Once in a while, I’ll sit and daydream about events that would happen at the table.  This is useful for two reasons:

One day, I was thinking about an example of a skill challenge that was in the first print of the DMG for 4th edition.  I thought about that example and how it encouraged outside usage of skills that wern’t obvious.  I also wished desperately that I could use this technique in a chase scene that was likely to occur in an upcoming game between the party and a creature they really shouldn’t fight.  Putting out a battle mat and minis is time consuming, eggs them on, and limits creativity.  Instead, I wanted something quick that opened up options to the party.  This is how I saw myself handling it:

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

DM: You are travelling through the natural caverns after you latest victory, trying to get home to sell your loot and to a comfortable bead.  As you travel, from behind you echos an erie roar, and the magma beast that you saw earlier charges towards you from behind a formation of rocks.

Wizard: Oh crap!  Remember what that thing did in town two sessions ago!  We’re toast!

I find this to be fun, exciting, and a change of pace from the normal hack-and-slash of normal combats.  It threatens the PCs without forcing them to ‘play fair’ in what could have been an un-winnable encounter.

What do you think of narrative play?  My group use to do it all the time in 2nd edition, and it is still useful today.

Once in a while, I’ll sit and daydream about events that would happen at the table.  This is useful for two reasons:

One day, I was thinking about the lack of craft skills in 4th Edition – specifically how I would handle it if a player decided to make it a point of fact/argument/self-righteousness at the table.  This is how I saw myself handling it:

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

It was simple to come up with the ability to let the PC be a smith.  He can make his own weaponry (w/o a discount, unless he buys his own forge again) and customize the look of it to his heart’s content.  We also added more to his back story that gave me at least one new NPC and a new story point to work with.  Plus, the player has more investment in the game – he wants his forge back!

Note how I didn’t just let him take the easy way out (became a smith, can make cool stuff), but rather forced him to come up with reasons for his training, migration, and current life situation.  Also note how I said his skill was considerable enough that he made weaponry for nobility.  If you are going to add background information like this, it needs to be significant.

4th Edition is as devoid of flavor and role-playing as you want it to be.  Using your imagination, it’s easy to talk through giving PCs a trade skill that enriches the story of the campaign.

I had an encounter where I re-skinned demon-crazed ibixian (goat-men) out of gnolls.  In particular, I had one skirmisher who could A) make two attacks on a charge and B) get double-damage when bloodied.

While I’m not the most brilliant tactical mind, I try to minimize risk to my monsters by default with the explanation that they woudln’t take needless risks.  I tell my players I taylor the combat style to the monsters, but I have a long way to go – as you will now see.

Back to the ibixian – I’ve used him in two different groups.  In neither group did they ever take attacks of opportunity.  In neither group did they disengage in order to charge again.  In retrospect, this is totally stupid.

In this specific instance, a battle-crazed goat wouldn’t be concerned with his own health, since the demon in their head would want to see more carnage (both the PCs and the goat-mans blood).  Also, effectively dealing double damage on charging (netting a +1 to attack rolls) that goes up to 4x just by being hit (which Opportunity Attacks make happen); the math is pratcially on your side to not play it self!

To boot, the combats would have been faster and more exciting!

So next time you are evaluating your basic tactics for your monsters, debate just how bad it would be to take an OA or violate a mark.  Chances are you can justify the maneuver by pulling off a bigger, more exciting attack for everyone at the table.

DMs can allow the awesome, and shouldn’t be afraid of it.  Too often a DM looks at the rule book and declarer it to be the law.  Instead, the DM should use their intuition and allow the rules to be bend, broken, and ignored for the sake of fun.  It’s dangerous – leaning too much to either side makes your a real jerk – but the rewards are infinite.

Can’t See the Game Through the Rules

I can’t put it into words any better than Monte Cook recently did in a recent Legends and Lore article –  http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20111101; we’ve let ourselves believe that the rules should prevent a bad DM from being a bad DM, and that’s rubish.  Instead, a bad DM needs to grow, and handing them a technical manual wrapped with fantasy pictures doesn’t do enough to foster creativity.

You Don’t Need An App For That

With Mordenkienan’s Magnificant Emporium came not just a ton of awesome magical items (about time), but also a lot more fluff and rules discussion.  In one sidebar towards the back of the book, I read something that sounded obvious to me but was hidden under the strict composure of the overlaying rules system.  To paraphrase, the sidebar mentioned that if a player wanted to jab an iron spike into the knee of an iron golem you could let it do some damage and either slow or immobilize the golem.  There isn’t a power that lets you do this, but it would definitely be in the DMs best interest to encourage creative solutions by making sure such an attempt gets it’s fair shake against doing a more ‘mundane’ attack power.

Are there encounter powers that slow and immobilize when you hit?  Sure.  You could tell the player no on grounds that there are other classes that can do said action as a class-ability and it’s the player’s fault for choosing the class/race/theme they did, but this is where you have to decide when to say…

Ok, That’s Enough

You have to decide for yourself just how far to go before you start to be unfair the other players.  The rules are the common ground everyone agrees on and works within, and you as DM are the steward of the rules.

One particular call I’ve made involved a PC with an attack power that let him teleport prior to making an attack.  The player made a jump check to try to clear part of a 30-foot ravine and failed by 2 squares, putting him easily within striking distance of the target.  Now the rules are clear – the PC falls before he gets any other action.  There are character builds and magic items available that would have saved him from falling, and he didn’t have them.  However, the idea of teleporting after a jump and tearing into his target was an awesome visual – I allowed the PC to make a save to have enough composure to make the attack.  The rules where not on my side, but the players at the table where – and probably wouldn’t have mind if I just blatantly said the PC could make the attack w/o a save at all!

Bottom line, I’ll wager that your game will be a lot cooler and more enjoyable if you as DM say yes to players and let their awesome ideas manifest.

I’m a fan of 4th edition.  I still love 3e, but 4th is a great system to cheat with.  One such thing that I miss about 3e when I’m with 4th is how flexible the class roles are.  As the most recent Rule of Three points out, roles have always been in D&D; wanting to know who was going to be the cleric, the wizard, the thief, and the fighter was the same as asking who was going to be the healer, the controller/striker, the trap-finder and the defender.  But in 3e, you could build just as useful a defender with a sorcerer or wizard as you could a fighter.  In 4th, you can imitate for a round or two, but you really can’t be anything outside your role.

Had the thought: what if you picked your class then picked your role?  You pick fighter, and he comes with the ability to mark whatever he swings at, so he is a natural defender.  BUT, you can choose striker or defender as his real role.  Thus, as defender he may behave much like he does now, but as a striker he gets an additional 1d6 damage against targets he marks (or perhaps +Dex or +Wisdom modifier damage, like the Slayer).  If you choose choose Leader, you can grant healing like a normal leader to those who are standing next to a marked target or yourself.  (Martial controllers are always a can of worms, so I’m skipping that…)  You can do the same thing with all of the classes – let each class have a preferred, but allow them to throw away the base role in favor of a perk similar to those above.

The idea is 1/2 baked, and I’m not saying we should adopt this any time soon – but what do you think of it?  Would you like a system like this?  What would you change or add?