It’s all a web of connections!

S.O.M.O. (so•mo) | noun: Scared of Missing Out. A version of Fear of Missing Out that replaces the first word for a synonym so that the author of the blog article can maintain his alliterative title.

I have a problem with my campaign prep, but if you have the same problem, there might be hope for us. See, I’m the kind of GM who cooks up a bunch of plot threads and throws them all at the wall spaghetti-style to see what sticks. Lately, though, all of my plot pasta has been sticking, and now the wall is covered in pasta.

Invested players are a blessing; that’s not my problem! This is my problem: time.

Whether you’ve got too many plot threads or just too much world with interesting corners and compelling story potential, there’s just not enough real-world time to see and do everything.

In character or out, a single group cannot solve all of the mysteries, uncover all the forgotten secrets, and punch all the bad in the world.

So what’s to be done?

“Write fewer plot hooks,” You might say.

To which I reply, “No. Too simple. It would never work, and you can’t make me.”

Instead, let’s solve this problem by giving your players a way of harnessing an often untapped reservoir of power: their network of NPCs.

Activating Their Network

The campaign is the PCs’ story. They should be at the center of the action. Understandably, they’d be hesitant to delegate important story stuff to NPCs.

After all, it’s not satisfying to have a situation resolved off-screen, but also, no one wants the GM to hog the spotlight for two hours by roleplaying with themself.

You could just hand over the NPC sheets to the players and play the game normally, but then you at least run into the time problem again, and depending on your group, they might not enjoy stepping away from their characters for an entire session (or more).

That’s why this system agnostic system (yes, I’m aware of the oxymoronic vibe of that phrase) empowers your players to make significant plot decisions on NPCs’ behalf while also allowing them to experience more of the world, see more of the story, and tackle more plot threads. All in less than thirty minutes of real-world game time.

A Systemless System

STEP ONE: Set Up The Obstacles

The GM sets the scene, calling out the location and 1 to 3 major obstacles based on the task at hand, with more obstacles for more complex tasks. If you like, source the group for the obstacles!

For Example: Let’s say the PCs have finally uncovered the location of the Big Bad Cult Leader, and they’ve decided to chase him down. It’s going to take them far afield, on a raucous adventure through swampy jungles and ancient temples. BUT, they also know the cult leader’s lackeys are trying to acquire an ancient artifact of great power from the capital city’s black market. They can’t stop the artifact trafficking AND catch the big bad, so they send some trusted NPCs up against the lackeys.

The GM sets the scene: the shadow-filled back alleys that make up the city’s nefarious black markets.

Since this is your group’s first time using the systemless system, the GM sets two obstacles in the path of the NPCs – suspicious bruiser rogues who keep narcs and do-gooders out of the market, and an artifact dealer who’s afraid of what the cult will do to him if he doesn’t sell.

STEP TWO: Choose the Approach

At this point, the players decide how the NPCs would handle this situation. To choose an approach, no one has to worry about stats, spells, or abilities of any kind. Play it narratively. Would the short-tempered librarian they sent to fetch the artifact pull out daggers, weave some spells, or try to talk their way into negotiations with the black market dealer?

OPTIONAL: Faustian Pacts

Source up to a total of two tradeoffs the player-controlled NPCs would be willing to make to accomplish their goals. Each trade-off should have a kiss/curse element to it. It’s an immediate bonus for a later trouble.

COMMON PACTS INCLUDE:

• Unintended collateral damage to a friendly or neutral area
• A significant loss (either of reputation, money, or equipment)
• Finding themselves on the wrong side of a powerful faction
• Suffering some sort of physical or mental harm
• Incurring a debt or a favor to someone they don’t want to be in bed with

For each Pact your players create, give them a +1 bonus to their final roll result.

STEP THREE: Count the Assets and the Obstacles

Narratively speaking, add up every major asset or advantage the NPCs have at their disposal. Things like leverage with important government figures, access to magical artifacts, or juicy blackmail material.

• For every major asset, they get an additional D6 added to their die pool.
• For every major obstacle in their way (as described in Step One), they lose a D6.

Example: Your players have sent a short-tempered librarian, a himbo barbarian, and a street-wise urchin to snatch the artifact out from under the noses of the cult lackeys.

The librarian, while knowledgeable in the ways of ancient artifacts, doesn’t know know how to deal with criminals. However, they DO come from a wealthy family, so they can bring lots of gold to help in the negotiations. That’s one D6 in the pool.

The barbarian has a smooth brain but a bad reputation for smashing heads. That serves him well here. Add a D6 to the pool.

The street urchin knows her way around the nefarious merchants in the black market. That’s another D6.

That’s 3 assets minus 2 obstacles for 1 die to roll.

STEP FOUR: Roll

Roll your pool of D6s and choose the single highest result. Add any bonuses to the roll based on Faustian Pacts. Then determine how well the task goes by consulting the results below.

Example: The group decides their NPCs are willing to go into debt to procure the artifact, so they have +1 on the roll.  They roll 5 + 1 = 6. Success at a cost!

STEP FIVE: Collaboratively Narrate the Scene

The GM will set the scene and then toss narrative control over to the players, who get to describe how the events play out, succeed or fail.

If the roll result calls for it, the PCs can decide what doors are left open for future attempts.

As the GM, your job is to make sure each player gets to narrate at least one aspect of the scene, ensuring that everyone gets a chance to contribute.

Example: The players describe a tense bidding war with the cultists. They eventually win, but they have wiped out the librarian’s savings. This will prevent that NPC from financially aiding the PCs in the future, but for now, they have the artifact, the cult does not, and the Big Bad’s evil plans have taken a hit. The cult leader will be at a distinct disadvantage when the PCs finally chase him down!

A Few Tips

This system is designed to be zero prep, but it’s helpful to have a few obstacle ideas. One or two words written in the margins of your GM notes are enough.

The first few times you use the system, your PCs may try to play it safe. Especially when it comes to creating their own obstacles and creating A Faustian Pact, be sure to emphasize that big risks = big rewards.

If your players vibe with this system, use it for PC downtime activities. Use it to bridge large time gaps in the narrative or even handle single-player side quests!

Lastly, keep an eye on the impact these delegation scenes have on the world of your campaign. Too massive, and you risk de-centering the players as the main characters. Too inconsequential, and what’s the point?

You’re looking for a Goldilocks impact: not too much one way or the other. There should be consequences, and changes should occur, but don’t forget who the main protagonists are.

The Last Caveats

For those who have played a Forged in the Dark game, it’s probably obvious that this delegation system was hacked out of the engagements rules. Blades in the Dark is a product of One Seven Design, developed and authored by John Harper, and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

All that is to say, this is a constantly-evolving work in progress, with plenty of room for making it your own.

How would you change this system to fit it into your current campaign? How do you encourage your players to delegate to their NPCs? What kind of shenanigans happens when you do?

Drop your thoughts in the comments.

Raiders of the Serpent Sea is a D&D 5e campaign utilizing themes from Norse mythology. This is a product from Arcanum Worlds, the same team that produced Odyssey of the Dragon Lords, a massive adventure product that explored Greek mythological themes through the lens of D&D 5e. The adventure itself is almost 500 pages long, but I still wanted to take a look at the project, so instead of tackling the entire adventure, I’m going to look at the Raiders of the Serpent Sea Player’s Guide.

Disclaimer

I helped crowdfund this project, and my copies have come from my backer rewards. I have not had the opportunity to play or run any of the material in this product, but I am familiar with D&D 5e both as a player and as a DM.

Created by Brent Knowles
Writing and Design: Brent Knowles
Additional Design: Gage Ford, Atlantis Fraess, Carter Knowles, Linden Knowles, Brandon Korolik, Zack Webb
Editing: Marieke Feller Graphic Design and Layout: Michal E. Cross
Illustrations: Chris J. Anderson, Davis Clifford, Amy Cornelson, Michal E. Cross, Wadim Kashin, Sebastian Kowoll, Brendan Lancaster, Erikas Perl, Polar Engine, Tom Ventre World, City, and Dungeon Maps: John Stevenson
Additional Maps: Chicago Fraess, Brent Knowles, Tiffany Munro Player’s Guide Cover
Art: Polar Engine
Campaign Book Cover Art: Sebastian Kowoll
Public Domain Paintings: Wikimedia Commons
Stock Art: Shutterstock
Combat Maps: Inkarnate (www.inkarnate.com), Dungeon Alchemist (www.dungeonalchemist.com)
Proofreading and Playtesting: Chris Crowle, Lisa Crowle, Gage Ford, Atlantis Fraess, Chicago Fraess, Carter Knowles, Linden Knowles, Michael Rinsma

Format and Layout

The Raiders of the Serpent Sea Player’s Guide is 82 pages long, including a title page, a credits page, a table of contents, and a page for the OGL statement. Because the Player’s Guide is presenting information in the core adventure for potential players of the adventure, it shares the art assets of that book.

There are several full-page art pieces in this book, including a two-page spread of the setting map, as well as images of characters and creatures from the setting in addition to maps of various locations and ships. Each of the major clans of the setting also has its own faction symbol as well.

Contents

This book is broken up into the following sections:

• Chapter 1: The World of Grimnir
• Chapter 2: Creating Heroes
• Chapter 3: Playable Races
• Chapter 4: Class Archetypes
• Chapter 5: Ships of the Sea
• Chapter 6: Grimnir World Primer

There is some overlap between Chapter 1 and 6 in terms of the information presented. Chapter 5 isn’t a definitive listing of everything related to ships that the setting has to offer, but does present ships that are either common to the setting or important to the story of the setting, in a format that matches the vehicle rules presented in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

The Setting

Grimnir is a relatively young world that was born out of the death of an older world. The primary deities of the setting are heroes that ascended to their godhood due to the events that destroyed the old world. Aldyhn, a goddess with traits of both Odin and Frigga from traditional Norse folklore, killed Mirgal, i.e. Loki with a little bit of Odin as well, and formed the new world from his corpse.

This new world is filled with primal extremes, like volcanos, great expanses of sea, and towering mountains. Aldyhn called creatures from across the worlds to populate this new land, and many creatures include giant and dire beasts, as well as ice age species of animals.

The gods were turned to stone through trickery, but still exert their will through their followers. The Yoten, powerful spellcasting giants, are thought to be dead and gone. Thonir, the “almost god,” son of Aldyhn, sits in Valhalla waiting for another Ragnarok to happen. Hel (the only Norse deity that gets to keep her name in the setting) collects the non-valorous dead.

The mortals in this young world are divided into the Raider clans, and the Baendur Kingdoms. The Baendur Kingdoms exist, from a story standpoint, to be raided. The heroes of this story aren’t assumed to come from that land. That doesn’t mean that the PCs will only be Raiders, however. Like Odyssey of the Dragon Lords, Grimnir is assumed to have various visitors from other worlds that arrive due to the shattered Rainbow Spear, meaning you can create a character native to another D&D setting and use this in this adventure.

The Raider clans are further divided into factions, each residing in different locations, with different specialties, and with traditional player species associated with them. For example, the Lutan are traditionally composed of human and dragonborn families, while the Knattle are primarily human and dwarf families. While the clans are often in conflict, at certain times they come together for a great meeting and form the Drifthall, a collection of ships bound together to create a massive seaborn settlement for the duration of the gathering.

In addition to the idea that Mirgal’s essence is still infused into the setting, and the Yoten may not be as dead as they seem, the Witch King is a looming threat that leads the witches of the Ironwood. For the last few years, winter has never fully left the land, and the PCs are assumed to be joining a great expedition that has been founded to journey to the southern edge of the world.

Gear and Equipment

The gear introduced in this guide isn’t too extensive, in part because anything magical or legendary is reserved for the GM in the primary adventure. The standard Viking sax (short sword/dagger) and skeggox (handaxe and woodworking tool) are included, as is the gambeson, a light suit of armor that can be worn to enhance other armors at the cost of stealth and movement speed.

Ironwood weapons are considered magical, but don’t require any particular ritual or magical components to create. That said, it is noted that it’s really difficult to work with ironwood to make it into a weapon in the first place.

Ships get their own section, if only to introduce players to the kinds of ships they are most likely to know about. The guide details three different styles of longship, the carver, the charger, and the explorer, as well as the Faering and the Mercanskip of the Baendur Kingdoms. My favorite addition is the Hjemskip, a floating gathering hall that is used by the clans when attending the Drifthall. These are slow and bulky, but I love the idea of a mobile home base in this kind of setting.

Mechanics

The Player’s Guide introduces mechanical elements that include rules for Oaths, Glory, Epic Backgrounds, new player species, new subclasses for all twelve of the 2014 Player’s Handbook classes, and new spells.

There are three different Oaths detailed in the Player’s Guide, which can result in specific curses if those Oaths aren’t upheld. The Oath of Duty is basically a way to make sure both sides of an agreement get upheld. The Oath of Fellowship binds characters together, and lets them share their Glory. The Oath of Retribution gives bonuses to defeat a specific foe, but must be executed within a set amount of time.

The Curse of the Exile makes it impossible for other Raiders to aid the afflicted character. The Curse of Failed Promises progressively afflicts the character with levels of exhaustion until they die and rise as a draugr.

There is a table tracking the benefits and effects of Glory, from 1 to 20. The benefits of gaining Glory can be advantage on certain checks in specific circumstances, tribute paid to you when visiting lands affected by your deeds, or NPCs dedicated to your service. At certain levels, you may have to react to challenges to your reputation, meaning that Glory isn’t just a benefit, but can also serve as a story trigger as well.

I like the idea that you can wager your Glory to make a boast, introducing a risk/reward aspect ot this mechanic, and I also like that the different tiers of Glory on the list include various points where people will challenge the PCs as their fame and reputation gets higher, and that it doesn’t just serve as only a list of additional benefits the PCs receive.

Epic Backgrounds

Arcanum Worlds has used mechanics similar to Epic Backgrounds in both their DMs Guild adventures, Heroes of Baldur’s Gate, as well as Odyssey of the Dragon Lords. An Epic Background still provides proficiencies, languages, and equipment. They may have more than one Feature, one of which involves a Rune associated with your path in the story, and a more traditional Feature, like gaining advantage when using skills in a specific instance.

Epic Backgrounds also include a starting story connection, which ties you into the beginning of the adventure. There are also heroic tasks, which grant you a reward when you complete that task, and an Epic Goal, the culmination of what you have been attempting to accomplish, which grants you a major reward as well.

The Epic Backgrounds included in the Player’s Guide include:

• The Bonded (someone whose fate is tied to one other specific person)
• The Cursed Raider (someone who can’t die, and can’t get into Valhalla)
• The Fallen (someone that can’t remember their past beyond the last few years)
• The Royal Heir (a royal from one of the Baendur Kingdoms living with the Raiders)
• The Stranger (someone that wandered into Grimnir from another world)
• The Vigilant One (someone from a family concerned that the Yoten would return)

In previous adventures that used this mechanic, the heroic tasks and epic goals from these backgrounds aren’t random events that the DM should add or that the players need to orchestrate, but are often events that happen in the narrative of the adventure, or additional side quests that unfold if anyone has the appropriate background when they encounter an event in the adventure.

I really appreciate having backgrounds that create natural ties into the adventure. One of the biggest bits of advice given out to DMs running published adventures is to personalize it for your players, and having backgrounds that they can pick that tie them into various events goes a long way toward helping the DM do this. That said, it’s not a perfect solution.

For every one of the Arcanum Worlds projects that have used this convention, I’ve always wished for just a few more backgrounds. To use the above as an example, if you have a group of six players, and everyone wants to be from the Raider clans, two of the backgrounds explicitly lean away from that theme. Additionally, if a player changes character, or someone new enters the group, those new characters may have much more constrained options available to them, unless you double up on backgrounds, and make them a little less special and unique in the party.

Additionally, when I tried to run Odyssey of the Dragon Lords, I ran into an issue I was not expecting. Even though my players were playing in a published setting, and the backgrounds tied them to the adventure, several of them actually didn’t like the idea that there was an existing “right” answer for their various tasks. In that particular adventure, for example, the player with the Demigod Epic Destiny didn’t like that the background assumes you are the child of one specific god, and that the story connections are all based on that assumption.

Playable Races

A lot of more recent 3rd party publishers have moved towards using another term for race, even if “species” isn’t the 100% certain replacement term in D&D for the 2024 rules. Unfortunately, this product doesn’t move away from the term, but it does design these player options with the assumption that you can assign your ability scores as you want, in a manner similar to current D&D norms (+1 to one, and +2 to another, or +1 to three).

The species included in this section are all meant to be native to the setting, and they include the following:

• Beastborn
• Grim
• Tallfolk
• Tuss
• Wicker

I love the folkloric feel of the Beastborn, as they are literally animals that watched humans for so long they just decided to act like them. There aren’t communities of Beastborn, there is only the phenomenon that sometimes an animal pays so much attention to humans that it stands up on its hind legs and starts to do things like a human. Beastborn can communicate with creatures of their original kind, but the rest of their traits are custom-built with a point buy system.

Grims are aquatic humanoids that are intrinsically tied to the world of Grimnir, including the essence of Mirgal that was used to create the world. That means that Grim can switch between two drives every long rest, Hopeful and Cruel. A Hopeful Grim has advantage on performance, can grant proficiency with musical instruments, and at higher levels can cast sleep or suggestion, and can use their own spell slots to cast those spells beyond the one time per long rest they can use them based on their nature. A Cruel Grim has advantage on stealth checks, does extra damage based on proficiency bonus, and can cast fog cloud and invisibility at higher levels.

Tallfolk are essentially half-giants, although their background is shrouded in mystery, even to themselves. Tallfolk are a Large player option, do extra damage and can throw weapons farther than normal, and they have reach. They can use a reaction to retaliate against a foe, but it moves them down the initiative track, and they can only use it once per short rest. There are two subcategories of Tallfolk, Earth Children or Cold Children. An Earth-Child has advantage to Stealth in certain environments, while a Cold-Child has resistance to cold.

The Tuss are born to humans, but bear the essence of the Yoten within them. This isn’t evident unless they use their True Nature trait in front of others, which causes them to take on a more monstrous aspect. Without accessing their True Nature, Tuss can spend hit dice when they drop to 0 hit points, once per short or long rest. If they show their True Nature, they have darkvision, add half their proficiency bonus to damage, move faster, and are less persuasive and more intimidating.

Wicker are wooden constructs that come in two different types, Builders and Watchers. All Wicker move more slowly than other species, have a natural armor bonus, don’t need to worry about eating, drinking, or catching a disease, and are resistant to poison. They are also vulnerable to fire. Builders have extra limbs that can have built-in features like extra movement, tools, a permanent shield arm, or a permanent weapon arm, and can switch between them on a long rest. Watchers are constructed to look like a living being, and gain advantage on Persuasion and Insight checks. They can also rip off their face to permanently become Builders.

There are a lot of story-heavy folklore elements to these species, which is great for the adventure. That said, not all of these hit the mark for me. Some of them are just a little too ambitious and push out into aspects of 5e that don’t have enough support to hold the rules elements introduced.

I love the Beastborn’s story, but I’m not a fan of point-buy systems for species. There are two main reasons for this. One is that just seeing that list of options is going to turn some players off that would otherwise love to play this species. The other is that some options are meant to be hindrances that add points back to the pool, and the fiddly math involved in that kind of species building can lead to unforeseen combinations.

While I have seen people cite spellcasting as one reason D&D 5e hasn’t ventured into Large sized characters (for example, pushing out the range of effects that originate from your character), D&D 5e just doesn’t have the same scaling structure that 3rd edition had. The Monster Manual seems to follow the pattern that Large weapons do double damage compared to regular weapons, and that Huge weapons do triple damage, but the only thing that really supports using a Large weapon is a footnote at the bottom of the monster building section in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Spells like Enlarge don’t rescale your weapons to being Large, they just add a bonus die of damage. Given that the Tallfolk have bonus damage and additional range to thrown weapons, I think the assumption is that Tallfolk are just using regular weapons, but even then, there aren’t a lot of rules surrounding how a Large creature using Medium weapons functions. Can they use a Two-Handed sword with one hand? It’s not defined in D&D 5e. But beyond all of the size concerns, I really don’t think it’s wise to introduce a rules element that changes initiative after combat starts.

Subclasses

The subclasses presented often have an association with one of the clans of Raiders. The guide mentions that you don’t need to enforce this as a hard and fast rule, and some of the subclasses feel more tied to the story of their clan than others.

The Barbarian Path of the Provoked is, at least in part, about getting revenge, and gaining a spendable currency when they get hit to do extra damage. At higher levels, they can Dash as a bonus action, giving opponents vulnerability to their damage when they hit they, and choosing between effects like getting an extra attack when attacking recklessly or stunning an opponent with a hit.

The College of Seers Bard can bestow Bardic Inspiration dice on enemies, afflicting them with a specific curse. They get an extra attack at 6th level, as well as gaining the ability to give bardic inspiration to allies that have a persistent effect. At 14th level, they get additional effects added on to their curses when afflicting enemies.

The Cleric Discovery Domain makes the cleric really good at Survival or Perception, as well as granting them a swim speed. Their Channel Divinity option lets them determine how far away a location is and what direction it lies. They can also Channel Divinity to create a Wrathful Flood that does damage and pushes back opponents. They get a version of Divine Strike at 8th level, and at 17th level they do more damage with their flood, become better swimmers, and can breathe underwater.

The Circle of the Devourer Druid taps into primal energy to modify the druid’s form. As a reaction they can manifest a defensive mutation a proficiency bonus number of times per long rest. They can use Wild Shape to take a primal form, giving them natural bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing attacks, as well as a second attack with their natural weapons. At 10th level they gain special senses in their primal form, and at 14th level, primal protection is restored on a short or long rest, and they can pick the result instead of rolling for an effect.

The Marauder Fighter can push opponents more effectively, as well as move away from opponents that have damaged they. At 7th level they can do a ground strike that can push and knock prone creatures near them. At 10th level, if an ally near them drops an opponent, they can use a bonus action to move and make another attack. At 18th level, they can command opponents to move on a threat, using their reaction to move and attack.

The Monk Way of the Wanderer is an interesting subclass, in that there isn’t an order of Wanderers, there is one Wanderer that learned to be a Wanderer from the last Wanderer. The story of this class is that they wander the land trying to rebalance everything. When they take certain actions, they add or subtract points from their Path of Fate score, which tells them what abilities they have active, and if they are Order or Chaos themed.

The Paladin Oath of the Slain is all about Paladins that are going to get into Valhalla and show others how to get there, too. Their Channel Divinity options include healing others when they hit an opponent, or to mark an opponent so they can get a critical hit on them with an 18 or better. Their aura grants a bonus die that can be rolled and added to hit against enemies. Glorious Sacrifice at 15th level means they can’t become undead, and they can keep going at 0 hit points, but keep taking failed death saves if they get hit, for the next round. Their “avatar” ability gives them resistance to all damage, immunity to being charmed, and the ability to use a reaction to hit an enemy their allies have just hit with advantage.

The Wolf Rider Ranger gains a special wolf at 3rd level, which can be commanded to take actions as a bonus action. They also have enhanced effects when they take the Dodge or Help action. At 5th level, their wolf grows up and they can ride it, and they gain special effects when mounted. Pack Leader gives them special benefits when near their wolf, like being able to hide them from line of sight or letting them shoot at point blank range. Eventually their wolf grows up even more, and increases their crit range when they help them attack. At 15th level, when their wolf gets a critical hit, they can move and attack as a reaction against another enemy.

The True Believer Rogue got into a bad spot at some point, desperately prayed to Mirgal, and now gets divine spells. They get the same spell progression as other spellcasting subclasses of non-spellcasting classes. At 9th level they can basically gamble and give an ally double what they would give them in healing as temporary hit points. At 13th level, they gain a proficiency bonus number of extra times that they can add extra radiant or necrotic damage to their sneak attack, which refreshes on a long rest. At 17th level, they can attempt a check to ask for all of their expended abilities back, but if they fail, they gain a level of exhaustion.

The Misplaced Soul Sorcerer is someone that may have been an extremely real illusion created by Mirgal that has gained sapience. They can summon Misplaced Souls (from a stat block in the subclass) to aid them, and they gain additional effects that interact with this feature on which they can spend their sorcery points. Eventually, they can merge multiple misplaced souls to gain multiple special effects, but the combined misplaced souls may randomly become real people.

The Warlock Patron of The Ironwood is a patron that is the essence of an especially old Ironwood tree, a remnant of the Old World that died as Grimnir was born. Many of the Warlock’s abilities surround the heartseed, which can grant temporary hit points and enhance speed at lower levels, then at 6th level can turn into armor with specific effects. At 10th level, they can merge with trees. Intelligent trees heal them, while unintelligent trees just blow up. At 14th level, they can ride around in giant tree armor that gives them extra hit points, a slam attack, and other abilities.

The Cohesion of the Primal Wizard is a tradition of Wizards that seeks out ancient, primal sources of power. The tradition is split between Dreamers (those seeking to find lost or new power sources) and Seekers (those seeking to suppress ancient and dangerous new power sources). Dreamers can swap spells known from their spellbook, while Seekers are excellent investigators that can expend spell slots to detect other spellcasters. Dreamers can cast spells and not have them take effect until a given time, while Seekers can remove spells from an opponent’s mind by making them forget the spell in the past. At 14th level, Dreamers can cast a spell when they fail a concentration check, and Seekers can curse an opponent to deny them the use of a specific spell.

In general, I like most of these subclasses, but there are some speed bumps on my road to enjoyment. I’m not sure if the Path of the Provoked means that you sacrifice an attack action or an attack to turn an attack into an area attack, because that’s an important distinction, and I feel like maybe it was meant to be an attack action, not a single attack. The Marauder’s story is that they are a raid leader, but until 10th level, they are actually just a fighter good at fighting on boats. The Oath of the Slain’s Mark of the Executioner feels a little weak compared to features that grant vulnerability to damage, for example. It might pay off long term, but it’s less satisfying than getting a big swell of damage on a single hit. The wolf stat blocks for the wolf rider use proficiency bonus for damage, but not anything else, but if everything scaled with proficiency bonus, they could have slimmed down the number of stat blocks.

I think the Wanderer Monk could be fun, but because of the constant tracking of the character’s point total to see what abilities they have available, it may be a tricky subclass to get a good feel for. I think the Misplaced Soul may also share this balance between a fun theme and the effort put into using the abilities.

The College of Seers, Circle of the Devourer, Wolf Rider, True Believer, and Ironwood Patron are my favorite subclasses of the bunch, both for doing fun things with the mechanics and for reinforcing their stories well.

New Spells

 There are a lot of fun elements in this Player’s Guide, even though there are a few places where it feels like the ambition of the final effect got a little ahead of the mechanics. 

I’m not going to go into a deep dive on all of the new spells, but I did want to touch on how on theme some of these spells are. Fair Play gives a smaller animal a boost when fighting a larger one. Rings of the Wise creates arm bands that can add to a caster’s defense, or be thrown and caused to blow up. Blood Sharing involves contributing blood to a circle of allies to share the effects of healing spells. They all pick up on some theme from Norse stories and make them just a little more fantastic to fit in with D&D.

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of fun elements in this Player’s Guide, even though there are a few places where it feels like the ambition of the final effect got a little ahead of the mechanics. I think the guide does a good job of introducing players to the setting with enough information to know what they are getting into, without deluging them with content.

Looking at this product on its own, as a way to introduce Norse-themed game rules into your game even if you don’t use the adventure, I think you can use it that way, although some of the species definitely feel tied to a greater story that isn’t even fully explained in these rules. For example, I’m not sure how the Tall Folk story is going to compare to the Tuss, since the Yoten are a type of giant. I do think some of the species options get a bit messier than the subclass options, and if you’re not going to use the Raiders on the Serpent Sea adventure, the expanded rules for Goliaths that we saw in recent Unearthed Arcana playtest rules look to address half-giant characters well.

The glimpses at the greater setting, and the implied story of the campaign, do make me want to carve off some time to dive into Raiders on the Serpent Sea in more depth. I enjoyed Odyssey of the Dragon Lords, and think it did a good job engaging with classical Greek mythology, which is a good recommendation for how Raiders might present a Norse epic.

On today’s Gnomecast we talk problems with scheduling. To cover that we have Ang, along with Tomas and Phil to talk about the true BBEG of ttrpgs. Time to break out the +4 calendars.

Note: I am going to use the terms GMing and DMing a whole lot along the article. GM stands for Game Master, the storyteller, arbiter of rules ; the one running the game. DMing is a subcategory inside GMing, as it stands for Dungeon Mastering (or Dungeon Master for DM), which is just a term trademarked by D&D that means exactly the same as Game Master, except it can only be used when talking about D&D. For this reason, I will continue to use the terms GM and GMing throughout the article, but know that everything still applies to DMs as well.

Lately, I’ve made a new friend that showed an interest in starting GMing. However, she didn’t know which was the best way to start. With over 4+ years of articles I should have one about that, right?

NO, I DIDN’T.

I’ve got a load of tips on specific things, or things closer to starting DMing (dungeon mastering)/GMing, but I didn’t have an exact answer in the form of an article. However, I do have 6+ years of experience game mastering many games, so I felt sure I could create an article about it, not just for her, but for anyone else in this same position. Hope you find it useful!

How can I start GMing?

I do have a short easy answer for this, which is the same one I applied when I began: Just start. Tell as many players as you want (if possible no more than 4 at first) to gather at your house, saying you will be playing a roleplaying game. You don’t even need to buy dice to start, as there are many digital dice rollers online! Get the rules of the game you all want to play the most, read just enough to get the game going, and start!

Myth: It’s expensive to GM

There is a barrier for many people, and that’s because they think that playing or running a game is expensive, especially if you are the one GMing. This couldn’t be further from the truth. There are thousands (if not millions) of extremely cheap, or free games you can run! Even if what you are looking for is running one of the big games such as D&D, most of the time these have free starter stuff you can find online. For D&D, for example, I have two whole articles created on how you can run games on a budget (Part 1, and Part 2), with many of these tips applying to other games.

There are many games that can be a much easier entry point to GMing than the big complex games, many of them for free! Honey Heist is a free one-page-rule game that got popularized by Critical Role. I recently got to try out A Familiar Problem created by the same guy (Grant Howitt) and Marisha Ray, which is the same style of game, getting me and my friends to laugh out loud for 2 hours straight. However, if it is something like a medieval fantasy game that you are looking for, I HAVE to recommend the extremely simplistic free game “A Dungeon Game” from Cris Bisette. It is a very simplistic version of D&D, which may serve as a fantastic stepping stone to that game (or you might like it so much you decide to keep using it). Lastly, there are tons of Starter Sets for free to try out games online. This can help you decide which game to spend the money on. Remember these are games you usually play with 4+ people, with campaigns that may last for months… You do the math, it’s definitely not expensive if you split the cost into equal parts.

Lastly, Itch.io is filled entirely with millions of indie tabletop roleplaying games from all genres for you to try out, most of them being extremely simple to start with as they don’t usually have a lot of rules. Consider checking them out by looking for your favorite genres in media! Alternatively, there’s always some big bundle going on that gives hundreds of games for a small amount of money that is also donated to some charity. That’s usually a fantastic way to get to know new games while spending very little, and supporting a great cause in the process!

What Do I Need To Start?

Will to GM. That’s it. I have GMed several games with no preparation at all. This is something that does require practice, and I have quite a bit of experience, so it’s unfair to say this. However, I took my first steps in TTRPGs GMing (because I don’t believe my first time as a player to have been a true introduction to roleplaying games), meaning I made thousands of mistakes to get where I am, and that’s part of the process!

What do other people have to say about this subject? I asked Chat GPT to get some answers, and I will indicate if I believe these statements to be true based on my opinion (I used D&D as an example, but these tips apply to all roleplaying games):

• Read the rules. This is the most important tip. You don't need to know every rule inside and out, but you should have a basic understanding of how the game works. The Player's Handbook is a good place to start
  • Definitely not the most important rule in my opinion, but I do agree that it is important to have a basic understanding of the rules. Even if you make mistakes or forget a rule, you and the players at the table can search the rules and all learn together. On my first D&D session I DMed, I forgot how initiative worked!! GMing a game you have already been a player in can work as well, but don’t let that limit you if you haven’t!
• Be prepared. This doesn't mean you have to have everything planned out, but you should have a general idea of what's going to happen in the session. You should also have some notes on the characters, the setting, and the plot.
  • Start slow. I recommend not starting with a campaign but with a one-shot. This means you don’t need to care as a GM about the characters’ backstories, and whatever happens during the session won’t matter for future games (unless you truly want to). After that, I recommend checking out my article on improvisational GMing, which is the kind of way I like to GM.
• Be flexible. Things don't always go according to plan, so be prepared to improvise. If the players decide to do something you didn't expect, go with it. The best DMs are the ones who can roll with the punches.
  • “Yes and”, and “No, but” are your strongest weapons when dealing with improvisation and flexibility. In fact, it is one of theatre improvisation’s best tools! This can make your game quickly go off the rails, but that’s part of the fun of roleplaying games. With time, you will learn to adapt to it but don’t be scared to tell your players you’d rather stay on the rails if you don’t feel too sure moving in that direction when starting GMing. I talk about all these in one of my articles.
• Don't be afraid to say no. As the DM, you have the final say on what happens in the game. If the players are trying to do something that's not possible, or that would break the game, don't be afraid to say no.
  • Absolutely true. There needs to be an arbiter in these kinds of games to set the rules in stone. If you are playing a detective game set in the real world you can’t be allowing a player to say they grab the magic broom and explode the burglar’s car with a fireball (unless you ARE playing that kind of game, which could be really fun). However, I am a true believer that GMs should give leeway to players to add their own stuff to the game. Maybe a player wants to have a contact in the city you just got in. In that case, they may ask the GM during the game, and the GM can decide if that helps the story or not (remember to use “Yes, and” and “No, but” in these cases).
• Be fair. The game should be fun for everyone, including the DM. Make sure you're not playing favorites, and that the players are all having a chance to shine.
  • As with any game, if you are playing favorites, you are just being a d*ck. Don’t do that. It takes away the fun from the game.
• Encourage creativity. D&D is a game about imagination, so encourage your players to be creative. Let them come up with their own solutions to problems, and reward them for thinking outside the box.
  • You may have a solution to an encounter or a puzzle you created. Nevertheless, the players’ way of solving it may end up being more creative or fun. Reward that creativity! Punishing players for not thinking your way makes the game dull, and causes players to just want to chop enemies and do no thinking.
• Be a storyteller. D&D is a storytelling game, so make sure you're telling a good story. The players should be invested in the characters and the plot.
  • Plan out what you think will be a good story. Your players will be the ones that make it epic. It’s like when you cook something and you add in the perfect seasonings. Don’t feel like all the pressure is on your shoulders! It’s the players’ job to make the game interesting as well. Creating fun NPCs can help as well, but it isn’t that necessary either.
• Have fun. This is the most important tip of them all. D&D is a game, so make sure you're having fun. If you're not enjoying yourself, it will show, and your players won't have fun either.
  • NOW THIS IS RULE NUMBER ONE. Even if you feel you suck at GMing, if you and the players are having fun, then you are doing an amazing job at GMing. I can’t stress this enough. GMing should never feel like a job.

I would like to add in some of my own even though I think those ones were great:

• Know when to ask for dice rolls. Depending on the game you are playing, characters may already consider some tasks as basic stuff. You don’t need to ask an adventurer in D&D to roll to climb a ladder. Only ask for rolls when the result might bring something interesting to the story. It can be a bit difficult at first, as one tends to ask for unnecessary rolls when nervous, but you’ll quickly get the hang of it. More on that in one of my articles
• Managing time. Possibly one of the hardest things as a GM. If you end the session and the players feel like they only did one interesting thing then something probably went wrong. Don’t worry, you can do better next time, and this is something I still struggle with. Learning how to manage time might not be the thing to focus on the most when you start GMing, but try to think about it while you are doing it nonetheless so you keep getting better at it. I offer some tips on that in one of my articles.

What if I don’t have players to GM?

Maybe you just discovered the hobby and your friends group don’t want to try it out, had bad experiences in the past, or didn’t enjoy this sort of game… The good thing is that players abound, but there aren’t nearly enough GMs, mostly because people believe it to be a tedious job, too complex, or they’d rather play than GM. There are several things you can do in this case:

• Find a local gaming store. Lots of cities have gaming stores in which people go to play trading card games, board games, and roleplaying games. Try talking to the one working there. They surely will be able to help you find a way to find people interested in the game you want to run.
• Find an internet group.  Nowadays, especially after the pandemic, things have been made simpler than ever to roleplay and find people to play with online. Forums, virtual TTRPGs, discord servers abound, and if you search a little you will quickly find a way to GM to a group of people, maybe even from other corners of the world! I created an article on how to keep roleplaying during the pandemic. It still has a lot of valuable information on how to find people online: HERE
• Play One on One/Duet. There usually is at least one other person you can find that is looking to play with you, be it a family member, significant other, or that one great friend. Why not try playing one on one? This means you GM, and the other person is the player. Most games do require you to tweak a few things, while others are entirely made for this style of play. Here is an article on tips to play one on one (or duet, as some people call it), and here are some ideas about some adventures you can build: Part 1, Part 2

Get Inspiration

In order to want to GM even more, it’s always nice to have some stories to tell. For that to happen you need to find some inspiration. Inspiration can be found in multiple ways, and different people encounter those creative juices doing certain activities. Relaxing stuff that can open your mind such as going for a walk, jogging, or taking a bath always help a great deal. For me, watching movies, tv series, animes, reading books, and playing videogames are the things that give me the most to think about and ideas for new quests or adventures. I have taken entire story arcs from science fiction tv series and reflavored them into a medieval fantasy theme to add them to my D&D game, creating a fantastic story out of it to tell.

When you are getting started as a GM, doing those things is surely going to give you the needed inspiration. Additionally, there are thousands of recorded live plays of other people playing the game you are intending to run. Watching the stories created by other GMs, or identifying how the GM controls the flow of the game might not only encourage you to try it out but also teach you how to run the game in a successful way. Don’t feel pressured if they are fantastic at what they do, you are going to do just as well!

Final Words

You already entered this article and read all I said… The fact that you are this dedicated to looking out ways to GM in a good way says a lot about you. You are going to do amazing! And even if you feel you didn’t, as long as you and your players had fun, that’s what really matters. I hope you keep GMing, as you’ll notice that each time you will do increasingly better! Welcome to this side of the hobby.

Last year for my birthday, my wife bought the two of us seats in a professionally run Spelljammer campaign. Spelljammer has long been my favorite DnD setting, but one I never got to play as much as I would have liked. We didn’t know what to expect going in, having never used a professional GMing service. Fortunately for us we are having a great time with some characters we love and other players that make the game exciting and fun. All in all, this is the perfect Spelljammer experience that I never got to have back in the 90s. GM Thor has been an expert guide to the Spelljammer universe and this made me curious about the day to day of being a professional GM. What is it like? What are his secrets? So I asked if he would answer a few questions for the readers of Gnome Stew. Here is what I learned:

• Please introduce yourself to Gnome Stew’s readers.
  

  Hail and well met! Thor Goodman, level 32 Game Master currently residing in Murfreesboro, TN! 

• Where can people find you online?
  

  @better_lore_thor for most socials, although I rarely post on twitter. You can also find my Pro GM page here: https://startplaying.games/gm/thorgoodman502

• How long have you been GMing, and professionally? Is this a full time job or a side gig?
  

  I started out in the year 2000 as a chubby kid in the midwest. I received the DnD 3.0 starter set as a gift and was overwhelmed by the possibility. Of course, by introducing my friends to DnD, I received a one-way ticket to being a forever GM.
  I’ve been playing weekly games for 23 years now for fun and just finished my first whole year as a paid GM. As of now, it is my full-time job and sole source of income.

• What did you expect being a pro GM to be like and how is that different from the reality? How is it different than just for your friends?
  

  Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. I went in with the mentality of “well, I do this all the time and I think I am quite good, what’s the worst that could happen?” I had a few campaigns and a handful of RPG systems that I considered myself proficient in. My first paid games weren’t even DnD, but Dungeon World! But certainly my biggest difficulty was (and still is) mastering the Virtual Tabletop. It adds a whole other layer of complexity to game prep. I am still learning all sorts of new things and every day presents a new challenge to be overcome!
  Secondly, I see no huge difference between playing with friends vs. running games for people online. Save for being sober throughout the session, that is. I tend to run more lighthearted games instead of gritty dark settings, and my players seem to enjoy the break from reality and have a few laughs while kicking evil’s butt.   

• Is it still fun or does it eventually just become a job?
  

  It IS a job. I certainly put more hours in now than I have ever worked in a week. It’s basically unending and in need of constant repair. The work is mentally taxing and you are basically always “on call” if a player wants to chat. And of course, you get your fair share of problem players. They expect a certain level of quality. It is the Mercer Effect in an echo chamber, and paying customers will simply find better games if you fail to meet their expectations. However, this is the most fun and rewarding job I’ve had. Each day I get to meet interesting people from around the world and tell a great story together. You make friendships and forge stories that last a lifetime. I think every job has its difficulties, and to dwell in the negatives is no way to live. At the end of the day I ask myself, “What else would you rather be doing?” and I remind myself just how lucky I am to have found a job that I am both good at and enjoy dearly.

• What skills do you use more than you thought you would? Less?
  

  Hands-down the biggest stumbling block is mastering the VTT. Even after you become fluent in your virtual tabletop of choice, it more than doubles your prep time. Surprisingly, most players prefer published adventures over homebrew stuff. I assume it’s because there’s a guarantee of quality from a published source, and that a random player might not have trust in your writing skills.

• What things do you feel you do well? Where are some areas where you have challenges and how do you overcome them?
  

  I studied theater in college and spent a decade in a touring band. Those previous experiences taught me a lot about the art of performance and storytelling. I stick pretty close to the ‘ol Joseph Campbell and his thousand-faced story circle. I think my greatest talents lie in that realm. From what my players have said, I do amazing voices, tell a fantastic story, and encourage creativity. 
  The challenges are all self-imposed. I want my games to be the best. That can be anything from providing interactive maps full of traps and animations to creating encounters that tie directly into a player’s backstory. It’s a constantly changing workflow, and the virtual tabletops out there are doing really interesting stuff on the technical side. Keeping on the cutting edge of a burgeoning technology while providing quality games 7 days a week really is a full-time job!

• What are some hard fast rules for your table? Do you think they would work universally?
  

  The “rule of cool” is my daily bread. What makes TTRPGS so fun and unique is the element of human creativity in each and every action. I’m here to tell a great story, not play a video game. I really don’t think there is a “right” way to run your games, but my players really enjoy knowing that I am their biggest fan, cheering them on from behind the screen. 

• What hardware/software/websites do you use and why?
  

  I am a huge fan of Foundry VTT. It is a pretty complicated toolbox, but you can do some really nifty stuff. Virtual tabletops are still an emerging technology, and keeping on top of new developments helps me make my games the best they can be!

• Do you still play and does it change your outlook as a player?
  

  Sadly no. I am a “Forever GM.” The last game I played in was Storm King’s Thunder years and years ago.

• How many games are you running and how often are sessions?
  

  Currently, I am running 13 games. 11 weekly sessions averaging 3 hours each, and two bi-weekly games.

• What systems/campaigns/modules are you currently running? What would you like to run more of in the future?
  

  Currently, I’m running heaps of Spelljammer in 5e. I love the cornball setting and it’s a blast. Mostly I’m running 5e right now, but also have done several paid games using Dungeon World, Pirate Borg, and Masks: A New Generation. I love PbtA (Powered by the Apocalypse) as a ruleset, but want to get into Pathfinder for obvious reasons.

• How many hours a week do you spend on prep?
  

  Each game I run gets the prep time it deserves. Usually about one or two hours per week on each game, not counting the actual 3-hour sessions.

• How do you get most of your business? Do you promote yourself and how?
  

  Most of my business comes from Startplaying.games. They do an amazing job of marketing, and aside from a few posts on social media here and there, I let them do the marketing. They do take a small cut of my earnings, but it’s well worth it IMHO.

• What would you say to someone to sell them on using a professional GMing service?
  

  I’d say this: It’s purely for entertainment. If you have a group of friends that you love playing with for free, that’s wonderful! Inarguably the best way to enjoy the game. However, if you are a busy person who wants a quality game, guaranteed, every time without a hassle this might just be for you!

• Do you have any advice for someone who wants to start running games as an income source?
  

  I’d say to be prepared to put in the work. It’s an incredibly rewarding job, but paying players have certain expectations. Think about the best game of DnD you’ve ever played and be prepared to replicate that multiple times a week. You have to be self-motivated and adaptable. But I recommend any GM worth their salt to give it a go!

   

Professional GMing it seems is not a job for the faint of heart. I wouldn’t want to do it, that’s for sure. But it brings unique benefits to both sides of the screen. For one, we’re closing in on actually completing a campaign, something that couldn’t often be said of the decades of weekends I spent around my dining room table. Given the opportunity, I would gladly foray into professional GMs again.

What are supplements? 

Supplements, in TTRPGs, are books that contain additional material for a GM and/or players to use in their game. Common types of supplements are: Setting, Character Class/Options, Optional/Supplemental rules, Opponent/Monster, and Equipment Books.

Setting books contain additional details about the game setting or some specific part of the setting, Character Class Books (sometimes known as Splat Books) are books that contain additional character options and details for players. Equipment books contain equipment that characters and NPCs can use in the game.

Some companies put these out as separate books, but many combine elements of some or all of these into a single publication. 

What are not supplements? 

For the sake of this article, we are not considering adventures to be supplements. Sometimes, they do have additional setting and equipment information, and in those cases, the things we talk about below are still applicable. 

Overall adventures are consumable stories for the characters to participate in, and don’t add new material into the games (with the exceptions we just made above). 

Types of Supplements

There are a few different groups that publish supplements for games:

• From the Publisher – these are supplements that are released by the game’s publisher. The original designers may make them or they may have other designers write these materials. You will know when you check the credits of the book. 
• 3rd Party – some games have open licenses and allow for other designers or publishers not directly working for the game’s publisher to create material. These range from professional publishing companies to hobby publishers.
• Homebrew – these are community-made or fan-made materials. These are often not sold but instead posted on a web page, discussion board, or other location. These are made for free and given away for free. 

Playtesting

What is not often easy to determine, if at all, is how well new material included in supplements has been playtested. How much playtesting is done for a supplement will be based on the design philosophy of the designer and publisher. Don’t assume that if something came from the publisher it’s automatically been playtested and don’t assume something that was homebrew wasn’t.

Supplements at Campaign Start

Before your campaign starts, before or at Session Zero, you need to determine two things:

What Supplements Are Going To Be Allowed

First, you need to decide out of all the supplements that exist for the game, which ones will you be allowing in your campaign. For some games, there is going to be a library of possible supplements, and you need to decide which ones are going to be allowed into the game.

This decision will likely have an effect on the characters the players can make and the types of characters that will be part of the campaign. Supplemental or Optional rules may affect gameplay, and those also need to be considered. Setting books often just add details to part of the setting and wind up being pretty benign. Equipment books don’t often affect the beginning of play but wind up having more of an effect mid-campaign when the character can afford or are powerful enough to get some of the sexier equipment in the book. 

How Will Future Supplements Be Handled

In addition to dealing with the current supplements, it is a good idea to discuss, as a group, how you will handle new supplements when they come out. Will you allow new supplements into the game, mid-campaign (see below)? Will there be some kind of review? Will you wait a few weeks/months after it comes out to hear from the community how it’s working for others? 

Supplements Mid-Campaign

Once your campaign is going, new supplements are a disruption to your game. They may be a good disruption or not. Most of us older gamers, who lived during the d20 boom in the early 2K’s, have some horror story about a supplement being added to a campaign that disrupted the game. 

Hopefully, you had the discussion in Session Zero about how to handle supplements that are coming out as you are playing (see above) so that expectations are set. 

When looking at new supplements, you need to look at the impact they might have on the game. Are there items, options, or rules that might create a sufficient disruption to the ongoing game? What are reviews saying about the supplement? Do you want to allow everything from the supplement into the game, or do you want to pick certain parts? 

One consideration is that something in a future supplement may require some kind of retcon to make it fit into the game. Perhaps a player was trying to build a Cat Pirate character and did it using a base class with some creative choices of skills and gear, but then a new supplement comes out with a Cat Pirate class. Will you let them change over to that class and smooth out any continuity issues, or will you have them continue their current build? 

It’s best to have talked about these in Session Zero, but if you did not, you can have these discussions at the table or between games. 

My Cyberpunk Red Campaign 

Right now, there are only a few supplements out for Cyberpunk Red and I am going just to allow them all into the game at the start. Most of the supplements are for equipment, and most of them will be things that the players can’t afford, so my risk is minimal. 

There is a good chance that other supplements will come out for CPR while we are playing, as R. Talsorian is actively developing the game, so I have added a note to discuss this with my players. Personally, I am for including supplements, as long as I have the right to block parts or whole supplements that might disrupt the game in a negative way. 

We Love Supplements

Supplements are great. They are great for game publishers who have new things to sell to you, without having to develop a whole game. They are great for players, giving them new options for them to try. They are great for GMs who get new adversaries to throw at the characters. We all love supplements.

At the same time, too many supplements at the start of the campaign can be daunting and confusing to manage. Supplements that show up mid-campaign can disrupt the game. On top of that, not all supplements are playtested the same way, or can’t even be playtested with all the other supplements you are using leading to chaos at your table. 

With a bit of forethought in campaign setup and good communication with your players, you can manage the supplements for your game in a way that everyone has a good time. 

What are you take on supplements when you set up a new campaign? What are some of your favorite supplements? 

Jared takes some time to speak with Adam Bradford, the person behind Demiplane. a place for Digital Tools, Content, and Services to Discover, Prep, and Play All Your Favorite Tabletop Roleplaying Games.

The first time I heard about Osprey Publishing, it was regarding their various military history books. Fast forward a few years, and my friend was explaining to me that they had introduced some miniature wargaming rules based around various themes, that were “miniature line agnostic,” meaning they were putting out their own lines of minis, just showing you how you could use existing minis for the game. Then I encountered their line of fantasy military supplements, creating similar books for dwarves, orcs, and elves as they had for real-world armies. 

All of this led me to realize that Osprey has been expanding into the RPG market as well. They have published RPGs on British folklore, prehistoric fantasy, science fiction, wuxia, the bronze age, the Knights Templar, cyberpunk noir, and, what we’re looking at today, 1940s-era hard-boiled noir stories. I wanted to get a feel for what Osprey is offering, so today we’re going to look at Hard City.

Disclaimer

I have not had the opportunity to play or run Hard City. I did not receive a review copy of the game, and purchased the game for review on my own.

 Hard City

Publisher Osprey Games
Author Nathan Russell
Artist Luis F. Sanz

Layout and Format

The PDF of this product is 161 pages long. This includes a title page, a copyright page, a three-page table of contents, a glossary, a character sheet, and an acknowledgment/credits page. The book is arranged in single page layout, with bold red headers for new topics. Sidebars are simple outlined sections that take up the full width of the page. Each of the chapters has full-page artwork, and there is half-page artwork included on various pages inside the chapters. 

The artwork is thematically appropriate for a 1940s-era noir story. In addition to portraying hard-bitten characters in different noir-appropriate situations, there is a diverse range of people in the images, in both gender presentation and race/ethnicity.

Contents

The PDF is divided into the following sections:

• Welcome to the City
• The Basics
• Characters
• Getting Into Trouble
• Hitting the Mean Streets
• Downtime
• The City
• Cases
• Game Master Advice
• Threats
• Case: Engagement with Death
• Case: In at The Deep End

The Rules

At its most basic, in terms of mechanics, Hard City is a game about assembling a dice pool of Action Dice based on the character’s traits, adding Danger Dice based on the difficulty of the situation and complicating factors, and rolling them. Each Danger Die that matches an Action Die cancels that die out, and the highest of the remaining Action Dice is the result of the check.

• 6–Success
• 4 or 5–Partial Success
• 3 or less–Failure
• No Action Dice uncancelled or only 1s remaining–Botch

If there are additional 6s beyond the first, this may allow the PC to add boons to their result. These boons may just be additional positive narrative results, or they may have mechanical weight (for example, in extended tests or in combat). All of the rolls are player-facing, which means if the GM’s characters are taking an action, the PCs are rolling to react to that action, rather than the GM rolling. 

Extended Tasks require characters to score three successes before three failures, and might be used for situations like chases or interrogations. 

Combat or any more structured scene calls for characters to be sorted into a specific resolution order. Most of the time, this will mean that the PCs go first in each of these phases. There is no check to see who goes first, the PCs just determine what they are doing, get sorted into the appropriate phase of the structured scene, and take turns whenever it makes sense. The structured scene order looks like this:

• Talking
• Moving
• Shooting
• Fighting

Threats all have the same general format, which means you could have a warehouse on fire as well as several goons, and each will be formatted with a series of tags that might serve to help frame how many Danger Dice to add to the pool when addressing that threat, as well as drives and actions. Each of the goons may have one Grit, and the fire might have three Grit, meaning it takes one successful action to remove a Goon from the scene, and three successful actions to put out the fire. Boons generated from additional 6s rolled can be applied to these numbers, so someone getting a boon while putting out the fire may remove two Grit instead of one from the threat.

It’s interesting to see the hybridization of various games going into these rules. It’s not a Powered by the Apocalypse or Forged in the Dark game, but it borrows from both of those, as well as other games like Fate, and even a little bit of the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game.

Player Characters

Player Characters are built by picking a Trademark for their Past, Present, and a Perk. So in your Past, you may have been a Performer, in your Present you may be a Negotiator, and for your Perk, you may be Famous.

You have five Edges that you can arrange under your Trademarks, as long as you have at least one under each Trademark. Whenever you take an action, you gain an Action Die for the Trademark that you are using for that action, and an additional Action Die for each Edge that applies to the action that you are taking.

Each character also takes two Flaws. Whenever a Flaw causes problems for a PC, they get to refresh their Moxie pool. Characters also assign a Drive and Ties, which are used to determine XP awards for advancement.

Each character starts out with a maximum of three Moxie and three Grit. Grit represents the number of injuries you can sustain until you are out of a scene. Moxie is a resource that you can spend to change a die result, remove a Condition, or use a Voice-over to add details to a scene. Moxie can also allow you to use a second Trademark in a check, which could potentially also grant you more dice for relevant Edges under that Trademark.

Conditions are generally gained as consequences for not receiving a full success, and if they are relevant to a particular action, they also add Danger Dice to your pool. Grit represents the number of injuries you can take, but each of those injuries can have varying severity. Injuries can be Light, Moderate, or Serious. You can decide if you want to mark a new injury or upgrade an existing one when the Injury is suffered. You can’t upgrade a Severe Injury. If you don’t upgrade your Injuries, you may be taken out more easily, but are less likely to be dying when you are taken out.

When creating characters, the group is encouraged to come up with a campaign framework that explains why the PCs are working together to do what they do. The suggested frameworks include:

• Wrong Place, Wrong Time
• Private Eyes
• Operatives
• Special Division

Wrong Place, Wrong Time represents regular people who get caught up in a dangerous situation that they have to work through, and is noted as being appropriate for one-shots. Private Eyes assumes the PCs all own their own PI firm, with different PCs having different specializations. Operatives assumes that the group is working for larger organizations as fixers or investigators of some sort. Special Division assumes that the PCs are working as part of a law enforcement task force on corruption.

I like the campaign framework idea a lot, but I wish there were a few more examples or a few more granular subdivisions under each of those. I wouldn’t even mind if the Campaign Framework had its own tags that could be accessed when appropriate. 

The Setting

Hard City uses a broadly drawn setting known as, appropriately, The City. By default, the starting year of the campaign is 1946, allowing for the fallout of War World II to be factored into the fabric of the story. There are three pages of tables that show some of the common goods for sale and their prices in this era, although the game itself isn’t especially concerned with buying or selling gear or goods.

The highest tier of organized crime is The Syndicate, but several crime families and organizations are mentioned. For example, the Johnsons run Anvil City, and the Sullivan Clan runs Bridgetown, but the biggest family is the Cesares. It’s a little disappointing that the Triad is mentioned as being active in Chinatown, but ends up being less detailed than any other criminal organization in that it has no families or NPCs detailed.

There is a section on personalities of the city, including the categories Movers and Shakers and Troublemakers. Most of these characters get a sentence or two to broadly define their roles in the city. 

Various sections of the city get one-page descriptions, usually a few paragraphs each, in addition to a section on places in that district, and tags that can be used to portray that district (we’ll get to tags a little bit later). In addition, each district gets its own set of example hooks, four each, to help explain what kind of stories might relate to what districts.

While not given any specific geographic location, The City is mentioned as having an ocean on one side, hills on the other side, with farmlands and oil fields bordering The City on the other sides. This is a broadly drawn setting to allow for a wide variety of hard-boiled or noir themes, without dwelling on real-world history outside of the broad generalities of the era.

I’m not exactly sure where the best place to put this observation is, so I’ll throw it here in the Setting section, because a lot of what I’m about to say is about how the book presents atmosphere. In the technical sections, when presenting the game as a game, the book does a very good job of reinforcing that the table needs to avoid harmful stereotypes, like those associated with race/ethnicity, gender, or other marginalized identities. However, the thematic use of language reinforces some aspects of the stereotypes of the era, especially when describing women. Gendered terms are used a lot without a lot of text used to contextualize or broaden those terms. For example, “tough guys” and “femme fatales” as different archetypes.

Some of this feels like a consequence of how the book is doing things. When it’s talking about the game as a game, it makes a strong statement, but does so in a very focused and concise manner, but when it is presenting atmosphere, it tends to linger a bit more.

For the Game Master

In addition to the general rules for the game, there are about seven pages of GM advice on how to structure and run a game session. Game sessions are broadly organized into either Investigations or Heists. One of the biggest takeaways in this section is that the GM shouldn’t keep clues locked away from the PCs, and that they should provide more clues than they need to move the plot forward.

The GM section also has a number of threats detailed, each one having the following elements:

• Name
• Drive
• Grit
• Tags
• Actions

As mentioned above, Grit serves the same purpose as it does for PCs, but in this case, you aren’t tracking the severity or assigning specific injuries. It’s just a measure of how many successes you need to remove the threat. The threats in this section are organized into People, Environments, and Organizations. For Organizations, PCs may be in a position to damage that organization and reduce its Grit, and with enough successes, may remove that organization as a threat.

I like framing Organizations as threats in this manner. I can easily picture PCs, after they have dealt with a member of a crime family, doing some research to tie that person back to the organization in question, and moving them “one step closer” to bringing the whole thing down. Not only is it a fun campaign timer, but it also fits very well with themes like a Hard Boiled detective trying to make their name by toppling a major crime figure in The City.

The advice that is here is good. It is advice that someone brand new to RPGs or to this particular set of genre tropes is going to need to make sure they don’t make some major mistakes that spoil the mood. I do feel that it could have used a few more examples to back up those best practices. Admittedly, it’s hard for me to gauge because I’ve read so many GM chapters, and I’ve read a lot of chapters that deal with presenting stories similar to what this RPG is facilitating.

Example Cases

There are two example cases provided in the book. I’m always a fan of example adventures, even if you never end up using them. It shows you what the designers feel is important in an adventure, as well as how to incorporate elements of the game. In this case, there are two example cases, one being an investigation and one being a heist.

The first case involves finding a man who is engaged to be married and has disappeared, and the second case involves artwork smuggled back to the States after World War II and being sold to a private buyer. 

I appreciate that the “heist” case has notes on how you can use the heist framework and tropes, but model it on infiltrating the location to gather evidence for a story or a prosecution, as well as just breaking in to steal the artwork. The investigation is definitely steeped in the tropes of the genre, but it’s a good example of what I mentioned above in the setting section.

Let’s look at the tags and actions of the two women that appear in the adventure:

• Gloria Davenport tags: Attractive, Athletic, Charm, Make a Deal, Seduction, Lie, Strong-willed
• Gloria Davenport actions: Fluster you, Distract you, Pay you off, Make a scene, Make you beg for more
• Sylvia Rossi tags: Empathy, Alert, Notice, Always Watched
• Sylvia Rossi actions: Give you a sob story, Spot impending trouble, Spill the beans, Run away

What makes this even more awkward is that Sylvia is an abused wife, and there is a particularly vicious trope that is thrown into the mix as a plot twist. 

If nothing else, I would have liked a little more discussion around the intentionality of using these tropes, and if there is a way to engage them with more depth or meaning, instead of just perpetuating stereotypes found in noir or hard-boiled media.

Happy Ending

 If you want to do the work, it’s a solid foundation 

I enjoy how the tag system presents narrative-focused elements and translates them into mechanics for resolution. I think the book makes some good choices in presenting The City as a more abstract setting that is flexible enough to use for multiple noir and hard-boiled stories. I appreciate that you can frame environments and organizations with the same rules as dangerous villains, which gives you more flexibility in framing action scenes than just shooting or punching the opposition.

The Big Sleep

There are two paragraphs on safety, which largely point you toward other resources you can research on your own. While the technical game aspects of the game make it clear that you shouldn’t spend time on the harmful stereotypes of the genre, the presentation of the setting and adventures is somewhat at odds with that message. There could have been more work done to either contextualize and take a deeper look at including and deconstructing those stereotypes, or even building an alternate reality that plays with some of the themes of noir and hard-boiled fiction without others, but instead, the book relies on the GM to do that work on their own.

Tenuous Recommendation–The product has positive aspects, but buyers may want to make sure the positive aspects align with their tastes before moving this up their list of what to purchase next.

Hard-boiled detective stories are one of the genres that I really want to spend more time with in gaming, and I like the foundation that this game lays down. However, it lacks the more intentional engagement with the topics that many of the best modern games include. If you want to do the work, it’s a solid foundation, but you really should do the work to make your game a safer environment, and you’re going to be doing that work largely on your own. 

In June of 2009, I launched the (now defunct) Ravenous RPG site. My purpose and intent was to review RPG products, RPG posts/blogs/articles/etc. I fulfilled that purpose for a good number of years before shuttering the site due to lack of time to properly consume all of the great and wonderful things coming out of the RPG community. Of course, Gnome Stew was one of the many sites on my radar, and I consistently linked to articles and left thoughtful comments as best I could. Something in the way I reviewed, commented, chewed upon, and gave my introspection on RPGs caught the eye of the fine folks here at Gnome Stew.

Fast forwarding to leap day of 2016, I received a tweet from John Arcadian saying he wanted to talk to me about some RPG-related writing. As you can tell from my lengthy articles here, I’m more verbose than Twitter’s format allows in order to properly express my ideas. Instead of responding to the tweet, I dropped him an email. This started the conversation in which John invited me to join the Gnome Stew crew and outlined expectations, rules, guidance, and all that good stuff. Since I’m a digital pack rat, I still have all of those emails in my Gnome Stew email folder.

Obviously, I accepted the invite to join Gnome Stew, and posted my first article on Gaming, Narrating, and Simulating on March 28th, 2016. Phew. That was a rough start. I was given guidance that articles should be about 800 words with a hard cap of 1,000 words. (PS: The “hard cap” thing was my misreading of the instructions John had sent me. I’ve clearly gone way over that 1,000 word “hard cap” many times.) My first draft of the article sat at about 3,000 words. I cut it down to a hair over 900 to fit within the word range given to me. This made the article choppy, ineffective, short-sighted, and it received numerous negative comments because of this. Many of the comments were so deeply abusive that I thought about quitting Gnome Stew and requesting that John delete my one and only article. Fortunately, John came to my rescue, deleted the abusive comments, banned a few people from commenting, and then immediately jumped on our Slack channel to give me a much-needed boost in the form of a pep talk. I really needed that. Honestly, I should have bitten off a smaller topic for my first article. Such is hindsight, right?

Since that bumpy start, I’ve gone on to write and publish 91 (including this one) articles and reviews on Gnome Stew. Before I started typing this post, I was exactly 1,625 words shy of hitting exactly 100,000 words worth of Gnome Stew articles and reviews and such.

Now that you’ve seen my history with Gnome Stew, I’m going to touch upon some of my past articles that I think really helped me discover more about quality gaming as I wrote them. I’m hoping this retrospective will help you discover some older advice that I’ve dropped in the past. I’ll be going through them from the oldest articles to the newer ones. Maybe, if you look closely enough, you’ll discover my own evolution as a GM and player.

The first article I’d like to highlight is my PC Agency article. I wrote this one pretty early in my time with Gnome Stew because I deeply feel that this is a vital topic for everyone (GMs and players alike) to be aware of. If a GM (or another player) strips a player or their character of their agency, then there’s really no reason for the player to be at the table other than to maybe roll some dice, move some minis, and do some math to announce a result. That’s not fun for anyone. If you’re doing this to others at the table, then I recommend you go write a short story or novel where you truly are in full control of the actions of everyone involved.

The next one up is based on my education as an author. It’s about Character Arcs. Granted, there are many, many types of character arcs out there, but I boiled down things into Change, Growth, and Failure arcs. These concepts are probably oversimplification of things. I might revisit this article in a future, full-blown post now that I’ve learned quite a bit more about character arcs in the intervening years. I still stand by these three types of arcs as being foundational to all others, though.

How to Build a Custom GM Screen is the next article I want to highlight because I still refer to it and point people in its direction all the time. This article is, at its core, really about how to learn a new system. The GM screen is just part of the puzzle, but it’s an important one. Even if you abhor using a screen at your table, I still recommend making one. It’s part of the learning process. Maybe, instead of thinking of it as a barrier between you and the players, you can approach it as creating handouts for your players and yourself to assist everyone in learning the new game. The process is the same, but with a different physical artifact generated at the end of the effort.

I’ve been techno-geek my entire life (I starting doing software engineering when I was 7 years old). Since the 1990s, I’ve largely worked in or around computer security. The article I wrote on changing GMs within the same campaign was A Computer Security Approach To Changing GMs, and it’s one of the favorites that I have out of all of my articles. I think the reason it’s near the top of the list is because it scratched my computer geek itch and my RPG nerd itch all at the same time.

I’ve mentioned being an author (have you noticed?!?), and one of my favorite storytelling structures of all time is Scene and Sequel. In this article, I adopted the concepts of this structure to RPG sessions. At a high level, scenes are where the action takes place (social interactions, combat, chase scenes, high tension moments, etc.). The sequels are not the second story in a series, but the area of the story that immediately follows a scene where the characters have a little bit of downtime (not in the D&D 5th edition concept) to reflect on what just happened, be a bit retrospective, and make plans for what they want to do next. In theory, these plans lead directly into the next scene, and the whole process repeats over and over until the story concludes.

Hey! I write books. One of the more popular concepts in coalescing ideas in a structured manner is the MICE Quotient (created by Orson-Scott Card). Mary Robinette Kowal modified it into the MACE Quotient, which I think works a little better. I use MACE in my own storytelling when I’m in the midst of outlining my stories, and it’s saved me numerous headaches in avoiding restructuring stories during the editing process. On the RPG front, I modified MACE to be LACE Quotient. In LACE, the letters stand for Locations, Asks/Answers, Combats, and Events. Delve into the article to find out more details about each element of the LACE Quotient that I came up with.

The next article I want to talk about was written before I’d discovered Dungeon Crawl Classics. DCC had been out for about six years when I came up with this concept. I’m sure I’d heard of the game, but I had certainly never cracked the books or played the game. Since this time, I’ve had a chance to be a player in a few funnels, a few storylines, and quite a few adventures in DCC. It’s a hoot! Anyway, I conceived of this article based on my past experiences with the players playing “commoners” in their setting. These were characters that were down on their luck, had little in the way of possessions or wealth, and couldn’t really impact the world around them unless they worked together as a team. It’s a fascinating concept in any RPG system, and I still stand by what I wrote about Captivating Commoners.

What do you do when a player misses session zero at the start of a campaign? It happens. In my group, we do our best to adjust scheduling session zero to when everyone can make it, but that’s not always an option. It’s always extra work for the GM to get the missing player up to speed when they return to the table on the following session, but it can be done. It’s especially easier these days with online communication systems like Slack, Discord, Messenger, email, and so on. My article about Missing Session Zero has more details on how to handle this eventuality.

Leveraging Tech At The Table is another article that I refer to quite often. Even though this came out in 2019, not much has changed with my opinion and uses of tech at the table. Granted, the pandemic drove many people to play purely online (and many have stayed there), but this article talks about the meshing of online tech with the physical presence at the table. Go take a look at my horrible handwriting on the screenshots of my digital note taking efforts.

I had an attempt at running The Expanse fail spectacularly back in the middle of 2019. This was not the RPG’s fault. It was my fault. I learned nine important lessons on how to avoid this in the future, and I summarized my failures with advice points on 9 Steps For A Successful New Group Launch.

(… And at this point, I’ve hit my 100,000 word goal!)

(… But I’m still going to keep going through a few more article to highlight some others.)

In the “ye olde days” of creating dungeons, adventure creators would get “clever” and make location elements that were merely there to screw with the players (not the characters, but the players). In my article about Destroying Clever Maps, I delve into why this is utter garbage and wholly unrealistic even in a fantasy or far-flung sci-fi setting.

In 2020, I had a whole series of “interesting” articles where I threw out ideas for spicing up your settings and characters with “interesting” details, aspects, and facets. They were very well received by many people, so I wanted to make a list of them here:

• Interesting Foods
• Interesting Weather
• Interesting Foliage
• Interesting Urban Locations
• Interesting Fauna
• Interesting Rural Locations
• Interesting Magic Appearances

About two years ago, I put together an article detailing some Bizarre Traditions and wrote them up to make them sound as weird as possible, even though they are pretty mundane events. I did this to inspire folks to come up with their own oddities and traditional actions that are just slightly left of center. This one was a fun one to write because of the twisting of a “normal” activity to make it appear as bizarre as possible.

It’s generally accepted that railroading the PCs through the GM’s storyline is a bad thing. That’s not the point of this article, though. When I wrote Railroading The Rules, I had in mind that a story needed to be told in a certain manner to teach the rules, bit-by-bit, to players that might be new to a system or to RPGs in general. The approach I outline in the article is one that I’ve used with great success many times over the decades.

Another article I had a great deal of fun with was using Tattoos As Spellbooks in a D&D-style game system. This was a meme and conversation running about social media at the time, so I took a serious look at it from the GM’s perspective to see if I would allow it, what limitations there might be, and how those precious tattoos might get damaged. This truly was a joy to write, and I hope it’s inspired some folks to get tattoos on their wizards as an alternative to putting every spell inside a book.

I love running improv-style games. This is where I, as the GM, am completely unprepared for what the PCs are going to do next… and I do this on purpose! This makes for a more dynamic story, a deeper engagement level by the players, and leads to new hijinks that no one (sometimes, not even the players!) could have imagined happening. In my article about Running An Improv Game, I delve into how this can be done.

Is your world living or undead? I ask this question and clarify what I mean in my article about your World’s Heartbeat. This article generated quite a bit of conversation on social media, which is why I wanted to bring it to your attention.

I think that’ll be the last article I highlight in this (very) lengthy retrospective of 100,000 words (and then some) of writing for Gnome Stew.

I want to take a moment to pass along some much deserved thanks to various people:

• John Arcadian for bringing me on board.
• Angela Murray for starting the Gnomecast and for keeping Gnome Stew so well organized.
• Old Man Logan for editing 100,000 words (and then some) of mine.
• Phil Vecchione for showing me how it’s done on the GM advice side of things.
• Senda Linaugh for opening my eyes to the fact that good gaming is more than rules mastery.
• … and the rest of the Gnome Stew crew for many years of wonderful companionship online.
• … and to all of the wonderful readers and gamers out there that read our collective advice!

Thanks for letting me ramble through this brief trip in my history.

Here’s to another 100,000 words!

Welcome to the GnomeCast, the Gnome Stew’s tabletop gaming advice podcast. Here we talk with the other gnomes about gaming things to avoid becoming part of the stew. So I guess we’d better be good.

Today we have myself Ang, along with Senda and Jared to talk about Collaborative World Building. What it is, how to do it, games that can help you get better at it, the pitfalls, the bonus for doing this, and potential ways to use this concept in your games.