J-Term is Over

I think I ended this J-term in the best way possible.

Wailing on my PC's. Like a ninja.

Fireballs, Fireball Traps, Break-Away Floors, Area Dispell Magic. Confusion on the Just-Buffed Invisible Barbarian. Poisoned Blade Traps. I'm very impressed they made it out - And by out, I meen into a safe-esque room for the time being, with all approptiate limbs attached (though not without ability damage).

I definatly like combat encounter nights. The last one we had, I remember hearing about how some players had mulled it over all week how they were going to spearhead their attack, only that time it was dark dwarfs guarding "dragon treasure". Plot nights are good for advancement, and it gives the RP/Characters-with-depth a time to come out, but frantic destruction raining from the skies and cleaving enemies in two is very important as well.

The fact that I get to make mid/high level parties and equip them as I see fit also kinda like getting to PC, which I've only recently gotten the chance to do again (thanks be to andrew/francis).

This Week's Skill Focus - Changing your Mind

"How are we going to get past the guard?"
"I think that merchant is charging us too much..."
"Is Gnar acting too friendly towards that pale, cloaked figure?"

Skills and Abilities that can change your mind about things.
(Read that again)

Topic one, When the DM tells you what to think.

There are situations in which a DM is allowed to tell a Player what the Characters thoughts are. As this is a game about the interaction of PC's with the world, and not a DM's Puppet show, these situations are rare, but important.

-Charm Person
The cornered enemy wizard, out of options, casts a spell on the party's fighter.
"Wait, this man is no enemy. Hurt him, and face my sword !"

PC's are generally Humanoids, and therefore prime targets for this first level Bard/Wizard/Sorcerer Spell. While under the effects of a Charm Person spell, a PC must act in accordance with the spell - You treat the caster as a trusted friend and ally. They have no control on your actions, but can attempt to give orders by winning an opposed Charisma check. Orders that are suicidal or obviously harmful are always ignored. Why is this spell so feared then? The enemy of my friend is my enemy. With very few exceptions, continued hostilities of the party will result in the charmed person acting in defiance of their friend, using the best of their (violent abilities), just as you would protect a party member. While a DM usually allows a person to continue playing the character (speaking, rolling for, ect) for the duration of the spell, it is reasonable to take this control away if the Player is not acting in accordance with the spell.

Dominate Person-
"The vampire stares deeply into your soul, and suddenly you are nothing but a spectator as you watch your friends fall under your blade"

Domination is where DM interaction comes in the heaviest. If successful, this spell forms a telepathic link between the Character and the caster, for 1/DAY per level. The caster has near-complete control over the character, coming in the form of basic commands. Commands against the subjects nature get individual saves, albeit with a +2 Bonus. This includes actions such as telling a good character to burn an orphanage down, or telling an evil character to work in a soup kitchen. Again, suicidal actions are not carried out. The behavior modification this spell causes is somewhat easy to notice (DC 15 Sense Motive).

Coming from personal experience, I've found that it is possible for a player to retain control over the character for the duration of the spell, but they must be willing to do what is necessary. A person who gets into the mindset that their character is out to kill the other party members and does so well can prove fun, if not interesting for the DM. On the other hand, a rules-lawyering munchkin may try to convince the DM of their own will "Well, I didn't kill the helpless PC lying next to me, even though I was commanded to attack them all, because I thought it was more important to chase down the person running away". Its for reasons like this that a dominate character is often played by a DM, to avoid even the slightest accusation or questionable action.


Interaction between Characters

Diplomacy
Let's get this out of the way. It only works on NPC's. First line of the description. You cannot use it to convince your fellow player that he should take a smaller share of the loot, or allow you to speak on behalf of everyone to the king. In the case of a negotiation, an NPC might roll it vs. a PC, but this is to determine how well things went, such as in a court case.

Bluff and Sense Motive

Not nearly enough has been said about these two skills in their descriptions. Read the above descriptions for their exact, PHB definitions, but I'd like to give my input/clarifications. Forgive me if the two inter-mix.

Bluff does not equate to "Make someone believe what you say". This constitutes an Epic Use of Bluff, and is outside the realm of possibility of most PCs. As soon as your trying to convince someone to do something they could be put at risk for, in the least, you give them a +5 or +10 bonus on their sense motive. If its a completely outlandish request, a +20 bonus to their roll is awarded.

The Spell Glibness is a grey area. It provides a +30 Bonus to Bluff checks, for a full 10/min per level. This allows an experienced bard or rogue to beat nearly any Sense Motive roll. Well, what does loosing that roll mean?

You can't convince someone that the sky is green, or that they are a llama. You can't get them to give you the keys to their shop, or that they should die on your behalf.

Bluff allows you to lie convincingly, but it does not alter the persons reality.

On the sense motive side-
Sense motive gets bonuses based on how far of a stretch the bluff is (see the table under bluff). Now, for example, if the sense motive bonus is +10 because its asking the person to take a risk, a success of less then 10 on the sense motive roll does not indicate that the person knows you are bluffing, only that they are reluctant to go along with the plan/idea/suggestion. A success of ten (in this case) or more shows that the person knows they were being bluffed to.
-Now, I had to read that a bunch of times to make sure its right, so here's an example.

Jane the Rogue is seen by a Guard Alex walking out of the store with a price-tag still on a +2 Sword of Goblin-Bane. He stops her, and asks if she paid for that. Jane knows that she slipped out of the store with the stolen sword, but tries to convince Alex otherwise.
"Oh, I just forgot to remove the price tag from this. My mistake, it won't happen again"
This bluff is a little hard to believe, and puts Alex the Guard at a little risk (The reputation of the guard as a crime-preventing body"

Jane Rolls a Bluff Check, 13 + 6 (Her Bluff Bonus) = 19
Alex Rolls a Sense Motive Check,
12 (His Die Roll) + 4 (Sense Motive) + 5 (Bonus from the Hard to believe Bluff) = 21

Alex succeeds, but by less then 5 (The bonus from the Bluff). He doesn't think she's lying, but not enough to just let her go. He insists that she come back into the store with him to talk to the shopkeeper. Sucks to be Jane. Now, if he had rolled a 19 (+4, +5) = 28, and beat her by more then 5, Alex would have known she was lying and hand-cuffed her on the spot.

Getting back to inter-party reactions.

Sense motive and Bluff are kept to a minimum within the party in games that I run. Many times that people want to roll sense motive, I deny it to them. If you have no reason to believe that the Merchant's name isn't John, then you can't disbelieve him. If you go into town knowing that there is a merchant operating under an alias for a thief’s guild, then things are different. If a party member wants to try to conceal the fact that they found a single gem on a enemy corpse they looted, and another party member finds it highly suspicious that the prince's son was carrying no wealth, rolls are in order. If its one gem out of 30, then not so much. I also discourage any sort of duplicity within the party, but know that this isn't always possible. My suggestion - don't do things that would require you to lie to the party if possible, it divides both players and characters, and countless campaigns all over have ended with a party split "over irreconcilable differences". Don't take this as a suggestion to all play Lawful Good characters, or ones with spotless records, only that anything that is a part of your character will come out at some point and you have to be prepared to deal with that. Rarely will people trust someone who they know is hiding something, and parties are built on trust. ( Or loot... there are those built on loot...)

--Highly Important--
Such rolls as these are to be made by the DM, out of the sight of players. A player who rolls a 1 on a sense motive check is almost certain to believe the opposite of what you tell them, and often times can be bitter. I don't think anyone is so good at playing rolls that meta-knowledge such as this can be ignored completely. DM's rolling for the players, (applying bonuses when necessary), is important for keeping things uncertain. The same applies to searching for traps/treasure. A Character should be just as confident in there not being traps when the player rolls a 20, as when they roll a 3 - There is no sense of "darn, i searched that room really poorly" in-game.

This is not an Entirely d20-Centric Blog. For Example...

My mind wonders during the half-hour break between classes. Today's result : I think that I like service based jobs, but not sub-serviant jobs.

First job - Working at a haunted hay-ride, two consecutive octobers (Justin Guarini signed my paychecks). It was providing a service, namely scaring teenage boys and girl-scout troops (my favorites). These people were at the mercy of us actors/monsters, as they were pulled along - We were in control, even though it was for their entertainment.

Next job, working at Rita's Italian Ice for a summer. Terrible. Not only were there tons of rules/regulations to live up to on the inside (weight in ounces of ice-cream per cone, for example) , but customers were in an ideal position to complain and make my life harder in general. There were two ways a sale went - problematic, and lacking in problems "I don't understand your menu / I want a product you don't have / This product doesn't live up to my standards". People don't respect fast-food servers. I don't really remember getting positive feedback, other then <$1.00 tips of people who didn't want their change. Pay was junk too.

Moving on - working as a bus boy at a small restaraunt. I enjoyed the atmosphere, my boss and co-workers. People who came in to eat knew that customer > bus boy, but didn't treat you poorly because of it. Money was great, and customers left large amounts of positive feedback consistently in the form of tips. More often then not, you were thanked for boxing up leftovers and clearing plates. On this note - Tip well. Please. If the waiter didn't forget you existed, brought you warm food and cold drinks, they deserve it. The difference between a 15% tip and a 20% tip on a $40 meal is only two dollars, and a 20% plus tips really makes people's days.

Now - I'm at ITS. Things can go both ways. When people complain and are dissatisfied, its 99% not our fault, some piece of server hardware died (and is in the process of being fixed) ect. When they are really thankful, and a precious handful of them are, it makes things worth it. We're serving people, but in the end, we have the power.

D&D - Chapter 1.0

The Scene: A dusty stone room, with no windows, one door, and heatless magical torches.

The Six party members awaken one by one, rising from a slab of marble, wearing a white robe covered in dust. Behind them, are carved busts of themselves. Looking around, there are cobwebs in the corners, and rotted chests at the feet of their "beds". It slowly sinks in that this is a tomb, but no sooner then they start to dig through the chests containing ornamental copies of their personal equipment, spiders are drawn into the room by the movement. One bow string breaks of dry rot, and the leather armor falls to pieces, but the metal-hefted weapons prove enough to smash the spiders.

Upon opening the large double doors out of the room, they are confronted with zombie arms reaching out from behind metal bars, though it seems as if they will pass by unh"armed". Annah steps forward first, but has a sinking feeling as her first step out of the room depresses a pressure plate in the floor which raises the bars containing the zombies. Another Skirmish, and the group of adventurers are badly wounded. It would seem that the traps meant to keep others out, are keeping them In...

A little more exploration yields two points of interest. A lava pool which proves tricky to cross, and a mosaic on the wall. The picture is of six hands holding up a "v" shaped piece of land, flat on top, and tapering down. It is obvious by a minor jump of logic that the slender elf fingers, thick half-giant paws, and human hands that they are meant to belong to the group. One tile in particular sticks out, which when pressed, opened up a secret passageway behind the mural. They come out the other side, and are besieged by kobalds who have taken up residence in the cave-like area. Their slings and spears nearly finish the party off, but they are able to limp off. At the end of the cave there is a small-opening in a wooden barricade, and fresh-air blowing in. Thog went for the path of least of least resistance, and proceeded to smash themselves a door. While effective, this damaged the wooden supports holding up the ceiling. Seconds (6) after the party tumbled out into a inclined street, the cavern behind them collapsed entirely. While the street was also underground, it was populated with people and pack animals moving in both directions. As the party began to gain their bearings, they were approached by a man who introduced himself as Alister, who insisted that they all follow him (calling each by name, only getting one or two people confused)... What was this place?

D&D - Chapter 0.1

The Scene: The Wizard Alzor's Estate, a large piece of land on the edge of a small hamlet.

Over the course of a few years, the kindly wizard expanded his research, as well as his assistents. Alurana and Lilith contributed what they could with their magical powers, but their inborn powers did not mesh well with the bookwork nessessary for spell research. Thog, the half-giant, did more heavy lifting then the rest of the people combined, with the possible exception of Annah (who lifted coin-purses and rival wizards research). Draknor and Talia did research and erronds as well, with Talia doing service at the Church of St. Cuthbert on weekends.

One Thursday, Alzor announced that they were to all travel to the sea to perform an experement on which he had placed a great deal of effort into preparing. The nature of this was hidden, but they were all perplexed by the strange iron barrel and double barred chest in the back of the wagon that they rode in.

Days passed, and they did eventually reach the sea. The barrel turned out to be some type of gnomish submersuble, which was loaded onto a small ship along with the chest. When they got outside sight from land, they seven of them were loaded into the submersible and dumped into the sea. On the way down Alzor explained his great plan.

Using the six artifact weapons in the chest, Alzor was going to attempt to raise from the sea a landmass on which to build a city that would bear his name, the first floating city, and one that would be outside the controll of the greedy baron's who divided up every inch of dry-land. The Party members then each drew a weapon...
Thog drew a Quarterstaff
Alurana Drew a Longsword
Draknor Drew a Large Shield
Talia Drew a Short Sword
Annah Drew a Dagger
Lilith Drew a Mace

They were then enchanted to breath under water and to ward off the crushing pressure, and sent off in four dirrections, Alurana and Draknor, and Talia and Annah in pairs. When the first pulse of Alzor's ritual reached them, they were to drive the weapons into the ground.

It was no more then a few minuets before a green ring of energy passed by them, and they drove down the weapons down. Magical Energy crackled through them like a bolt of lightning, and then everything went black...

Campaigning

It's important to know that more then one D&D game is going on in/around Messiah College. (The Subject of a MORPG - Messiah's Organization of Role Players and Gamers - Is another post entirely).

First of all, I think that there are way more people/D&D groups around campus then anyone things. I'm constantly finding out about a friend of a friend who DM's for a group of twelve, because they only have one person who DM's and he can't run two games.

Secondly, I think that the reason the myth of D&D as being satanic has been so long-lived, is because people who play it are so secretive. "What are you up to tonight?" "uhh... hanging out with some friends...nothing really". I'm not suggesting that we all shout it from the mountain tops, but be honest about it if someone asks. What is it your doing? Interactive storytelling, using dice to determine the outcome. That happens to be called D&D in my case, but the same system is used for other settings such as Star Wars. I haven't heard that Star Wars is Evil, so it can't be the role-playing aspect. Nor can it be the fantasy setting, since LoTR has shown that Fantasy can be both popular and have Christian Undertones.

And the last reason that I'll be talking about my game, is because it makes for great posting material.

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In other news, Chad got a Blog. Details to Follow.