Resource Management and Tracking (Additional Challenge or Needless Frustration?)

There are a lot of contentious discussions when it comes to roleplaying games. Everything from the age-old debate of casters versus martials, to whether alignment implies a game setting is deterministic in its morality, to whether clerics and paladins require divine patrons to empower them, it seems these topics crop up again every handful of years, and a whole new generation of players and Game Masters grapple with these issues.

One topic that is often overlooked, though, is the proper place of resource management as it applies to your game's challenge. Because while all games have this aspect to some degree, the question is how in-depth do you want to go with it in your campaign, and at what point does it become more of a frustration than a way to add challenge to your game?

Wait... how many rounds have you fired?

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Tools and Limitations

When we strip back all the upper layers and look at the mechanics of how RPGs work, resource management is one of the most basic concepts that goes into creating a game's challenge. How many spells a character can cast before they need to rest, how many hit points they have before they die, how many times they can use certain class features before they need to be refreshed, all of these things fall into the "resource management" category. And, generally speaking, the broad categories I just mentioned are things that we accept as necessary as both players and Game Masters.

However, like a lot of mechanical aspects of a game, resource management can very quickly become micro-management if one isn't careful.

Okay, so, exactly HOW are you carrying all of that?

For example, a system to make the use of magic finite is generally thought of as a good use of a resource management mechanic. Whether it's a pool of spell points that the character uses to fuel their powers (each use of which costs a certain number of points), or a Vancian magic system where they can cast a certain number of specific spells per day, the idea is that they have to figure out when a situation is serious enough for them to dip into their magic since they only have so much gas in the tank before they're going to be tapped out. There are other situations, though, where managing particular resources is seen as more of a pain in the ass than it's really worth. Whether it's keeping track of a character's carrying capacity (including the weight of their clothes and their armor), tracking how many arrows or crossbow bolts they're carrying, or asking how much food they have in their packs for their journeys, a lot of Game Masters and players just don't want to deal with these things.

And, to be clear, that's fine if you don't want to deal with those aspects at your table. However, too often we just toss tools aside without really examining them... which is why this week I'd like to propose something I don't see show up very often in this conversation.

Instead of just universally writing off a resource management mechanic because you don't care for it, or don't want to use it, take a moment to really look at it. And while you're examining it, ask what kind of game it would be good for, and how it could act to create serious challenge in that game.

Using The Right Tool For The Right Job

Resource management is deeply tied in to the challenge of a game, and often the players' access to resources is what shapes their strategy and their decisions. For example, if your party of adventurers heads out into the forests for weeks on-end, but your ranger only brought a dozen arrows for their longbow, what is going to happen when they've fired every shaft? Will they attempt to recover the spent ammunition from the undergrowth? Will they pull their arrows out of the corpses of the creatures they shot in order to reuse them? Will they craft fresh arrows around the fireside, or while they're sitting on watch, to be sure they have enough ammunition to see them through to their destination?

For the purposes of an example, you can swap out any other item. What if the wizard runs out of material components for their spells? What if the fighter's sword breaks, and they need a backup weapon? What if your party has a two week trek through the forest, but they only brought enough food for 4 days? Or, and this is the big one, what if they only have enough silver to buy a certain number of items, but not everything they feel they're going to need?

Now, if you're a Game Master who prefers to travel by map in between towns, cities, and dungeons, then none of that is likely going to make a difference in your game. Because if surviving out in the wilderness and having to deal with random encounters (or even planned encounters) isn't something you're going to worry about, then none of the things mentioned above are going to be a big deal.

But if that's the case, these tools aren't made for the game you're running.

On the other hand, games that do focus on scarcity of resources, on environmental dangers, or just on survival often do lean heavily on these exact mechanics. Whether your party is lost in deep caverns of the World Beneath, whether you're all escaping from slavery and have to use whatever you can get your hands on to survive in the wilds away from civilization, or whether you're on an expedition to lost ruins to see what lies deep within, part of the inherent challenges of these scenarios is that you don't have endless resources... whether those resources happen to be ammunition, spells, healing, food, or even the amount of time it takes to complete your mission.

Now, pointing out that some players legitimately enjoy games that utilize these tools doesn't mean you have to play games centered around resource management. It doesn't mean you need to incorporate them into your game, and subject your players to these things if they aren't really interested in these mechanics. However, if you're one of the folks out there who have been wondering why these "relics of an older gaming age" as they're so often thought of still exist... well, I just wanted to provide some food for thought on the matter.

Lastly, if this is a topic you're interested in that you want to include more of in your games, might I recommend checking out some of the following:

- How Does Your Character Stay Fed? What Does It Take?: A recent post talking about food and eating while characters are out on the campaign trail.

- 100 Random Encounters For On The Road Or In The Wilderness: If you want to throw some unexpected surprises into your party's travel time... for good or ill!

- 100 NPCs To Meet On The Road Or In The Wilderness: A companion supplement to the above piece, just because the road is long or the wildlands dense, that doesn't mean there aren't people to meet.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Crunch post! To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

When You Alter Or Ignore Rules, It Changes The Game's Challenge

All of us are familiar with the first rule of RPGs (or the 0th rule, depending on how you count)... namely that if you don't care for a particular rule that you can just change it, replace it, or even toss it out entirely at your table. It's been my experience, though, that a lot of players and Game Masters take this as carte blanche to do whatever they want, but then they're surprised when the minor change they thought they were making ends up being the flapping butterfly wing that leads to a completely unexpected monsoon in another area of the game!

So, while you are absolutely free to change, ignore, or otherwise customize your gaming experience when playing an RPG, it's a good idea to ask why a particular rule exists in the first place, and how this alteration is going to affect things going forward.

No movement penalty? Oh I'm comin' for ya!

As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

Change The Rules, Change The Game

I will be the first to admit, rule changes are not inherently bad. Even the professionals sometimes get things wrong, or maybe you just want to simplify something in a way that doesn't boomerang back and smack you in the head as a GM because the deeper changes to the rules never have an effect on the monsters you use, or the characters and classes your players pick. But it is important to stop and ask why certain rules exist the way they do, and to ask yourself what removing those rules does to the challenge of the game, but also to the balance you're working with.

For example, let's talk about wizards.

Say you're running a wizard in the first edition of Pathfinder, or in the 3.5 edition of Dungeons and Dragons (this example might work for other games and other editions, but I don't want to make assertions I'm not fully confident about). So, you are a prepared caster, and you need your spellbook in order to properly prepare your spells every day. That spellbook is both your advantage (since you can learn new spells from other books, and from magic scrolls), but it is also your weakness. If something happens to that item, you are in deep shit, as you can't refresh your spells until you come across a new book.

Most GMs aren't big enough dicks to deliberately target a wizard's spellbook, as that is a surefire way to upset and frustrate a player. However, even if you don't have goblins trying to snatch it away, or enemy wizards casting disintigrate on the book, there are a slew of other rules that we often ignore regarding this jarring weakness. For example, if a character winds up in the midst of an area of effect spell, like fireball, they're supposed to roll saves for particular possessions on their person... and for wizards, that often means a spellbook. There's also the question of what happens when a character's possessions are exposed to the elements, such as when they're thrown overboard into the ocean, trapped in a downpour, or just fording a river on their journey. All of these situations have rules that can affect character possessions (scrolls, black powder, alchemical items, rations, etc.), including one's spellbook.

This is the reason (not to shake my walking stick at the clouds) there were so many alternatives for wizards specifically, and for other prepared arcane casters in general. There were warded spellbooks, spellbooks made of specific materials, spells that kept your spellbook safe in a pocket dimension where it wouldn't be affected, tattooed spellbooks that would be safe as long as you didn't get your skin flayed off, and it was why some campaigns just gave you thick tomes of extra spells that you could use to copy over your existing spells, ensuring you had a copy back at the cart, the inn, your castle, etc. if something happened to your in-the-field grimoire.

A lot of us ignore these rules entirely for making separate saves for player equipment when they're exposed to particular hazards. And on the one hand, yes, that means wizards, magi, and similar characters don't have to worry about a single bad roll taking away an item they need. That also means they aren't spending their resources to ensure their books are safe from harm, and that they have back-ups in case something happens. It also means that the advantages of other casting classes like the sorcerer (who requires no spellbook, and often doesn't even require material components) are far less powerful by comparison.

I've run the numbers here... they check out.

This doesn't just apply to the one, specific example I listed. It also happens when you ignore rules that say spellcasters need one hand to hold a focus component, and one hand to make somatic gestures. This undercuts special class features and powers that let weapons, shields, etc. double as necessary components to free up a character's hands. Ignoring the requirements of a holy symbol for divine casters (something that is also subject to the above rules for environmental damage in many cases) devalues features that may give you tattooed or birthmark symbols that can't be destroyed so easily, or which may free up a character's hands for other actions. It happens when you completely ignore encumberance rules, and you have your party carrying a literal ton of magic and alchemical items into the next dungeon, and it happens when you don't bother keeping track of ammunition (special or otherwise), and you wonder why the long-ranged characters have such a major advantage.

Again, we can all run our games however we want to. It is important to remember, though, that game designers don't just make up rules to fill more pages and expand our book so it looks more impressive... rules are made to solve issues in the system. Kind of like the safety precautions you're supposed to follow at work. Yes, they might be annoying, or you might wish you could ignore them, but the powers-that-be required that rule because the boss kept putting barrels of toxic waste in the crew's sleeping quarters, or the machinery kept ripping off people's fingers... the alterations were made for a reason.

The easiest way to find out what that reason was is to ignore the rule, and see what happens as a result!

Players Change To Reflect The Rules

This isn't a white room thought experiment, either. If the rules shift, that has the potential to encourage players to use different avenues and mechanics to reach their goals. I told a story about this very thing happening in real-time in episode 34 of Discussions of Darkness, How Rule 0 Creates Ripples in Playstyles.

This warning is basically the other side of the coin. Because the examples I talked about in the previous section were all things that GMs could do to throw players a bone, and relieve the burden/pressure on certain classes or characters... however, when you institute rules to limit the effectiveness of particular options to control player behavior, players often find alternatives and workarounds in directions you might not have expected them to go.

For those who don't have time to listen to the full story in the video, it was about how Minds Eye Society limited the damage a single character could do in one strike. 5 levels of lethal damage was the universal cap, regardless of what someone's powers were, what magic items were play, etc. Whether it was a mortal security guard who got off a lucky shot, or a Promethean who threw an exploding tanker truck at someone, 5 levels of damage was the most that could be done... and since an average character has 7 levels of health, and 6 at a minimum, it became impossible to kill anyone outright with one attack. So players started investing in the ability to hire goon squads of their own, bringing teams of characters with tooled-up armories as back up and fire support. Because no one of them could deal a death blow... but if you have 10 elite troopers at your side, and you also get into the fray, well, now you've got superior firepower and a bunch of extra attacks on your side of the fight.

Change Requires The Whole Table

We usually think of rule changes as something the Game Master does, and that players have to deal with, for good or for ill. However, changing the rules of the game is something that should be done with the consensus of all players. If you want to change things up, explain why you think a rule isn't working, what you'd like to do instead, and make sure everyone has buy-in for it. Also, make sure that you make it clear that if this change doesn't work, or creates more problems than it solves, this is something you can come back to in the future and talk about more.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating. Everyone at the table needs to be playing the same game, and rule changes should be made with the consent of everyone so that each person believes this is more fun (and potentially more fair) than the system that's already in place. And while not every change is going to work, everyone should be onboard for it, and be part of the discussion for how to structure the game you're all playing.

Lastly, if you're looking for some extra reading along these lines, consider checking out my ice cover supplements 100 Tips And Tricks For Being A Better Game Master, and the sequel I wrote soon after 100 Tips And Tricks For Being A Better RPG Player.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Crunch post! To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Dungeon Design Tips: Ticking Time Clocks, And Wizard Bullets

There is a common complaint among many Game Masters that players ride roughshod over their dungeons and encounters without any serious challenge. Things are just too easy, and there's rarely any real risk to them. However, once Game Masters start pulling back the curtain, it becomes clear they're leaving out an important aspect of the game... namely, that sometimes things need to be done quickly.

For more installments of this series, check out:

- Consider Removing Doors From Your Dungeon

- Combine Combat With Traps

- Cover, Firing Lines, and Dynamic Arenas

- Antagonist Action Economy (Never Fight Just One BBEG)

- Pay Attention To The Environment

Seriously, it makes a difference...

As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

A Timer Makes A Big Difference!

Now, before we get going on this, it's important to remember that not all events should have a ticking time clock on them. Sometimes the party should be allowed to take their time, explore, and go at their own pace. However, time should be treated as a resource in an RPG, and like any resource it should be finite. Not only that, it should be more finite in particular instances than others as a way of creating additional challenge.

For some examples, consider the following situations:

- The party must reach the heart of the Shrine of Eternal Storms... but it is only ever accessible for 3 days out of a year. If they fail in their quest, they will either need to escape and wait another year, or they will be trapped inside!

- A jailbreak is happening tonight! They need to get themselves, and a specific fellow prisoner, out... preferably before the guards realize what's happening!

- A force of the dread warlock Al-Kazir is approaching the ruins with the intent to seize the Bloodstone. They need to get it first, otherwise it will fall into his hands... then there may be no way to stop him and his legions if that happens!

While there are just a few broad strokes, you get the idea. It's not just that the party has to fight their way through a dungeon, or explore a dangerous crypt, or acquire a certain relic... it's that they don't have the luxury of time. This means that they will have to make choices based on the sand falling through the hourglass as much as anything else, and it will likely lead to some hard decisions.

We don't have time for this...

As an example, the smart thing to do in a dungeon is to carefully check every inch of the floor for traps... but if you have enemy forces closing on your position, you don't have the luxury of crawling along the floor and fiddling with every door. So now the rogue is rushing the job, or alternatives methods are used. Does the barbarian or the fighter bulldoze their way down a hallway, counting on toughness or armor to save them from the worst of the trap's damage? Or does the necromancer take one of her least-robust servants, walking the undead down the hall to trigger any tripwires or slicing blades, sacrificing the zombie in order to gain a few precious minutes of efficiency?

The same is true of combat situations in the dungeon. While a party might normally decide to clear a dungeon room by room, fighting anything that resists them, that can turn into a slog, and use a lot of resources that requires members to rest, recuperate, and replenish themselves. Alternatively, the party might like to try diplomacy and negotiation, but such tactics can be unreliable at best, and they often eat into the amount of time one has allotted. Does the press of minutes mean that the characters embrace stealth or guile instead? Perhaps attempting to sneak in without being seen, getting close to their goal and rushing out before they can get caught? Or do they attempt to blend in, don the uniforms and forms of creatures or warriors who should be present in this place, avoiding battle as much as possible in order to get what they came for and get out?

These are the kinds of pivots and changes that can be made when players don't have time to rush in, face first, sword swinging, before retreating half a dozen times to try again the next day once they've had 8 hours of rest, a Gatorade, and a chance to replenish all their spells and class features.

This is Where The Wizard Bullets Come In

Vancian magic is the dominant form of magic in Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, and similar games. Characters start the day with a certain amount of spells, and even if you aren't a spellcaster per-se, you often have a class feature or power that has a pool of points or resources (a cleric's channel energy, an alchemist's bombs and extracts, a monk's ki pool, a swashbuckler's panache, and so on) that runs out as you use them. This acts kind of like the bullets in a gun, which means that spellcasters and similar characters are extremely dangerous as long as they still have ammunition, but once they run out of their resources, they have a serious problem.

The problem arises when players have no time limit on their activities, and there's no penalties for rushing in, empting their magazines (so to speak), and then retreating to rest and recharge before coming in fresh. Because the challenge of these games is set up in such a way that a party should go through between 3 and 5 encounters between when they first loaded up to fight, and when they are supposed to be drained of their abilities.

By putting a time constraint on your players, you eliminate them retreating and "reloading" after every single encounter (or only a small handful of them), thus forcing them to conserve their resources and make tougher decisions about where they're going to use their powers, and how they're going to handle things going forward.

Oh balls... Guys, I think I'm tapped out!

For example, does the sorcerer really want to cast a spell just because it's their turn? Or will they use a wand or a scroll that will still be a helpful contrinbution to the battle while keeping their own powers in reserve? Does this battle really warrant the barbarian using their Rage, or can they handle this with their raw, brute strength and clever maneuverability? Does the ranger want to use their special arrows on this fight, or should they save those for the upcoming boss fight, knowing they only have a handful of them?

Because if players know, academically, they're on a time crunch they are going to get a lot more creative with their resources. Not only that, but they're going to really ask whether it's worth pulling the trigger when they only have so many rounds in the magazine... or should they just let the fighter with the greatsword handle it, even if it means the spellcaster has to wait a round or two while the martials mop up the rest of the battle?

If your players can just go in, guns blazing with no repercussions for walking back out and taking 24 hours to rest and recuperate to get themselves fully locked and loaded before wading back in... well, that's certainly going to undermine your threat and danger. But if they know they have to do all of this in one go, and the only resources they have are the ones they bring in the door with them, that's going to be a very different (and usually much more tense) adventure.

Additional Recommended Reading

If you enjoyed this piece, then I would recommend checking out 100 Tips And Tricks For Being A Better Game Master, along with the companion piece 100 Tips For Being A Better RPG Player. Both of these supplements have been quite popular, and they collect some of the best field-tested tips that have been covered on this blog over the years!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Crunch post! To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Dungeon Design Tips: Combine Combat With Traps

A while back I put together an article titled Consider Removing Doors From Your Dungeons, and it was popular enough that I thought I'd come back to the topic of dungeon design this week. And before I get into this next topic, I wanted to ask my readers out there... is this something you'd like to see me turn into an ongoing series? And if so, would you like to see it remain part of my Crunch updates, or would you like to see it become its very own section? And, for that matter, do you want it to remain hosted on this blog, or should I put it over in My Vocal Archive?

All input is welcome, as it's the voices of my audience I use to try to guide my decisions going forward. With that said, onto this week's topic!

After all, not all traps are this obvious!

As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

Combat And Traps: A Match Made In Hell

As I mentioned in the previous installment, a lot of us tend to think of our dungeons in segmented parts and pieces, which we don't allow to interact with one another. If there's a room with an encounter in it, then no matter how long or loud the combat gets, other denizens of the dungeon won't come to see what's happening, even though that's the logical thing to do... it's as if the doors are all soundproof, and none of the other monsters want to overstep the limits of the arena they're placed in. To help break us out of that mindset, my suggestion was to eliminate doors, or to at least leave them open so it's clear they aren't a barrier between what happens in this part of the map, and what happens further away.

However, just as we often section off our rooms and arenas, keeping them separate and apart from one another, we often refuse to let two other parts of our dinner touch; namely traps and combat encounters.

Guys, got a monster! Stop checking for traps and help me!

Consider this. A majority of the time we put traps in long hallways, cramped corridors, and otherwise empty rooms because (whether we're thinking about it or not) we consider the trap to be the encounter in that area. While some doors might have traps on them (thus allowing the trap to act as the opening salvo of an encounter), that is a one-two punch rather than a genuine combination of a trap and encounter. Like having a burger and fries in the same take out container, but they're still not touching each other.

No, this week's advice is to purposefully and deliberately combine traps with combat encounters as a way to create a more dynamic arena, and to increase the difficulty/challenge rating for your players.

There are a few different ways I would suggest thinking about this. Some of those methods, with examples, include:

- Added Threat: Consider a room with hidden crossbows or arrow traps, but which all fire at a height that will hit a Medium creature and not a Small one, and which go off when triggered by a higher weight than a Small creature possesses. This ensures the goblins in the room can run amok, goading the party to close the distance via certain routes, thus setting off additional, hidden attacks. Bonus points if the bolts/arrows are drugged or poisoned, thus creating an additional danger.

- Ticking Clock: We've all been in a room with a flooding trap before, putting a ticking clock on how long players have before they're drowned... but what if there are hungry crocodiles released into the rising waters? Or skeletal warriors who aren't bothered by things like a need to breathe? The water doesn't hurt the characters in and of itself, but it does add one hell of a challenge.

- Battlefield Control: The party steps into a room with a handful of orc archers firing their longbows. Clearly the solution is for the barbarian to charge them so they can no longer take pot shots at the party. But that's when the roaring brute finds, to their chagrin, that parts of the floor are loose, leading to drops into spiked pits. The enemy knows where the camouflaged pits are, and while the party now has to move carefully, the enemy can fire at will, or engage however they wish to.

These are just a few ways that traps can add additional threats to a situation, and create an additional threat for your party to deal with!

With that said, consider some of the following caveats...

Before going ham and adding traps to every encounter, take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Because when choosing the proper traps to mix into your combat, it's important to consider the following questions:

- Is This An Equal Opportunity Trap? Most traps will likely be avoided by the monsters in the room, but there are some traps which will only be an issue for the party, even if they go off. A poison gas trap, for example, won't affect the zombies in a room, even if it creates a deadly poison cloud that can be a serious danger for the party.

- Is This A Crippling Trap? Most traps are dangerous in-the-moment, but if someone survives the trap, will it create a condition that character now has to deal with for the rest of the dungeon? Something that deals hit points, or which creates a short-term negative is very different than something that gives the victim a permanent negative, or which takes away one of their options to participate in the game going forward. Just like how a monster sundering a fighter's sword is a serious issue that shouldn't be considered lightly, so too is a trap that leaves an effect on a character after the room it's encountered in (other than hit point loss, as that's often reparable).

- Does This Trap Make Sense In This Location? If the party is invading the secret underground lair of a mad alchemist, then it makes total sense for rooms to be rigged with poison gas, explosive traps, and other challenges... but would those same devices be found in the lair of a dragon? Or a defunct crypt that no living person has entered in a century? Just because a trap might make good tactical sense, that doesn't mean it makes sense with the world's internal consistency.

- Is This Avoidable? There shouldn't be a guarantee that a trap goes off. There should be a chance that players avoid it, whether it's moving in a certain way to avoid triggering it, making a Perception check to notice the trap, or having some ability to negate or stop it from going off. Traps that you basically have to set off, or disable while you're under attack, can quickly suck the fun out of an encounter, and they're something you should avoid doing often (or at all, depending on the opinion of your table).

One last thing I would add as a piece of advice here is to choose your traps carefully. Just like how players will get tired of fighting the exact same monster over and over again, or how they'll come up with strategies to deal with specific tactics, a particular trap layout is only going to work so many times before it goes from a new and dangerous threat to an annoyance or frustration.

More importantly, though, is that the real advantage of traps is the uncertainty they create. For example, if your party snuck into a forbidden crypt, and they had to do battle with undead squires to enter the tomb proper, then the lack of a trap might make them confident. But then they have to cross a bridge that is trapped while undead archers fire arrows at them, that might leave their confidence shaken. When they enter the depths of the tomb, and find a skeletal champion and its retainers waiting for them, is the party going to assume this is another straight-up fight? Or will they be moving with caution, wondering where the booby traps are?

A trap only has to happen every now and again for the party to become wary of them. However, traps can grant a serious home field advantage, often allowing a small number of adversaries (or even just one) to take on an entire party of well-armed, well-prepared player characters!

Speaking of Traps...

Part of the reason I was thinking on this topic was that I've been re-reading my recent supplement Ungentlemanly Warfare: A Baker's Dozen of Booby Traps that I put out a little while back for my RPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic. I'm slowly gearing up to write a few more missions set in this world to follow up the first release A Night At Breckon's Beacon, and at least one of these missions is going to have a lot of traps as part of the challenge a squad is going to have to face.

Seriously, grab a copy if you haven't yet!

If you're looking for a game that definitely encourages the use of traps as part of the challenge (for both allies and enemies), then grab yourself a copy of Army Men for the holidays! And if you just want some improvised mayhem in your game, well, Army Men is based off of a 5E engine, so if your game also runs on something 5th Edition, or a 5th Edition port, these booby traps should be equally useful for you as well! And while some are meant for dealing with infantry, there are several that are meant for taking out vehicles, as well as their entire crew... so tread carefully!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Crunch post! To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

"Well-Rounded" Rarely Works in Pathfinder

There is a desire among a lot of players (and particularly among newer players) to try to build a character that's "well-rounded" when they sit down at a Pathfinder table. They want to put a skill point into Handle Animal, for example, or they want to take 2-3 different classes just so they "have options" when it comes to what they can and can't do in game.

And I get that urge. I do. However, I would like to try to save my fellow players as much frustration as possible, since I had to learn this lesson the hard way over several campaigns between 3.5 and Pathfinder. That is, in short, that the game does not, generally speaking, reward spreading your resources wider and thinner. That's why you have a party.

No one is meant to be able to do everything on their own.

As always, if you want to help me keep the wheels turning then consider becoming a Patreon patron today! It makes a big difference, and ensures I have the bandwidth to keep the blogs going. And if you don't want to miss anything that I'm doing, sign up for my weekly newsletter as well!

Increased Challenge Requires Focus To Succeed

As anyone who has played Pathfinder can tell you, as the game proceeds, everything about it gets harder. The difficulty checks for skills get higher, the armor class for enemies goes up, enemy saving throws get better, and so on, and so forth. So while you can sometimes succeed at lower levels with nothing more than a good roll and a higher-than-average attribute, that isn't going to cut it past level 4-5. After that you need to start stacking bonuses from various sources if you expect to succeed.

I put one rank in Intimidate... I should still be able to do this, right?

As an example, say you want your barbarian to be able to move around silently. They're a hunter, after all, so you put a skill rank into Stealth. That's not an inherently bad idea... however, a Stealth check is always going to be opposed by an enemy's Perception roll. And at lower levels that's often going to be a toss up as to whether they hear/see you or not. But if you just leave that one rank in Stealth? Or if you didn't make it a class skill by taking an appropriate background trait? And if there are no magic items, spells, etc. giving it a boost? Well, at level one having a +4 to Stealth means you've got a decent shot of not being seen or heard if you roll well. At level 8 or 10, that +4 to Stealth is nowhere near as good when your opponent has a +12 or more to their Perception score.

You can apply this to a lot of different aspects of the game. For example, identifying monsters and their abilities is a Knowledge roll, but that difficulty goes up with the monster's CR. Intimidating a creature gets harder the more hit dice they have. Traps get more difficult to bypass, spells become harder to resist, enemies get more difficult to hit, and they gain more and more hit points.

So if you want this thing you're putting resources into to be something your character is actually going to succeed at, you need to make the necessary investment to pull it off.

In short, Pathfinder is a game that rewards focused builds. You should be good at more than one thing, but generally speaking any given character is going to have a small handful of things they can be really, truly good at that they should expect to succeed at more often than not. And if you're good at a particular thing, there's a trade off for it elsewhere. It's why full casters don't get a full base attack bonus, it's why skill monkey builds tend to have lower hit points, and so on, and so forth.

End of The Day, You're All Part of a Team

The logic behind this structure is that a party is assembled with the intention that you're all filling necessary roles, and covering certain tasks. For example, the barbarian is here to tank damage, dish out the harshness, Intimidate the enemy (or those who annoy them in social situations), and perhaps one other sub-specialty depending on resources and expenditures. The paladin is here to fight evil foes, but they can also act as a diplomat during social situations due to their class skills and necessary attributes. The wizard is here to provide arcane insight, and to use their spells to provide solutions for their comrades. The rogue is the one capable of disabling magical traps, spotting ambushes, and doing Stealth reconnaissance.

Swap the roles around as your build sees fit.

Now, while the examples given are the stereotypical roles for these character classes, one of the great advantages of Pathfinder is that it gives you a lot of flexibility in which classes can be made to fit which roles. For example, you could make a long-ranged, Stealth-based paladin who can sneak around and provide fire support, while also smiting demons. You could make a rogue who favors a greatclub over daggers, and who runs in bellowing a battle cry when initiative is rolled, dealing out damage on par with many fighters. You can make a bard who's just as adept at dealing with dungeon crawls as a rogue, or a wizard who focuses their skill set on diplomacy and social skills.

However, even when you step outside of class stereotypes, you still have to deal with the fact that every character regardless of the class or classes they take levels in, has a set amount of resources. They only have so many skill points to distribute, so many feats to take, and so much gold to buy magic items with. And if you spread them around to a bunch of disparate, unconnected skills or abilities, then you're going to find that you aren't keeping pace with the challenges you're facing.

Everyone Gets a Turn

A common issue a lot of players run into is they want to be able to participate (if not to shine) in every, single situation. However, Pathfinder is a game where a lot of the time players need to work together to assist one another, handing off the spotlight as one character's skill set comes into focus. Those with Knowledge skills are the ones who discover lore and shout out a monster's weaknesses, those with melee skill engage the enemy to keep them back from their allies, spellcasters utilize their magic to end threats, etc.

While you can build a character to be effective at nearly any task you set, as a lot of people have pointed out, unless you want to keep investing in that ability as you level (increasing your skill ranks, increasing your caster level, increasing your combat prowess, etc.) you are going to fall behind until something you were reliably good at in the start of the game is something that will require a natural 20 to succeed by the time your level hits double digits.

In Other News...

For those who've been following my Sundara: Dawn of a New Age RPG setting, a completely new installment dropped today! This month we take a break from exploring the physical locations we saw in the Cities of Sundara series, with Gods of Sundara, a book that delves into the metaphysical workings of this setting, and what makes it different from more traditional DND and Pathfinder settings.

It only gets stranger from here on out.

For those who haven't been tuned-in, though, Sundara has done away with alignment completely and utterly. There is no divinely mandated good and evil... but this also means there are no angels, no demons, no devils, and so on, and so forth. There is also no huge nexus of the planes as we're used to seeing... there is only the physical, material world and the strange, impossible realm of the Prim beyond it. The place where all magic is drawn from, which is also the realm of the gods. And in Sundara there is not one pantheon, but many, with faiths and religions often unknowingly venerating different Masks of the same god.

So if you'd like to see a more organic take on the development of faiths and deities, or you'd just like to see what tieflings and aasimar were replaced with in this setting, pick up your copy of Gods of Sundara for Pathfinder, or Gods of Sundara for DND 5th Edition today!

Like, Share, and Follow For More!

That's all for this week's Crunch topic! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio! Or if you'd like to read some of my books, like my alley cat noir novel Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well! And if you'd like to help support me and my work, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron! Even a little bit of help can go a long way, trust me on that one.

5 Challenges You Have To Deal With in Every Pathfinder Adventure Path

Though I've been playing Pathfinder for years now, I've only completed a handful of the campaigns Paizo has produced. At time of writing I've crossed off Curse of The Crimson Throne, Mummy's Mask, Carrion Crown, and Rise of The Runelords, and while there's plenty more for me to do, I wanted to weigh in on something this week. Because every adventure path I've played (and every homebrew campaign too, if I'm honest) will have certain challenges you need to plan for. Having the counter to the following situations is often the difference between victory and defeat.

So without further ado...

#1: Flying Enemies

The sorceress has what? Oh son of a bitch...

As someone who loves nothing more than playing a melee bruiser with a great weapon, this is one I've felt the pain of more times than I can count. Whether it's gargoyles that swoop down out of the darkness to slash at you before flapping away again, or a necromancer that hovers up out of convenient smashing range, you are going to have to deal with a lot of flying enemies in any Pathfinder game.

My experience is that these threats can start as early as 2nd level (with small enemies like imps and quasits), but that by level 4-5 it's going to become fairly common. By the time you hit double digit levels, you should assume that every lieutenant villain can probably fly, and that every big boss is going to take to their air as soon as the party enters their lair.

How To Deal With It

The easiest way to deal with this issue at lower levels is to make sure you've got a spell/wand up your sleeve, or a crossbow slung on your back. Even if you're not playing a character who's specialized in archery, being able to send an arrow up at a manticore or a dragon can make a big difference.

Alternatively, you need to have some means to get yourself airborne. Whether it's having a party member cast fly on you, keeping a potion in your bandolier, getting a magic item like boots or armor that gives you a flight speed, or playing a race like aasimar, strix, etc. that can gain a flight speed through a trait or a feat, anything that puts you on equal footing with the enemy levels the playing field. This option is harder, and more expensive, but a lot more viable if you're a melee brute who wants to charge into battle sword-swinging like a Renaissance painting of a war in heaven.

#2: Damage Reduction

The golem doesn't seem to register that you actually hit it.

There are few things more frustrating than building up a character who packs a wallop, only to come up across an enemy that can shrug off your mightiest blows like they were butterfly kisses.

Again, this is a threat that will vary depending on the game in question. You can deal with this as early as 1st and 2nd level (again with tiny flitting nuisances like quasits or with undead like skeletons), but it grows far more common by level 4 or 5. From demons and devils to werewolves, living statues, and other hard-to-hurt creatures, damage reduction is one of the primary defenses you're going to have to overcome.

How To Deal With It

At early levels the most common form of damage reduction you're going to run into is against bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing weapon damage. So your best bet is to have one of every kind on-hand, just in case. Weapons that deal two kinds of damage, like a morning star or spiked gauntlet (bludgeoning and piercing), or a dagger (slashing and piercing) are ideal in this situation. If you're doing a lot of ranged attacking, Clustered Shots is a feat that will save your life as it allows you to deal all your damage from your iterative attacks, and just remove the DR once rather than on every hit.

When you start getting into more specific damage reduction that requires things like silver, cold iron, magic, certain alignment, etc., that's when things get tougher. If you're in a game with a lot of evil enemies, the easy fix is a paladin (since smite ignores all of a target's damage reduction). And while you can invest in materials like adamantine, silver, cold iron, and so forth for your weapons, there's actually a trick a lot of us overlook.

As page 562 of the Core Rulebook points out, the more powerful your weapon's enhancement bonus is, the more forms of DR it ignores. If you have a +3 weapon, it ignores silver and cold iron DR. A +4 weapon also ignores adamantine. A +5 weapon ignores alignment-based DR. While getting a +5 magic weapon isn't easy, classes like the paladin, magus, warpriest, etc. who can enhance their weapons with bonus enchantments during combat can most easily take advantage of this particular strategy.

#3: Energy Resistance

It's what kind of elemental? Ah shit...

This one varies a lot more than some others on the list, but my experience is that it starts becoming a real issue around level 5 or so. Because while there are going to be plenty of enemies who are just human bandits, or orc raiders, or goblins, that 4-5 range is when you start dealing with summoned devils, native outsiders, elemental creatures, and so on, and so forth. By the time you hit higher levels you're dealing with dragons and fiends, and that's when we have enemies who are immune to certain elements, rather than simply being resistant.

And that can put a big cramp in your style.

How To Deal With It

The first option is to pick an element that the fewest possible enemies are immune/resistant to. Sonic damage is one that rarely crops up, while fire and cold are perhaps the most common, quickly followed by electricity. Acid is hit or miss, but the deeper underground you go, the more things will be resistant or immune to acid as well.

A more functional approach is to ensure you have some way to switch the elemental damage you're flinging around so you can key it to the fight you're actually in. Elemental bloodline sorcerers, as a prime example, can swap any element in a spell to their bloodline element, which gives them some wiggle room. Alternatively, simply filling different spell slots with different elements ensures that you've got a wider bag of tricks to pull from. If you're a class that can add enhancements to their weapons, like the ones mentioned previously, it's best to change-up the formula based on what enemies you're actually dealing with.

Lastly, remember to keep other options on-hand. Debuffing spells can often reduce an enemy's defenses, allowing the rest of the party to gain the upper hand in a fight where your duties as an artillery piece won't get the job done.

#4: Ability Damage

Yes, Samantha, three wisdom damage for you.

The bane of combatants and cleric-less parties everywhere, ability damage (and its omega-form, ability drain) are going to come at you sooner or later. If you're in a game with a lot of undead you could be dealing with this at fairly low levels. Damage starts getting converted to drain somewhere around levels 11-13, and it might come from poison, spells, special abilities, or any of a slew of other things.

But while we all hate it, it's going to happen. So we'd best be prepped for it.

How To Deal With It

The simple answer is to make sure you've got a cleric, an oracle, or someone else in your party that can cure that damage/drain when it occurs. Lesser restoration isn't too bad as far as cost, but actual restoration can get pricey if you're constantly getting in front of serious trauma that ticks down your Strength, Constitution, or even your level!

Alternatively, make sure you have defenses in place to either negate this hit in the first place, or which allow you to ignore the negatives.

I mentioned a lot of these in 5 Ways To Sidestep Hits in Pathfinder (Without Magic), but they can be literal life savers in these circumstances. Devils that can deal Constitution drain with a touch attack can't land that blow if your swashbuckler parries the hit. The necromancer's enervation isn't going to land if the fighter has the Ray Shield feat. The poison arrow that would deal Dexterity drain has no effect on the hag bloodline bloodrager who's immune to poison. And the dhampir can just shrug off negative level penalties as if they aren't there at all... at least until the effects kill them.

Unless you're in an undead-centric campaign, you probably don't need to build your character around avoiding this kind of harm. It is going to crop up, though, which is why you need to be prepared to deal with it when it eventually rears its ugly head.

#5: Mind Control

Who knows what dangers lurks in this campaign? The Shadow knows...

This happens in every, single adventure path I've played through. The party walks into the villain's lair, the villain casts their first spell. The fighter, barbarian, ranger, etc. suddenly decides the rest of the party is their enemy, turns and begins doing their very best to kill their allies. It's one of the most frustrating situations you could deal with, because it has all the negative emotions attached to PvP, but it's initiated by the bad guys.

The baby version of this is when players are hit by spells like confusion which can leave them sidelined for the fight. One of the more common versions of this is a vampire's dominate ability (a CR 9 creature), but more potent enchantments and compulsions will become an issue typically around level 11-13 or so. And it's something you've got to be prepared to deal with.

How To Deal With It

Again, the easy answer is to play a paladin. This class is a force of "no," and one of their biggest advantages is their ability to ignore mind control and enchantments at higher levels, and to ignore fear effects fairly early on. They also bolster the saves of their allies with their aura, which can be a huge boon.

That said, the next best thing to playing a character with their own personal immunities is to make sure that you always have a protection from evil (or whatever alignment you're facing if evil isn't applicable) spell ready to hand. Whether it's a wand, a potion, a spell-like ability, or a mass cast from the cleric, warpriest, abjurer, etc., this spell is a literal life saver. In addition to the small bonus it gives to your AC and saves, and the fact that summoned evil creatures can't physically touch you, it means you're immune to outside mind control effects if you get the shield up soon enough. Even if you don't, and the fighter is starting to turn on the party, you can hit them with the spell to grant them another save, and a bonus to help mitigate the damage.

Other than that, dispel magic is always a good spell to have on-hand, and if you want to bring in elements of a wizard's duel you could try to counterspell the caster. That gets into who's got the higher initiative, though, and that may not be a strategy you want to use if this is only an occasional threat that you want to prevent with an easy-access, low-level protective spell.

Like, Share, and Follow For More!

That's all for this week's Crunch topic! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio! Or if you'd like to read some of my books, like my alley cat noir novel Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well! And if you'd like to help support me and my work, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron! Even a little bit of help can go a long way, trust me on that one.

The Dialogue of Challenge (Because It Should Be a Back-And-Forth Between Players and The DM)

Challenge is one of those elements that has to be present for there to be any satisfaction in an RPG. Whether it's a monster who forces you to get creative with your strategy, a mystery you need to wrack your brain to solve, or a complicated heist you need to pull off, there is something your characters need to overcome in order for the story to have a real, meaningful payoff.

And creating that challenge is, mostly, the dungeon master's job.

It's not an easy job, but somebody's got to do it.

What a lot of us forget about challenge, though, is that it's not supposed to be a static thing. Challenge is supposed to change based on who is around your table, what characters they bring, and what actions they try to take. And challenge is supposed to be a two-way street; it's a communication. If all you're doing is talking, but not listening, then you're missing half the conversation.

Before we move on, I had two other updates I figured readers might be interested in. The first, Table Attorneys VS Rules Lawyers: How To Be Fair Without Bogging Down Your Game might be worth reading over if you find yourself in a position as a DM and you want to be fair to your table. The second, Partners and Polycules: Polyamorous Designations Based Off Dungeons and Dragons Dice is just a bit of fun. If you haven't seen it, and you could use a chuckle, go give it a read!

 

Are You And Your Players Communicating With Each Other?

 

I'd like to start this section with a story. It's a story I bet a lot of folks reading this have heard before, and maybe one you've told before. If so, stick with me while I go over it for everyone else.

The DM has put together a challenging scene. The skill checks are tough, the enemies are dangerous, and the party has little time to prepare for what they're facing. As the scene progresses, one player finds their character really isn't geared for the challenge that's going on. They're more of a smarts and social-based character who has nothing to contribute here. So on their turn they make a suggestion to the DM of how they could use their abilities to assist their fellow party members. They believe that by using their knowledge of a creature they should be able to make a distraction that will give their allies an opening. The DM agrees to let them try, and demands several, rigorous skill checks. Skill checks that, if the character failed, could have resulted in injury, or even death. The player manages to make these checks, and their character succeeds by the skin of their teeth.

Then, after accomplishing the very dangerous task, the DM informs the player, "You manage to avoid hurting yourself, but nothing you did makes a difference."

Then why did you bother wasting my time?

There are several instances here of a DM who isn't listening to their players when it comes to challenges. The biggest sins to keep in mind are:

- Setting a Challenge That Doesn't Reflect The Party: Purists will argue that if the DM makes a dungeon crawl plot, or a fight-all-the-monsters game, then it's the players' fault for not putting together a heist-based party, or Seal Team Six. But the DM is the one who approves characters, and you should ensure the character fits your game, or that your game fits the characters.

- Wasting a Player's Time: If a player asks you if taking X action will lead to Y result upon success, and you tell them yes, you've entered into an agreement regarding what will happen if they pull it off. Taking away a success (especially if it was a serious risk) is bad form in the extreme. If the player succeeds, give them a cookie for it. Even if it's a small cookie, it will let them participate, and that's what you want. And if they can't succeed, don't waste their time by making them roll meaninglessly.

- Rigid Solution: The biggest issue, and one that crops up a great deal when discussing challenge, is when a DM will allow only one solution to work. Even if by the book other ways should solve a challenge, or at least contribute to a solution. The monster must be fought, for instance, and cannot be bargained with, cannot be mind controlled, and cannot be stealthed past. No matter what other tools or strategies the party has access to, only the proscribed solution will work... even if it is something the characters are not equipped to do.

The important thing to remember is that the party, and the characters in the party, need to actually fit the game they're in. Not just thematically and lore-wise, but challenge wise. If you're running a game that expects the party to be the A-Team, then you can't take a group of combat-averse scoundrels and get the proper results; that's trying to put a square peg into a round hole. All that's going to do is frustrate both you and your players because you're not talking to each other... you're talking past one another.

Instead, you need to find a solution.

The Fluid Nature of Challenge

There's an old saying that the most perfect battle plan will never survive first contact with the enemy. In much the same way there is no module out there, and no plan you could compose as a dungeon master, that will ever survive first contact with the party.

The dungeon master must wear many masks.

The thing to remember is that you should watch your players, and talk to them. Collect their opinions, and find out what they like, what they don't like, and what is frustrating them. Most importantly, understand what their characters are actually capable of, and shift the game to suit them and what they're trying to do in order to keep things moving forward.

For instance, you might have designed your dungeon to be a slog through traps, guards, and with a huge combat at the end. If your party clearly wants to turn it into a Mission Impossible style scenario, and that's the sort of thing their characters are geared for, then change gears to keep the ball rolling. If you really wanted the party to get into the subtlety and political machinations at the duke's ball, but they aren't exactly the socially-skilled sort, then throw them a bone and liven things up! Maybe a noble gets into an argument, and the fighter volunteers to stand for him in a duel. Perhaps a gang of brigands breaks in expecting a bunch of soft lords and ladies, only to get one-two punched by the monk and the barbarian. By doing what they do best they'll have earned allies and admirers (and perhaps foiled the plans of your villains) without trying to contort themselves to handle a challenge they really were not meant for in the first place. Best of all, you can use the NPCs and general scenario you already had, but tweaked to get more of the table involved!

The thing you should keep firmly in mind is that the party are the main characters of the story you're trying to tell. They should struggle, and they should work, but make sure that you're actually giving them the sort of challenge they're here to achieve. And to do that you need to talk to your players, and watch how they react to things they encounter. Read the room, ask for input, and (when necessary) make alterations to the game so that the square pegs have actual square holes to fit through. They don't need to fit easily, but at the end of the day they do need to be able to squeeze through and participate in the story.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!