Music to Game to: Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Black Earth

I listen to a lot of music (over 40 days worth in 2017 according to last.fm) and I find that few things help me keep the mood of a game foregrounded in my mind like a good soundtrack. Plus, I’ve discovered that when I’m playing music to a speaker via Bluetooth, I’m less likely to be on my phone, lest my players hear any stray sounds, letting me better model engagement during a game. To that end, I want to share some of my favorite music to game to; the albums that inspire and inflame my imagination and that I’ve found work well as background music for games as well. I’ll do a mini-review and cover the basics of what mood it helps me set.

BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE – BLACK EARTH

I wish I still remembered how I discovered Bohren & Der Club of Gore, and through them, the sub-genre of Doom Jazz, but alas that has faded into the mists of my memories. What hasn’t faded is my love for this music-- Black Earth is a perfect example of Doom Jazz in my mind. Slow, even plodding, mellow, melancholic and haunted with a pervasive sense of gloom. It fades effortlessly into the background, letting you forget it and then sending swirling tendrils out to keep you just ever slightly on edge, its dissonances and sinister undertones always lurking below the surface to keep you uneasy without clamoring for your attention. Which is not to say there aren’t beautiful moments too, but they are every bit as haunting and reinforce the ghostly atmosphere instead of undercutting it.

• Vocals?...No
• Music Genre(s)…Doom Jazz, Ambient
• Perfect for…Any game where you want a haunted, noir-inflected backdrop. Horror games where you want to subtly reinforce the tension and uncanny feelings instead of relying on shrieking violins ala Psycho.
• If you only grab one track, make it…”Skeletal Remains”, which morphes slowly from a slow and sad piano, saxophone duet into something decidedly sinister with the addition of haunting and echoey synths and a switch from smooth saxophone style to one that conveys a barely restrained frenzy at times.

Thursday Table: Interesting Coinage

Sometimes it feels incredibly dull to simple give out 12 copper or 6 gold, so I've written up a 2d12 Table to help determine the vintage of any coins my players might find in a game. Why not make them wonder why that goblin has four silver pieces of ancient coinage from a distant land or if the snake person they just murderized had counterfeit coins to distribute or if they were unaware of that fact.

2d12	Coin Vintage
2	Magical or enchanted
3	Magical or enchanted
4	Distant, ancient coinage
5	Distant, ancient coinage
6	Distant, ancient coinage
7	Distant, recently minted
8	Distant, recently minted
9	Distant, recently minted
10	Local, recently minted
11	Local, recently minted
12	Local, recently minted
13	Local, recently minted
14	Local, recently minted
15	Local, recently minted
16	Local, recently minted
17	Local, ancient coinage
18	Local, ancient coinage
19	Local, ancient coinage
20	Counterfeit, local
21	Counterfeit, local
22	Counterfeit, local
23	Counterfeit, distant
24	Counterfeit, ancient

Roll20 Tips and Tricks for GMs

If you haven't already, go ahead and read my post of Roll20 Tips and Tricks for Players. Much of that post also applies for game masters either directly or as good advice to pass onto your players. The rest of this post focuses on Roll20 from the perspective of a GM organizing and running a game.

• Stay on top of prep/have backup options
• Remember that if you’re using digital maps and tokens, you need to try and prep those just as you would using miniatures and a erasable grid mat. It’s handy to make sure you have a selection of tokens “just in case” when you need a random fight with goblins and a blank Roll20 page ready to go.
• Have back up audio
• As nice as many other things in Roll20 are, I’ve never been able to get roll20 audio to work for more than three people at a time. For a long time we used Google voice chat, but lately I’ve used Discord for both of my ongoing online games. In any case, it’s worth having a back-up plan for audio in case a certain service isn’t functioning at game time.
• Have an attendance policy
• I learned this the hard way, but it’s good to have an attendance policy up front that covers how many players are needed for a game “quorum” and the expectation for players missing games and notifying the GM beforehand. 
• It’s also worth considering a policy that covers when a player is considered to have “abandoned” the game, so that the GM can look for a replacement player.
• Here is the attendance policy that I’ve come up with for my games.
• With the episodic nature of the campaign, players can miss the occasional session without issue. If possible provide the DM notice, preferably 24 hour notice. PCs not at a session will not receive XP
• Abandoning the game - If a player misses two sessions without notifying the DM beforehand or if they miss three of any four sessions on a rolling four session basis, they will be considered as having abandoned the game.
• Quorum -The DM will consider any three players a quorum to determine if there are enough PCs to play a session.
• Google documents
• Yes, I already talked about google documents for players, but I want to second this for GMs. While I use the handouts available in Roll20, they are difficult to utilize for longer text or for things you want available to refer to when not in game.
• There are four main documents I have for my online game in google documents, a Player Information Packet, a shared notes document, a group inventory and XP chart.
• The XP chart is fairly self-explanatory, but handy for games where PCs aren’t levelling at the same time.
• The group inventory is likewise fairly straight-forward, though other games might have a player maintaining it instead of the GM.
• The shared notes document has the high-level info on each PC, proficiencies, spells, etc, so that players can easily see what the other PCs have before they put slots towards a particular proficiency. I also have the upcoming sessions listed and its where the players have put notes about NPCs and session notes.
• Finally, the Player Information Packet is locked so that I can edit it, but players can comment. This is the document were I include all the house rules, character creation rules, attendance policy and information I want to make sure is available for players to reference.
• Map hints
• Cover up room numbers, traps and random spots with white squares, or another color that blends into the map well. 
• If you're using Fog of War, consider making your lines a medium-dark grey, rather than black. It makes it easier for players to see the difference.
• Remember color blind players when you're choosing colors and avoid using just red and green as you prep your maps.
• Be careful about what layer you're on. There are three layers: map & background, tokens and objects and GM overlay. While it's incredibly useful to have all three layers, I've found myself forgetting to switch back to the token lair and accidentally dragging my map over a half an inch, revealing all my carefully hidden room numbers and secret doors. 
• Consider a published scenario with map and token pack.
• When I had a player move away temporarily I tried to run an online Curse of Strahd using the module pack from Roll20. While the game unfortunately fell apart due to scheduling conflicts the module pack made running the game incredibly easy. It was fantastic to have all the maps, handouts, tokens, monster/NPC stats and adventure notes at my fingers in Roll20 itself.
• If someone wanted to try GMing for the first time I would highly recommend this as it lets you concentrate on running the game instead of doing lots of uploading of tokens, maps and such. It also makes it easy to improvise as you can utilize what's built into the module to prepare random encounters.

Has anyone else found any other great Roll20 Tricks?

Music to Game To: Einstürzende Neubauten - Zeichnungen Des Patienten O.T.

I listen to a lot of music (over 40 days worth in 2017 according to last.fm) and I find that few things help me keep the mood of a game foregrounded in my mind like a good soundtrack. Plus, I’ve discovered that when I’m playing music to a speaker via Bluetooth, I’m less likely to be on my phone, lest my players hear any stray sounds, letting me better model engagement during a game. To that end, I want to share some of my favorite music to game to; the albums that inspire and inflame my imagination and that I’ve found work well as background music for games as well. I’ll do a mini-review and cover the basics of what mood it helps me set.


EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN – ZEICHNUNGEN DES PATIENTEN O.T.

A classic album which encapsulates the early period of Einstürzende Neubauten, complete with salvaged metal percussion and re-purposed power tool instrumentation, but it transcends the industrial clichés to reach eerie and haunting peaks. Unlike many of the other albums recommended by this series, there is little chance that your players will be able to ignore this music as it accompanies your game… Still, I wanted to highlight this album as remains every bit as uncanny (or unheimlich, if you prefer) and affecting 34 years later. Not an album you’d play in the background but definitely mood setting and perfect… as you can tell from this Quietus summary:

Zeichnungen sounds as new, as bold, and as disturbing as any record in recent memory, by turns fiery and chilling, it's a relentlessly exploratory masterpiece of Cold War European decay… tracks on Zeichnungen include field recordings of disturbed children, the sound of fire, cannibalized snippets of Armenian folk melody, and humming electricity…the [title] track is built around a hand-crafted loop of shattering glass and Marc Chung's trademark machine-gun basswork, over which Bargeld howls out a dystopian vision of "a new sun, which burns more than it illuminates" and Barraud's dog listening for His Master's Voice not next to a record player but next to a tombstone.

• Vocals?...Yes, in German
• Music Genre(s)…Industrial, experimental
• Perfect for…Unsettling horror games. A Dread game set in the blasted remains of a post-apocalyptic city or a particularly savage and horrific Apocalypse World or Godless session.
• If you only grab one track, make it… “Neun Arme”, which pulses with singer Blixa Bargeld’s heartbeat, as caught by a fetal heart monitor and describes a yearning to return to simpler times of microbial existence.

Moth Eaten Cloak - Weird Magic Item #4

Inspired by the incredibly excellent Weird Magic Item generator over at Donjon.bin.sh, I've been coming up with a few of my own system agnostic weird magic items to put in the many games I run, be they 13th Age or Beyond the Wall...

Eventually I want to try and put them into a randomizer, but I need to generate a few first. I'm going to try and post one every other Wednesday. Please let me know if you end up using an item I've created in your own game. You can find the entire series here...

Antagonist Relations Weird Magic Item Generator Presents...

Moth Eaten Cloak

This moth-eaten cloak is always found amongst other long abandoned garments. While wearing it you can call upon its magic to disappear in a cloud of moths and appear in a safe place that is known to you within a half mile. Once used, the cloak disappears and appears amongst abandoned and moth eaten garments elsewhere in the world.

Roll20 Tips and Tricks for Players

Thomas and I have been playing RPGs together since the middle 90's (92 or 93, probably) and so when he was in the Middle East working in November 2014, and our other longtime friend John was in Japan, we decided to try giving Roll20 a shot so we could get our gaming fix. The time differences meant I was getting up to play at 6am or 7am on a Sunday morning, but it was worth it. Thomas ran 13th Age for us and those early mornings exploring Boltstrike Pillar and the Crown of the Lich King are part of why I love 13th Age today.

Then in September of 2015 we started a 2nd Edition AD&D campaign set in the Ruined Kingdoms of al-Qadim, also with Thomas running, and have been playing that game almost every Sunday (now at the more reasonable time of 9am CST) since. I think the longest we've ever had a break has been three weeks.

The summer of 2017, one of my local players had to move to South Carolina for work temporarily, so I used Roll20 to let him telecommute in for our 13th Age Eyes of the Stone Thief campaign and grabbed the online Curse of Strahd module pack to try and run so he could play more. Unfortunately the Curse of Strahd game fizzled due to scheduling issues, but having him join the table via Roll20 worked great for 13th Age (and we even used that Roll20 game to have all the players telecommute in this last weekend when we got 15 inches of snow in April...)

Early this year, I re-read the Great Modron March and decided I wanted to run that, but with my two main groups in the middle of long-term campaigns and my local playgroup busy, I turned to Roll20, put up an ad and found a group online to run for. And since then, I've been looking at trying to add more online gaming to my schedule. With all this time playing and thinking about online games, I wanted to put together some of my tips and tricks. I will admit that I've only used Roll20, but some of this advice would probably apply just as well to other online tabletop platforms. And don't worry DMs and GMs, once you're done reading this post you can click over to my Roll20 Tips and Tricks for GMs post here.

Roll20 Tips and Tricks for Players

• Google Docs
• Or something similar. They’re helpful as you can share them easily and have access to them from most devices.
• For spellcasters, consider having a document with the spells they know/have access to, this lets you quickly look up a spell, especially if you don’t have hardcopies of the books on hand.
• Shared group inventory. It’s great to be able to quickly see how many heling potions the party has left or who is carrying that +1 scimitar or where that large, hard to move scrying bowl is being kept
• Notes. I use a google document to keep a log of the game. I try to write a sentence for each room/location and then will add a sentence to cover what we encounter there. It can be kind of bare bones, but I find it helps me to remember what occurred and taking notes helps keep my attention on the game when my PC isn’t part of a scene. Here’s a sample entry for a day in game.
• Day 102
• Headed up the Kadan river to find statue
• Got a fishing boat to bring us to where other boats had disappeared
• Ambushed by 14 lizardmen, put two to sleep and found that they had not stolen the idol, it had just appeared.
• Cats were sent to track the two sleeping Lizardmen as we released them.
• Found two warriors from Tayaraan, they told us about a giant crocodile and where to find the narrows
• Went to narrows and into swamp to get wood to make a raft and encountered a hydra
• Lizardman tracks led away from where the hydra treasure should have been
• Headset
• I highly recommend using a gaming headset with a microphone. This not only makes it easier to hear, it also minimizes ambient noise for the group, especially for laptops where the microphone picks up the noise of things being set down next to the laptop. You don’t need a really pricey one, I got a $20 wireless set that works really well, but before that I had a cheap wired set that worked okay too.
• Play around
• Almost all GMs should be okay with you popping into the game outside of the scheduled session time to play around. This way you can make sure you know what is where on your character sheet, how the built in roll functions work and perhaps even build a macro or two..
• Learn macros
• Roll20 allows players to create their own macros, little bits of simple code that once written can be used to run the same instructions again and again. In roll20, this means you could set up a macro for a 2nd edition AD&D PC to fire a bow twice, with all the THAC0 calculations done for you or one that automates the same PC attacking with a Khopesh, that does differing damage depending on if the foe is human-sized or larger.
• Test attacks with his short bow, hitting AC [[@{Test|ThAC0} - (d20)]] for [[1d6]] damage with the first shot and hitting AC [[@{Test|ThAC0} - (d20)]] for [[1d6]] damage for the second shot.
• Test attacks with his Khopesh, hitting AC [[@{Test|Thac0} - (d20)]] for [[2d4]] damage to small/medium or [[1d6]] damage to a large foe.
• Default Combat Actions
• It’s worth thinking up one or two “default” combat actions to consider, this can help prevent analysis paralysis when combat starts if you know that you want to first use ranged attacks against enemies who aren’t in melee, and then switch to your mace for melee.
• Check in with your GM regularly.
• Let your GM know if you’ll be missing a session, just like you would for an in-person game, even if it’s just an hour before the game. There are few things as soul-crushing for a GM running an online game than having to deal with players repeatedly missing sessions without any notice before or apology after.
• Help your GM by following up on things, if the party needs to make a decision between session, follow up with the other players instead of relying on the GM to do so. Help keep party notes or group inventory up to date. Offer to look up rules if a rules question comes up for a scene where your character is not as directly involved.
• Let your GM know if there’s something that’s not working about the game as it can be harder to read those cues over a voice chat or even a tiny video display when you’re busy with the technical aspects of running a game online in addition to the normal work of game-mastering.
• And especially let a GM know that you’re enjoying the game and what you’d like to see more of. 

Music to Game to: The Budos Band - Burnt Offering

I listen to a lot of music (over 40 days worth in 2017 according to last.fm) and I find that few things help me keep the mood of a game foregrounded in my mind like a good soundtrack. Plus, I’ve discovered that when I’m playing music to a speaker via Bluetooth, I’m less likely to be on my phone, lest my players hear any stray sounds, letting me better model engagement during a game. To that end, I want to share some of my favorite music to game to; the albums that inspire and inflame my imagination and that I’ve found work well as background music for games as well. I’ll do a mini-review and cover the basics of what mood it helps me set.

THE BUDOS BAND - BURNT OFFERING

Look at that album cover and tell me it’s not “Music to Game To”… This is a tight slab of afro-soul funk crossed with 70s metal with a dash of blues here and there. The album immediately evokes 70s B movies and psychedelic fantasy van panoramas without getting bogged down in cheesy homage. Foreboding and gritty, the songs are propulsive and perfect for keeping a game session moving briskly forward. While the throwback 70s stylings might not fit every D&D session, they’ll be appreciated by players and game masters who enjoy a good groove as they bash in troll heads.

• Vocals?...No
• Music Genre(s)…Funk, Soul, Psychedelic Rock, Afrobeat
• Perfect for…Any game where you want a pulsing, horn and bass heavy, epic 70s style B-movie soundtrack.
• If you only grab one track, make it…The title track, “Burnt Offering”, which opens with some ominous horror movie synths and pounding drums and then switches to a beautifully scuzzy guitar riff and blasting horns cut with organ riffs.

Planescape Item Charts

One of the things I enjoy most about running Planescape using the 2nd Edition AD&D rule-set it was originally written for is all the fiddly, particular bits about the way the setting interacts with the mechanics. That includes the fact that magical weapons and armor lose part or all of their bonus as they are moved further from the plane they were created on.

As I began to prep for my current Roll20 game, I realized that I needed a good way to come up with where various magic weapons and armors were created so that we could calculate any bonuses lost as the party lugged them around the planes. So with a little work, I whipped up a few tables to do just that...

2d12	Table 1: Category of Plane
2	Inner Plane
3	Inner Plane
4	Ethereal
5	Astral
6	Astral
7	Astral
8	Outer Plane
9	Outer Plane
10	Outer Plane
11	Outer Plane
12	Prime Material
13	Prime Material
14	Prime Material
15	Outer Plane
16	Outer Plane
17	Outer Plane
18	Outer Plane
19	Astral
20	Astral
21	Astral
22	Ethereal
23	Inner Plane
24	Inner Plane

2d12	Table 2: Inner Planes
2	Salt
3	Dust
4	Ash
5	Smoke
6	Water
7	Water
8	Water
9	Earth
10	Earth
11	Earth
12	Fire
13	Fire
14	Fire
15	Air
16	Air
17	Air
18	Mineral
19	Magma
20	Magma
21	Ooze
22	Ice
23	Lightning
24	Radiance

2d12	Table 3: Outer Planes
2	Sigil
3	The Beastlands
4	Mount Celestia
5	Carceri
6	Arcadia
7	Pandemonium
8	Bytopia
9	Arborea
10	Baator
11	Outlands
12	Outlands
13	Sigil
14	Sigil
15	Outlands
16	The Abyss
17	Acheron
18	Ysgard
19	Elysium
20	The Gray Waste
21	Mechanus
22	Gehenna
23	Limbo
24	Sigil

2d12	Table 4: Prime Material Plane Locations
2	Athas
3	Eberron
4	Eberron
5	Krynn
6	Krynn
7	Krynn
8	Krynn
9	Oerth
10	Oerth
11	Oerth
12	Oerth
13	Toril
14	Toril
15	Toril
16	Toril
17	Mystara
18	Mystara
19	Mystara
20	Ortho
21	Ortho
22	Nehwon
23	Nehwon
24	Aebrynis

Beyond the Wall - Alternative Initiative System for Long-term play

The Beyond the Wall initiative system is elegant and easy, and absolutely perfect for a one-shot, where players can sit in their initiative order and there’s no question of turn order. However, running BtW as a campaign for a year, I found that for long term games you need an extra option so that the order is not always:

Powerful monsters with more hit dice than the PCs > PCs > Low level monsters who are quickly slain.

So, borrowing from AD&D 2nd Edition, here is an alternate initiative system that can be easily added and implemented for long running Beyond the Wall games.

Each turn of initiative a single player rolls a d10, the result of which is added to each PC’s initiative (and to that of any NPC hench, or anyone else fighting on the “PC” side). Likewise, the GM rolls a d10, the result of which is added to the HD of any NPCs or monsters opposing the PCs.

Play proceeds in descending order, from highest to lowest initiative value until all have acted and then the next turn begins with each side rolling a d10. If there is a tie, the PCs are considered to act after the NPC. In the case of PCs with the same initiative, they can choose which goes first each round, giving them some flexibility.

Example: 
Bastian (init 3), Freda (init 2) and Marthe (init 1) are fighting four goblins (HD 1) and a manticore (HD 6).
Marthe’s player rolls for the PCs and gets a 5 on the d10. Each player adds 5 to their PCs initiative and gets: Bastian 8, Marthe 7 and Freda 6.
The GM rolls a d10 and gets a 1, resulting in monster initiatives of: Goblins 2, Manticore 7.

The final initiative order, proceeding from top to bottom becomes:

• Bastian
• Manticore
• Marthe
• Freda
• Goblins

This round Bastian is lucky enough to act before the Manticore, but he may not be as lucky on subsequent rounds. But, unlike the basic fixed initiative rules from the book, with these rules the PCs have a chance to act before the Manticore if they roll well on initiative. 

Podcast Episode 29 - Shkelington Party OoOoOo & Episode 30 - Shkelington Afterparty oOoOoO

Antagonist Relations Podcast Episode 29 - Shkelington Party OoOoOo

Return to the Lair of the Ginger Giant as our Actual Play Podcast crew completes their first full session of Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures! We play through the Opened Barrow scenario from the Beyond the Wall - Across the Veil supplement.

Skeletons! Hobos! Tomb Robbers! And more as the PCs venture beyond the walls of Swanholm for the first time. Starring Hugen Coldhands, the New Watchman, Ziska Forespark, the Student of the Dark Arts, Jasper (Jape) Sweetberry IV, the Gifted Dilettante and Tulip, the Village Bear.

Player created maps
GM Hex Map (not for player eyes)

Antagonist Relations Episode 30 - Shkelington Afterparty oOoOoO

Recorded the same night as episode 29, Ben, Cassandra, Christy and Zack discuss Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures, what we enjoy about it and how our first full play session went.

If you want to know more about Beyond the Wall, check out the Antagonist Relations reviews:

Antagonist Relations reviews Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures
Antagonist Relations reviews Further Afield.



Please take our listener survey here.

Music to Game to: Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik – Skuggsjá (A Piece for Mind and Mirror)

I listen to a lot of music (over 40 days worth in 2017 according to last.fm) and I find that few things help me keep the mood of a game foregrounded in my mind like a good soundtrack. Plus, I’ve discovered that when I’m playing music to a speaker via Bluetooth, I’m less likely to be on my phone, lest my players hear any stray sounds, letting me better model engagement during a game. To that end, I want to share some of my favorite music to game to; the albums that inspire and inflame my imagination and that I’ve found work well as background music for games as well. I’ll do a mini-review and cover the basics of what mood it helps me set.

IVAR BJØRNSON & EINAR SELVIK – SKUGGSJÁ (A PIECE FOR MIND AND MIRROR)

Commissioned for the 200th anniversary of the Norwegian Constitution, the album aims to tell the entirety of Norwegian history. Fans of the Viking TV show might recognized Einar Selvik from his work on that soundtrack, and like the music for that show, Skuggsjá makes use of many Norse folk instruments. Ivar Bjørnson is the lead guitarist and vocalist for the black metal band, Enslaved, so there are some black metal vocals, if that’s not your bag. I got the album to use as inspiration and soundtrack when I was running my (unfortunately) short-lived Jokilaakso saga, but it’s made its way into my wider rotation of gaming music as the mix of metal guitar and folk instruments provide an evocative Norse feel for any game and since the lyrics are in Old Norse and Norwegian your players are unlikely to be too distracted by following along to the words.

• Vocals?...Yes, Old Norse and Norwegian
• Music Genre(s)…Folk, Folk Metal, Nordic
• Perfect for…Viking Epics or anything with a strong Norse theme.
• If you only grab one track, make it…“Rop Fra Røynda – MæFra Minne”, which opens with a raven’s call and feels like the dirge Viking warriors sing as they gather their dead from the battlefield.

Shaker of Never-ending Salt - Weird Magic Item #3

Inspired by the incredibly excellent Weird Magic Item generator over at Donjon.bin.sh, I've been coming up with a few of my own system agnostic weird magic items to put in the many games I run, be they 13th Age or Beyond the Wall...

Eventually I want to try and put them into a randomizer, but I need to generate a few first. I'm going to try and post one every other Wednesday. Please let me know if you end up using an item I've created in your own game. You can find the entire series here...

Antagonist Relations Weird Magic Item Generator Presents...

Shaker of Never-ending Salt

This nondescript ceramic salt shaker is sculpted to look like a tiny wizard's castle. It can be shaken to produce a never-ending amount of table salt. The shaker cannot be broken (or perhaps can be and then teleports all within 10 or 25 ft radius to the para-elemental plane of salt) and can produce table salt at the maximum rate of 1 tablespoon per minute.

Tuesday Table - Medieval Surnames pt. 2

Another little table I made for myself for my Beyond the Wall games, this one a continuation of Medieval English Surnames that seemed interesting and appropriate for my setting.

d12	Medieval Surnames pt. 2
1	Greenwood
2	Ashworth
3	Brook
4	Jarsdel
5	Harred
6	Woodbead
7	Rummage
8	Townsend
9	Morland
10	Fellows
11	Fisher
12	Sallow