Play-test Session - 3/30/2019

10 Fun, Silly, DIRTY Little Tricks You Can Play On Your Players

As GMs, we're always looking for ways to introduce some variety and novelty to the adventures we prepare for our players. Here are some fun, silly little dirty tricks you can play on your players, most of which are harmless but can be fun to role-play. 1. Food Poisoning - During camp one night, have each of the players roll a Saving Throw against food poisoning due to some bad mushrooms or whatever that were added to the stew at dinner. All who fail must suffer eruptive vomiting and diarrhea all the next day, and at the most inconvenient times. (For that matter, there are a whole slew of funny/disgusting/harmless illnesses you can infect your players with, just for fun: pink-eye, lice, jock-itch, lockjaw (tetanus), etc.) 2. Spell-Hiccup-Misfire - Give your magic-user hiccups, causing his spells to misfire at random in unpredictable and hilarious ways. For example, a shrink spell can, instead, only shrink the subject's head. :-) 3. Childhood Crush - Have the party followed around by a little girl (or boy) they encountered in town because of a crush she has developed on one of the players. 4. Sticky Situation - One of the players accidentally encounters a new epoxy glue that a local carpenter was developing and is glued to the very next thing he touches for one entire day. This can get really funny depending on what he's glued to - the side of a carriage, the backside of a mule, a tavern wench, etc. 5. The Illustrated Man - The players find reason to kill a man covered in tattoos, and the first player to touch him after death has all of the tattoos transferred to him. 6. Limp-along Cassidy - After crossing a stream, the shoes of one of the players shrink and, besides the reduction in movement and agility due to pain, cannot removed them without cutting them to pieces (the shoes, not the feet, remember this is only meant to be a silly nuisance, not crippling.) 7. Out Out Damned Spot - One of the players begins developing a flesh-eating sore that continues to grow, but on closer inspection discovers that it is a civilization of microscopic people building a microscopic city of warrens in and under his skin. The fun here can be in the creative and resourceful ways the people find to survive his various attempts to remove them. 8. Legend - The players encounter an aging man who is a legend among adventurers. If he accompanies the players on their adventure, he kills all enemies instantly, not allowing the players any XP or treasure. (Sounds great at first, but the players are going to quickly grow to hate this guy!) 9. Flea Circus - The players encounter a flea trainer, whose fleas are too small to see but do his bidding by stealing things, or throwing guards off castle walls, etc. Later, the players discover there are no fleas, he is just a magic-user with a sense of humor. 10. Landsick - After a short boat trip, during which one of the crew gives them a cure for seasickness, the players who took the cure find that they get deathly ill on land and only feel better when on a boat. Particularly funny for dwarf characters because dwarfs hate boats!

5 Rules to be a Great and Desired RPG Game Master

We did the "6 Rules to be a Great and Desired RPG Player", it's only fair we do a list for GMs. These are rules to be a great GM your players will love.

1. Know what you want - As a GM, know what it is you want from an RPG campaign. Do you prefer dungeon clearing, monty haul, hack-n-slash, or heavy on role playing? Trying to please players by giving them what they want at the expense of what you want is a sure way to resent and eventually dread your gaming sessions. It's a guarantee that if you aren't having fun, none of your players are going to, either.

2. Be transparent with prospective players - Once you've established the style of role-playing you prefer, be clear with potential players about the kind of campaign you run. The player may walk away, but ultimately building a party of players who like what you like about role-playing is much more fun and satisfying for everyone.

3. Be consistent - However you run your campaign, be consistent, not just in your style of play, but in the discretionary decisions you make during play. If you require players to make a certain roll when bartering for goods in the market, be sure everyone must make the roll each time they barter. Inconsistency can frustrate players and make them feel as if your campaign is random and arbitrary and, ultimately, not fair.

4. Keep your secrets secret - If you fudge dice rolls behind your screen, whether in favor of, or against your players, NEVER tell them. Certainly it is your prerogative to do so, but imagine you're a player who just achieved a heroic feat worthy of ballad and song...and then your GM tells you he fudged the result. Suddenly your feat isn't as impressive, you're elation becomes deflation and you no longer feel as good as you did a second ago. Do this often enough and your players will cease to care about outcomes and begin to act as randomly and arbitrarily as they feel you do.

5. Don't rush - Allow the dramatic tension of your current scenario build, give the players room to role-play, and don't try to walk them through a story-line you've predetermined. Allow everyone the comfort and emotional safety to play their characters as they see fit. Don't try to rush the campaign based on a timeline of your devising. Trust that everything will have a chance to unfold, let it do so in its own time.

6 Rules to be a Great and Desired RPG Player

These six rules to become a great role-player that every GM will love are based on the five basic rules for improv - the art of impromptu, unscripted acting.

1) Don't Deny - Never turn away from an obvious attempt by an NPC to engage your character, especially if it is clearly an entree into an adventure. The GM has put a lot of work into his adventures and to deliberately deny an NPC is to disrespect that prep work.

2) Be decisive - When prompted for action, don't demur or wish wash - act! Don't wait for or ask other players to decide what your character should do. Any action, even a stupid one, is better than inaction. Fortune favors the bold, and a good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

3) You don't always have to be funny - Allow yourself to be immersed by the world your GM has created, take it as seriously as you would if it were real. It's certainly entertaining to be silly and funny, but it's also superficial and trivial. Allowing the drama of the adventure to envelope the session is even more engaging and fun, and does high respect to your GM and his prep work.

4) You can look good if you make your party look good - You don't always have to contend to be the center of attention to look good on stage. Just as often, supporting and backing up your party so they look good is a way to make yourself look good as well.

5) Role-play, don't narrate - Always roleplay your character's dialog and interactions, don't narrate them. For example, saying, "Jondyce tells the oracle about the party's encounter with the zombies..." falls flat compared to: "Oh mighty oracle, I shall relate to thee the tragic end of thy cleric in our fight against the foul undead! Upon entering the tomb, we..."

6) Tell a story - Remember that in the end a role playing session is really a collaborative story that everyone is telling together. Always keep in mind that you are helping to recite an epic ballad of mystical adventure and heroism. Use your imagination to contribute to the tale in the most colorful and entertaining way that you can.