Meta Gaming Support Blog

Question: Dear Dungeon Monkey, I am a GM currently running a small campaign with a pretty good group, it is currently a fantasy campaign but we also occasionally jump into other genres as well, sometimes modern, sometimes espionage, and even occasionally dark fantasy or vampire themed role playing.  I like my players but one issue I keep having with them is when they are asked the name of their group or organization, it should be a moment for the players to bond together as a team but instead it becomes a moment that completely breaks the genre.  Instead of coming up with a name that remotely fits the setting or campaign the players come up with some horrible moniker, such as “Creamy Cheese Balls” or “Rogue Falcon Poop” and after they get done giggling about it refuse to change the name.  It doesn’t ruin my campaign but it starts to bother me, any suggestions on how to get them to take the idea of a group identity more seriously?

Answer: One of the cornerstone concepts for many role playing games is the formation of a team, in particular creating a team identity helps to mold the characters the players are running from single individuals who happen to get into all sorts of madcap adventures together into a unit in the business of madcap adventures.  It often marks a turning point in the narrative experience of a campaign, where the players go from the initial stage of learning about each other and working as individuals with immediate problems towards becoming a group confronting long term problems or campaign issues.  When a Game Master (GM) calls for a team name to be created it is usually because some Non-Player Character (NPC) of Importance (NPCI) has requested the name of the group as either part of the post adventure “thank you” closing of a situation or the pre, during, or post adventure “who is responsible for this mess” phase of a situation.  For those wondering this second moment also covers when an NPCI of a villainous alignment asks the players just who they think they are attempting to thwart the NPCI’s nefarious scheme.  If your players are unsure at that moment that they need to have a cool sounding team name ready, my suggestion is not to worry about it too greatly.

Honestly the problem with the team name is that the players are using it as a means to attempt to shape the story, the team name that is silly or genre breaking is actually an effort by the player to force the world shaped by the GM to react to them.  By making you as the GM identify your players team by its silly genre breaking name they are, in actuality, forcing you to acknowledge your world is partially reactive to them.  But if you are a GM there is a simple technique to slowly break your players of this habit, give them precisely what they are craving but in an ever increasing dosage.  By definition we are talking about a name that the players have chosen for their team that is unusual or genre breaking, otherwise it would not bother you as an interruption to your story narrative, so have your NPCs and NPCIs become puzzled by the name and ask your players what their team name means.  If the players defer or provide no answer pursue the point, make them come up with some sort of story to explain why they chose this team name.  Keep doing that to them when they meet a new NPC or NPCI, not every session and never more the once in a session, but certainly every other session or so.  Keep notes on the story they tell and later, as their deeds grow, be sure the legend of how they acquired their team name is twisted on them when they hear it repeated, bards embellish stories to make them more interesting and unusual, this is your chance to tweak your players back.

More critically though a name that breaks genre is a name that is highly distinctive and that is not always a good thing for your players, emphasize that point repeatedly within the campaign.  If your campaign has magic in it, then curses, spells, and spying are all far easier because a group with a distinctive name is a group more easily associated with just a name.  In any campaign setting people seeking revenge, to make a name for themselves, or to steal something of value will find it easier to track a group with a really unique name rather then a name that is less distinctive.  Finally, of course, be sure that your oddly named player team is never able to escape a past debt or a bar tab, it is really hard to argue that some other group named “Rimkin’s Flying Circus Pants” was responsible for the high bar tab if in your world the most common group names involve birds or mythical animals.  Your players may never react to these hints but at least it will give you a bit of an outlet and, more critically, it might get them eventually to a place where they try to meet you halfway and blend a bit more with the surrounding campaign landscape.

- Dungeon Monkey

Have a question for the Dungeon Monkey?  Want to seek out some gaming suggestions?  Email Dungeon Monkey at dungeonmonkey@umich.edu and get your answers!

Question: Hey Dungeon Monkey – I had a quick question for you, I’m a GM currently running a few different campaigns, different genres, but my players have gotten very good at actually guessing when something is going to attack them.  Now usually they are okay as gamers and restrain themselves from being too obvious in their preparations to be jumped by some enemies, however being gamers they can’t help but get into “combat ambush ready” formation when they bump into a villain or tough that smacks of impending fight.  I have tried to dress some of the encounters up to make them harder to guess but they have a pretty good eye for impending attacks – any suggestions on better ways to conceal a fight so they don’t know what is waiting for them?

Answer: One of the great challenges for any Game Master (GM) running any sort of campaign is to deal with the natural instincts of players to know when an attack of impending doom is about to strike their adventuring party, in fact after a few years most players develop a highly sensitive “doom coming” radar that allows them to not only pick up on an impending fight but also sort through the threats quickly to determine which one the players as a group should assault.  Every GM knows of the sheer sadness and frustration when you build a fight with a number of opponents of various strengths to disguise the main villain and then watch helpless as your players guess the true threat and turn said threat into a fine paste of an appropriate color.  But the solution is at hand and it is actually fairly simple, you need to hide your deadly enemies in easy-to-overlook packages that your players, no matter how sensitive their radar, will not be able to sense are actually a danger until a thumping is deployed upon the players.

First off the most solid package to use is domestic animals that are either cute or dismissed by your resident culture as a threat – chickens, pigs, goats, and other small farm animals you might find in a village are a good start.  But to really drive it home you need to go with puppies and kittens, small cute versions of larger animals that people are wired to trust and find adorable.  Use pictures of kittens if you have to when describing what the players see, most humans cannot help but react with compassion when they see small cute mammals looking at them.  Of course said kittens and puppies should be highly deadly to the players, I recommend magical powers, demonic connections, or some sort of ability to shape-change to allow your small furry friends to attack your players quickly and decisively.  If your campaign is more technological then magical use cybernetics or other enhancements for the same effect, if your players protest about the logic of such choices you can disarm even the most vocal critic with a simple response – that these creatures were created by an evil criminal mastermind to serve as his or her assassins.  If players continue to protest point out how said assassins were able to get close to the group, therefore proving the solid nature of the theory.

Second, peasants or common office workers are another great source of hyper-violence you can inflict on your players that can sneak past their senses, a peasant carrying only a pitchfork and working on bailing hay is not a threat, they are background color.  Combine that peasant though with amazing martial skills and an incredible unarmed defense and suddenly you have the players under assault by something they have allowed to get close to them.  This technique is doubly effective when the peasants first approach the group in distress or panic, players are often willing to help anyone who comes up to them begging for help with a problem.  If your setting allows for it have some sort of of horrible creature set a building on fire, that brings players running to slay the creature and save items or people within the burning building.  Merely make some harmless animal able to produce the necessary flame, as described above, working in combination with your potent warriors disguised as common folk, and you have a memorable combination.  Players may get used to preparing themselves for a fire breathing dragon or a cybernetic punk but who is going to be prepared for a similarly equipped cow or pigeon?

Of course you may feel that the players will simply react to this sort of thing by attacking anything that comes near them, allow them to do so, but make sure that those they attack turn out to be real, harmless versions of what has been harassing them.  Allow them to suffer the full wrath of the community when they do act out violently, how would you react to a powerfully built warrior killing kittens to “be certain” and then asking you for directions or information?  Odds are good you’d run away, feed them false information, or otherwise prove highly unhelpful.  Keep this up until the players stop attacking creatures and return to a lower level of wariness, lull them into a false sense of confidence by allowing them a few more safe encounters, and then attack them with demonic rabbits wielding light sabers.  Trust me, do this only occasionally and you will find your players mistrusting their own instincts enough that they won’t be able to keep track of the real threats from the false ones.

- Dungeon Monkey

Have a question for the Dungeon Monkey?  Want to seek out some gaming suggestions?  Email Dungeon Monkey at dungeonmonkey@umich.edu and get your answers!

Question: Dungeon Monkey!  Enough of this foolish prattle about improving campaigns, I am a dwarf fighter and I want some tips on how to increase my dwarf enemy beating power to an even higher extreme!  Tell me how to make myself into the most dwarfish sort of dwarf fighter I can, really lay on the tropes, so that I can dominate my enemies and make them fear my stumpy wrath!

Answer: Increasing the power of any solid dwarf character is an important and noteworthy goal, depending on what sort of system you are playing in you can scratch this urge through a variety of methods but there are a few that I highly recommend.  First and foremost you need to make sure that your character starts out in the right sort of profession – ask yourself these questions:  Is your dwarf someone who uses hand-to-hand weapons?  If not, make them someone who does, if so, proceed to question two.  Is that weapon something huge that does insane amounts of damage?  If not, make that weapon something so huge and awesome, if so, congratulations you are on your way towards true dwarf awesomeness.  But that is only a base level of dwarf ability, to really achieve something impressive you will need to work hard to focus yourself into something truly amazing, here are a few tips to consider that should help you become the super dwarf you want to be.

First off armor, you need to get the thickest, heaviest, most impressive armor you can get your hard calloused dwarf hands upon, sissy characters wear full plate that covers them in only a single layer of metal from head-to-toe.  No you need to get into something a great deal more hardcore then that, double plate or even triple plate if you can arrange it with your Game Master (GM).  You want to be covered in so much metal that you need supportive non-player character (NPC) lackeys to help move you around from point to point in your armor.  If you can get it magically enhanced so that you can move in it but only in the event you don’t enter any sort of magical displacement area.  You want to wear armor so thick and heavy that horses, bulls, and even bears run at the mere thought of having to carry you on their back into battle.  Ideally you want any creature that feeds on metal to think twice about coming near you just at the site of your armor.  Bonus dwarf awesome points if your armor is made of some truly bizarre metal like “cheese steel” or the like.

Second you need to ask yourself how massive your hand-to-hand weapon is, is it at least as tall as you?  If so that is a good start but to really become a dwarf fighter of any renown you need to make that weapon larger and far more impressive in size.  It might be a piece of crap in battle but you need a weapon that is at least half-again as high as you, even better if it is double or triple your height.  Giant axes and giant hammers are top of the line but a nine foot tall sword can also do in a pinch, although a sword is not quite as “dwarf” as the axe or hammer.  If you are doing it right any opponent you face will become a nail to be pounded home or cut in half, ideally in theory from a considerable distance away.  Although you don’t actually want to be that far from an opponent and you might want to carry a back-up weapon to allow you to close with your opponent while they are staring in awe at your giant primary weapon.  Some people might consider that wasteful as by that logic you will never use your massive weapon – ignore these nay-sayers – even better hammer them into the ground if you can when they challenge the amazing wonder of your massive primary weapon.

Third – learn to talk with a Scottish accent – all the best dwarfs have one.  If anyone points out to you that in the world in which you live there are no Scottish people, in fact that there is no Scotland, apply your hammer or axe to them.  Do that a few times and pretty soon everyone you meet will agree that your Scottish accent is quite realistic and very dwarf.  If you meet other dwarfs though don’t worry, they will understand immediately and besides, if they are real dwarfs you can all speak in a bad Scottish accents together.

Fourth you should keep up your stone cutting skills, any dwarf worth their salt is really good at stone cutting, stone identifying, stone polishing, stone hurling, in fact anything involving stone should be something you are just really good at.  Ideally you should carry a little geological hammer with you as well at all times, so that if you see interesting rock samples you can collect them for later enjoyment.  This hammer can also be used for hitting small enemies on the head that are not worthy of your primary or secondary weapon.  Note if you favor an axe you might be tempted to cultivate a strong interest in woodworking, this is to be avoided at all costs, woodworking is for elves.  Poncy elves at that – if you favor the axe you must simply obtain a stone cutting axe, if there is not one, beat up a gnome till he or she invents one.

- Dungeon Monkey

Have a question for the Dungeon Monkey?  Want to seek out some gaming suggestions?  Email Dungeon Monkey at dungeonmonkey@umich.edu and get your answers!

Question: Dear Dungeon Monkey – I was curious about something, I’m a game master and I have run several fantasy campaigns, my players inevitably start to ask me about gun powder in my world.  Now they usually accept the idea that gun powder doesn’t work in my world but they want a reason, I’m a bit bored with saying things like “The Gods prevent it working” or “Magi prevent it from exploding” or just that because of magic physics doesn’t work properly.  Can you make any suggestions for something that might make it more interesting as a reason, maybe even generate a story or two for people to enjoy?

Answer: Gun powder is a tricky issue in any fantasy setting because most players expect gun powder weapons to have the same effect upon the quasi-medieval reality of a fantasy campaign that it had in history.  At the very least they expect it to be able to be used in a weapon that can inflict really nasty wounds on whomever the players decide to shoot at, which is really the crux of the problem, gun powder can either be unbalancing (such as cannons to take down dragons) or so under powered that it simply does not feel right.  Due to this most Game Masters (GMs) hold to the old adage that gun powder simply does not work in their world.  Understandable but a bit of a shame because allowing gun powder to work, spectacularly well, actually opens up one of the most fiendish plot devices a GM can use that will keep players from actually being able to successfully use gun powder in any really productive manner.

Allow your players to get their hands on gun powder, if you feel generous let them know that ancient texts warn ominously of great dangers in playing with gun powder but are vague in what that danger is.  Gun powder explodes, remember, in bursts of flame, heat, and light – three elements that fire creatures adore.  Whenever your players make gun powder treat it as catnip for any and all creatures made of fire – whatever shape those creatures take.  Have them pop in from other dimensions, chase the players down, seek out this amazing substance and, when they come into contact with it, explode it for the sheer joy of an explosion.  Now the key to this is to make the pursuit of gun powder by these creatures relentless, always present, and highly explosive.  Your players will attempt to defeat your efforts to control their use of gun powder through many clever strategies to keep the fire creatures you throw at them at bay.  Now this is the key – you can allow some of their methods to work but only if it makes the powder useless or impossible to use in combat.  Since guns, cannons, and other devices work by causing gun powder to explode, through combustion, players cannot really make an effective gunpowder weapon without fire of some sort.  But if they wish to store their gun powder in an elaborate spark proof room warded against creatures of fire, let them.  They  can look at their giant store of gun powder and smile but the moment any sort of method of combustion comes near that powder, it is a gateway for fire creatures to appear.

Always make the reaction when the fire creatures appear spectacular, they don’t just blow up a small amount of powder, the blow up vast quantities of powder.  The powder does not explode as the players want, it explodes with far greater force and power.  Now some clever players might plan for this and build guns or cannons designed to have a fire creature activate the charge, this is fine – let it work and the charge go off.  However the intense heat of the fire creature interacting with the powder turns the weapon to slag.  Now it is most critical that you never yield ground on this point, no matter how powerful the plan, no matter how clever the design, in the end when it comes time for the gun powder to explode fire creatures make sure it goes poorly.  Eventually your players will kill themselves off, get frustrated, or anger the powers that be enough that other outside forces can be logically deployed to stop your players made bomber ways.

But the ultimate sweet moment of fun for you as a GM – have the fire creatures bring the players rewards for putting out such delightful material for them to frolic in.  Not every time mind you, only occasionally for fire and its creatures are fickle, but if you randomly reward the players with incredible items they otherwise cannot get, linked to their putting out powder to explode, you might get the amusement of having your players deliberately accept the pain of blowing up to get new magical toys.  Really, as a GM is there anything less fun then your players deliberately throwing themselves into a trapped situation knowing what they are getting themselves into?

- Dungeon Monkey

Have a question for the Dungeon Monkey?  Want to seek out some gaming suggestions?  Email Dungeon Monkey at dungeonmonkey@umich.edu and get your answers!

Question: Greetings fair simian of the darkest depths!  I am humbly beseeching you for some enlightened suggestions on how to get one of my players in my steam-punk campaign out of his bloody lab and actually out in the world at large.  Although I have come up with several excellent adventures that have engaged my other players in adventure, mystery, and romance this one player remains stubbornly determined to avoid any sort of outside adventures and instead remains chained to his laboratory working on his inventions.  The player though chats during the other parts of the adventures, makes suggestions, and interacts but when danger lurks he refuses to take part, instead saying “Oh I’m back at the lab – those were all just asides.”  So my good great primate, how do I draw him out of the lab?
Answer: Well as a Game Master (GM) facing an inventive player who refuses to leave his laboratory you face a problem similar to a GM with a fantasy campaign who has a stubborn wizard focused on developing spells for the campaign and not on adventuring.  Furthermore I imagine that many of your other players enjoy the fact they have a mad inventor making them new cool toys with which they can wreck havoc upon the world around them.  So you really cannot count upon the players in the group to necessarily help you get this recalcitrant player out of the ozone layered air of the laboratory and into the broader world.  However you can make the inventor head out themselves and it is fairly simple matter to do so.  First off, you need to introduce the power of collectible ether into your world, a source of energy that can literally be bottled and used to create batteries of incredible potency and power.  However the higher you climb from the surface of the Earth the more powerful is the ether collected.  Allow your inventor to get a taste of these benefits from high buildings, mountain tops, but each time have the next samples gathered last shorter periods  of time and have less potent power.  Eventually your inventive player will hit upon the idea of building or acquiring an airship to gather more of this elusive electrical gold for use in his or her inventions, if your player is a bit slow, have the suggestion made to him by a Rich Financier or Industrial Captain that said inventor could do Great Things if only they were able to gather purer samples.

Allow the inventor to create/gain a powerful airship, the kind of mobile research laboratory that will allow him or her to engage in state-of-the-art research high in the atmosphere, gather and store vast amounts of power, and scrape the very edge of the heavens.  Be sure that the airship has sufficient support space in it to allow the other players to travel along as well, quite literally you don’t want them to miss out on the inventors adventures.  But once your inventor is in the air and mobile in their laboratory, you throw tons of adventures at the group and the inventor is now in the heart of these adventures.  Flying creatures that seek out the airship, he or she will have to help defend it against these threats.  Strange beings from other dimensions wondering what this new strange research is, your inventor will have to explain it.  Even sky pirates, which of course your world will start to have, will allow the players to face off against very human foes determined to get their hands on this valuable airship and use it to for vile profit and pillaging.  Plus of course you will also get to send Nefarious Villains of the Highest Order against the players, said villains wishing to use these great advantages to their own ends.

For those wondering this solution works with spell-casting high fantasy campaigns as well – substitute ether for “magical essence” and “airship” for “dragon with wizard’s tower on the back.”  Be sure to use flying creatures in greater amounts in this setting as they are more expected.

- Dungeon Monkey

Have a question for the Dungeon Monkey?  Want to seek out some gaming suggestions?  Email Dungeon Monkey at dungeonmonkey@umich.edu and get your answers!

Question: Hey Dungeon Monkey – so I was curious about something in my campaign, I am running a barbarian themed campaign so the players are not allowed to play magic users, most of the enemies they deal with are magic users though, normally wizards.  I’ve been running them as NPCs but I have a bit of a problem, one evil megalomaniac starts to look like another pretty quickly, any suggestions on how to spice up an NPC wizard on the fly but still keep them sinister and interesting for the players so they don’t get bored with the plot right away?

Answer: A barbarian campaign in which the players are denied access to magic is a unique opportunity and challenge for a Game Master (GM) and requires careful plotting and planning in advance.  Honestly one of the trickiest parts in running such a campaign is not making the evil wizards a challenge but keeping the players from trying really hard to either hire a wizard to serve them or join up with a Non-Player Character (NPC) wizard to try to get access to magical items.  Magical toys are like catnip for a group of fantasy campaign players and the lure of magical items only grows stronger the harder they are to obtain.  Unfortunately players realize fairly quickly that magical toys that are hard to obtain are magical toys other creatures in the world are less likely to have, making them neigh irresistible.  This is the core reason why you have to make any NPC wizard really and truly horrible, so that the players have no interest in serving that NPC wizard at all.  In fact ideally you want the players to take a direct personal interest in getting every NPC wizard they bump into killed, a goal rather difficult because when it comes to a balance of moral conundrum versus magical items of power many players get highly flexible in their character moral codes.

First and foremost you have to really crank up the depravity of any NPC wizard you create to obscene levels, their motivation is not so critical, most players will accept the evil NPC wizard seeking to obtain “Power Beyond Measure” time and time again as inherent to the evil wizard image.  What you need to do though is make the steps to obtaining this power gruesome, horrific, and directly harmful to the players characters.  A favorite technique is to require your NPC wizard to obtain the eyes, heart, lungs, liver, or other non-replaceable organs from a band of heroes, specifically your players’ characters.  Which brings us to the second part of the key equation to making this work, obsession, your evil NPC wizard does not want any hero meaty bits, he wants the meaty bits from your player characters and no other meaty bits will do.  Fabulous sums of money, promises of gifts of power, bribes to topple kings, whatever it takes that evil NPC wizard wants your players spleens and he wants them now.  Make it painfully clear to the players that this NPC wizard will seek no other option but their yummy body parts and has a highly painful plan to remove them.  Naturally the characters will have to be kept alive for this extraction to work and ideally the extraction will also involve a complex dark ritual that will condemn even their souls to the pits of doom, which will also ensure they cannot come back from the dead.

If you are feeling really evil give the heroes some unique gifts at the start of the campaign, such as make them able to see hidden items automatically or detect the truth or lies of others words by looking upon them, only tell the players that these gifts are given as a plot element.  Have the players in the first few adventures realize their gifts are truly unique, in fact, they are one-of-a-kind, only when your players are truly enjoying their toys let them realize that there is a whole cabal of evil wizards who desire to gain these eyes for their own evil gain.  Naturally each evil wizard wants it for themselves but, as their plans get more frustrated, they will start to cooperate.  If you toss in an element that the players cannot be killed or the eyes touched by magic directly, and you have an entire painful campaign background which will keep your players as far from evil wizards as they can get.  To seal the deal have them meet a supposedly nice wizard who, upon seeing their powerful eyes, will try to capture them and you have paranoia that will keep the players from seeking out your evil wizards.

Which brings us to the key aspect of your question and the key element you need to incorporate to make your NPC wizards unique, give them either a common goal such as ruling the kingdom, or a common desired object to power many different goals, such as your heroes eyes, but give each of them a unique plan to achieve their goal.  Then set your evil NPC wizards in partial opposition, partial alliance to each other and you have the makings of a compelling storyline.  As long as each evil NPC wizard has some individual goal they want to obtain or some secret master plan that is unique to them, to obtain a common end, and you will have memorable NPC wizards but also plots that remain well groomed and tied together.

- Dungeon Monkey

Have a question for the Dungeon Monkey?  Want to seek out some gaming suggestions?  Email Dungeon Monkey at dungeonmonkey@umich.edu and get your answers!

Question: Dungeon Monkey, I’m currently running a game in a fantasy setting and my players have a penchant for breaking out their monster manuals whenever they bump into something new in a dungeon or in the countryside.  I’ve tried to ban them from using the manuals but they complain about it as a policy, I’ve tried to have them suspend disbelief but they use their skills to identify creatures and then read the entry to duplicate their knowledge.  How can I keep them on their toes about knowing what they will be facing if they are able to figure out the creature in advance and plan accordingly.  Any thoughts on how to put the mystery back in the monsters I’ll be sending at the group?

Answer: Well, the most common technique many Game Masters (GMs) use when dealing with this issue is to attempt to blend another monster with the primary monster, mixing in some extra abilities, modifying the abilities of the monster, or attempting to create a monster that has some secret unknown “special” abilities.  The challenge with doing this is that if you have a group that is particularly prone to complaining, or rules mongering, they will either resist these modifications or simply begin complaining with a vigor you have not yet seen about changing the creatures.  As well, honestly, all you are achieving in this case is forcing the players to begin bringing a more broad-spectrum approach to the problem, you will find them packing items that can affect large segments of the monster population and attempting a mix-and-match attempt to beat any unusual monsters you generate.  What you need is to use other techniques to surprise them with boosted abilities on the part of the monster that they are not able to anticipate or plan for in advance.

The first, and most common, is to provide your creature with some sort of additional skills or training in combat, in many fantasy games you can provide additional templates to a monster that increase their abilities in combat through weapons training, tactics, or special powers.  The trick in doing this is you do not want to engage in half measures, if you are making a giant humanoid who happens to be skilled in small weapons and sneaky tactics, create a creature that would rival a master of the most masterful ninja clan in their ability to sneak and close with an enemy.  If you are building a small creature into a fighting master with armed combat then build someone who could go successfully go toe-to-toe with a master swordsman and have a decent chance of winning.  Do not worry about your players ability to cope with this, they will gang up on your creation and defeat it through group tactics.  Your ideal plan is to use this creature in a way that puts the fear of death into a small subset of your group, that will avoid them running away for fear of being defeated but at the same time make them nervous in dealing with your creation.  As well, unless they spent points in the ability to detect someone’s abilities in battle, a skill that would only apply once you arguably were in combat with the creature, your group will have no grounds to complain you surprised them with this opponent.

Another important thing to avoid is providing your creatures with really amazing equipment to help them beat your players, unless you want your players to have this equipment and either sell it for other gear or use it on future creatures you send at them.  Now, that said, this is not necessarily a bad thing to do, weapons given to the players they can use that happen to just, coincidentally, have the ability to temporarily boost the scores and skills of another class of creature the players will shortly face is a legal, if underhanded, means of confusing your players.  Nothing makes a player more irritable then hitting a creature with a newly gained sword of power and having said weapon heal their opponent immediately back to full health.  On the counter token each of your creatures should be highly skilled in breaking your opponents gear, in fact ideally in each encounter your players should run the risk of having a sword broken, a shield caved in, or their armor damaged beyond usefulness.  Now your players will hate this however in most fantasy games players fear losing equipment more then losing a characters life, health, or long-term well being.  Use that to your advantage, at the very least it will keep your players from breaking out their most powerful gear for each encounter if they run a real risk of said wonderful equipment being rendered useless suddenly.  Again players cannot guess in advance, in most cases, if a creature they are facing is skilled in the art of breaking a blade, tripping them, or other nasty maneuvers.

Finally, if all else fails, use creatures that are able to swallow your players whole and attack them by surprise.  Your players will probably still win but an encounter with a creature is incredibly different when you are doing it from inside that creatures gullet rather then outside of it.  Said creature appearing out of nowhere will negate your players abilities to guess their abilities in advance and will allow you to provide more limited information to them when they attempt to figure out what creature has eaten them.

Oh and be sure to give said creature skills as well, a massive worm able to tumble around your players and avoid sudden attacks is truly a marvel to behold.

- Dungeon Monkey

Have a question for the Dungeon Monkey?  Want to seek out some gaming suggestions?  Email Dungeon Monkey at dungeonmonkey@umich.edu and get your answers!

Question: Hey Dungeon Monkey, I’m a GM with a group I regularly run with, I’m thinking about running an espionage themed campaign, however I have a serious problem, our group is pretty consistent at around five players and everyone wants to play a secret agent.  I’ve seen enough spy movies in my time to know that almost all the classic ones have an agent, or at most two, with a supporting cast that changes with each film.  In fact the only film/show I’ve seen that has a “team approach” to espionage is Mission Impossible, but I’m not sure that is the sort of campaign world I’d like to run.  So tell me, any ideas on how I can go about doing a good espionage setting with multiple spies active all the time?

Answer: Espionage is one of the more challenging genres for a Game Master (GM) to attempt with any group, with a larger group the challenge is to do so in a way that does not overly stretch the boundaries of plausible in the game world.  Take for example the classic example of James Bond, a world trotting British spy whose favorite cocktail is known, on sight, in countless top quality hotels around the world.  Yet his villain adversaries do not instantly expect him to be a problem when he introduces himself at some high-end party or other social event, you would think after the years Bond has put into the espionage world when he uttered the words “Bond, James Bond” his villain host would reply “Ah..Izzy, please take our guest downstairs, strip him naked, search every inch of him, and then kill him.  Use a quick method and not the chamber of absurd death traps this time.”  But you should, as a GM, take heart from the Bond myth because it teaches you something highly valuable, people are willing to easily suspend disbelief for a good story.  A few tips though if you are really worried about having a large group of experts always getting into trouble, spying, and avoiding obvious reactions when their team appears.

First off, you can milk that logical reaction and make it part of your story, one of the major aspects of real espionage is running a cover mission or false mission to distract the enemy from what is really going on.  In which case a large, highly visible team making a ruckus is perfect to provide cover for another hidden mission.  You could rotate which players are on the real mission and which players are cover for that particular adventure, which gives your players a fun task of both having to be stealthy in their planning and also giving them a chance to go crazy with spy toys and blow things up.  You could also have their entire mission be one of confusion and distraction, however in that case you should have their controlling officer not react with anger or surprise when your group level s a city block or two.  Directives to act in a distracting manner will be carried out by most players with a zeal you as a GM cannot imagine.

Second you could modify the setting but keep the flavor of espionage as a central pivot point for your campaign, cyberpunk or science fiction settings are perfect for this sort of play, your players could run a group focused upon defeating some sort evil organization or corporation which has its own military/espionage arm.  Send a team against a team and it suddenly feels perfectly normal and reasonable to the players, because you have reset the expectation of normal in your campaign world.  If you would rather keep your game in the real world and current time, you might want to consider an espionage/special forces themed game in which team actions are central to any sort of mission.  Although in such a situation you will have to, generally, have a fairly high military flair in your game or at least a very high combat element in your campaigns.

Of course in the end you could also simply have everyone dress in nice dinner clothes and happen to all realize that, once again, they’ve all been randomly assigned by different agencies to the same situation.  It is silly and a bit campy, but it also does the trick.

- Dungeon Monkey

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Question: Dungeon Monkey, our DM has informed us that we are going to face a dungeon he bought called The Catacomb of Unspeakable Horror and Player Character Mutilation.  Honestly we are afraid because he paid good money for it and told us we should plan how to push our resources to the best possible level to actually defeat this dungeon.  So I was hoping you might have a tip or two on things we could bring with us to actually beat this dungeon?

Answer: Actually when facing a dungeon you are unfamiliar with and that promises significant pain and suffering to those attempting to plum its depths a savvy player should plan ahead, I assume from your question that your Game Master (GM) is running you through a fairly standard fantasy campaign with magic and the usual sorts of monsters you can expect to run into when roaming the wild countryside.  My primary recommendation then is actually also a fairly cheap one, you go forth and hire for yourself an individual who can befriend animals and speak with animals, a spell caster who can make said animals larger, and then spend a happy morning mole hunting.  Not were-moles, not super moles, but nice, normal moles, the sort that burrow around in the yard of any proper inn or in a farmer’s fields.  Collect the moles without harming them, if you are particularly clever before you do so negotiate with the farmer or inn keeper to pay you for the service of removing the moles.

Then with your moles safely stored, with proper food for them along as well, head off to your dungeon of doom.  If you can find out before hand what sort of terrain the dungeon is sitting in before hand you will probably find out that it is located underground, hidden in an area of fairly normal turf.  When you get there, befriend the moles, make them large, and then set them to work for a proper reward digging out the area inside the dungeon.  Now by the area inside the dungeon I don’t mean the various tunnels and hidden areas through which you are expected to travel, I mean digging a tunnel you can all comfortably move around in that is located in the plain dirt behind these features.  Ideally you want your little dirt hurling friends building an extensive tunnel network that touches on the dungeon you were supposed to explore at several points.  Then, simply poke out a brick here or there, drill an eye hole where needed, and take a peek at the space you were supposed to be crawling through.  If it seems dangerous, good thing you have dug a tunnel that goes around it.  If you see a room with anything sparkly in it, set to work with a hammer and pick to remove enough of the wall to drag the shiny items to you with long sticks with claws at their ends.

Most experienced GM’s though will build their dungeons into the sides of cliffs made of incredibly dense stone or using magical walls that if breached will force you to suffer a death of great humiliation and pain.  This is, mainly, to prevent the sort of tactics described above, in which case you have to go with a slightly more aggressive plan of action.  Using the techniques outlined above you will also want to get your hands on a magical device that generates small furry creatures or a large collection of either raccoons or monkeys.  Both species are highly clever and have very nimble fingers, raccoons are particularly skilled at opening locks, cabinets, and chests and, as a perk, will bring anything shiny the find out for you to enjoy while they receive cheap tasty treats as payment.  However in the event the dungeon is simply too tough or too complicated for that plan, then there is one last option to attempt.  Find yourself a device that generates unlimited water and simply tip it over so that it pours into the entrance of the dungeon, then settle in to camp for a few days.  The water level within the dungeon should rise gradually to a point that anything mechanical within the dungeon seizes and any monsters are either dead or unhappy.  Some magical water breathing spells and off you go into the depths of the dungeon.

Of course, a clever enough GM will plan for all of these and even more, creating a dungeon so fixed and dangerous, so unavoidable, that to merely set foot within it is to invite death instantly.  At which point you take the map that you have found leading to this location of horrible power and go to the nearest city, where you subcontract the task to a more skilled group of non-player heroes.  Then, when they finally exit the dungeon battered and mauled, clutching in their hands the treasure which you contracted them to get, you can either pay them and thank them, or kill them and steal it, as your party outlook allows.  If all of the above fails simply don’t go in the dungeon, instead tell your GM that you all had a meeting and decided that you’d rather let whatever horrible consequence occur then risk your necks in such a horrible place.  Accept the rant that you are all selfish, ignore any whining, and watch as the dungeon gets suddenly less horrible.

- Dungeon Monkey

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Question: Dungeon Monkey, I’m playing in a fantasy game and currently our DM has given us some money to invest in new magical items, I’m using a lot of my other slots already and I was thinking of getting some new magical boots, however I was not sure what to load into them for spells.  I’ve used some boots in the past that had classical additions to them, such as invisibility, speed, flying, you know, the normal stuff.  However I was curious if you had any suggestions for other things that might be either unexpected or cool to have in some magical foot gear!

Answer: New magical toys are always a wonderful thing and, in the event that your Game Master (GM) opens up the door for you stretching yourself creatively, there is nothing quite like building something magical that is both fun and useful, preferably goals you achieve by building something mind-bending in its oddness and utility.  The first, and most obvious thing to create, would be the game-breaking boots of granting wishes, but no GM in their right mind would allow you to create such an item.  In fact if your GM does allow you to make something like that either your campaign has reached a level of player character power in which you don’t need new boots, you need some sort of literal hammer of the gods, or your GM has evil plans for the items in which case you should never use your new boots.  In fact, if your GM allows you to have said boots of wishes, lock them away in a chest and never take them out.  You will only find grief in such boots.

But some more reasonable boots you can probably get away with and that will make your character more interesting include things such as boots with the gift of dancing, that provide your character with a higher social or appearance ability, boots that by stepping well and properly for you make you more charming.  For a fighter or other muscled type of hero this can provide an unexpected boost in some situations and allow you to challenge the domain of the diplomatic character on occasion.  Note however high stepping might not always be the best choice in some diplomatic situations, boots like this should not be used to augment your abilities at funerals or other somber events.  Another fine addition, in the same vein, is to make boots that can speak elegantly for you, intelligent boots that are suave and able to speak on your behalf when attempting to charm someone.  Boots of this sort are good for both novelty experiences and can help you out in many a negotiating pinch, however you will need to stay on their good graces.  Any item that can talk smoothly for you can also get you into huge amounts of trouble if it feels unappreciated, if you are not one to take good care of your talking boots do not take them into any criminal dens or noble courts.  Nothing makes for an adventuring party having an extra special day then a players cranky boots making a lewd pass at a married monarch with a spouse who enjoys blood sports.

Another fine addition to any pair of boots might be the ability to summon small friendly furry creatures as you walk, simply have them appear in your boot prints when you pass through fields or other natural areas.  There is nothing quite like mountains of helpful furry creatures frolicking around your feet all the time as you stride with might and pride over hill and vale.  Be sure to get boots with a built in automatic cutoff time for the creatures summoned or that only summon frolicking creatures when you want, otherwise you might end up severely modifying the local environment with your abundant outpouring of adorable fauna.  Bonus points if you can get your GM to allow you to have talking cute furry animals, nothing adds to a campaign like squirrels that can give helpful advice and uplifting chatter when the group is feeling low.  Note if your group involves any figures who are cranky or prone to extreme violence you might wish to avoid the talking feature, otherwise it might result in your untimely death as a player character.

If you simply want an accessory that will make you feel better about your character get boots made with a built in mood-appropriate sound track so that when you stride nobly through the countryside it plays a powerful anthem to you and your groups abilities, when sneaking through a dungeon it plays suspenseful music, and when in a romantic moment it will play some soothing melodies to help improve your chances of scoring your loves affections.  If nothing else it will add to the mood of your campaign setting and help establish your name as an adventuring party, plus a well made musical score will greatly cut travel time for your group as you hike along the countryside.

Of course if you want something purely practical have boots with a built in magical ability to don your armor for you, then whenever you sleep with your boots on you can get comfortable without worrying about the length of time it might take you to field equip your armor.

- Dungeon Monkey

Have a question for the Dungeon Monkey?  Want to seek out some gaming suggestions?  Email Dungeon Monkey at dungeonmonkey@umich.edu and get your answers!