Dungeon Design Tips: Provide Targets For Your Players' Big Guns

The Internet is full of Game Masters asking for advice on how to best counter the abilities and powers the player characters acquire in their games. And while I've given my share of advice on the subject (many of which are previous entries in this very series like getting rid of doors, actually triggering multiple encounters when warranted, terrain and cover, etc.), this week I'd like to remind Game Masters that if your players go through all the effort and struggle to acquire a big gun... well, you should at least let them knock down a couple of targets with it from time to time.

They're clustered in a 20-foot radius circle, you say...

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Set Encounters Up (So Your Players Can Knock Them Down)

Picture this scenario. You're running a campaign, and the evoker has finally survived to 5th level. They've just picked up fireball, and their trigger finger is itching to give it a go. As a Game Master do you, A) ensure there are never groups of enemies in close proximity to one another, thus making sure this spell meant for horde elimination is never used for what it was designed for, or B) do you conjure a scenario or two where your wizard gets to sling their new spell, and feel that it made a significant difference in the encounter?

A lot of Game Masters go for the first option because they don't want their players to feel too powerful, or like they're somehow winning in the arms race versus their enemies. But you should really opt for the latter for at least a few reasons.

And morale is just one of them.

First and foremost, letting players flex their new abilities and tools is good for the game. It keeps players invested and paying attention, and it lets them come to grips with how a spell or power is supposed to work. Additionally, by creating scenarios where players get to use their abilities, it keeps them participating in scenarios... and it often uses up their resources, which is the actual point of most encounters, and what creates challenge. Encounters are supposed to be gone through in a sequence, with each one being progressively harder as players use more and more of their daily allotment of abilities to survive.

Let us say, for example, that you are running a scenario where the party has to defend a tumbledown fortress from a massive hoard of the undead. There are waves of shambling zombies and skeletons, and then after their initial assault there are disease-spreading ghouls, and then at the end the commanding death knight takes the field. You can key different aspects of this encounter specifically to the abilities of your party so that everyone feels useful, and like they're getting moments to shine.

We lead with the evoker and their fireball, because it allows them to act as an artillery piece, firing from extremely long range and punching holes in the enemy's forward line. It's possible that, if the rolls are good enough, the wizard might destroy the walkers altogether. Then the ghouls start rushing in, and as they close it's the ranger's turn to use their new feat, rapid-firing their bow to try to bring the monsters down before they can reach the walls. And if the ghouls do manage to close, the monk has placed himself in the gap, preventing the ghouls from entering, the monk's recently acquired passive immunity to disease taking away the ghouls' most dangerous weapon. Then when the death knight takes the field, the paladin steps out to smite them, backed up by the rest of the party.

Now, this encounter could be shifted and changed to make every aspect of it even more frustrating for the players. A Game Master could choose to have the undead approach under cover of darkness or mist, making them difficult to target until they're at the gates. The field could be filled with trees or ruins, giving the approaching enemies ample cover, frustrating the party's ability to actually do anything to halt their progress. There could even be a secret way into the fortress, leading to undead coming out of tunnels inside the walls, leaving the party scrambling about whether to fight the monsters within, or the monsters without, first.

The damn things are everywhere!

It's easier to add difficulty to a scenario than it is to take it away, and it's important that your players feel challenged, without feeling overwhelmed. Most importantly, though, you don't want to punish them for trying to play the game. So when you're concocting an encounter (and the dungeons/adventures they make up), make sure that you're offering square pegs for square holes so that your players can accomplish the task in order to overcome the challenge, and move on to the next step. At the end of the day, you want them to be able to finish this. You want them to succeed, because if they fail then the campaign ends.

So whether the barbarian picked up the ability to attack in a whirlwind and hit every target around them, or the bard just grabbed the power to fascinate a crowd of people, or the rogue finally got the ability to add poisons to their attacks, facilitate them actually getting some mileage out of these abilities. They just got a new hammer, and you should let them drive some nails with it. It will, overall, make your game a great deal more fun for everyone involved.

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DMs, Think Outside Traditional Templates (Orcs Can Be Vampires, Too, You Know!)

A while ago I came across a forum post from a DM asking for help. The situation was that he had a vampire as the big bad of the current arc of his campaign in Golarion, and he wanted it to be sort of a mystery as to who the leech was. The problem was that as soon as the players walked into the local tavern, they saw the lord of the manor seated near the fire with his manservant. He was tall, angular, pale, with a high widow's peak, a commanding presence, and he didn't seem to eat anything.

And when the party trigged that the baron was the vampire? Well, the DM didn't know what to do.

Well, making it someone less obvious might have helped.

Now, there were all sorts of things the DM could have done here, but pretty much all of them boil down to, "Don't make the vampire the most obvious guy in the room!" The most common suggestion was to make the lord a servant to the vampire, but have his "manservant" be the actual vampire. With all the eyes focused on the baron, no one would have noticed someone so lowly and unimportant. A few folks suggested going a step further, and making the vampire the innkeeper, or a traveling merchant, but mostly the consensus was to make it the guy standing next to the most suspicious dude in the room.

All I could think, looking at that setup, was that the vampire should not only have been someone different, but someone that no one in the party would have expected based on trope and stereotype. For example... what about the soldier of fortune from the Mwangi Expanse? Or the traveling mystic from the Dragon Empire? Why not the Varisian fortune teller, or the Taldan tinker?

While those were all fine options, it eventually struck me that vampire is a template we can apply to any living creature. So while changing the nationality into something we don't expect a traditional vampire to be, that's just the tip of the ice berg (and one I explored in The Draugr's Bastard, An Unexpected Dhampir). The vampire could have been nearly any fantasy race as well... and that idea opened up all kinds of possibilities that I think DMs often overlook.

Step Outside The Box, And See What You Can Make

The first scenario that came to my mind was a small army of orc sellswords, led by Garrak Blooddrinker. A huge, heavily muscled brute, Garrak has a vicious bite, and he often tears out the throat of his victims on the battlefield. It's said he drinks the blood of his enemies from a goblet made from a jeweled skull, and that he avoids the daylight like the plague. His eyes are bright red, and glow in the dark when he rages across the field, encarmined sword in hand.

Because why wouldn't an orc war master be a vampire? All the clues are there, but because we think, "Ah, he's just an orc, that's what orcs do!" it has the potential to teach a valuable lesson. Take nothing at face value, and always ask if what you're seeing might mean more.

And then my mind went to silly places.

At that point, I asked why one would stop with vampires? There are dozens (if not hundreds) of templates in Pathfinder alone, so why apply them only to traditional, predictable circumstances? Because sure, we expect an alchemically quickened creature in a crumbling castle full of bizarre laboratories... but why not apply the template to a tiefling assassin who stalks the party on behalf of his unknown masters? The apostle kyton is a terror to behold, but to add some extra horror, why not add it to an aasimar to create a true perversion of celestial beauty? If your players are raiding the ruins of a giant's tomb, why not have stone giant mummies? Or boreal lizardfolk who hunt the frozen peaks of the northern mountains? Why not make fire giant werewolves who command packs of hellhounds?

With so many options, and so much potential, why do we limit our thinking when it comes to our monsters? Make something new, or unexpected, and you might be surprised at the reactions you get from your table. If nothing else, you'll teach your players to make Knowledge checks to be sure they aren't overlooking a big hazard.

And for more fun on templates, and resurrecting fallen minions, check out this advice from the Dungeon Keeper!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday update. Hopefully it gave fuel to the fire, and has some folks thinking about what to do with their monsters in the near future. If you'd like more content from yours truly, check out my Vocal archive, or head over to the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio where I put shows and skits together with other, talented gamers. To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Lastly, if you want to help me keep doing what I'm doing, consider heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a patron. Or, if you'd rather do a one-time tip, you could just Buy Me A Coffee. Either way, I'll be happy to send you some sweet gaming swag as a thank you!

The Dehumanization of "Monstrous" Races in RPGs

Have you ever seen propaganda posters from the first World War? Many of them are full of classic art, brimming with patriotism. More than a few, though, were attempts to caricature America's enemies. The goal was to dehumanize them, and to turn them into a clear force of evil that had to be opposed. When combined with the efforts to lionize American servicemen, the effect was to create a clear divide; our heroes, against their villains.

Case in point, this wasn't satire.

While that sort of setup is the kind of story we get about the sequel, the first World War was a lot messier. There were no jackbooted thugs yanking people out of their homes, and putting them on trains to death camps before polishing the silver skulls on their hats. The first World War was a Rube Goldberg device of backroom political agreements that went awry, and it had everyone at everyone else's throats before too long. Hard to find heroes in all that moral gray area.

Of course, you could say the same thing about most RPGs. Which is why a lot of the same dehumanization tends to take place in our games... even if we don't think about it.

If You Cut An Orc, Does It Not Bleed?

Fantasy RPGs inherited a lot of baggage from Tolkien. All you have to do is look at the base races, and how closely they mirror the cast of The Lord of The Rings in both tone and concept, to see the inherited traits. However, we've come a long way since the 1st and 2nd edition of Dungeons and Dragons. These days half-orcs, and even full-blooded orcs, tend to be available as PCs. Goblins, long used as little other than low-level dungeon fodder, have also become fairly common as PC races. If you can name a monstrous race that has a language, and has typically been used for nothing more than XP grinding, you can probably play one in today's games.

Even bugbears... if your DM is particularly trusting.

This has led to a lot of players starting to question the idea that certain fantasy races are inherently evil, and thus can be slain without so much as a blip on the karmic radar. Rather than the old days, where we just knew things like ogres, trolls, kobolds, gnolls, drow, and other monsters were evil, we now question how we're allowed to play them if that's the case. Especially if the PCs we have aren't inherently evil.

And sure, you could argue that the power of being a player character allows you to be different than your base creature type. But it also makes us look at the issue of how we view these other races. After all, if they have a culture, language, and civilization all their own (and we've shown that by being PCs that the race is not inherently wicked, depraved, savage, or evil), then how to we justify mowing them down without a second thought?

Overcoming The Explorer Fallacy

There's a logical fallacy that happens all throughout our history books, and it can be explained in one sentence; Columbus discovered America. Now, ignoring the fact that the Vikings beat him to North America by several hundred years, what was the first thing Columbus said he discovered when he got to the New World? People. People that he described as docile, welcoming, and gentle, and whom he almost immediately enslaved and brought back to Europe to show off to the folks who kickstarted his trip across the open ocean.

Those of us in the Western world see this all the time. Whether it's in the accounts of Lewis and Clark, or in the stories about characters like Allan Quartermain in his adventures throughout Africa, these characters are seen as brave explorers conquering the world's frontiers. But even in fictional accounts, these brave explorers aren't usually wandering empty wilderness; they're poking through ruined cities, and constantly interacting with people who live in these remote areas; proof that the area has been inhabited for hundreds of years.

Terribly sorry, chaps, but it doesn't count till someone speaking the Queen's English arrives.

This is called The Explorer's Fallacy, and a version of it happens in a lot of fantasy RPGs. It's why we see orc tribes, gnoll packs, and kobold clutches as pests to be eliminated, or threats to be dealt with, instead of as cognizant creatures to be treated with respect. Or, at the very least, as hostile nations that could be met with diplomacy before it's time to reach for the swords. It's not until we start drawing PCs from these races that we question whether their place as murder bait is well-earned, or just lazy storytelling.

If you flip the script, the image is pretty stark. You're just living your life, trying to stay safe in your cave, when one day a group of armored thugs smashes in your front door. Your friends and family try to fight them off, but they're slain in front of your eyes. With fire and steel, the invaders handily kill anyone who stands in their way, taking what meager treasure your community hoarded for themselves. All they leave behind is blood, and dismembered corpses.

That's your average adventurer's origin story. But in this case, it's for a kobold, or a goblin who managed to survive a 2nd-level party raid.

It's All About The Game You Want

No one, least of all me, is saying that everyone has to grant traditional monsters citizenship in your world, and your game. If you are perfectly fine using these creatures as low-level threats and XP grinding, and your players have no trouble with it, then shine on you mad bastard!

With that said, though, there are plenty of options that could be used instead of the "savage monstrous humanoid" cardboard cutouts. Undead are an ideal fill-in for enemies who are nothing more than a walking plague of evil that can (and should) be mowed down without any moral compunctions. Given that demons, devils, and wicked fae represent creatures imbued with absolute evil (especially if you agree with the reasoning in Absolute Good, Absolute Evil, and Alignment in RPGs), they are also creatures that can be fought with little moralizing on the part of the PCs. Advanced animals and magical beasts (who lack the self-awareness, intelligence, and culture of the "fodder" monster races I've mentioned throughout the piece) are also perfectly valid targets to use as threats that need to be overcome.

However, with that said, it isn't just swapping one monster for another. If you are the sort of DM who wants to change the tune on this particular trope, you need to show these traditional "monsters" as having culture. Let players see that they have friends, lives, and drives the same as the PCs do. That might make them more likely to talk first, and fight only when it's been made clear they don't have another option.

Or if they kill first and don't bother asking questions, make it clear that kind of aggression can have long-term consequences on social standing, future relationships, and even the character's alignment.

That's all for my thoughts on this week's Moon Pope Monday feature. If you want to make sure you don't miss any of my future thoughts, then follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Lastly, if you'd like to support Improved Initiative, head over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a patron. As little as $1 a month is all it takes to buy my everlasting gratitude, and to get some sweet gaming swag for yourself.