Fighting on the Broadside
I’ve been taken to task a few times for my description of ships fighting along the broadside, so I want to defend that scenario. This particular entry presupposes you have at least a handful of direct-firing weapons. If your ship mounts only guided missiles — which can launch from any side of the ship and still reach their target — discussion of weapon arcs becomes irrelevant.
I’d like to start by defining the most important term: broadside. When the word “broadside” is used, it often conjures up an image of archaic sailing ships blasting away with fixed cannons that line the port and starboard. It’s a compelling image, but I think it also prejudices us a bit.
When referring to naval weapons, a broadside is not the port or starboard of the ship; it’s any length of the ship that mounts weapons. In classical, naval warfare, ships were long and narrow so they could cut through the ocean. Since the port and starboard were the longest sides by necessity, they could also mount the most guns, so that’s where ships tended to fight.
Starships are obviously not dealing with hydrodynamics, so they have no such requirement. A starship’s longest side can face any direction, or for that matter, a ship could have perfect symmetry with no side longer than another. If your design happens to have one side longer, it might make the most sense to mount your weapons there, simply because there’s more room to put them. So when I talk about starships doing broadside exchanges, that might look like sailing ships trading shots as they sail abreast…or it might not.
I envision capital ships mounting their weapons in multiple turrets on at least two sides, allowing them to simultaneously track targets in a complete sphere. Firing from any of the armed sides would consitute a broadside barrage.
Fighting along paired broadsides gives you practical options that you don’t have otherwise. For example, if one of the sides becomes damaged, you can roll the ship, turning a fresh side toward the enemy. You can move between enemies, fully engaging the targets with different weapons. Or, if your propulsion originates from only one side of the ship, you no longer have guns facing in only one direction relative to your acceleration.
Depending on the design of your ship, it’s even possible to pair broadsides in such a way that weapons can fire in overlapping arcs, allowing them to fight separate targets or focus together on one. To illustrate this idea, imagine a three-dimensional rectangle. Place turrets across the top of the ship, with their weapons parallel to the hull, just like a modern-day battleship. Do the same across the bottom. These weapons could pivot to fire left and right, just right, or just left. If we assume they can elevate 90 degrees and lower just a few, we cover the sphere almost perfectly. (Incidentally, I’m not proposing this as the optimal ship design — just an illustration of an idea.)
Why not use a single, big turret just like a tank? Tanks have an excellent field of fire, because their turrets allow them to shoot in a full circle, even pivoting up or down a bit. I think this leads to the erroneous belief that its turret can fire anywhere, so this must be a great idea for starships. But keep in mind the limitations of a lone turret. First, tanks are fighting on a flat plane which enemy combatants must also conform to. This simply isn’t true in space. Second, a tank is a relatively small vehicle with only one (or perhaps a handful) of primary weapons, designed to fire at (generally speaking) one target at a time.
If you can imagine a tank with multiple primary weapons and point defenses, fighting enemies and incoming warheads in a perfect sphere, you start to understand the problem. A lone tank can only cover some portion of that sphere, while its own hull would block the other half. If your ship is approached from two sides or swarmed by more nimble adversaries, you’ll have no sufficient defense.
There’s also the obvious vulnerability of having all of your guns mounted together. The history of warfare has shown us again and again that clustering vital targets in this fashion is a very bad idea. If one good shot damages that turret, the end of your ship is nigh. That may be an acceptable loss for the smaller, cheaper tank which is hardly bigger than its own turret, but there’s a reason why the Iowa class battleship doesn’t follow suit.
Mounting your weapons in a fixed pattern on one side — something like a modern fighter plane — would be even worse. In addition to your weapons all being pointed the same direction, your ship must now be pointed that way as well. Depending on your method of propulsion, you’ll be forced to repeatedly make the choice between maneuvering properly or firing weapons, and tracking your enemy will require an energy expenditure sufficient to realign your entire vessel’s mass.
In an earlier article, someone asked how you find a clan if you are interested. I wanted to address this and the end of a clan in my final part of the series. There are many ways to go about this, but I will share what I feel is the best way to find a good match. The most important part of finding a clan is to find a group of people you will fit in with both inside and outside of the game. Skill level and other such considerations should be completely secondary as it doesn’t matter how good the group is if you don’t fit in with them.
You can approach finding a group from a couple directions. You could start by just picking a server and talking to people in game until you find interesting people. You could also search the internet for communities dedicated to the game you are interested in. I find that a combination of both is the best route. You start playing on servers and learn who you seem to enjoy seeing logged on. Listen to them discuss other servers they play on, and if you have xfire or something similar to track movements, watch where clans that you are interested in seem to gather. Then you hunt down their forums or other large communities and see if the members are also a personality match outside of the game. The more you post on forums, the more you will quickly find that certain clans seem to be more of a fit for you than others.
Once you have picked out a clan, the real key is to get face time with them. Post on forums they frequent, play on servers they play, and just generally be around. It is a careful line to walk though because you don’t want to come off as a creepy tagalong, but you do want to be memorable.
Eventually, if you have made your impression someone from the group will approach you on the forums or in game. If you aren’t patient enough or just want to take a more active role, most clans have a recruiting section of their forums where you can express interest. In my case, I contacted someone within the group that I had talked to frequently and began asking questions about what being in a clan was like. After the conversation, he brought it to a vote within the group, and they extended their invitation to me. Generally most clans invite people by a vote of the members, and once a decision is made the thread used for the vote is deleted before giving the new member access.
It can be hard to accept when the clans days are over. Sometimes a group will be ripped apart in a massive fight, but more commonly it dies slowly as the group grows apart. The slow decline of games’ popularity tends to be the leading cause of this disconnect. As people begin to migrate to other games it becomes difficult to stay together. The forums grow less and less active each month, and the days of weekly get togethers with other groups are long past. If the group was truly close and became strong friends, then the death of a game won’t be enough to keep them apart. I know of clans that have stayed together and still talk on their forums when the game that brought them together has been dead for over three years.
Being a lazy DM is hard enough, but can you imagine how much harder it is if the players don’t focus or do stuff? The key to Lazy DMing is getting them interested enough that you really don’t have to do much more than react to what they are trying to do in-character. There we have it: the Key to success! If it were that easy, I could stop typing now and get back to some serious napping punctuated with eating Cheetos, but it’s not at all easy…unless you happen to have a copy of Alhazred’s lesser know work, The Book of Sloth!
First, a good glower is close to the most powerful tool in a DM’s Toolbox. Practice it a mirror until you make yourself want to dribble down your own leg. When you’ve got that down, half the battle is won. All you need to do at this point is break out the glower of disapproval on players who are not paying attention and voila!
Second, if they won’t role, then make them roll! If they insist on playing Silly AT-AT Theatre with your three legged vintage AT-AT from back in the days of yore, get their attention by making them roll a d20…call it whatever you know their character is weak at, and they’ll suddenly be paranoid and get back to the story. The result doesn’t matter, and unless you have a fun, vindictive idea for what to do to their character, don’t sweat it. The roll itself returns their focus to the game.
Reward doing stuff with success! This trick is so often forgotten by DM’s of the Hardworking and Lazy flavors, and although I said rule one was the most important, I was lying. If you want them to do things and be focused, you need to reward that behavior. Players are like small children or other household pets. They thrive on positive feedback. Give them success, be it in setting (RP benefits) or in mechanics (XP’s, a bonus to do something, etc.) when they do their part to keep the story going.
Punish inaction with hindrance, pain and death! The flip side of rewarding doing stuff is to make not doing stuff an unpleasant experience. If they won’t be proactive or even active then your world moves on and they lose out, get smashed and generally the story you were all supposed to be working on gets ugly and ends like a Hong Kong Action Movie…aka they all die.
The last tenant of the Book of Sloth is another simple one which will make your life as an ill prepared impostor to world creation and maintenance as simple as it needs to be. When in doubt about rules and such, cut it close but rule in favor of the players…this creates the illusion of fairness and lets you abuse the hell out of them when it really matters.
So for now I’ll close the Book of Sloth and drink a cup of special brew Bolivian Death Coffee in honor of Mr. Alhazred for all the work he saves me from doing with his hard won insight from beyond the plateaus of Leng.
In this episode, we have a very candid discussion about violent crime and morality in roleplaying games. We felt it was important to cover this topic, but some of the content may be unsettling to some listeners. If you are sensitive to such issues, or listen to the show around people that are, please use discretion.
We promise episode 131 will be full of ponies and rainbows.
Hosts: Chad, Chris, Dan, John, Pat
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The purpose of this article is to help anyone who wants to bring people into the hobby, as well as hopefully being nostalgic for people who have been gaming for a while.
I have been a geek for as long as I can remember, and while I have taken part in just about every aspect of geek culture, I had not taken part in a tabletop role playing game until this past Sunday. I had done MMORPGs, so I did have some of the basic concepts down, but speaking as an outsider, there is a huge barrier to cross from video games to RP games.
I have always been interested in RPGs but never had the opportunity to try one. There was also a bit of stigma around role-playing that held me back from searching out more information. I admit it, and if you want to bring people into the hobby you will have to accept that the stereotypes are hard to get past even among other stereotyped groups. It was someone at work talking openly about gaming that allowed that opening to get information without going outside my comfort zone. Fear the Boot’s Episode 115 was an incredible resource for learning about the hobby at my own pace. I highly recommend giving a CD of this episode to anyone who has even remotely expressed interest in the hobby.
The opportunity presented itself to join a group and try out the hobby. I was nervous going over to create my character that first night. I tried to be as prepared as possible, but I was left wondering just what it was going to be like. This process was a little confusing for me going into it. I understood the basic concepts from reading and research, but selecting base numbers for attributes was tricky when I didn’t know what the number I chose would mean in game. I would guess that knowing what trade-offs are worth making is something that can only come with experience.
All this led to my first gaming session. The group was very welcoming and seemed to be understanding of the fact that I was really winging it and didn’t have a clue what I was doing. If the group had been more stand-offish or hadn’t gone out of their way to make me feel welcome I could easily have seen my interest in the hobby dying. After about 10 minute or so of game time I quit worrying about saying the wrong thing or looking stupid and just started enjoying the experience.
There were some things that truly surprised me. One player was shaken by accidentally killing an NPC and both he and I were amazed by how much it affected him. I was surprised by the level of debate involved in some of the actions. More than anything I found myself listening for every little detail and really focusing on certain clues. I kept trying to piece together the larger picture and how every clue tied into it. Mostly, going in I was afraid of being overwhelmed by the math and not knowing what any of it meant. While this was a very numbers light game there is still a bit of that. When I roll I don’t know if it is a good roll or a bad roll.
All in all, the group I played with went out of their way to make me feel welcome to the point that even though I still have A LOT to learn, I don’t think I will feel like an outsider to the hobby for very long. The best advice I can give, other than giving Episode 115 to a prospective gamer, is to be welcoming and avoid too much discussion about numbers and rules. Bring people into this aspect slowly because it is probably the second biggest obstacle after stereotypes. It is a fine line to walk, because too much number talk will cause a person’s eyes to glaze over, but too little will leave them confused in game.
Weapons and Distance
While playing through the unquestionably enjoyable X-Wing/TIE Fighter games, I remember charging down enemy capital ships with my spacecraft, blazing away with guns and missiles. If I used my ship-killing proton torpedoes, I could obtain a lock around 6 kilometers. My guns were only effective around 1.5 kilometers. For the purposes of a video game — meant to recreate the in-your-face dogfights of the Star Wars series — I understand why combat occurred this way. I also understand why they do it in TV series like Battlestar Galactica or Star Trek, since it simply looks cool to have ships occupying the screen together.
While we could certainly imagine scenarios in which ships would be passing so close, it’s probably safe to assume that the bulk of space combat would occur across vast distances.
Remember that the scale of space is enormous. Even ships fighting in orbit of the same planet would be hundreds of thousands of kilometers apart. If ships arrived at different ends of the solar system to slug it out, start adding zeros to the end of that number. And I believe that foreseeable weapon technology will make that quite feasible.
Direct-Fire Weapons
Light moves at roughly 300,000 kilometers per second. The most common energy weapons of science fiction (lasers, particle beams, etc) would either reach or approach this speed. If I fired a laser cannon from Earth to the moon, it would hit about 1.28 seconds later. If the Earth was a hollow sphere, the same laser could hit someone across the globe — 12,750 kilometers away — in .04 seconds.
There are some mitigating factors that may keep ships from fighting across solar systems. Let’s say two ships are fighting between Earth and Mars at our August 2003 range of 56,000,000 kilometers. A laser beam from one ship could strike the other in just over three minutes. That’s an amazing speed, but do we really expect the other ship to hold still for three minutes? If that ship is on alert, even the simplest maneuvers would put it out of harm’s way within a fraction of that time. And that’s only half the problem. If we assume that sensors are picking up energy signatures which move at or below the speed of light, our understanding of that ship’s location and movement is three minutes old. So depending on our technology, there may be a six minute delay from a ship being somewhere, me seeing it, and my laser beam reaching that ship’s location.
Because of those factors, unless we assume the invention of some faster-than-light weapons and sensor technologies, combat at massive ranges between maneuvering vessels is going to be arduous at best. But I don’t think we need to move to the Star Wars extreme of ships waiting to fire until they’re a few hundred meters apart. Even ships that are 15,000 kilometers apart could go through our sight, fire, and hit cycle in 1/10th of a second.
Someone may point out that 1/10th of a second is still a lot of time in space travel. A ship moving at 100 kilometers per second would be 10 kilometers away in 1/10th of a second. But keep in mind that straight-line motion isn’t sufficient to dodge this shot. If you’re moving along a line, it’s not hard to predict your location and alter targeting accordingly. You have to move in a new direction — ideally one so erratic I can’t predict it — and make those directional changes in that time. That’s a more difficult feat since you’re now working against the mass and motion of your ship, and while you might dodge some incoming fire, you’re not likely to slip it all.
(While writing this section, I was tempted to dig into the likely technical hurdles various energy weapons might face. Providing them with sufficient power and heat protection alone is no small task! But as I stated in a prior article, I’m trying to keep this relatively generic, written at a bird’s eye level of math and physics.)
Indirect-Fire Weapons
Indirect-fire weapons, such as missiles, offer some obvious advantages. If I fire a missile over that 56,000,000 kilometer distance, it will have a much longer flight time than a laser beam. But, unlike the laser, it can also make constant course corrections based on its ever-shrinking distance with the enemy. This will make them much harder to evade over great distances.
The obvious downside is that missiles must carry some form of propulsion sufficient to get them to their target. This will add to their mass and complexity. And if our enemy is smart, they’ll likely be employing a defense system capable of targeting these missiles and shooting them down. A laser gun could easily swat down missiles that are still thousands of kilometers away.
There are some ways to help our missiles get home. One is to simply overwhelm a target with more missiles than they can defeat. Just keep in mind that we’re still talking about vast distances of open space, so this will require an unbelievable number of missiles to do. The second option is to give them some ability to evade sensors or incoming fire, whether through electronic countermeasures or erratic flight patterns. The third is to use a delivery mechanism (such as a larger ship) that can deploy the missiles at a closer range, thus reducing an enemy’s chance to intercept them all.
All three solutions obviously require a significant increase of investment beyond the original delivery system. However, the prospect of getting a few nukes on target might make it worth your while.
I don’t believe missiles are a bad idea, nor that they will lose their place in combat. But I do think a lot of science fiction overstates their likely roles.
When 3rd edition D&D came about, one of its promises was to have a balanced game system. In fact, game balance had become so prevalent that it seemed that every other topic on some forums was about whether some element of gaming was balanced. Is the new prestige class balanced? What about X spell from Y sourcebook? It would go on and on and on.
I have to admit that it reached such levels that I wondered if this is what new players thought gaming was about. Were they assigning numerical values to every class ability and weighing them against one another? Was there a mystical set of scales by which all things were weighed upon? Were those scales provided by Hiddukel, the evil god of tricks and lies in Dragonlance known for his symbol of the broken scales?
I wondered how all this talk of the almighty Balance entered our vernacular. I remember the occasional talk of something being “overpowered,” but we never used the term “balance.” That isn’t to say the term wasn’t used, just that my own experience never saw the use of the word. I would say that it was the internet that saw the term gain prominence. Despite the mass-communication medium, it also takes a force to drive the new terminology. Enter the game designers, perhaps most notably Monte Cook. They used the term “balance” quite frequently.
Needless to say, the almighty Balance began to annoy me to no end. Why was it that people were asking if every little rule was balanced? Why this obsession? Did nobody ever have fun before the almighty Balance? I sure remember having fun playing AD&D with some off-balanced rules.
That’s when it clicked with me. Why do we ask left and right if something is balanced? Why do we not ask instead if something is fun? I mean, that’s why we came to game, right? To have fun?
Don’t get me wrong. As a game designer, I fully understand that game balance is an important factor in the game. You don’t want your wizard doing nothing while your fighter is having all the fun. Everybody should be able to take part in the gaming experience.
However, we should not forsake the fun in the name of game balance. Keep balance in the background, but focus on the fun. You will find your gaming experience to be so much more enjoyable because of it.
* Welcoming back Ed Healy of Atomic Array.
* Fear the Con’s hotel block is now ready for reservations. You can find details on the con’s website. If you’re looking to share rooms or rides, you can find classifieds on our forum. We’re also pleased to welcome comedian Mikey Mason as an addition to this year’s offerings.
* Julie (that’s Mrs. Hussey) comes on to talk about the Battletech love letters.
* The size and shape of roleplaying game books.
* PDFs as a revenue stream and publishing method.
Hosts: Chad, Chris, David, Ed, Julie
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With our recent discussions about editions, I came across an article I wrote for the Dragonlance Nexus a few years back. I thought you might enjoy it. - TW
Lately, as I scour around for new RPG’s to buy, I’ve been bombarded by a ton of products that have either been revised (typically for the 3.5 rules) or have had a new edition put out. Just off the top of my head, I can think of Mutants and Masterminds 2nd Edition, Shadowrun 4th Edition, Everquest II, Spycraft 2.0, World of Warcraft 2nd Edition, and the Tome of Horrors Revised book (only released as a PDF, no less!). I’m sure I missed several in there.
If you’re big into role-playing games, this is a serious blow. At $30 – 40 a book (if not more), that puts a big dent in the pocketbook. The general feeling that I’ve seen among RPG fans, and I tend to agree with this sentiment, is that they don’t like paying for the same thing twice. I’m sure that the die-hard fans of each of these books are more willing to shell out a few extra dollars for the improvements made in the new editions and revisions, but casual fans get hit a little harder.
Revisions and new editions have been around since RPG’s began, but the intensity of them seems to have increased in recent years. Wizards of the Coast’s 3.5 revision to the D&D rules is largely to blame for this. By changing the core rules to the 3.5 version, they caused a backlash wave. Many publishers put out revised editions of old products to match the new rules, which again disenfranchised the public by “forcing them to buy the same product twice.”
I know, I know. Nobody is holding a gun to your head. You’re still capable of running a game with the outdated version. Yet we, as RPG fans, are an obsessive lot who want the most current materials so that they work with the most current materials without having to do conversions. Many fans, self included, don’t like to make the conversions, and they want something in print (rather than the SRD).
At this point, we come to another major point in the whole mix from the other end of the spectrum – relevance. If an RPG company’s product is not relevant (i.e. compatible with the 3.5 rules), then it simply won’t sell. Many publishers revised their products to keep their products relevant so that they can continue to bring in revenue from them.
The 3.5 revision, like any edition change, has its good and bad points. While it improved the rules dramatically, it also had an adverse effect on publishers (who had to revise their own products to remain relevant) and fans (both in terms of cash flow and trust).
New editions allow for companies to take already good products, and make them better. The new World of Warcraft RPG stands as a means to appeal to the core Warcraft computer game audience, rather than a D&D audience. Mutants and Masterminds, an already great game, is reportedly even better now.
All of these revisions and editions bring to mind a few questions.
How can we trust that the products we buy will be the final version? Quite simply, we can’t. We don’t know what the industry will do, and when a new revision or edition might come down the pike. People have been predicting 4th Edition D&D since 3rd Edition came out. Do not doubt that it will happen eventually. It’s just a matter of when. It might be next year, it may be ten years down the line.
How can RPG companies, who have been forced to make tough decisions, maintain an audience when they’re doing what they need to in order to survive? Some may have solely been motivated by profit, but there are some who truly need to make the revisions in order to be able to sell a product. Do they get too greedy with new editions? Do RPG companies make revisions just for the sake of making a revision and profiting off of it?
All of this being said, this is an editorial, so let me editorialize.
Though I can see all sides to this, and sometimes people make the hard choices that don’t necessarily make them popular, I think it gets to be too much after a while. RPG fans could use a sense of security. I’d like to know that, if I bought a product, it won’t become irrelevant in two years’ time. I’d like to know that I won’t have to relearn the rules.
Though substantial profits are made, the market does suffer for it. How many RPG companies didn’t last through the 3.5 revision? How many companies find that their revisions split the fan base?
Don’t get me wrong. I think RPG companies have the right to make their products better and to make a profit. At the same time, they should consider all the effects that a revision or new edition might make, including on their fan base. For fans, I recommend voting with your dollar. If you feel the product is worth getting, then by all means buy it! If you’re a little strapped for cash or don’t feel you should “have to buy it again,” then don’t worry about it and spend your money elsewhere. Be sure to communicate with your RPG company (on boards, through e-mail or snail mail, etc.) and let them know what you think.
Also, ask yourself if you would even use such a product. For example, I played Shadowrun in college with the 1st edition rules (right when 2nd edition was released). Most of my Shadowrun products are 2nd edition. I haven’t played in probably 10 years, so it doesn’t make sense for me to buy the 4th edition book. Yes, we sometimes get attached to those worlds and our instincts tell us to get the latest and greatest.
It’s a tough road to walk down, for fans and RPG companies alike. The choice of making a new edition will always cause some sort of backlash in the fan base. Companies should look to make sure that the revised editions are necessary, and that they’re not making a revision for revision’s sake. Know when to say when, and look towards the internet as a way to accomplish some of the same goals. Fans should vote with their dollar, using their head to temper their heart. Don’t buy a revised edition just because it is there. Buy it because you want it. Or don’t, if you don’t feel it is worth it to buy a new edition. Above all, though, it should be fun. If a new edition isn’t fun, don’t buy it. If it is, more power to you.
Happy gaming!
Once upon a time, GM’s were the Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger of their gaming story, which were almost by default a species of fantasy/horror. The accursed random encounter his weapon of choice:
“What luck finding a proper privy in this dungeon. The fur-lined seat is warm and inviting, until the MIMIC’S CLAWS FORM BETWEEN YOUR KNEES AND …!”
The tradition has been kept alive on a pile of dead characters; their tear-stained and balled up sheets stuffed into a pillow for the veteran GM to sit upon like a throne of honor - speaking their accolades and soaking their flatulence - hopefully. Now, this current generation is talking about story games - mechanically letting the players assert some authorship into how their characters behave, aspire and expire horribly. What’s a GM to do?
I’m not talking about simply loosening or eliminating the plot rails, listening to what they wish will happen next nor mining their Oliver Twist length and tone back stories for plot ideas. I’m talking about full authorship. “Axehaft Furrypiece leads the group through the tundra to a small barbarian village, not unlike the one he grew up in. Tell us, what we see.” The player creates the exposition and you’ve got nothing planned outside of a note reading “barbarian village in peril”.
Many a game master can’t get into this loss of control, like an ambush predator being hand fed in the zoo. The king has become committee chairmen, the game master is mere participant. Others have grown to enjoy the crafting of an intricate tale that they gradually reveal to their quasi-captive player audience, and now would have to endure listening to large chunks of their awesome world get soiled upon by these rank amateurs: “This road leads to Rainbow Village, where beautiful topless female centaur-unicorns frolic all day in tickle fights, make magic weapons for pleasant visitors and pee cure potions.”
Story games need not be this way, and may still capture the shared creativity of the entire group. Here are methods of managing a shared story:
1. Genre Convention: Put your Sailor Moon dress away! The genre of the game you’re running should be or implicitly is agreed upon by everyone that joins the game. Unless you’re playing in a setting with randomly opening … rifts to other dimensions (shame on you) your setting is going to have some tropes going into it. D&D doesn’t have starships … good D&D doesn’t have starships. Besides technology there is also certain a tone all should agree upon. There’s no Smurf village in Ravenloft, unless the little imps attack in zombie swarms. GNAP! GNAP!
2. Delegate to Democracy: Your disapproval of something can get you labeled as exercising unfair fiat - a lavender F stamped on your screen. Players will stop volunteering ’cause you may just shut it down. When something weird rubs you wrong, open it to the whole group. “Does it make sense to everyone that the orphaned rogue has a rich philanthropist Uncle that loves and showers him in gold?” “No” is the obvious answer, but if they say yes to something else be ready to roll with it. If they say yes to the ridiculous - it’s probably pay back for your past ridiculousness (a barrel full of stirges or chuul in the bath tub) and they’re likely just testing you. Control your instinct to set up a TPK! It’s time to level up as a GM.
3. Compromise: this can be the most fun and creatively challenging. Work your own vision into the player proposed idea while letting it remain true. The devil, the DM, is in the details. There is a Rainbow Village populated by female centaur unicorns that craft magic weapons - so they‘re kind of high leveled. They do tickle fight and have Tasha’s Hideous Laughter as a spell-like touch attack. They give pleasant visitors swag, but are very sensitive ladies. Rude visitors have their XP harvested via fey ritual to craft their items. A single snide remark or unflattering perkiness comment will trigger a high level magic item equipped battle hard enough to get the characters leaping for every puddle on the prairie hoping it’s cure potion.
– From the mind of Digga
