Thought of the Day: NPC Voices

I didn't include it in my list of 2017 Gaming Resolutions, but I've been trying to do more NPC voices for all my games. So, even though I have players who accuse me of killing NPCs off just because I forgot the voice, I keep trying.

Voices and accents don't come naturally to me. I attempted a Space Australian accent for one of my Numenera NPCs but it quickly drifted into something else (though it was a great excuse to watch this delightful clip again and again...) Lately, I've been trying to give NPCs a quick description of their voice or vocal tics and jotting it down in my notes so I can use that to remind myself of how they should sound when I return to that NPC; here are some recent examples of how I've been describing NPC voices.

• Bömbör
• "repeats himself excitedly"
• a Dverge NPC from my Iron Edda game
• Gwenaëlle Décalage
• "a low and sultry voice"
• Recent deceased vampire NPC from the A Red and Pleasant Land actual play podcast
• Enock Whipple
• "Soft and often apologetic"
• Dormouse NPC from aRaPL actual play podcast
• Firgin
• "ah um eh, talks about water colors"
• NPC from the Strangling Sea 13th Age Adventure I ran to start my new 13th Age Stone Thief campaign. About 2/3rds of my players really, really hated him after listening to him speak.

So I've been trying to decide how to voice a kitten NPC for my 13th Age game, as I want it to live up to the "Talkative" trait that the player picked for the Ranger Pet talent. Long story short, the PC, Felix Mittens, used to be a catperson until he was cursed by a witch to become fully human while his twin brother, Boots, became fully kitten. I've been wracking my brains trying to come up with how Boots should talk, since he'll be an ongoing NPC constantly with the party... I think I'm going to come up with some stock phrases I can use for when certain events happen, like maybe Boots doesn't like orcs or comments when someone fumbles... 

But then I was watching some Venture Bros today and I realize I'm tempted to have Boots speak exactly like Augustus Saint Cloud does when he's pretending that Henrietta Pussycat is speaking to him in the episode Maybe No Go. My delight at saying "Eat the pennies, Quizboy" means that I have a decent Augustus Saint Cloud impression (probably the only VB character I can do reliably) and I like the idea of starting and ending each sentence with "mew mew" to just drive home that Boots the kitten is talking... Others might think it's too creepy, but I'm starting to think it's just creepy enough...

Thought of the Day: Boneless Wizards - Skaggar's Skeleton Scouting

So this is more a thought that came up during my Wednesday night Shattered World D&D game, I modded an Iron and Stone golem slightly, twinned them together as the same red/green that I did the Ruby Dragon the players had previously fought and decided that the Red (Iron) golem would become Green (Stone) when the players did enough damage and vice versa.

I managed to successfully cast Banish Monster FOR ONCE, only to have it claw its way out of of its non-banished friend's head. #dnd #dnd5e

— LadyChristy (@LadyChristy) June 23, 2016

At one point my lovely wife decided to cast Banishment and the golem failed its saving throw, despite having advantage from the golem magic resistance feature. Instead of just having the one golem which wouldn't let me use my color swap and twin golem nonsense, I decided on the fly instead to have the Banishment do 50 points of damage and cost both golems a turn as the Green golem then crawled out of the Red golem's mouth. That way when they were damaged on the next turn, I got to do my color swap nonsense and while the players may not have realized it, they still managed to do both damage to the golems and prevent some damage to themselves as the golems were unable to attack for a turn.

But, that led to a great digression as the image of the one golem crawling out of the other's mouth caused my players to wonder if there was a spell that would let a Necromancer have his skeleton leave his body to scout while his body was left somewhere safe as a pile of flesh.

I thought that Thomas might have a spell similar to this in his excellent "Necromancy After the Godswar" packet, available on the DMsGuild, but he doesn't. So here is a not at all playtested or balanced spell to do just that.

Skaggar's Skeleton Scouting

3rd-level necromancy

Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a human tooth and a bit of grease)
Duration: 4 hours

You cause your skeleton to leave your body, climbing out of your mouth, at the cost of one hit die. For the remainder of the duration, you can move your skeleton independently of your body, which remains where you left it as an immobile pile of flesh. Your skeleton has the hit points, stats and senses of a skeleton, but you are able to cast spells or take any other action your DM sees as reasonable. As a skeleton your voice is whispery and dry. As an action you can move your perspective back to your body and use your normal senses. When the duration ends or at any point during the duration when you use a bonus action, your skeleton returns to your body, though the process takes a full turn before you can stand or take any other action. If your skeleton is reduced to 0 hit points or fewer before the duration ends you take any excess damage carries over to your normal body and your skeleton is returned to your body, requiring the full extra turn before you can take actions just as if the duration ended or you used a bonus action to end the spell.

During the duration of the spell your body is unable to move, speak or take any other actions. A generous DM may allow you simple communication by blinking your eyes. A successful Dispel Magic spell against your skeleton or body can end the spell.

At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level you can choose to either extend the duration by 4 hours or use the stats of a minotaur skeleton, using the extra magic to cause your bones to grow and strengthen. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 5th level or higher you extend both the duration by 4 hours and use the stats of a minotaur skeleton.

Thought of the Day #4 - D&D Initiative Deck

Or rather, shuffle and draw instead.

Thomas asked me about Initiative Tracking apps and in our discussion this morning I had this thought... A quick Google Search shows this might be a distillation or alternative to an existing alternative Initiative systems, but I'll flesh it out here quickly anyway.

Part of the tediousness of rolling initiative is having all the players roll, do the (basic) math of adding DEX and other bonuses and then getting everyone organized to tell their initiative to whoever is tracking it. One thing Thomas wants to try (and I do too, now) is maybe having initiative change each round (or could of rounds) to keep players on their toes and great a more dynamic combat. The roll method makes this difficult and existing initiative apps might have their own drawbacks, so why not...

• Take 20 blank playing cards for each player and number them from 1+ the PC's initiative modifier to 20+ the PC's initiative modifier with the PC name on them as well.
• So the Cleric with +0 to DEX would have cards from 1-20, the Rogue with +4 to DEX would have cards from 5-24 and so forth.
• I had initially proposed 10 cards per deck, which you could still do, but Thomas correctly points out that would inflate the impact of DEX bonuses.
• Instead of "rolling" players would shuffle and draw their card for initiative.
• These could be quickly sorted and displayed.
• The cheap alligator clip photo display stands would work well for this, or just binder clips.
• This method also lets Barbarians draw two cards when they have advantage on initiative checks.
• The speed of shuffling, drawing and sorting could possibly allow you to redo initiative each round of the combat.
• The DM could have their own set of initiative cards for monsters, or could just roll a d20 as normal. I find that getting monster/adversary initiative in the order doesn't take as long.
• If the DM uses cards, they could pre-roll or draw initiative before the session, to prevent them from having to sort through their decks of cards.
• I'd use blank playing cards for sturdiness/ease of shuffle, but you could also do flash cards or half-size index cards to get different colors.

The biggest downside I see, is that I just got a swanky Dice Tower with magnetic initiative tracker for XMAS... But... I could have the players use them, keep their cards where they could see and then I could use just the magnetic tracker on my side of the screen for my tracking, then I would cut out the time I spend keeping the set of initiative the players see on their side of the screen...

Thought of the Day #3 - Two Toss Off Campaign Pitches

Two quick campaign pitches that have been on my mind that I'll probably never run in D&D.

• Megadungeon Siege
• The PCs are in a city under siege and tasked with clearing out the megadungeon under the city to open a supply line out of the city.
• Good for a limited series, 6-12 sessions.
• Bounty Hunters
• Probably because I saw the Hateful Eight, but I think having the PCs play Bounty Hunters could provide a good frame for a D&D game that runs on an occasional basis with easy to identify goals for each session.

Thought of the Day... #2 - Is it worth being a bit of a "Jerk" about Alignment?

This meme is a total lie, P. Bubs is totally not Lawful Good by any stretch of the imagination... 

Listening to a recent Play on Target podcast on Character Behavior and Alignment while in the car and trying to move between a dozen reports at work and started thinking again about Alignment.

I have a pretty tortured history with Alignment and Morality in D&D and other Fantasy Heartbreakers, which is told partially through my previous (and often snarky, fair warning) posts on Alignment, as well as two of my character's from the Ginger Giant's games, the often equally hated (by other PCs, at least) Sid and Uwain.

What I'm thinking about now, is how much I should push players to play Alignment/Morality. In my Shattered World game, I made the decision to leave Alignment off, figuring that the Icons and NPCs would be able to enforce any moral issues I decide to make an issue of.

Now, I'm gearing up to start running Out of the Abyss with my Sunday group, and I'm wondering how much I should enforce their alignment. Do I just have them choose a few Ideals from the D&D 5e Backgrounds? Do I try and write up something like the Dungeon World Alignments, which seems like time I could spend on doing other prep for Out of the Abyss (which is incredibly prep heavy for a DM already) or for my two other ongoing games or for my upcoming Dread one shot. Or I could try and steal the Noble, Fear and Rage Passions from Unknown Armies? Do I just admit that of my playing group it seems like I'm the only one who feels like Alignment is an important part of the game and let my players choose various Good or Neutral alignments as they wish without trying to enforce "alignment" morality and keeping my mouth shut when "good" characters decide to be cruel or dishonest because they think they can get away with it?

One thought I have is to reward players who play close to the alignment they put on their sheet by giving them a mechanical boost against Madness, which will be a huge part of Out of the Abyss, but I also need to read the Madness section of the 5e DMG again and decide how by the book I want to go with Madness or how much I want to change for ease of play and/or avoid the Malkavian problem of people playing insanity as "wacky". But then, if we don't define alignments well, it becomes more of a case of "are you playing that alignment the way Zack imagines it?"

In any case, the podcast has it in my mind again, that I really do wish I could have each PC commit to a moral code they would hold to, more like Vampire morality paths than D&D's alignments, but I know that is utterly unfeasible to try and pry that out of most players.

Further complicating things, in Al-Qadim Church, I'm playing an Evil priestess of a Chaotic Evil goddess, Ragarra, and I find myself thinking that I need to work with Thomas to come up with a good well-written code of ethics to abide by. Last session there was a moment where one of the other players went with a very "traditional" D&D Heroic Good impulse to risk his PC and the party save a fairly helpless NPC and my PC argued against it and almost ordered him not to, as if the NPC was weak enough to die, then that was that and he should be left to die in the river or re-captured and murdered by gnolls. Now, my problem is when I play non-good characters, I tend to think a lot more about what code of ethics/behavior they actually hold to, which I haven't really done yet with Thema.

Anyway, this has gotten way long for what was supposed to be a quick "Thought of the Day" but y'all can consider it as an open thread to discuss Alignment with me.

Thought of the Day... #1 - Traps with consequences for Disarming

Here is a "Though of the Day" that's completely unrelated to any Death Trap Dungeons I'm currently designing (I swear), but wouldn't a clever/evil/spiteful creator of a dungeon make traps that have secondary traps that are only triggered when they're disarmed?

Like, if the flame nozzle trap is disarmed, part of disarming it releases Rust Monsters digestive juices ruining the specific thief's tools being used?

I really like this idea because it makes use of a couple good Dungeon World moves:

• Give an opportunity that fits a class’ abilities (The thief gets to find and disarm a trap, like a badass)
• Use up their resources (Even bypassing the trap has a consequence)
• Offer an opportunity, with or without cost (If the thief realizes that disarming the flame nozzles might mean not disarming a trap later in the dungeon, will the thief/party decide that they're going to try and figure out the timing and dash through instead of disarming the trap?)

Traps are one of the things I struggle most with in Dungeon World, so this realization, while it might not fit every trap, does give me an option for when PCs are deep in a dungeon designed by an insane and powerful spell-caster or his followers.