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url("https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wp-table-reloaded/css/plugin.css?ver=1.9.4"); @import url("https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wp-table-reloaded/css/datatables.css?ver=1.9.4"); /* ]]> */ </style></head> <body> <div id="doc" class="yui-t2"> <div id="hd"> <h1><a href="https://thealexandrian.net"><img src="https://www.thealexandrian.net/buttons/Logo.jpg" alt="The Alexandrian"></a></h1> </div> <div id="bd" class="yui-navset"> <div id="yui-main"> <div class="yui-b" > <div class="yui-ge"><div class="yui-u first">  <div class="item entry" id="post-52083"> <div class="itemhead"> <h3><a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/52083/roleplaying-games/ptolus-running-the-campaign-prepping-porphyry-house" rel="bookmark">Ptolus: Running the Campaign – Prepping Porphyry House</a></h3> <div class="chronodata">February 26th, 2025 </div> </div> <div class="storycontent"> <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="aligncenter " src="https://thealexandrian.net/images/20250226d.png" alt="Map of Porphyry House - Dungeon Magazine #95" width="549" height="319" /> DISCUSSING <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/?p=52026">In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 43E: Snakes in a Whorehouse</a> <blockquote>They found a secluded corner on the northern side of the building, well-shielded from prying public eyes, and drilled through. They found themselves in a long hallway that looked to run almost the entire length of the building. On the long opposite wall of the hall were roughly a dozen secret doors – or, rather, the back-side of secret doors. Although their construction clearly indicated that they were designed to be lay flush with the wall on the opposite side, from this side their nature and operation were plain. The hall was capped at either end by similar doors. They had finally breached the walls of Porphyry House.</blockquote> “The Porphyry House Horror” is an adventure by James Jacobs published in Dungeon Magazine #95. I scooped it up when I was looting scenarios from Dungeon during <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/39864/roleplaying-games/ptolus-running-the-campaign-looting-the-bestiaries">my original campaign prep</a>: I skimmed through 40-50 issues, looking for stuff that I could incorporate into the campaign. While the PCs ended up skipping several adventures I’d pulled for Act I of the campaign, there’s a bunch of cult-related adventures that I used to add depth to Wuntad’s conspiracy/gathering of the cults in Act II. (For some reason I started referring to the adventure as “Porphyry House of Horrors” in my notes. I had a real <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory#Mandela_effect">Mandela Effect</a> moment when I went back to reference the original magazine for this article.) I thought it might be useful to take a peek at how I went about <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/46523/roleplaying-games/how-to-prep-a-module">prepping</a> this adventure. The original scenario was 30 pages long. My prep notes for the scenario, on the other hand, fill a 45-page Word document. That might sound like I completely ripped the module apart and <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/46548/roleplaying-games/how-to-remix-an-adventure">put it back together</a>, but that’s not really the case. <ul> <li>25 pages of my notes are actually handouts I designed for the players. (I’ll talk more about these later.)</li> <li>10 pages are <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/46535/roleplaying-games/how-to-prep-a-module-part-2">stat sheets</a> for the adventure. This was partly so that I could use the stat sheets for easy reference (instead of needing to flip around in the adventure), and also because I wanted to adapt the stat blocks to <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/979/roleplaying-games/revised-3-5-stat-blocks">an easier to use format</a>.</li> </ul> So you can see that only about ten pages of material was actually making substantive changes to the module. And most of that was mostly dedicated to adding stuff. “The Porphyry House Horror” is just ar really great adventure. There’s a reason why I snatched it up. <big>LINKING THE ADVENTURE</big> After making a list of all the cult-related <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/45268/roleplaying-games/the-secret-life-of-nodes-part-2-node-based-campaigns">scenario nodes</a> in Act II of the campaign — some pulled from Monte Cook’s Night of Dissolution, others from Dungeon Magazine, a couple from Paizo adventures, several of my own creation — I went through and made a <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/40978/roleplaying-games/random-gm-tip-using-revelation-lists">revelation list</a> with all the leads pointing from one scenario node to another. For Porphyry House, I wrote down: <ul> <li>Porphyry House to Final Ritual.</li> <li>Porphyry House to Temple of Deep Chaos.</li> <li>Porphyry House to Kambranex (Water Street Stables).</li> <li>Porphyry House to White House.</li> <li>Porphyry House to Voyage of the Dawnbreaker.</li> </ul> (Actually, a couple of those may not have been on the list yet. I may have discovered them while prepping Porphyry House and then added them to the list afterwards. If so, however, I don’t recall which ones were which.) At this point, these connections would have been almost entirely structural. They represent my broad understanding of the macro-scale connections between the various cults — i.e., Porphyry House is using chaositech that would be sourced from Kambranex — but I don’t know what the specific clues actually are yet. This is functionally a checklist of blank boxes I need to fill while prepping the adventure. <big>INTEGRATING THE ADVENTURE</big> With these links forged, I made a copy of “The Porphyry House of Horrors” and slid it into an accordion folder along with other adventures I had sourced for the campaign. I then didn’t touch the adventure two years. There were, after all, a bunch of other adventures for the PCs to tackle before they would get anywhere near Porphyry House. According to the file info, I began prepping my notes for Porphyry House at 7:56 PM on August 15th, 2009. This makes sense: That’s also the date that I ran <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/51761/roleplaying-games/in-the-shadow-of-the-spire-session-41a-dominics-denunciation">Session 41</a> of the campaign, during which the PCs decided that they wanted to go to Porphyry House. I would have written the campaign journal that session, and then begun prepping the scenario. (It’s likely that I had actually reread the original adventure after <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/51471/roleplaying-games/in-the-shadow-of-the-spire-session-40d-children-of-the-hand">Session 40</a>, when the PCs first heard about Porphyry House. At that point they would have clearly been just a couple sessions away, and so I would have begun preparations.) The first thing I did was figure out how to integrate the background of Porphyry House into the campaign. In this case, it was pretty straightforward: <ul> <li>Porphyry House is a whore house.</li> <li>Wuntad’s first chaos cult was based out of <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/43625/roleplaying-games/in-the-shadow-of-the-spire-session-20e-into-pythoness-house">Pythoness House</a>, another whorehouse.</li> </ul> Sometimes integrating a published scenario into an ongoing campaign is tricky. Sometimes it’s more like drawing a straight line. <ul> <li>“The Porphyry House of Horrors” is set in the town of Scuttlecover. I just dropped that material and picked a location for Porphyry House in Ptolus.</li> <li>I also dropped the entire original adventure hook. (I knew that the players would be getting hooked in to the cult’s activities there via the leads from other cult nodes.)</li> <li>The original Porphyry House cult was dedicated to Demogorgon. I simple palette-shifted that to a Galchutt-focused chaos cult.</li> <li>Erepodi, a minor background character from the Pythoness House adventure, was made the founder of Porphyry House. (I knew I would need to add her to the scenario.)</li> <li>Wulvera, the cult leader from the Porphyry House adventure, was given a tweaked background that synced with the lore from Ptolus and my own campaign world.</li> <li>I also knew that I wanted Wuntad to keep a guest room at Porphyry House. (This would be a useful vector for clues, and also be in accord with the <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/36383/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots-you-will-rue-this-day-heroes-the-principles-of-rpg-villainy">Principles of RPG Villainy</a>.)</li> </ul> With those details determine, I put together a very brief (roughly half a page) timeline summarizing the canonical version of events for my campaign. The original adventure also included a Gather Information table, and I adapted this to fit the new lore. (This filled the other half of that page.) <big>ADVERSARY ROSTER</big> The next thing I did was the <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/38547/roleplaying-games/the-art-of-the-key-part-4-adversary-rosters">adversary roster</a>. The first step was simply reading through the adventure and listing the location of every denizens. Sometimes this is all I need to do to have a ready-to-use roster, but in this case there was a lot of tweaking and adjustments that were made as I was developing the scenario. (For example, I was adding Erepodi to the adventure.) The most significant change I made here was deciding that Porphyry House would have a different adversary roster during the Day than it would have at Night. This sort of major shift in inhabitants can be a huge pain in the ass with a traditionally keyed dungeon, but is incredibly easy with an adversary roster. The roster was quite large, so I put the Day Roster on one page and the Night Roster on another. <big>PREP NOTES</big> I then worked my way through the location key, making diff notes as described in <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/46523/roleplaying-games/how-to-prep-a-module">How to Prep an Module</a>. In an adventure with 46 keyed locations, I made changed to 15 of them. These were almost entirely: <ul> <li>Adjusting lore (e.g., shifting the original Demogorgon references)</li> <li>Adding handouts (see below)</li> <li>Making the adjustments required for integrating the adventure (as described above)</li> <li>Adding clues to flesh out the adventure’s revelation list (mostly relating to the horrific ritual Porphyry House is making preparations for)</li> </ul> For example, in the original module there are four rooms all keyed to Area 16: <blockquote>16. DOCUMENTS AND LIBRARY These rooms store both idle reading material for the yuan-ti to relax with, as well as exhaustive records of their guests. None of the records have any indication that Porphyry House is anything other than a well-managed and profitable brothel, although the documents make for interesting reading; it seems that the yuan-ti keep records on everything their customers ask for…</blockquote> I took advantage of this by re-keying these rooms as 16A through 16D: <ul> <li>16A was the Customer Records</li> <li>16B was a Dark Reading Room</li> <li>16C was Wuntad’s Guest Quarters</li> <li>16D was Erepodi’s Quarters</li> </ul> In re-keying these chambers, I did things like: <ul> <li>Flesh out the customer records to (a) add clues to some of the central revelations in the scenario and (b) add leads pointing to other cult nodes (e.g., sums being delivered to the Temple of the Fifty-Three Gods of Chance and “Illadras at the Apartment Building on Crossing Streets”).</li> <li>Add a selection of <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/51495/roleplaying-games/ptolus-running-the-campaign-distributing-chaos-lorebooks">chaos lorebooks</a> to the Dark Reading Room.</li> <li>Add some of the items Wuntad <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/45543/roleplaying-games/in-the-shadow-of-the-spire-session-23d-the-chaos-cultists">took from the PCs at Pythoness House</a> to his guest room.</li> <li>Added a handout depicting a mosaic floor (with chaos cult symbols).</li> </ul> And so forth. One other interesting change I made here was greatly increasing Porphyry House’s size through the simple expedient of changing the map scale from 5’ per square to 10’ per square. (I liked the slightly more grandiose dimensions this gave Porphyry House, and it also better fit the dimensions of the building I’d selected on <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2537/roleplaying-games/ptolus-running-the-campaign-graphical-resources">the Ptolus city map</a> for the location.) <big>HANDOUTS</big> Anyone familiar with the <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/37078/roleplaying-games/eternal-lies-the-alexandrian-remix">Alexandrian Remix of Eternal Lies</a> knows that I love props. (I created over 300+ of them for that campaign.) I love handing stuff to the players because the players love it when you hand stuff to them. For Porphyry House this included: <ul> <li>A map showing the location of Porphyry House.</li> <li>Magic item references. (I frequently write these up — often including an image of the item — for any magic items the PCs find that aren’t from the DMG. It’s a fun way to make the loot feel extra special, and it’s a super useful reference the player can use for their new items.)</li> <li>Graphics depicting various NPCs and monsters. (Got a cool picture in your adventure? I will not hesitate to rip it out and give it to my players, including <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/5774/roleplaying-games/strip-mining-adventure-modules">Photoshopping it if I need to</a>.)</li> <li>Various bespoke lorebooks, such as Wuntad’s Notes on the Feast of the Natharl’nacna and Wilarue’s Flaying Journal. (As noted above, there were also chaos lorebooks — copies of which were spread around throughout the campaign — to be found here.)</li> <li>Various correspondence, such as Letter from Shigmaa Cynric to Wuntad and Instructions to the Madames.</li> </ul> Prepping handouts like these is often the most labor-intensive portion of my scenario prep, but it can also be the most rewarding. <big>WRAPPING THINGS UP</big> In practice, of course, a lot of this work is iterative: I’m updating a room key, taking notes on the handouts found there, and then bouncing back to work on more room keys. Or maybe details in one of the letters I’m writing will cause me to go back and add additional details to the background notes and timeline. But, ultimately, this is pretty much all there is to it. At the end of this process, I had a really fantastic adventure that felt as if it had been custom-written for my campaign and my players. Campaign Journal: Session 44A – Running the Campaign: TBD <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/in-the-shadow-of-the-spire">In the Shadow of the Spire: Index</a> </div> Filed under: <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/category/roleplaying-games" rel="category tag">Roleplaying Games</a> <? if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/52083/roleplaying-games/ptolus-running-the-campaign-prepping-porphyry-house#respond">Comment (0)</a> Article tags: <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/tag/dd" rel="tag">d&d</a>, <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/tag/in-the-shadow-of-the-spire" rel="tag">in the shadow of the spire</a>, <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/tag/ptolus" rel="tag">ptolus</a>, <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/tag/running-the-campaign" rel="tag">running the campaign</a> </div>   <div class="item entry" id="post-52026"> <div class="itemhead"> <h3><a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/52026/roleplaying-games/in-the-shadow-of-the-spire-session-43e-snakes-in-a-whorehouse" rel="bookmark">In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 43E: Snakes in a Whorehouse</a></h3> <div class="chronodata">February 26th, 2025 </div> </div> <div class="storycontent"> <center><a href="https://thealexandrian.net/in-the-shadow-of-the-spire"><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter" title="Ptolus - In the Shadow of the Spire" src="https://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/ptolus/images/ptolus-logo.jpg" alt="Ptolus - In the Shadow of the Spire" width="300" height="96" /></a></center><center><big>IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE</big></center> <big>SESSION 43E: SNAKES IN A WHOREHOUSE </big> October 25th, 2009 The 23rd Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty <img decoding="async" class="aligncenter " src="https://thealexandrian.net/images/20250226.jpg" alt="Porphyry House" width="552" height="251" /> <big><big>INTO PORPHYRY HOUSE </big></big> They found a secluded corner on the northern side of the building, well-shielded from prying public eyes, and drilled through. They found themselves in a long hallway that looked to run almost the entire length of the building. On the long opposite wall of the hall were roughly a dozen secret doors – or, rather, the back-side of secret doors. Although their construction clearly indicated that they were designed to be lay flush with the wall on the opposite side, from this side their nature and operation were plain. The hall was capped at either end by similar doors. One of these doors gave out into a large, vaulted chamber decorated with hangings of red and blue curtains, risqué paintings, bonsai trees, and erotic statuary. The floor here was covered with a deep, soft carpet that felt as if they were walking across a very firm, forgiving bed. The air was filled with the subtle scents of jasmine-tinted incenses. In one corner, a stair of intricately carved porphyry curved up through the ceiling. Along one wall a large, elegantly curved desk of gleaming mahogany extruded itself from the wall. And at the far end of the chamber broad, curved steps rose up to a massive pair of daised doors. The door they had come through was, in fact, disguised from this side. There was also another door of polished wood not far along the same wall. They had clearly entered the “public” area of the brothel. Crossing the luxurious chamber they ascended to the double doors and eased them open, only to find themselves entering an even larger chamber. The massive hall was dimly lit with glowing tiles in the ceiling and a set of four braziers around a wide, shallow pool of water. Several other pools of heated water off to one side bubbled away, filling that end of the room with misty vapor. Dozens of large cushions were strewn here and there. At the far end of the chamber was a raised balcony lined with a wall of tall of mirrors. The place smelled of sweat and deeper, muskier odors. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000VNI1GQ/digitalcomi0a-20"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter " src="https://thealexandrian.net/images/20250226b.jpg" alt="Portion of a map of Porphyry House, depicting a large, luxurious chamber" width="292" height="261" /></a> Directly opposite their entry was a matching set of doors. Passing through these, they found themselves in a second antechamber similar to the one they had passed through before. Tee even confirmed their suspicion that there would be a matching secret door in the far corner of the room. Poking around the desk in this room they found papers detailing registrations for various orgies held in the house. Oddly, despite regular orgies scheduled multiple times per week, there was a gap in the registration records indicating that no orgies were currently being held. The next orgy – which was apparently going to be of prodigious proportions – was scheduled on the 18th of Noctural. (They noted that all of the records here were for female participants, but a quick double-check in the opposite chamber found that a similar gap existed in the registration for men.) The secret door in this room also passed into what appeared to be a service hall. A quick check through the other door revealed a luxury-filled hallway lined with matching doors, leading them to conclude that the secret doors probably led into the individual brothel chambers. They didn’t see any need to go into those, and they were fairly certain that what they were looking for wouldn’t be found in the brothel’s public halls. A little way down the luxurious hall, however, Tee found another secret door in the wall opposite the doors they suspected led to bedrooms. This seemed likely to take them where they wanted to go, so she slid open the panel. This revealed a large, barracks-like chamber containing four beds (each with a large chest at its foot). The creatures lying in the beds, however, were serpentine monstrosities. Tee pulled out the onyx ring Nasira had enchanted with an aura of magically enforced silence and motioned the others into position. As the serpent-men started stirring, Agnarr and Tee moved to one bed; Tor to another. While Nasira kept a watch in the hall, Tor swung his blade down and sliced the serpent-man in half. Despite its rapid dismemberment, however, the blood-spewing thing’s upper half squirmed towards him. Agnarr and Tee managed to destroy the one they had chosen by slicing it into ever smaller portions, but the arterial sprays of blood were beginning to wake the others— And magical darkness suddenly descended on the room. Tor felt his way over to another of the beds and started hacking blindly in the darkness, but the serpent-man who had been bedding there managed to slip away. Tee stumbled out the far side of the darkness zone and found the two remaining serpent-men trying to regroup by the far door. One of them had grabbed a small bag of black leather and silver <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0786915528/digitalcomi0a-20"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class=" alignright" src="https://thealexandrian.net/images/20250226c.jpg" alt="Yuan-Ti - Monster Manual (3E)" width="205" height="404" /></a>stitching that had been slung over one of the bedposts. Now that it was open, the bag glowed from within with a neonesque, blood-red light. The serpent-men were dipping their weapons into the bag and as they drew the weapons out they were drenched in the living light. Tee, unwilling to give them a chance to slip through the door and raise the alarm, threw herself at them. With their backs literally to the wall, the serpent-men fought with desperation – and the red light on their blades burned her blood where it struck. But Tee was able to hold them long enough for Tor and Agnarr to join her, and then the tide turned and the serpents were cut down. They took the strange bag to Ranthir, who identified it as a witchlight reservoir. Such reservoirs were designed to hold small quantities of naturalistic magical energy. Empowered with exposure to sunlight or moonlight or with sacrifices of blood or wine, such reservoirs could fuel minor effects. This particular reservoir, as they had seen, was designed to graft its power onto melee weapons. Ranthir was also able to determine that it was currently empowered with human blood, which raised some unpleasant questions about where such blood had come from. They quickly stripped down the room. They found several small caches of gold, but were deeply impressed with the high magical quality of the equipment they found. (In many ways, they were thankful that they had surprised the serpent-men while they hadn’t been wearing or using any of it.) It was somewhat disturbing, however, to see that each of the serpent-men had a suit of the porcelain-and-gold armor they had seen the human guards wearing at the front of the building (complete with human vizor). Were those guards also serpent-men? Somehow disguised in plain sight by their armor? They locked the door the serpent-men had been rallying near (in the hope that it might slow down any accidental discovery of the blood-stained chamber), and headed back through the orgy registration rooms to what they believed would be a second, mirrored barracks on the opposite side of the building. They did, in fact, find a secret door where they had expected one. But on the other side, instead of a second barracks, they found an opulent lounge of low-lying couches. On one of these, another of the serpent-men lounged, a hookah lying at its side. Tor leapt forward and beheaded the creature while it was still trying to rise out of its drugged stupor. With the onyx silence ring still on her finger, Tee moved to one of the doors on the far side of the lounge. Easing it open, she peered into the galley of a long kitchen. Around a table at the near end two more of the serpent-men were playing a desultory game of cards. They rushed the table: Tee’s blade literally pinioned one of the serpent-men to the table, while Tor chopped off the head of the other. Heading further down the length of the kitchen they discovered that it opened up into a larger area with a dozen or so humans sleeping in rags on the floor. All of the humans wore bands of green stone around their wrists, which Ranthir identified as slave rings. A slave owner wearing a master ring could use these slave rings to deal out punishments (including death) and even look through the eyes of his slaves. Waking the slaves, therefore, was too dangerous. They decided to quietly retreat out of the kitchen before they alerted the entire compound. <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/?p=52083">Running the Campaign: Prepping Porphyry House</a> – Campaign Journal: Session 44A <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/in-the-shadow-of-the-spire">In the Shadow of the Spire: Index</a> </div> Filed under: <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/category/roleplaying-games" rel="category tag">Roleplaying Games</a> <? if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/52026/roleplaying-games/in-the-shadow-of-the-spire-session-43e-snakes-in-a-whorehouse#respond">Comment (0)</a> Article tags: <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/tag/campaign-journals" rel="tag">campaign journals</a>, <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/tag/dd" rel="tag">d&d</a>, <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/tag/in-the-shadow-of-the-spire" rel="tag">in the shadow of the spire</a>, <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/tag/ptolus" rel="tag">ptolus</a> </div>   <div class="item entry" id="post-52118"> <div class="itemhead"> <h3><a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/52118/roleplaying-games/session-0-modules" rel="bookmark">Session 0 Modules</a></h3> <div class="chronodata">February 21st, 2025 </div> </div> <div class="storycontent"> <a href="https://stock.adobe.com/images/advanced-ringed-space-stations-orbit-in-deep-space/943713284"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter " src="https://thealexandrian.net/images/20250221.png" alt="Space Station Modules - Miguel Aguirre" width="550" height="309" /></a> When we sit down to play a roleplaying game, there’s always some amount of preparation we need to do before we can start slinging dice. What, exactly, that prep entails will depend on the game and the group, but we’ve come to call this prep — whatever form it takes — Session 0. (The term originally referred strictly to a session dedicated entirely to prep without any actual game play happening. These days it’s often just referring to this prep in whatever form it takes, even if it’s only a few minutes covering the basics before diving into the evening’s adventure. For more on this background, you can check out <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/41262/roleplaying-games/thought-of-the-day-evolution-of-session-zero">The Evolution of Session Zero</a>.) For most RPGs, there are four core elements that need to be hashed out during Session 0. <big>THE GROUP CONTRACT</big> A group contract is the group’s formal and informal agreements about how the game will be run and played. This includes: <ul> <li>Basic functions of play, such as the game rules and/or setting to be used. (Including the details of how the group will handle the other three core needs described below.)</li> <li>Narrative elements, such as script immunity, the rule of cool, whether genre conventions will trump simulation (or vice versa), themes, and tone.</li> <li>Safety tools, whether formal (X-cards, lines-and-veils, etc.) or informal.</li> <li>Real world logistics, such as “don’t leave the back door open,” “message the group chat if you’re going to be late,” how long game sessions will be, how scheduling will work, and “if you miss two sessions in a row, we sacrifice you to Bahlbaroth.”</li> </ul> This mutual understanding of how this specific game with these specific players is going to work is, surprisingly, almost entirely unspoken and completely unexamined in most groups. It’s kind of just assumed that the group will do what’s “obvious” or just “the way we’ve done it before.” That’s OK if it works, of course. Not so much if it means the group is ramming their faces into the walls. (Never great, you’ll notice. “Great” would mean checking in on your unspoken, and often unrecognized, assumptions to make sure they actually make sense for the game you’re getting ready to run. Or, even better, optimized for it.) <big>CAMPAIGN CONCEPT</big> The campaign concept, broadly speaking, is who the PCs are and what they’ll be doing. For example: <ul> <li>They’re retired spies who now use their particular set of skills to hunt a global conspiracy of vampires.</li> <li>They’re CSI agents investigating crime scenes in Chicago, IL.</li> <li>They own and operate a boutique specializing in magical unguents (for which they must gather the required ingredients from fairyland).</li> <li>They’re the organizers of a science fiction convention, and somehow every year there’s a supernatural catastrophe and they need to prevent it from derailing the con.</li> </ul> Sometimes picking a game is the same thing as picking a campaign concept (or close enough that it makes little difference). For example, D&D comes with the prepackaged expectation that the PCs are going to be wandering heroes in a classical fantasy setting who seek treasure and fight evil. In other cases, though, just picking a game will still leave large chunks of the campaign concept uncertain. Jonathan Tweet’s Over the Edge, for example, assumes the campaign will be taking place on the conspiracy-riddled island of Al Amarja, but the PCs could be almost anybody and doing almost anything. The most extreme example of this can be found in a universal RPG like GURPS, the selection of which will tell the group absolutely nothing about what the campaign concept is. (On the other hand, John Harper’s Lady Blackbird – which features a specific campaign hook and pregenerated characters slotted into that hook – is a game with an even more specific and hardcoded concept than D&D.) It’s not unusual for the campaign concept to be predetermined by the GM, but it’s also possible for the concept to be developed by the whole group in collaboration. This can be as simple as the GM saying something like, “I’m going to be running a Mothership campaign in the Onyx-S5 cluster. Who are your characters and what are they doing there?” and then seeing where the discussion goes. <big>SETTING</big> Setting is inherently connected to the campaign concept: You can’t be space pirates if the campaign is set in 12th-century France, and if the campaign is set on Mars in the 22nd century, you won’t be playing Roman legionnaires. (Well… unless your GM is Harry Turtledove.) Whether setting flows from concept or concept flow from setting – e.g., whether you decide you want to play space pirates and then building a setting around that or decide you want to explore the setting of Middle Earth and then figure out what you want to do there – is really a chicken-or-the-egg situation, and will be different for every campaign. (And, of course, it’s not at all unusual for the both setting and concept to be basically built up at the same time in tandem.) Whatever the case may be – and whether there’s an established setting, a setting the GM has created for the campaign, or a completely original setting that’s being collaboratively generated during Session 0 – ultimately what’s needed is a setting brief with enough information about the setting that the players can create their characters. This is often a lot less information than you might think. In fact, it’s often ideal to keep this information as minimal as possible: An infodump that’s too large can overwhelm the group, resulting in them actually knowing less about the setting, in practical terms, than a tight, well-focused briefing. Check out <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/so-you-want-to-be-a-game-master">So You Want to Be a Game Master</a> and <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/48367/roleplaying-games/random-worldbuilding-fast-furious-homebrewing">Random Worldbuilding: Fast & Furious Homebrewing</a> for tips on creating effective setting briefings. Just like the campaign concept, developing the setting can also be a collaborative process involving the whole table. There are some games that will actually formalize this collaboration into a more expanded form of character creation. Luke Crane’s Burning Empires, for example, is about the PCs facing an invasion of alien parasites, and the game’s mechanics will guide the group through creating the planet they live on. <big>CHARACTER CREATION</big> The final core element of your Session 0 is for the players to create their characters. This includes both mechanical character creation and their character background, each of which will also generally be connected to a character concept. Some players will start with a concept and then figure out how to model that concept mechanically and flesh out the details into a full-fledged background. In other cases, particularly when using systems featuring character generation instead of character crafting, players may start with the mechanics and use them as a creative prompt for who their character is going to be. The mechanical aspect of character creation, of course, will be handled by whatever RPG is being played. Character backgrounds, on the other hand, tend to be more freeform in their development. (Although here, too, inspiration can flow from the mechanics into the background and vice versa. For example, if the player picks Sniper Training skill pack, that might inspire them to describe where the character got that training from. Or, vice versa, describing their character attending the US Army Sniper School at Fort Moore might prompt the player to pick the skill pack.) <blockquote>Note: Another common point of debate here is the difference between minimalist backgrounds and expansive ones. This is really a spectrum, typically ranging from a couple of sentences to multiple pages of detailed character lore. Like everything else, the “right” approach will depend on the player, the group, the game, and the campaign. Regardless of length, though, the same basic creative process of concept, mechanics, and background will apply.</blockquote> Whatever creative path players might follow here — and exactly what role the GM might take in <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/45149/roleplaying-games/running-the-campaign-dragon-heist-creating-the-characters">collaborating with them</a> to create their characters — there are a few key core tasks that need to be accomplished: <ul> <li>Setting Integration. The players’ characters need to be linked to the setting. This is usually a two-way creative process: The players are drawing elements from the setting briefing — locations, people, events, etc. — to flesh out their character backgrounds, but they are also likely creating elements that the GM should be integrating into the setting.</li> <li>Campaign Integration. As characters are developed, the GM should begin the process of weaving them into the scenarios and campaign they have planned. In some cases the campaign will flow from the characters (e.g., the players decide their village was destroyed by someone called the Crimson Overlord, and the GM’s campaign planning is figuring out how they can pursue him for vengeance). In other cases, this will be about figuring out how to weave the PCs into the GM’s plan — e.g., the GM is planning a campaign in which the PCs are fighting a vampiric Triad in 1980’s Hong Kong, so when one of the players describes his PC’s martial arts master being slain by a mysterious man, the GM might decide to make the killer the undead Dragon Head of the Triad.</li> <li>Bringing the Group Together. Finally, the players should figure out why their PCs are a group (and, if necessary, the details of how that group will work in actual play). Maybe they’re old war buddies who’ve decided to open a detective agency together. Or maybe they all work for the same government agency. Or maybe they’ve all been framed for a crime and need to prove their innocence. Whatever the case may be, there should be a reason why all these PCs are sticking together. This may be something that’s discovered through play, but in most cases it’s better to figure it out as part of Session 0. (And even if you don’t, you’ll probably still want to have at least some indication of what trajectory the PCs are on that will cause their paths to collide and merge during the first session.)</li> </ul> Note how the setting, campaign concept, and the core tasks of character creation are all intertwined. Although you’ll probably want to lockdown some basic details about the campaign concept and setting before brainstorming character concepts, these generally aren’t tasks you can do one at a time. Instead, the group will be alternating between them, using setting to build concept and concept to build character and character to expand setting. <big>SESSION 0 MODULES</big> While we’ve looked at the core elements of a Session 0, it turns out there’s a nearly infinite number of different methods you can use to actually achieve them. I’ve previously laid out <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/45149/roleplaying-games/running-the-campaign-dragon-heist-creating-the-characters">my default Session 0 procedure</a>, which I’ve developed and refined over countless campaigns with a multitude of players. But what I’ve also discovered while reading, running, and playing a bunch of different RPGs is that there’s a lot of really cool stuff you can do as part of Session 0. Some of these are highly specific and really only useful for the game they’re designed for. Others, though, have a near universal applicability: You could use them in D&D or Call of Cthulhu or Numenera or Apocalypse World. The goal of this series is to share some of these techniques. I’m calling them Session 0 Modules, because they’ve been designed — or adapted — to be things you can independently plug into your Session 0. This also means that the intention is NOT for you to take all of these modules and use them in every single Session 0 you run. That would be overwhelming at best, and not infrequently contradictory. Instead, when getting ready to run a new campaign, peruse these modules as if they were a menu, thinking about which ones would be most useful — or most appropriate — for your group. You could also think of these modules as a spice rack. Start with a core Session 0 procedure that works for you and yours, but then toss in one or two of these modules to mix things up. This might be something you plan ahead of time as part of your campaign prep, but you could also find yourself reaching out in the middle of a Session 0 to grab a module that you never would have imagined needing until the players started creating their characters. In other words, these tools. Use them when you need them. Ignore them when you don’t. CHARACTER MODULES Hunted Shared Arcs <blockquote> This will be an ongoing series at the Alexandrian, with new modules being added over time. </blockquote> </div> Filed under: <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/category/roleplaying-games" rel="category tag">Roleplaying Games</a> <? if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/52118/roleplaying-games/session-0-modules#comments">Comments (2)</a> Article tags: <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/tag/session-0" rel="tag">session 0</a> </div>   <div class="item entry" id="post-52099"> <div class="itemhead"> <h3><a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/52099/roleplaying-games/dd-2024-hiding-invisibility" rel="bookmark">D&D 2024: Hiding & Invisibility</a></h3> <div class="chronodata">February 20th, 2025 </div> </div> <div class="storycontent"> <a href="https://www.deviantart.com/fetsch/gallery"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter " src="https://thealexandrian.net/images/20250220.jpg" alt="Tee vs. the Black Trolls (Art for Legends & Labyrinths) - Viktor Fetsch" width="553" height="263" /></a> The rules for hiding and invisibility in D&D 5th Edition have always been a mess. There’s lots of reasons for this — ranging from the designers of the game having a deeply held belief that being invisible is the same as standing outside on a moonlit night to the weirdly contradictory hardcoding of being blind, being heavily obscured, and being invisible — but the end result are rules that are difficult to use, in large part because they so frequently produce a result that’s completely counterintuitive to how we expect human eyes to work. The 2024 edition of the rules tried to clean all of this up, but mostly just made a different mess. For example, Hide makes you Invisible. You can Hide if you’re Heavily Obscured, but Heavily Obscured means people are considered Blind when looking at you, and the only effect of that is identical to being Invisible except Invisibility also gives you advantage on Initiative rolls. Also, neither Hiding nor Invisibility prevent enemies from knowing your location. This only scratches the surface, and I’m not really going to belabor or attempt to breakdown all the problems here. I think it would only distract from the real purpose of this post: To provide a comprehensive fix for the mess. The house rules below are designed to slot into the existing D&D 2024 rules as cleanly as possible, while being built around a simple mental-mechanical model in which characters are either: <ul> <li>Not Hidden</li> <li>Pinpointed (observers know where they are, but can’t clearly see them)</li> <li>Hidden (observers don’t know where they are)</li> </ul> This model makes it easier for DMs to run stealthy situations both in and out of combat with great clarity and confidence, while other elements of these rules simultaneously make them far more useful for making flexible rulings to cover unusual situations and cool ideas that your players might cook up. <big>REVISED HIDING & INVISIBILITY RULES</big> These entries completely replace the matching entries in the 2024 <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0786969512/digitalcomi0a-20">Player’s Handbook</a> rules glossary. HIDE [ACTION] With the Hide action, you try to prevent people from knowing where you are (or possibly that you are there at all). To do so, you must be in a Concealable Location, such as being Heavily Obscured, behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover, or otherwise out of an observer’s line of sight. When attempting to Hide, you make a DC 15 Dexterity (Stealth) check. On a successful check, you gain the Hidden condition against all observers with a passive Wisdom (Perception) score lower than your check. If any new observers enter the area, you also gain the Hidden condition against them if their passive Wisdom (Perception) score is lower than your check. When an observer takes the Search action, they can immediately attempt a Wisdom (Perception) check against the DC set by the Hidden character’s Dexterity (Stealth) check. You lose the benefits of the Hidden condition against any creature who succeeds at the Wisdom (Perception) check or who can otherwise see you (because they’re on the same side of the wall you’re hiding behind or due to a magical effect, for example). Observers remain aware of where they last saw you or detected you. HIDDEN [CONDITION] When you have the Hidden condition, you experience the following effects. <ul> <li>When you’re Hidden from a creature, they don’t know your location.</li> <li>If you are no longer in a Concealable Location or benefiting from another condition that allows you to take the Hide action, you immediately lose the Hidden condition.</li> <li>Concealed. You can’t be affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen if you are Hidden from the effect’s creator.</li> <li>Surprise. If you are Hidden from all enemies when you roll Initiative, you have Advantage on the roll.</li> <li>Combat Advantage. Attack rolls against a Hidden opponent have Disadvantage, and a Hidden opponent’s attack rolls have Advantage.</li> <li>Detectable Actions. If you make an attack or take some other loud or overt action (such as talking louder than a whisper, kicking open a door, or casting a spell with a Verbal component), other creatures will pinpoint your current location, allowing them to, for example, aim attacks at you (although you would still benefit from your Combat Advantage). In addition, taking a detectable action allows any observer you’re currently Hidden from to make a Wisdom (Perception) check to spot you (removing the benefits of the Hidden condition). Observers can use a reaction to gain advantage on this check.</li> <li>Leaving Concealment. If you are no longer in a Concealable Location or benefiting from another condition or effect that allows you to take the Hide action, you lose the Hidden condition. If this happens on your turn in combat, you lose the Hidden condition at the end of your turn. (If, after being revealed, you take the Hide action again, you can immediately regain the Hidden condition after losing it, but observes will remain aware of where they last saw or detected you.) If you Ready an action triggered by something that would reveal your location, you lose the Hidden condition at the end of your Readied action.</li> </ul> For example, you could Hide behind a closed door and then stab someone opening the door, while still gaining the benefits of Hidden on your attack.) INVISIBLE [CONDITION] When you have the Invisible condition, you experience the following effects. <ul> <li>You cannot be seen. Any equipment you’re carrying or wearing is also invisible.</li> <li>You can take the Hide action without needing to be in a Concealable Position.</li> <li>You gain Advantage on checks that would benefit from not being seen, including Dexterity (Stealth) checks.</li> <li>Attack rolls against you have Disadvantage, and your attack rolls have Advantage.</li> <li>You do not gain the benefits of Invisible against any creature who can somehow see you. (For example, due to a see invisibility )</li> </ul> <blockquote> Thanks to piccamo, Hillsy, Grimmash, Lerris, Eshie, Yalim, Kobars Gnomies, zonerhunt, Angon, Noah, Alberek, and other members of the Alexandrian Discord for their feedback and immense help in refining these rules. </blockquote> FURTHER READING <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/40062/roleplaying-games/random-gm-tips-stealthy-thoughts">Random GM Tips: Stealthy Thoughts</a>   </div> Filed under: <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/category/roleplaying-games" rel="category tag">Roleplaying Games</a> <? if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/52099/roleplaying-games/dd-2024-hiding-invisibility#comments">Comments (13)</a> Article tags: <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/tag/dd" rel="tag">d&d</a> </div>   <div class="item entry" id="post-52079"> <div class="itemhead"> <h3><a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/52079/roleplaying-games/ptolus-running-the-campaign-npc-conversation-agendas" rel="bookmark">Ptolus: Running the Campaign – NPC Conversation Agendas</a></h3> <div class="chronodata">February 19th, 2025 </div> </div> <div class="storycontent"> <a href="https://stock.adobe.com/images/candid-couple-discussing-relationship-at-home-dramatic-moment-of-man-and-woman-verbally-fighting-at-front-door-entrance-people-in-crisis/600516866"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter " src="https://thealexandrian.net/images/20250219b.jpg" alt="Candid Couple - Marco" width="550" height="309" /></a> DISCUSSING <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/?p=52024">In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 43D: Escapades of the Ogre</a> <blockquote>Agnarr called Seeaeti off the ogre so that it could successfully regenerate. They wanted to question it. But when it woke up, it was the one asking the questions. “Who are you?” They naturally refused to answer. But although they tried to question it, threaten it, intimidate it, and scare it, the ogre just kept on asking questions. “Who sent you? What do you want?” And so forth. But they resolutely refused to answer. “Ah,” the ogre said at last. “I see I will learn nothing here.” And it turned to gas… and then the gas itself vanished.</blockquote> I think there can be a tendency for NPCs to be passive and reactive in conversations. There are any number of reasons for this: The PCs are, obviously, positioned as protagonists. As GMs we’re juggling a lot of different elements, and it can be easier to juggle everything if it’s relatively stable (and, therefore, possessed of a certain passivity). Plus, at least for me, GMing is often reaction — the PCs do something and then we play to find out what happens. It can be easy for a conversation to slip into the same pattern, with the PCs setting the (only) agenda and the NPCs simply reacting to their efforts. Unfortunately, a one-sided conversation is pretty boring. This inclination can also lead is into some bad habits, with NPCs who are either pushovers or complete intransigents who just senselessly say, “No!” to everything the PCs suggest. Sometimes, of course, we key specific information to an NPC and their function is to deliver that information to the PCs: “Yes, I saw Sally down by the lake last night.” That has the advantage of giving the conversation some narrative substance, but it’s ultimately still pretty passive and placid. To truly bring an NPC conversation to life, you need to ask one simple question: What does this NPC want? What is this NPC’s goal? What is the thing they’re trying to achieve? Why? And perhaps most importantly: How is this conversation going to help them get it? What do they need the PCs do? What information do they want from the PCs? What do they need the PCs to believe? What do they need to hear the PCs say? What do they need to hide from the PCs? This is the NPC’s agenda. You want to keep it simple, short, and actionable. And then you want to play it hard, with the NPC employing all kinds of tactics and conversational gambits to get what they want. In this session, we see a particularly strong example of this with an ogre whose overwhelming motivation is figuring out who the PCs are, where they come from, and what their interest in the Banewarrens is. He also wants to make sure that the PCs don’t find out anything about his own organization or their intentions. Since the PCs want the exact opposite, this puts them into a strong antithesis and the entire scene can boil out from there. Importantly, however, this kind of open antithesis isn’t necessary to generate an interesting thing. The NPC just needs to want something different than the PCs, even if it’s only subtly different. It’s also important to remember that, when antithesis does exist, that doesn’t mean it should never be surmountable. Yes, it’s dramatic when the Jedi Council refuses Qui-Gon Jinn’s request to train Anakin Skywalker. But it’s also a classic moment when Robin Hood convinces Friar Tuck to join his Merry Men. In other cases the solution will be for the PCs to figure out how both their interests and the NPCs’ interests can be mutually achieved. That’s a puzzle for the players to ponder! And, of course, achieving any of this will require first figuring out what the NPC actually wants! Some characters will politely (or not so politely) announce the intentions of course, but others will be quite sly about it. Sometimes the conversation won’t be about overcoming or fulfilling the NPCs’ agenda at all! Nevertheless, the presence of the agenda — and the NPCs’ desire to fulfill it — will fill the scene with life. In summary, for each meaningful NPC in a conversation, think about what the NPC’s conversational agenda is. Ideally, you should be able to state this in one clear sentence. And then pursue it with all the strength you can muster! <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/?p=52026">Campaign Journal: Session 43E</a> – <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/?p=52083">Running the Campaign: Prepping Porphyry House</a> <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/in-the-shadow-of-the-spire">In the Shadow of the Spire: Index</a> </div> Filed under: <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/category/roleplaying-games" rel="category tag">Roleplaying Games</a> <? if(!is_single()) echo "|"; ?> <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/52079/roleplaying-games/ptolus-running-the-campaign-npc-conversation-agendas#comments">Comments (2)</a> Article tags: <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/tag/dd" rel="tag">d&d</a>, <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/tag/in-the-shadow-of-the-spire" rel="tag">in the shadow of the spire</a>, <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/tag/ptolus" rel="tag">ptolus</a>, <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/tag/running-the-campaign" rel="tag">running the campaign</a> </div>  <div class="navigation"> <div class="alignleft"><a href="https://thealexandrian.net/page/2" >« Previous Entries</a></div> <div class="alignright"></div> </div>   </div><div class="yui-u" id="third"><div class="textwidget custom-html-widget"><center><a href="https://thealexandrian.net/feed"><img src="https://www.thealexandrian.net/buttons/rss.jpg"></a></center> <hr> <center>JUSTIN ALEXANDER <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/about">About</a> - <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/about/bibliography">Bibliography</a> <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/about/acting-resume">Acting Resume</a> <hr> ROLEPLAYING GAMES <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/gamemastery-101">Gamemastery 101</a> <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/rpg-scenarios">RPG Scenarios</a> <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/rpg-cheat-sheets">RPG Cheat Sheets</a> <a 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