about the PCs attempting to accomplish X, Y, and Z. The Sunless Citadel simply exists – and there are any number of reasons why the PCs might go there.

Similarly, Deep Horizon doesn’t convey a plot – it conveys an environment. A situation. How the PCs enter that situation, and what they do once they’re there, is entirely up to them.

Here’s the background: 300 years ago the desmodus were at war with the drow… and they were losing. In order to save themselves, the desmodus used powerful magic to reroute a magma flow – using it to seal off their city (and, simultaneously, destroy the nearest drow city). Although the desmodus survived, sealed off from the rest of the world (with the exception of small colony of salamanders, who traded with the desmodus for metal ore), every passing year of isolation brought them closer to the brink of extinction.

Three months ago, however, an earthquake reopened the desmodus’ corner of the Underdark. This has created a crisis in desmodu society, and their old ways of life have broken down: The entire race now stands on the edge of a knife, trying to find its way into the new future which has opened up before it.

Deep Horizon details three environments: The first is Chael-Rekshaar, the drow city destroyed when the desmodu redirected the magma flow 300 years ago. Today, it is inhabited by a trio of beholders (supported by a variety of slave laborers). These beholders are excavating the city with their disintegrate eye, searching for whatever treasure they can find.

The second is the Desmodu Enclave, the final refuge of what was – until just a few months ago – a slowly dying race.

The third is the Salamander Citadel, built upon the underground volcano formed by the backed up magma flow created by the desmodu 300 years ago.

Deep Horizon also details a power struggle: As their society has fragmented and redirected itself, the desmodus’ shipments of ore to the salamanders have slowed. This has angered the salamanders, who have allied themselves with the beholders – hoping to wipe out the desmodu once and for all. While the PCs are here, an assassination is attempted against the leader of the desmodu.

Also at work here is the destabilizing effect lying behind the recent earthquake: The ancient magic the desmodu used to seal themselves away is finally having consequences. If the situation isn’t completely remedied, the earthquakes will get worse. Unfortunately, undoing the magic and allowing the magma to return to its natural flow patterns will significantly cool the current habitat of the salamanders – something which is sure to raise their already heated ire.

STRENGTHS

If you want a summary of why you should pick up Deep Horizons, you don’t have to look any farther than the summary of its content: Skip Williams delivers an active, compelling scenario and invites you to bring along your PCs.

Of course, WotC consistently puts together a well-produced package, and this module is no exception: The cover, by Brom, is eye-catching. The maps are well done. The interior art delivers without detracting. The rules are impeccably handled. All the i’s are dotted and all the t’s are crossed.

WEAKNESSES

Unfortunately, Deep Horizon does have one significant problem: It just plain, flat-out lacks the space it needs to tell the story it wants to tell.

For example, the concept of the ruined drow city of Chael-Rekshaar is really cool. But, in actual execution, it’s rendered into nothing more than a single, ruined temple. (The rest of the city is left beneath the lava flow.)

Similarly, the assassination attempt which forms the module’s only substantive arc of plotted action is essentially squeezed into half a page. Its presentation is simply rushed, leaving you more with the sense of an outline than a module.

Which isn’t to say that Deep Horizon doesn’t work: It does. Everything on the page functions. It just doesn’t live up to its potential, and the primary problem here simply seems to be a lack of space. (Deep Horizon wouldn’t be the first Adventure Path module hurt due to its limited page count, either: The Speaker in Dreams was significantly gutted before its release. Ironically, WotC opted to increase the page count of its Adventure Path modules immediately after Deep Horizon — both Lord of the Iron Fortress and Bastion of Broken Souls feature 48 pages).

A less systemic problem the potential DM should keep an eye on is the introduction of the desmodu: I’ve had several DMs tell me that their PCs were initially hostile toward the desmodu, due to the fact that they fall victim to a desmodu raiding party on their way down into the Underdark. (When faced with an unknown race of humanoids in D&D, I’ve found that players tend to assume the worst of anything that attacks them first.) Since the rest of the module assumes that the PCs will be, at the very least, neutral towards the desmodu, this has the potential to cause some problems.

Deep Horizon also has an annoying flaw: The PCs need to travel through the ruined drow city of Chael-Rekshaar in order to reach the Desmodu Enclave. No problem. But the map of the Desmodu Enclave also shows two passages leading off deeper into the Underdark. Problem: If the magma flow sealed off the desmodu, why are there still passages leading into the Underdark? Plus, the descriptive text implies that Chael-Rekshaar was just the nearest drow city involved in the war with the desmodu: But there’s nothing between Chael-Rekshaar and the surface. And the only way to get deeper into the Underdark from Chael-Rekshaar, according to the map, is through the desmodu enclave. So, unless the drow had a habit of living on the surface three hundred years ago, the whole premise doesn’t seem to make any sense.

(This is easily fixed, however: Move the passages leading deeper into the Underdark to Chael-Rekshaar. These passages would have been sealed by the magma – and were recently reopened, along with the passage to the surface, by the earthquake.)

CONCLUSION

Deep Horizon is a good module: The PCs are dropped into a complex power struggle, and are given the opportunity to save an entire race. This module can represent a launching point for the higher levels of your campaign – as your PCs begin to have a larger and broader impact on the development of the campaign world as a whole.

But Deep Horizon isn’t a great module, and that’s unfortunate: Because the potential was definitely there. And with another twelve pages or so it probably could have been delivered on.

That shouldn’t dissuade you from picking this one up, though – particularly if you’ve followed the Adventure Path series to this point. If you’re willing to take the time to expand the material found here – or even just keep on your toes when it comes to improvising — Deep Horizon presents a highly enjoyable gaming experience.

Style: 4
Substance: 3

Author: Skip Williams
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Line: D&D
Price: $9.95
ISBN: 0-7869-1855-1
Product Code: WTC11855
Pages: 32
Year Published: 2002

In my retrospective on my review of The Sunless Citadel, I talked about how Justin the Younger was still belaboring under the Plot is Adventure/Adventure is Plot paradigm. You can see the vestiges of this here, as I use it (incorrectly) as an explanation for why the scenario hooks for the Adventure Path modules were so poorly done. (The reality, of course, is that there’s nothing about prepping situations that requires threadbare scenario hooks. Quite the opposite.)

In reprinting these old RPGnet reviews, we’ve skipped ahead a bit with this one in order to release all the Adventure Path reviews together. This was actually one of the very last reviews I ever wrote for the site, appearing on the same day as a review of Atlas Games’ Backdrops. Two years later I would write a review of A Song of Ice and Fire, but these two RPG reviews were the true end of an era. (I never finished reviewing the Adventure Path series.) There were a number of reasons for this, the most prominent of which was that in 2002-03 I was spending a lot more time doing professional freelance work. I also lost my primary gaming group during this time as multiple members moved out of town. Shortly thereafter, I was knocked out of the industry in late 2003 by the post-D&D 3.5 collapse, during which most of the companies I had contracts with simply ceased to exist.

It was a rough time. And, at the time, it felt like I’d left RPGs for a long time. Looking back, though, I can see that in 2005 I both started the Alexandrian and took the first steps to getting a new regular gaming group. So it was just a couple years. And then, a couple years after that, I wrote the viral articles that transformed the site, launched my long-running Ptolus campaign, and started publishing RPG books again. Since then, my road has taken many unexpected turns, but I don’t feel as if the journey has ever been interrupted.

Hopefully the road ahead of us will be long and prosperous!

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 47C: Home Suite Home

Several hours into Ranthir’s candlelit researches, something sinister slithered under the door. Ranthir, intent on the strange intricacies of technomancy, noticed it not as it slipped across the room and attached itself to Tee.

Its first touch was so gentle that Tee didn’t even feel it. And when its voracious, lamprey-like mouths fastened onto multiple points along her spine it was too late… it had taken control of her body. As it drained her lifeblood, she twitched violently on the bed.

Ranthir, unfortunately, remained oblivious.

In The Art of Pacing, I talked about bangs, which are the big, explosive moments that launch scenes. Bangs come in a lot of different forms, and they can be prepped and discovered through play in a lot of different ways. One way that I use them is as a timeline of bangs, a list of events in my campaign status document that are going to happen in the PCs’ future. In practice, these bangs aren’t fully formed — “they’re more like bullets waiting to be fired. When the moment arrives, the actual bang will be customized to the circumstances of the PCs.”

The spineseeker which attacks in this session is an example of what these bangs look like in practice. Here’s how it appeared in the campaign status document:

2. TILAXIC ASSASSIN (9/25/790)

• The cultists summon a tilaxic, one of the Elder Brood.
• Tilaxic (Spineseeker, Book of Fiends 2, p. 58)
• Saavia (from NOD1; she has more levels and Pythoness House biocrystal breastplates)

Let’s break this down a bit.

First, this entry is #2 because it appears on a prep sheet titled “Laurea’s Doom.” This sheet contained multiple responses I planned for the cultists to take after they identified Tee as being “Laurea” (who had infiltrated their ranks and attacked the Temple of Deep Chaos, back in sessions 27 and 33, respectively).

I prepped this sheet as I was getting ready for Session 39, and then added the following entries to my master Event List:

9/22/790 (Evening): Chaos cultists identify Tee as being “Laurea.” They attack the Ghostly Minstel. (Laurea’s Doom)

9/25/790: Cultists send Tilaxic Assassin. (Laurea’s Doom)

9/28/790: Arveth uses Dais of Vengeance on Tee. (Laurea’s Doom)

These would have been interspersed with a bunch of other upcoming events.

Note the “(Laurea’s Doom)” reference, which reminds me to reference the prep sheet for these events. Not every event is supported by a full prep sheet, only those that require enough that they would clutter up the Event List. In this case, the prep sheet included a state block for Saavia.

The spineseeker is taken, as noted, from The Book of Fiends, a monster supplement published by Green Ronin. (I’ve talked previously about looting bestiaries for my campaign prep.) I’m fairly certain that I created the “tilaxic” species name.

The reference to the “Pythoness House biocrystal breastplate” because it’s one of the items taken by Wuntad and the other chaos cultists when they ambushed the PCs in Session 23. A good example how you can take a bunch of different loose threads and tie them all together to set up a new situation.

USING THE BANG

As I mentioned before, the bang is incomplete. It needs to be plugged into the specific context of the game session to turn it into an actual scene.

What I know is that:

• There is a spineseeker, which is being handled by Saavia.
• At some point on the 25^th of Kadal they’re going to try to assassinate Tee.

And that’s basically it. At the time I slotted this bang in to my campaign status document, these events are still days away. I have no idea where the PCs will be or what they’ll be doing on that date.

So when the 25^th rolls around, I’m looking at the list of current bangs on my campaign status document — of which this is only one — and I’m keeping my eyes open for any moment during play in which the bangs could be useful to

• escalate the action;
• fill a dead spot;
• logically happen;
• or basically anything else that makes me say “oh! let’s do it!’

There are limitations to this, of course. For example, the spineseeker won’t show up in the Banewarrens because the chaos cultists don’t know about the Banewarrens. So if the PCs, for example, spent the entire day of the 25^th in the Banewarrens, then this bang probably wouldn’t happen. (Although perhaps I might trigger it offscreen and the PCs might return to the Ghostly Minstrel to discover that there have been some strange deaths on the premises in their absence.)

Other bangs might be more restricted in time or place or circumstance (or they might be less so). Regardless, if the right moment arrives, I’ll use the bang (crossing it off on my campaign status document). And if it doesn’t, then that bang goes back in the bandolier (or simply gets deleted if it’s no longer relevant or useful).

In this case, getting ambushed at the Ghostly Minstrel was probably always the most likely use for the bang. But that can still leave a lot of questions that can only be answered in the moment: Who’s asleep? Who’s awake? Where are they? What time is it? And so forth.

So there’s a bunch of variables that can, literally, be in play here. But, in practice, it’s really pretty simple: You look for the moment where the bang makes sense. You combine you prep with the given circumstances of what’s happening in the campaign at that moment. You pull the trigger and frame up the scene.

The bang itself often requires very little prep, because the alchemy of the table will supply you with all the rich context you need to bring it to life.

Campaign Journal: Session 48A – Running the Campaign: TBD
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 47C: HOME SUITE HOME

December 26th, 2009
The 25th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

They started towards the Temple District with the crates, intending to dispose of the chaositech as quickly as possible. But on the way, Ranthir convinced the others to let him take the crates back to the Ghostly Minstrel so that he could study them: He was fascinated by what he had read of the technomantic arts of chaositech in some of the lorebooks they had recovered from the cultists and wanted to apply those skills with actual examples of the same. Moreover, even if the material proved useless to them (due to its taint), knowing exactly what these items were capable of might give them some clue as to how the cultists had intended to use them.

When they returned to the Ghostly Minstrel, they found that their new suite of rooms was almost finished: The window wards hadn’t been raised, the secret door leading from the false front room to their actual quarters wasn’t completed, and the reinforced inner door between their quarters wasn’t installed yet, but the rooms themselves were livable and it was clear the work would be easily finished on the morrow.

Ranthir set up his research area in the outer room of the suite (with Tee sleeping on a nearby bed to help keep a watch on the crates). Agnarr, for similar reasons, took Seeaeti to one of the beds in the next room. The others, however, scattered to their old rooms.

Ranthir used several spells to examine the various items in the crates, trying to intuit their purpose. He succeeded with none of them, although he was able to determine that the filigreed manacles could be activated by stroking the oblong device attached to them and the small silver balls could be twisted around their circumference. He also recognized the cord-and-plug attached to the noduled harness as being similar to the one they had found plugged into Shilukar’s neck, suggesting some sort of physio-mental control.

He also discovered, much to his own disquiet, that the floating brain would follow the person closest to it. (On the other hand, it seemed harmless.)

THE SPINESEEKER

Several hours into Ranthir’s candlelit researches, something sinister slithered under the door. Ranthir, intent on the strange intricacies of technomancy, noticed it not as it slipped across the room and attached itself to Tee.

Its first touch was so gentle that Tee didn’t even feel it. And when its voracious, lamprey-like mouths fastened onto multiple points along her spine it was too late… it had taken control of her body. As it drained her lifeblood, she twitched violently on the bed.

Ranthir, unfortunately, remained oblivious.

Tee, waking to find herself trapped in what felt like an endless life-or-death struggle for the control of her own body, felt the creature take her to the very cusp of death before she finally managed to seize a moment of self-control.

“It’s biting me! On the back of my neck! It’s controlling me and I don’t—“

The creature re-asserted its vice-like grip over her body. Tee’s mouth snapped shut.

Ranthir called out for Agnarr while backing nervously away from Tee, who rose from the bed and headed towards the door. Agnarr snorted himself awake and came into the outer room. “What’s wrong?”

“Tee’s acting strangely.”

By this time Tee had reached the door. As she opened it, Agnarr crossed to her. “Tee? What’s wrong?”

Tee smiled up at him. “Nothing’s wrong.”

But something was definitely wrong… She was being way too nice to Agnarr.

Agnarr shared a moment of befuddlement with Ranthir as Tee turned and walked out the door. Ranthir, at a loss for anything else to do, cast a web into the hall – filling it from side-to-side and stopping her from leaving.

But Tee’s reflexes seemed undimmed by her possession. She lithely avoided the worst of the webs and started making her way determinedly through the rest of them. Halfway through the process, however, she managed to wrench control away from the spineseeking demonic worm on her back a second time: “It’s on my back! It’s taken control of my mind! Help me!”

Agnarr, finally figuring out exactly what was happening (and perhaps truly waking up for the first time), used his flaming greatsword to rapidly burn his way through the web towards her.

As the thing tried to regain its control over Tee, Tee reached up, grabbed ahold of its slippery length, and tore it free. She got her first true look at the gruesome creature: A snake-like body covered with the chitinous hide of a scorpion; hundreds of skittering, insectoid legs; and three lamprey-like mouths.

It slipped through the thick strands of the web easily. Agnarr, coming up alongside Tee, swung at the creature, but his blade scarcely scratched its resilient, segmented carapace and the flame seemed to be sucked away in a snare of energy emanating from its radiating spines.

The spineseeker leapt at Tee’s face and its three dorsal mouths raked huge holes in her chest as it scrabbled across her body. Tee – already badly weakened from its possession – collapsed from the excruciating pain.

As the creature dropped away from Tee’s limp form, it suddenly split into a half dozen duplicates. There was a moment of panic at the thought of so many body-snatchers, but Ranthir recognized the illusion for what it was, shouting out, “Mirror image! They’re not real!”

The shouting and sounds of combat, meanwhile, had awoken Elestra and Tor. (Nasira, on the other hand, was far too comfortable in her bed.) While they began scrambling out of their beds, however, someone else had also been alerted: The door at the end of the hall was thrown open and a large drakken woman stepped through. They recognized her as one of the chaos cultists who had ambushed them at Pythoness House, although now she wore blue-mauve crystalline armor.

“Grab her pouch!” the drakken shouted, drawing her sword and advancing.

Ranthir summoned multiple magical missiles to sweep away the spineseeker’s mirror images, while Agnarr launched an assault to beat it back from Tee’s unconscious form. As Elestra opened her door, the creature made a break for it – having failed to secure Tee’s bag of holding.

(Nasira continued sleeping peacefully in luxurious dreams.)

Tor ripped open his door (which had been held shut by the webs) and started chopping his way through them. He felt particularly vulnerable in his lack of armor, which he hadn’t taken the time to don. And when he engaged the drakken he was particularly frustrated to find that her armor was absorbing the impacts of his blade by crumbling away to dust… and then instantly regrowing to repair the damage.

Tor was still half-entangled in the web, however, so the drakken simply backed away and began peppering him with shots from her bow. Agnarr, similarly caught in Ranthir’s web, was also trying to reach her when Ranthir managed to strike him with the familiar spell of growth. As Agnarr rapidly grew to twice his normal size, he ripped free of the webs. The drakken, suddenly finding herself within Agnarr’s reach, didn’t even have a chance to backpedal (or react in any way) before the barbarian’s sword had torn her in half.

But now a quagmire of sorts erupted in the torn remnants at the heart of Ranthir’s web: The spineseeker was ferocious; its demonic, chitinous hide almost impossible to harm. Even the mighty blows of Tor and Agnarr only seemed to deflect harmlessly away. And to make matters worse, it constantly churned out illusionary duplicates of itself and wrapped all of its forms into confusing displacement effects.

Hoping for additional reinforcements, Elestra sent her homonculus to awaken Nasira. But she was forced to call it back again only moments later when the spineseeker, seizing the opportunity of her weakened defenses, leapt at her in an effort to possess her. Elestra rapidly backpedaled, but still suffered deep wounds up the length of her arms as the creature’s claw-like legs and dorsal mouths ripped away at her flesh.

Nasira, however, had finally been roused. Unfortunately, when she opened the door she couldn’t get through the thick webs. Ranthir was forced to burn them away with a wave of magical fire (which also left scorch marks on the wall of the hall).

While Tor, Agnarr, and Elestra’s homonculus continued pounding away at the spineseeker (Tor having circled to take Elestra’s place in blocking its potential escape through the window), Nasira finally managed to reach the side of Tee (who was rapidly bleeding out). With a burst of holy energy she healed Tee, who went to check on the body of the drakken. She confirmed that it was dead (and unlikely to be sneaking away in the confusion).

In a final, desperate bid for freedom, the spineseeker leapt for the back of Tor’s exposed neck. Although Agnarr’s blade caught it in mid-air (slicing off a section of its tail), the spineseeker latched onto Tor’s neck and took control of the knight’s body. Agnarr suddenly found himself facing the body of his friend. He was unwilling to inflict mortal wounds, but uncertain what other choice he had.

Agnarr was just about to abandon his defensive posture and launch a (regrettably mortal) assault, when Tor managed to free himself from the spineseeker’s control. The spineseeker tried to leap to Agnarr’s body—

And that proved its undoing. The barbarian thrust it away and then beat it repeatedly with his greatsword. Finally caught unprepared and in the open, the spineseeker was segmented into parts as Agnarr forced his blade into the chinks they had opened in its devilishly hard chitin.

MISMATCHED CORPSE LOOTING

Agnarr joked about taking the spineseeker to a taxidermist and then hanging it in their room. (At least, the others hoped he was joking. Particularly since they were going to be sharing rooms now and Nasira was convinced it would give her endless nightmares.)

Tee searched the drakken’s body. Then she searched her room. While all of her equipment was of the highest quality (and some of it of considerable interest, like the crystalline armor) the room had been professionally stripped down and the drakken carried no identification of any kind. (The crystalline armor itself proved to be non-magical, leading Ranthir to conclude that it might be some sort of chaositech. They stuck it in one of the crates from Mahdoth’s.)

Tee suspected – hearing from the others about the drakken’s interest in her bag of holding – that they had been sent by Wuntad to retrieve the golden key from Pythoness House. In the morning, however, they would know more: Elestra would call upon the Spirit of the City and speak with the dead.

Running the Campaign: Inserting Bangs – Campaign Journal: Session 48A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Go to Part 1

If you’re a beginning GM, I encourage you to really practice framing and running roleplaying scenes using the introductory tips above. You can get a lot of mileage out of them, and you’ll honestly benefit a lot by running a dozen or more sessions like that while you get comfortable

When you’re ready to start spicing things up, though, here are a few intermediate tips you can use.

INTERMEDIATE TIP #1: ADDING CHARACTERS

First, as we’ve noted, it’s not at all unusual to have roleplaying scenes with multiple NPCs present. To get comfortable with this, I recommend starting out with no more than two major NPCs and then expanding from there. (It’s just like adding a second ball when you’re learning how to juggle.)

Being crystal clear in the NPCs’ touchstones and objectives will help a lot here.

For the touchstones, not only will their distinct mannerisms help you swap from one character to the other; it will really help the players keep track of who’s talking.

When it comes to objectives, I recommend starting out with scenes in which the two NPCs have goals which are in direct conflict with each other. This sharp distinction will not only, once again, make it easier for you to keep the two characters clear as you’re swapping between them, it will also inherently create an interesting dynamic in which the PCs will be “forced” to choose which NPC’s agenda they agree with.

Bonus Tip: It takes extra prep, but if you have a picture of each NPC, print them up as tent cards that you can display on the table in front of you or on top of your GM screen. It can really help the group keep track of all the NPCs in the scene, and you can also just reach out and lightly tap each NPC’s portrait as they speak.

INTERMEDIATE TIP #2: INCORPORATING SCENERY

When you’re just getting started, it’s okay to just stay focused on the dialogue — what your NPC is hearing and what they’re saying in response. There’s plenty of drama to be found in words.

But these conversations are not taking place in formless voids. The characters are physically present in the game world — a moldering dungeon, a sweltering swamp house, or chrome-plated neon nightclub. As the GM, it’s up to you to make sure that reality remains present in the minds of the players. It’s not enough to just talk in character; you need to periodically drop in descriptions of the environment.

It seems simple, but you may be surprised how much extra brain power it takes to make this happen. After all, your focus is going to be on the conversation; the back-and-forth of your witty repartee. It’ll be really easy to just let everything else drop away.

You’ll also find it difficult to motivate or justify these descriptive dollops: Why, exactly, are we mentioning the color of the linoleum floor again?

• Don’t just repeat what you’ve already said. Add new details and engage new senses. If you’ve described what the interrogation room looks like, now it’s time to talk about the sickly smell in the air. If you said that there was a table in the middle of the room, maybe now you can describe how the tabletop feels sticky to the touch.
• Let the scene evolve. In busy environments, describe what background characters are doing (e.g., a maid passes through the chamber dusting, loud cheers come from the roulette table, etc.). The smell of dinner cooking might drift in from the kitchen. The light outside the window might shift or a storm roll in.
• Describe the physical actions of the NPC and connect those actions to the environment. (You can combine this with miming the actions yourself if it feels appropriate.) They pace across the cream carpet; they rap their knuckles on the conference table; they glance nervously towards the double doors.
• When you’re not sure what an NPC should say next, take advantage of the moment to re-establish the scenery. (“Tom pauses, turning to gaze into the crackling fireplace.”) This pulls double duty, not only grounding the scene back into the game world, but also buying you a moment to figure out what Tom should say.

If you’re feeling really ambitious, go for the full-blown Sorkin walk-and-talk. Perhaps the conversation is happening while the characters are riding through town on horseback, and you can periodically describe the sights they see as they ride along. Or they arrive at a party and have a conversation with the host as he leads them deeper into his mansion.

INTERMEDIATE TIP #3: ROLEPLAYING ON THE INITIATIVE COUNT

In much the same way that being immersed in a roleplaying scene can make it easy to stop describing the rest of the game world, so, too, is it easy to forget to roleplay your NPCs during other scenes.

During combat, for example, you’re often juggling all kinds of stuff while simultaneously dealing with an ultra-slow pace and the artificially stilted action sequencing of the initiative order. Even though many of our favorite fight scenes from movies and comic books are filled to the brim with dialogue, it can be really easy for an RPG fight scene to play out like a silent film.

If this is true for you, too, then leverage the initiative system by giving Dialogue an initiative count separate from the NPCs: When you hit that initiative count, it’s a cue to have one or more of your NPCs say something.

For a more detailed breakdown of this technique, check out Random GM Tip: Roleplaying Initiative.

Bonus Tip: Once you get a conversation running in-tandem with your fight scenes, it’s an opportunity to give your character’s an objective other than “kill the other guy,” For example, maybe they want to get information from the PCs (how did they find us? or where is the Ruby Ark?). This adds a whole extra dimension of drama and interest to the scene.

INTERMEDIATE TIP #4: BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

Over the course of a campaign, you’re going to have a lot of roleplaying scenes, many of which will likely feature NPCs that the PCs have interacted with before. Ideally, the PCs (and their players) will begin developed relationships with NPCs over time.

To help foster and develop these relationships, it’s important that your NPCs also change and grow over time. If they’re the exact same cardboard cutout every time the PCs talk to them, they’ll never feel like “real” people and the players will never invest in them. Relationships, by their very nature, must build over time.

Obviously, every relationship is unique and how it develops over time will depend on what actually happens during play. But here are two rules of thumb that can help make sure they keep moving:

• Ask yourself: What is one thing this NPC has done since they last saw the PCs? This may or may not come up in conversation, but you should generally try to find an excuse to drop it in somewhere.
• Have the NPC ask the PCs what they’ve been up to since the last time they saw them.

You don’t need to shove these in immediately as soon as the scene begins. (Although they can be good icebreakers if you need one.) In fact, they’re generally more effective if you can work them organically into the flow of the conversation. (“Have I heard anything about Marc Redfern? You know, it’s funny you ask, but when I was in Berlin last week attending the peace conference…”) Note that you don’t need to preplan how you’ll incorporate them; just look for opportunities where the anecdote can usefully contextualize information or an argument or whatever the conversation happens to be about.

Bonus Tip: Also think about how the NPC’s attitude towards the PCs may have shifted since their last interaction, either due to their last interaction or because of offscreen events in the interim. (Does the NPC have different attitudes towards different PCs?)

CONCLUSION

Even with these intermediate tips, we’re still only scratching the surface of what’s possible in a great roleplaying scene: It turns out that people are complicated.

But hopefully by breaking some of that complexity down into simple, basic rules of thumb, you’ll be able to take your first steps with confidence.

When you’re ready to take things even further, check out the Universal NPC Roleplaying Template.

FURTHER READING
Prep Tips for the Beginning DM
Prep Tips for the Beginning GM: Cyberpunk
Failure for the Beginning GM
Pacing for the Beginning GM

Players have it easy.

They have exactly one character. They can focus all of their attention on portraying that character. And once they get into character, they can basically just stay in character for the entire session.

As a GM, on the other hand, you have to portray everyone else in the entire universe! Not only will you almost certainly need to swap between multiple roles during the session, you’ll simultaneously need to be handling your adventure notes, world description, and pacing, not to mention all of the rules! Plus, there can easily be scenes where you need to play multiple characters all at the same time!

That’s quite the juggling act.

So let’s see if we can simplify it down a bit and get things off on the right foot.

INTRO TIP #1: PICK YOUR ROLE

Simple interactions with a single NPC in a scene where the sole focus is the roleplaying are, obviously, a good place to start because they let you stay focused and (relatively) undistracted. So, whenever possible, try to frame up your roleplaying scenes like this.

If you have a situation where the PCs are talking to a group of NPCs, pick one of them to be the “spokesman” of the group and focus on them. You can often ignore the rest of the group entirely, but you may find it useful to think of them as scenery: Occasionally have them agree or disagree with what’s being said, just to remind everyone that they’re there.

INTRO TIP #2: TOUCHSTONE

Create a physical touchstone for the NPC you’re roleplaying. Everyone defaults to an accent (i.e., talking in a funny voice) here, but it’s easier to do stuff like:

• This guy rubs his neck a lot.
• She sniffs imperiously.
• They nervously flip a coin.
• They lean forward
• They cock their head to the left when listening.
• They talk with a smirk.

This touchstone does not need to be clever or unique. It might be something you just do once or twice during a conversation, or it might be a persistent mannerism that the NPC does throughout the entire scene.

The touchstone gives the conversation a memorable hook and identity at the table. It’ll help the players to say, “Oh, yeah! It’s this guy again!” Making each NPC distinct — even in the most minor of ways — will make them more vivid, which will also help to make them feel more “real” to you and the players.

INTRO TIP #3: OBJECTIVE

The NPC should have an objective. What does the NPC want from this conversation/situation?

This should not complicated. You should be able to state it in a single, simple sentence. You might also find it useful to state the objective in the first person:

• I want the PCs to rescue my daughter.
• I want to get out of here.
• I want them to believe my lie.
• I need them to understand how dangerous this is.
• I want them to give me an excuse to help them.

The objective may or may not be in conflict with the PCs’ goals, but when in doubt, setting an objective of “the opposite of what the PCs want” is almost always an effective default.

The objective gives you focus: Whenever you’re unsure of what the NPC should say or do next, just ask yourself, “How can I accomplish my objective?”

INTRO TIP #4: RESOLUTION POINT

When a roleplaying scene begins, the characters will talk to each other for a bit. You’ll establish what the PCs’ goal(s) and the NPC’s objective are. Everyone will be working towards their desired outcome, and this will generally lead you to one of three outcomes.

First, it will become clear that some or all of the characters’ goals in the scene have been accomplished. (For example, the NPC wanted to convince the PCs to save his daughter and the PCs have agreed to do that.) When this happens, you can just wrap the scene up. Good work!

Second, the scene will be interrupted or transform into a different scene. Maybe a PC becomes so frustrated that they throw punch — BAM! Now you’re in a combat scene. Or an NPC realizes that the PCs are onto him, so he bolts and makes a run for it — VOOM! You’re in chase scene. (These scenes might revert to roleplaying scenes later.)

Third, everyone in the scene has made their best effort to accomplish their goal, but it remains uncertain who will succeed (if anyone). This is the moment to call for a social skill check or similar mechanic. If the result is a success, great! Describe the success and move the scene to its conclusion.

If the check is a failure, on the other hand, use one of the techniques from Failure for the Beginning GM to figure out what happens next.

The real trick, when the PCs have failed (e.g., this guy isn’t going to talk), is wrapping things up: Given the chance, players will gladly just spin their wheels trying to achieve the thing they’ve already failed to accomplish. The skill check will help with this, giving a clear point of demarcation, after which you can shift to summary: “You keep at him for another hour, but it’s clear he’s not going to break and there’s no point in continuing the questioning. You send him back to his cell. What do you want to do now?”

(The better players will also figure this out, take their cue from the result of the skill check, and help you bring the scene to its conclusion: “I shove him back into the chair in disgust. ‘Get him out of here, Tommy. Maybe rotting in his cell overnight will loosen his tongue.’” But you can’t always count on this.)

Scenes can get a lot more complicated than this, of course. But for right now, just keep your eye out for these three possible outcomes and you’ll be in good shape. (When you’re ready to dive deeper here, check out The Art of Pacing.)

Bonus Tip – Key Info: Paradoxically, it’s not unusual for an adventure to include an NPC for a reason that’s antithetical to what the NPC wants. A very common example is an NPC who knows something (e.g., a clue) that the PCs are supposed to learn (e.g., by interrogating the NPC) but which the NPC doesn’t want to tell them.

The key thing here is to go all-out in roleplaying the NPC’s objective. But then, as the GM, remember that YOUR goal isn’t to stonewall the PCs. You may also find techniques like Default to Yes and Failing Forward useful when resolving the scene.

Go to Part 2: Intermediate Tips