Lone Wolf Development (who previously brought you Hero Lab) is currently running a Kickstarter for their new Realm Works campaign management software.

Personally, I’ve usually been pretty skeptical of campaign management software. I find that it usually only offers marginal advantage over just using a word processor, while usually featuring a less intuitive interface and all the liabilities inherent in a closed format that becomes obsolete as soon as the developer disappears.

But much to my surprise, I think Realm Works is winning over my skepticism:

There are three key features which have really captured my imagination.

First, the ability to share specific points of information with my players. I wish that the software also included the ability for my players to add their own information to a node in the database (so that it would completely replace the functionality of the campaign wiki I currently maintain). But I think it may be a literal game-changer, “Okay, they’ve interacted with Character X. So I’ll unlock his description.” Or to unlock locations on the map of Ptolus that they’ve visited so that there’s a consistent, pervasive, and evolving understanding of the city.

Second, the explicitly node-based method of content organization:

This is self-evidently well-suited to the kind of node-based scenario design that I use in my campaigns. It would be nice to be able to specifically associate content with the connections (i.e., you could click on one of the arrows and see what clue/clues that line is representing). (I’ll also be interested to see if I can “nest” these story networks.)

Third, and the thing most likely to make a backer out of me, is the way they handle maps:

The ability to selectively reveal a map to players is potentially interesting, but appears to be fairly limited at the moment. (It really requires the integration of virtual tabletop features.) But what’s really captured my imagination is the “pin” system. Just a few days ago I mentioned that I prep my dungeons using a Monster Roster that’s independent of the map key. This allows me to dynamically run groups of monsters through the dungeon complex (reinforcing, fleeing, barricading, setting traps, ambushing, etc.).

While the roster helps, this sort of dynamic dungeon complex can still be something of a juggling act. But if I could prep the dungeon in Realms Works so that one set of pins contain the key for each room, another set of pins contain each encounter group in the dungeon, and I can move the second set of pins dynamically during the game?

I never thought I’d want to run a game from my laptop or tablet. (The screen is simply too small compared to the visual real estate I can leverage at the gaming table by laying out multiple pieces of paper and reference books simultaneously.) But if the interface for this stuff in Realm Works is clean, fast, and easy?

It might completely change the way that I run games.

So, yes. This is me recommending that you become a backer of what looks to be a potentially awesome piece of software.

If you get less than eight hours of sleep in a night, you must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 20 – the number of hours you slept) or become fatigued.

If you get less than four hours of sleep in a night, you are automatically fatigued and must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 20 – the number of hours you slept) or become exhausted.

Elves only require four hours of meditation in a night. If they get less than four hours of meditation, they must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 20 – twice the number of hours they meditated) or become fatigued. If they get less than two hours of meditation, they are automatically fatigued and must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 20 – twice the number of hours they meditated) or become exhausted.

If a character’s rest is interrupted by movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task, subtract 1 hour for each period of interruption from the amount of rest that they received.

JET LAG

If a character rapidly shifts to a different time zone (or the equivalent thereof) due to teleportation, dimensional travel, flying carpet, or jumbo jet, they must make a Fortitude saving throw for sleep deprivation even if they get 8 hours of sleep. In addition, they suffer a -1 penalty to their saving throw per time zone they’ve shifted. Once a character succeeds at two consecutive sleep deprivation saves, their circadian rhythm has acclimated to the new time zone and they are no longer affected by the jet lag.

Characters using magical or pharmacological aids — like a sleep spell — to force a rest period that’s properly synched with the local time zone gain a +5 bonus to a sleep deprivation saving throw caused by jet lag.

Taking your shoes off and scrunching them into the carpet grants a +2 circumstance bonus to sleep deprivation saving throws caused by jet lag. This bonus rises to +4 if you happen to do it during a terrorist attack.

CIRCADIAN EFFECTOR
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting]
Level: Cleric 1, Sorcerer/Wizard 1
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Targets: 1 creature
Duration: 1 minute per caster level
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

When cast on a character suffering from jet lag, circadian effector immediately removes the effects of jet lag. (It has no effect on other forms of fatigue or exhaustion.) The spell can also be used to induce the effects of jet lag on a character not currently suffering from it.

If cast on a sleeping character, circadian effector has the immediate effect of cancelling their jet lag. If used in this fashion, the effect is instantaneous (which means that it does not wear off and cannot be dispelled, although a character can be subjected to fresh jet lag if they move to yet another time zone).

This isn’t really an “advanced” rule. But I’ve got a whole series under that title.

This material is covered by the Open Gaming License.

Had a quick thought for handling bribes last night as I was slipping off into sleep:

1. Set a “bribe value” for the NPC.

You could put together a set of charts based on income, wealth, sense of duty, and/or potential consequences. But mostly you can just make a judgment call on “that sounds like about the level where this gal might be influenced by the offer of money”.

2. If a bribe equal to the NPC’s bribe value is given, grant a +1 circumstance bonus on associated checks.

Keep this in mind when setting the “bribe value”. It’s not the value at which the NPC immediately buckles like a well-worn belt. It’s the value at which they think, “OK. That’s slightly tempting.”

3. For each doubling of the bribe value, grant an additional +1 circumstance bonus.

So if the bribe value of the NPC is 1 gp, then a bribe of 2 gp gives you a +2 bonus; 4 gp gives you +3; 8 gp gives you +4; and so forth.

There’s no functional limit to the size of the bribe the PCs can offer, but obviously this exponential system does provide a practical limit. Start with a bribe value of 10 gp and you’d need a bribe of 10 billion gold pieces to get a +10 bonus. (Again: This is another reason to keep the initial bribe value at the “slightly tempting” level and not the “likely to accept this bribe” level.)

Note: The system assumes that you don’t tell the players what the bribe value of the NPC is. (Although maybe they can find that out through Gather Information or Sense Motive checks.) With that in mind, use some common sense and rounding while adjudicating the system. For example, pure math might say that you need to bribe 256 gp to get a +9 bonus and 512 gp to get a +10 bonus. If a PC bribes 250 gp, though, they should get the +9 bonus and if they bribe 500 gp they should get the +10 bonus. This is all meant to be an easy-to-use mental guideline for your benefit, not a binding contract written in blood.

Keep in mind that offering a bribe is risky: If the resulting Diplomacy check is blown even with the bribe in play, the target may become insulted or angry in response.

Rob Conley over at Bat in the Attic has posted some nice “rules of thumb” for long distance sighting in hexcrawls.

Meanwhile the Hydra’s Grotto points out that Conley is low-balling mountains in his post “Mountains and Mole-Hills“.

I’m posting this because (a) I find their posts useful and insightful, but also (b) because I think they’ve both missed the mark on mountains.

(Note that Conley uses a 5-mile hex, the Hydra’s Grotto uses a 6-mile hex, and I use a 12-mile hex. I use the 12-mile hex specifically because it simplifies away a lot of hex-to-hex sighting questions. But for the purposes of this post, I’m going to try to simplify things by converting back into actual measurements.)

When I did my series on Hexcrawls, I included a post on spotting distances. In that post, I included my rule of thumb that mountain ranges can be seen from 72 miles away, but I didn’t talk much about where I derived that value from: Basically, I did some quick research and determined that most mountain ranges have an average height of 3,000 feet or thereabouts. Notable peaks within a range will often be higher than that, but the average height of the range is 3,000 feet. And if you just do the calculations, you’ll discover that you can see an object 3,000 feet high from about 68 miles away (which I then rounded up to 6 hexes x 12 miles per hex = 72 miles). Or, if you reverse the math, I’m saying that at a distance of 72 miles you can see the occasional peak that’s up to 3,500 feet high in that range or thereabouts.

And so, for example, PCs can see the mountain range in my OD&D hexcrawl from about 6 hexes away. But there’s also a notable peak in hex L2 (the Stone Tooth from Forge of Fury) that’s not as high and can only be seen from 3 hexes away. And there’s also a volcano in hex K1 from which the smoke plume can be seen from much further away if it’s smoking. And a very tall peak of 10,000 feet in hex A1 which could theoretically be seen from 10 hexes away on a clear day.

The “clear day” proviso is an important one. The atmosphere itself will have an impact on your viewing distance (particularly for fine details) and haze can significantly decrease it:

But I digress: Conley makes his calculations on the distance mountains can be seen from based on an elevation of 1,000 feet. That’s roughly the minimum height of a mountain and, therefore, way too low for seeing a range of mountains from the distance. Hydra’s Grotto aims equally high above average with an elevation of 5,000 feet, which actually exceeds the maximum height of some mountain ranges.

One thing I would pick up from both Conley and the Hydra’s Grotto is the idea of adding a specific mechanic for “finding a good place to sight from” that chews up some time but allows you to see a little further than you normally would. That idea is inherent in the guidelines for determining spotting distance based on the horizon and height (find a tree and you can see further), but hooking it as a specific, mechanical choice might encourage its presence in actual play.

For a beginning GM, the location-based method of adventure prep is the best way to go: Draw a map. Number the rooms. Key the rooms (i.e., describe what’s in each room).

(1) Start small with a Five Room Dungeon.

(2) After a couple of those, go a little larger. And, when you do, start thinking about Xandering Your Dungeon.

(3) Okay, that’s getting awesome. But this map-and-key thing is a little too static: Monsters are just sitting in their rooms and waiting for the PCs to wander by and hit them over the head. So mix it up by prepping an Adversary Roster that’s independent of the map key and then run the monsters in the complex actively (so that goblins from area 6 might run across the compound and reinforce the goblins at area 1). At this point, it may also be useful to broaden your encounter design to give yourself more flexibility in how you use encounter groups.

At this point you’ve probably run about a dozen adventures and you’re starting to get comfortable as a DM. Awesome. Now you can start exploring non-location-based methods of adventure prep. For some basic priming check out: Three Clue Rule, Node-Based Scenario Design, and Don’t Prep Plots. Or, for another classic alternative, check out Hexcrawls.

And if you’re really ready to jump into the deep end: Game Structures.

HOW TO PREP

Throughout all of this, however, don’t over-prep. I think it’s really important to NOT use published adventures as an example of how to prep: Professional adventure writers are trying to communicate their vision to you. If you’re prepping notes for yourself, however, you can trust your creative instincts in the moment.

For example, it’s not necessary to elaborately work out and write down all of the different tactics that a group of orc fighters might use. You can just jot down “8 orcs” or “8 orcs, they’ll try to kick over the pot of boiling stew to burn the PCs” and then trust yourself to be creative in the moment.

Rule of thumb: Details are overrated (with the proviso that essential details and awesome details should always be jotted down).

Similarly, you don’t need to spend a lot of time customizing every stat block. You can take generic stat blocks out of the Bestiary and make them interesting through context and use and creative description. (The one-eyed orc chietain wearing the steel-plated skull of a wyrmling is pretty awesome. But there’s no reason you can’t just use the stat block for an orc warrior from pg. 222 of the Bestiary.)

Another rule of thumb: If you’re spending more time prepping it than your players spend playing it, you’re probably doing something wrong.

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