I was also thinking that it could be fun to run a game where you get tossed a semi pre-conceptualized character with a set class + theme, or a set role + theme. You’d still get to choose all the powers, choose the race and feats etc.

I would even do it so that I give the role + theme or class + theme combinations to the players to pick from. They’d get to decide who plays what.

Do you think this would be interesting as an intro to the new campaign world?

My idea was:

Fighter - Gladiator
Warlock - (Ex)-templar
Sorcerer - Veiled Alliance member
Bard - Minstrel
Druid - Elemental priest

I could have only 4 players, so I’d let them drop either the warlock or the druid out. I could then have that missing character be an NPC that does not have to travel with them all the time.

I will be starting a new Pathfinder game soon and am hoping that my players and I can all sit down and come up with a collaborative background that leaves the characters having some common, over-arching reason to be together.  I have some ideas of my own and I’m sure that my players do as well.  But thats not why I’m here.  I wanna know what you all have done in the past to give the characters a binding reason to be a group of adventurers. 

So far I have told them that they are required play characters who are benevolent and altruistic as those are requirements for the adventure hooks I will be using in the modules that I am running.  Normally I wouldn’t be this rigid about character creation but that is one thing I want all their characters to have in common as a motivation.  Beyond that I would like them all to have a reason to be together in the first place and have known eachother prior to the adventure.  I want the characters to all respect eachother’s unique abilities and cooperate well together.  Having some binding common background, I think, will go a long way towards accomplishing this. 

So have any of you done anything like this before?  Got advice or even just stories?  C’mon...brain dump here. 

A quarter of an inch.

That’s why two adults were throwing boxes at one another.

But in all fairness, it was a really important quarter of an inch.

We were gathered around the table playing a game of Warhammer 40,000. I was testing out a new Space Marines army list, allied with my friend’s new Imperial Guard army, and we were battling the forces of Chaos and the Orks. And since we hadn’t made the proper offerings to the dice gods, we were doing terrible. I mean, I had a unit of guys who were ultra-killy, and they got wrecked by some middling chumps because of some awful dice-rolling. We were well on our way to getting completely humiliated when a charge on my ally was contested. On first measurement, the enemy’s charge was a quarter of an inch short. On a second measurement, after a model or two might or might not have been nudged by accident, they were just barely in range. If this charge was successful, it was game over for us.

So the debate over whether or not this charge should be allowed was… heated. Harsh words were exchanged. Defenestration was threatened (and since we were on the sixth floor of an apartment building, this was a legitimate threat). And then someone threw a box of tissues. Thank God everyone kept their wits about them and nothing terrible happened. There were $400 armies on the table. There were almost-full bottles of Yuengling on the table.

All over a quarter of an inch. A quarter of an inch that really, really mattered for this game. Indeed, in Warhammer 40,000 and many other tabletop wargames, such tiny increments of distance often become critical, and tracking and estimating those ranges is a key skill.

It’s Hip to be Square
Since the first RPGs were derived from wargames, it should be no wonder that the handling of distances as a precise measurement has been with us since the hobby’s inception. My 4e PHB defines ranges by how many squares you can be away from an opponent to use a weapon or power. My 3e and 3.5e PHB told us that measure in 5-foot increments instead.

Compared to a tabletop wargame, this is quite a bit easier. Counting squares is much easier than breaking out a measuring tape for every action, and leaves less room for “accidentally” nudging someone into range for a charge. But doesn’t it drive you nuts that apparently the laws of motion in D&D universes break down for distances under 5 feet? You can’t move a single foot at a time: it’s five feet or nothing! A baby’s first step must be a five-foot step! And don’t even get me started on square fireballs (or square horses)!

What we’ve done with this sort of system is to trade some precision (I can move my Marines at a 60 degree angle exactly 6”, or just 5” if I need to stop short of some dangerous terrain) for ease of play (moving my Rogue 6 squares is just a matter of counting to six). We allow ourselves to concede that for the purposes of D&D, distances of less than 5 feet are not mechanically significant. If a baby’s first step isn’t 5 feet, that’s fine: it’s not mechanically significant movement (ie, the baby probably won’t get a move of 6 squares on the day of his first step, if combat just so happens to break out in the nursery). Baby’s first step might be significant for the story or character development, but if a fight breaks out, it really doesn’t matter. We’ve abstracted movement and decided that only movement at certain intervals matters.

We do this in other ways too. If someone misses an attack, I might describe it as “side-stepping” a swing of a sword. My character doesn’t move from his square, but he’s also not bolted to the ground once in that square. He can move around his square and the game system doesn’t care. It might be more dramatic and characteristic of a real fight if I could describe moving from that square as part of an action in which I don’t take a move, but them’s the breaks. If I move beyond that square, then there’s mechanical consequences: I might move into or out of range for someone else’s powers, or I might be able to get into melee with an opponent, or I might get closer to or farther from that MacGuffin that my party so desperately needs.

But let’s do a little thought-experiment. Let’s say I use my ability to move six squares to move two squares down, one square right, two squares up, and one square left. For those without a grid handy, I just moved my character in a little circle. The mechanical implications of this, beyond spending my move to do this, are absolutely zero. I am in exactly the position where I started: I’ll be in range for all the attacks this turn that I was last turn. In fact, if my movement takes me past an enemy, I’ll be penalized for my action by suffering an opportunity attack (or attack of opportunity in 3e parlance). So if I want to keep attacking the same enemy who I was in melee with, the game encourages me to plant my feet, skip my move, and just keep on hacking away. Even if I’d really like to spice things up by keeping it dynamic by describing myself ducking and weaving around a foe as we circle so I can get inside his reach before plunging my dagger into his exposed side, I’m limited to tumbling around inside a five-foot square.

Another thing to note: in absolutely none of these scenarios does the difference of an inch matter. The only increment that matters is 5 feet. Yay abstraction!

She Moves in Mysterious Ways
So let’s break down what the possible mechanical implications are for movement:

1.Moving into range so that an action may be performed (whether by the character who moves or others in the encounter).
2.Moving out of range so that an action may not be performed (whether by the character who moves or others in the encounter).
3.Movement itself triggers actions from a character or the environment.
4.Move closer towards or further from any of the above.

As far as the rules of the game are concerned, the only time it matters whether or not a character moves is if that movement satisfies one of the above four possibilities. The game still allows mechanically irrelevant actions (I could spend my move running in circles, or more accurately triangles or rectangles) which don’t satisfy any above possibilities, while at the same time it makes it very difficult to create dynamic battles. In D&D, for instance, rather than circling one another, two characters locked in melee combat will be, well, locked-in. Circling will open both parties up to opportunity attacks.

Of the above possibilities, the first three are of immediate mechanical significance. Because I moved my character to square (X,Y), I can target this enemy in exchange for being in range for those enemies. And because I moved my character, I risk an opportunity attack from that enemy on my way over. These are immediate consequences. The last point is not of immediate consequence, but can provide tactical options. For instance, if my character (armed only with a melee weapon) starts 200 feet (40 squares) away from an enemy using a weapon that has a range of 40 squares, barring intervening cover, my movement will not immediately change anything mechanically about the encounter (everyone who was in range at the start of the encounter will still be in range at the end of the round), but it will mean that I’ll be able to use my melee weapon sooner rather than later. In more complex encounters, it’s possible to maneuver in such a way that the enemy can’t close with you without getting into range for a nasty attack or a charge, and dancing around opportunity attacks or similar penalties for moving becomes almost like a chess game.

Some groups love this. Some groups hate it. Some GMs will hop up on a digital soap box and decry how horrible the game has become now that everyone counts squares and refuses to draw opportunity attacks.

But let’s do another thought-experiment. What happens when you take away the battle map?

Dropping Off the Grid
Without a battle map to count squares on, the precision of the above measurements vanishes. Players and the GM have to rely upon their descriptions of the shared imaginary space to be able to keep order in a battle. For small fights, say involving one enemy and the group, you don’t really need much of a battle map. It might be more of a pain to prepare one or set one up than it is to just run the encounter without one.

When playing like this, the GM and players tend towards a different approach, describing their locations as “over this side” or “near that guy” or “back next to Bob’s character”. Distances become irrelevant, and all that matters is position. Problems certainly arise when a player wants to attack, only to find out that the target which she thought she was in melee with actually charged Bob’s character last round. A discrepancy in the shared imaginary space can bring quite a few headaches for players and GMs alike.

But by and large, it works. It could use a little more formality to help maintain the shared imaginary space, but it’s an impromptu system we’ve all fallen back on at one time or another. Distances, under such a system, are relative. Position becomes what matters. We could, in theory, just describe everything in terms of where different combatants stand, so you could be “next to Bob” or “X feet from Bob”. But using “feet” is a problem here (and using “meters” would also be a problem, you internationals out there). Without any modifications, the game is still quite playable, but only when you have a single or very few points of reference. Tracking how many feet Bob is from Joe after Joe moved at a diagonal away from the wall… well, that’s where we start to get a mess. Is there a way to solve this?

(Yes, of course there is. That’s why this article isn’t done yet!)

Just wondering if anyone has any rules on discovering the level of a monster or ways of hinting that running away is the right choice…
-Z

Here’s how it went, the party are members of the rebellion against the occupying Garr Empire. The island kingdom was conquered over a century ago. Through investigating an old bunker in the ruined former capital, they found evidence one member of the royal family survived the conquest a then five year old girl named Elissa, its important to the rebellion to find a legitimate heir to the throne.

The party first learn through some surviving scraps of paper that a knight named Owen was taking the youngest Elissa to safety through an escape tunnel and bunker, digging deeper into the ruin they found a funeral pyre e Elissa’s remains but a quick heal checked revealed the burnt bones of the child had been created by magic and weren’t real.

They found the tattered remains of the diary of a dwarf knight named Braxis who made another mention of Owen running to the escape tunnel with Elissa in hand. He also alluded to the fact he always had the desire to open an run an Inn but now was going to die as soon as the Empire bust down the barred gate.
The party then figured the old dwarf who ran an Inn and the outskirts of the capital ruins was Braxis as he had a Waraxe with the royal emblem on it. The party also recovered one of the arcane signet rings which would only work for a member of the royal family.

They returned to Braxis’s Inn and questioned the old dwarf who sadly disclosed that while he had placed the fake remains in the funeral pyre it was futile as Braxis and Elissa had been killed almost immediately after exiting the escape tunnel the Empire having discovered the exit.

Now here’s where it gets fun, they head back to report to the rebel leader Alan, he’s happy to get the signet ring as if they found an heir they’d have to prove it, but was sadden when they related Braxis’s tale. Here’s the rub, Alan revealed that Braxis had died he’d been among the knights the Empire executed after the war.[or so the records said] He produced a painting of the high knights who once served the old king. The Inn keeper was in fact Owen which the party assumed to begin with until they found the diary so they swung back to Owen.

Now here’s the mystery the party faces. Owen would have had no reason to lie unless Elissa survived, and he’d have no reason to keep covering up her survival a century later unless she’d have a descendants who were still alive.

The party has to find Elissa’s descendants, and Owen the dwarf responsible for saving her life is the best lead they have. The problem is Owen went to ground when he realized his true identity would be discovered. After their talk with Alan they figured there was no point returning to the Inn as Owen had probably gone to ground[a correct guess].

So for a currently lowlevel party how would you begin this search? Do not this is a world where people[aside from the PC’s] are actually aware of magic so some precautions are taken. He could be hiding somewhere with a permanent Mage’s Private Sanctum or even in the new Imperial Capital of the island Garland which uses a weird stone to block any scrying or astral and ethereal travel be targeted with in a six mile radius of the stone.[you could teleport or scry out of the city but not into it] A handy item for major cities from the player’s guide to faerun.

So how would you begin your search for Owen?

On the other hand mysteriously finding a map of the dungeon or just showing it to them can be kind of metagaming.

Last week I figured good way to do the dungeon I had planed.
The party was going to explore the ruins of the old capital city of the island they were on, the purpose was to search for documents and other items which could help the rebellion against the occupying empire find a legitimate heir to the kingdoms thrown.

So the rebellion provided them with a map of the bunker they’d be exploring, now here was the twist, on my laptop I had another copy of the map where I marked off collapsed rooms and hallways in the dungeon.

In this way the party was able to easily keep track of where and what was left to search, but at the sametime it wasn’t perfect, they couldn’t beeline to the most opportune looking rooms as the most direct paths had the sealing cave-ins.[in a couple places the wall collapses allowing access to an adjacent room]. So they’ round a corner and I’d X off a part of the map to show the cave-in. I think next time I’ll take a bunch of posted notes to lay over the map and peal off as they progress.

See, I got in a discussion with one of my friends and he insisted that there was a sliding scale:

Role playing <-----------------> Power gaming

His claim was that you could not be both a power gamer and a role player that they existed at opposite ends of the spectrum.  I insisted that they were on different spectrums.  The opposite of power gaming would be purposefully making a character that was not effective and the opposite of role playing would be not caring one whit about how a character acts, just how they look on paper. 

I thought it was something that JK wrote back in the days of 3ebb but couldn’t find it.  My google-fu seems to be a bit rusty.  Plus I think my laziness got the better part of me when I realized that one of you might know right what I was talking about and be able to direct me to it.  And that requires minimal effort on my part, so…

...actually, it required me to type this post.  Hrm, I have to focus on slacking off more.  I’m losing my edge.

My wife, son and I were talking about different solutions.  One of them was to have one of my friends (that Julian likes a lot too) come over and play a couple of the characters and this would serve to take a load off his shoulders as well as provide another thinking mind to add to the good guy’s side.  It’s a decent solution as this friend has no life and could likely come over at the drop of a hat on most days.  But it also has problems.  The whole reason I have been running this game is twofold: first, to give Julian some experience playing D&D so when we play in a real campaign he would know what was expected.  Second, I didn’t have the time to devote to run a campaign for a full fledged game. 

The other solution that we thought of was to have my wife run a couple characters.  That helps the same way the other solution does but has other issues.  My wife would tire of playing after just a couple hours and isn’t too interested in the particular characters she would be playing.  The last thing I want is for the game to seemed forced for anyone. 

Regardless if I invite anyone else to the game I’m not so comfortable asking them to play characters Julian and I came up with.  I’d rather offer that they play their own characters but then at that point I might as well start another campaign.  *sigh*

So here I am.  I think I may end up starting another campaign.  The big reason I don’t think I’ll have enough time to run one is because normally I have my campaigns take place in a homebrew world.  I typically end up devoting a lot of time to my world as I like to make for an immersive experience for my players.  I’m sort of a completionist when it comes to world design and for anyone with similar experiences you know this can be a daunting task.  So I’m going to go ahead and throw that idea right out the window right now.  No homebrew.  Or at least if I do set it in a homebrew setting I am not going to be creating the adventures from scratch and creating all the NPCs, monsters, etc. 

So I think I have my mind settled on running a game consisting of purchased or free modules.  Based on some suggestions of friends and people from a couple boards I visit I have my eye on running The Red Hand of Doom module.  It really has my interest for several reasons. 
1. I have wanted for some time to run a campaign with an over arching dragon theme and I really like the flavor of this one. 
2. Its a big adventure, is very thorough and has all the details I need right there. 
3. It can easily fit into any setting and is very flexible. 
4. It spans several levels worth of content. 
5. It is fast paced and focuses on the parts of the game that my group likes and I think it would be a great intro for my son. 
6. It ends off at a great place for someone else to hopefully continue DMing the campaign where I would love to jump in with my own character. 
7. I would like to run some precursory modules that lead up to this and they fit in well with the theme this one sets. 

So 7 needs a bit of explanation.  And I would like to thank Cameron right now as he sorta inspired my whole line of thinking on this.  I was checking out the Kobold King line of modules offered at Paizo for Pathfinder (did I mention this is going to be a Pathfinder game?) and I like what I see.  I think I’m going to run all three of them starting with Hollow’s Last Hope which is the free precursor to Crown of the Kobold King.  CotKK is the precursor to Revenge of the Kobold King.  And I think RotKK would dovetail nicely into running RHoD unless I’m mistaken. 

So with that in mind, I am asking for some help with any of you that might be experienced in any of those modules.  Heres what I’m looking for:

1. Some character creation rules that I could use. 
I have one player who likes to make contrary characters and often ends up causing some inter party conflict.  I plan on talking with the whole group (including this player) about this as to a way to remedy this but one thing I would like to do is limit how much he can squiggle at the conception of the campaign.  I would like to give the requirement that the first part of this campaign is going to be a classic dungeon crawl and because of the modules style I will be using it requires that the characters be benevolent and altruistic as adventure hooks.  Also, I would like to discuss a reason that the party is a party prior to the game starting.  I want the characters to have some common background with each other and NOT start out the session with the classic “So you are all in a bar when all hell breaks loose...what do you do?” scenario that leaves players and characters alike asking “Why, exactly, would my character choose to hang out with these other characters?” I want the responsibility to be on the player to come up with why they are all together, and I want this to be thoroughly hashed out before we even begin play. 

2. Some campaign hooks I can give my players to help in character creation.
I’m still reading up on the details for these modules and I don’t even have access to them all yet so I could use some insight here.  What can I tell my players about where their characters can hail from.  I plan on starting them out at either first or second level and this is going to limit them as to what kind of things are playable at that level.  I’m typically pretty lose as to what races I allow, even things with a +ECL, but this is going to be an exception.  I think the farthest out I will go in this campaign is going to be a goblin or orc and due to the nature of the modules I’ll be running those wont be very wise choices for characters.  Actually being able to bring some starter backgrounds to the night that we start with party building would be useful.  Sort of a “here are some starter backgrounds you can work with for your characters, feel free to make edits where you feel appropriate” kind of thing. 

3. Some rewards for character backgrounds I could give that would apply well to these modules. 
I like to reward people for putting a lot of thought and work into their characters.  I think it shows initiative and helps me create an immersive environment.  What kinds of rewards I could hand out that would be appropriate for the modules I plan on running is something I don’t yet know.  I’m not sure how difficult they are yet as I’m just starting in on them.  If it is a difficult challenge then I might consider giving one of them an item that could resurrect a single character at the cost of all remaining spell slots for the caster once.  Or perhaps give another character the ability to summon a powerful ally to help him for one battle.  Or other useful boons along these lines, you get the idea.  Of course I haven’t figured out what the binding factor will be for this group of adventurers so I know that would likely play a heavy role on what kind of rewards I could give out that would make sense. 

4. Suggestions for changes I could make to these modules to help them tie in well with each other.  This one is pretty self explanatory.  For any of you who have ran these modules before I’m looking to you for ideas on this one. 

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

Of course...this is all moot if one of you would like to come to Michigan and run a game for my group? ...no?  Dangit!

Also, I want to have an exciting encounter swinging from a cargo-lift, suspended from an airship as they make their escape!

I suppose another option is to have them picked up by the airship, and then use Linked Portal to jump to a House Sivis teleportation circle. Actually...is that allowed?

Thanks in advance!
-Zach