Candid thoughts on pixels, polyhedrons, and paper.
I’ve been running a lot of horror in my game lately, mainly due to the fact that my current homebrew campaign is a 4th edition rendition of 2e Ravenloft with a touch of my personal flavor.
Sure almost every homebrew I’ve ever created has had a lot of horror elements in it, whether it was rife with undead or a vampire posing as the main antagonist, but never before have I created (or in this case used) a world where everything is dark.
We are six sessions in right now and while my players and myself are definitely highly enjoying it, I cant help myself from picking my own work apart already. One thing I’m always trying to do is analyze my own GM’ing habits to then self prescribe a way to improve them. So I thought I should share with you some of my follies and triumphs in running the campaign so far – bear in mind this is definitely an art form I’m very new to but I’ll try and share my shiniest pearls of wisdom.
While when you think about a horror campaign you often think of writhing zombies, skeletons, vampire bats, werewolves and all that sort of thing, but what you don’t often ponder is “how often should these things will be showing up?” The photo montage of awesomeness in your mind shouldn’t be an instant replay of every game session.
These are climactic moments in your game, and if every time your players turn around they are faced with something extremely gorey, depraved or outright horrifying they’ll soon grow numb to your ‘shock effect’. One thing I learned in desktop publishing that I believe applies to all facets of life is the phrase “all show is no show”.
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown” ~ H.P. Lovecraft
The Wind up
At DDXP this year I was given the opportunity to sit in rooms full of awesome people from WoTC, Baldman Games, Freelancers and other generally awesome folk (Tracy, Matt, and the guy with the southern accent who’s name I’ve forgotten already [sorry!] – I’m looking at you!). I got to ask them annoying questions, beg for autographs, pick their brains and most importantly game with them, all the while attempting to contain myself and resist the urge to squeal with childish delight.
I was able to see a lot of upcoming and even some top secret stuff, which was awesome. Since I signed an NDA however, I won’t be telling you about any of that awesome, top secret stuff – because I’d have to kill you. Seriously. Or perhaps just because the Legend of Greg Bilsland is so rife with peril that I fear for my own life. So I’m here to tell you all about the awesome new despair deck, because I can talk enough about to entice you with it’s splendors and not have to fear being caught crossing one of two gentlemen who regularly play catch with the earth.
Aaaand The Pitch!
The despair deck is a set of 30 cards that will come with The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond boxed set, due out this coming May. There are 3 types of cards within the deck centralized around one of three core emotions; Madness, Apathy and Fear – all of which are aptly named for the mechanics that stand behind them. The way the cards work is basically as follows: you draw a card, more likely than not a slightly detrimental effect is bestowed upon your character, you must try to overcome it and when you do, something good happens. There’s some great flavor text that goes along with each card that is usually an example of something your character might say while under it’s influence.
You carry the effect with you until you reach a milestone, at which point you make a saving throw and if succeeded, the debuff is lifted and you are granted a boon for overcoming whatever weight was on your shoulders. Most of the cards detail that if your character is trained in a certain corresponding skill, they will gain an added bonus to the saving throw made to shrug off whatever melancholy or skiddish effect they may be under. You also do not have to reveal your despair card(s) to other players, keeping it a secret can be half the fun.
The deck can be used at the beginning of each adventure as well as in multiple places throughout (DM discretion), such as certain rooms or perhaps after particularly poignant events (ex: trapped in a maze, a fellow party member dies, the characters becomes lost, etc.). There’s also no telling when you’ll come across the next despair inducing moment so there’s a chance you could have multiple effects, both good and bad on you simultaneously.
The Deck In Action
I found that the “detrimental” effects of the despair cards were actually more interesting and fun than anything truly hindering or game breaking, the effects are truly minor. The boons that you receive after overcoming them are also minor but add a great bit of flavor and sense of reward to the play experience. What I absolutely loved was the role playing that accompanied them, because by each player acting accordingly to the mechanical bits behind their card brought about an almost intrinsic role playing experience that was fun and easy to pull off.
I’m completely obsessed with the Castle Ravenloft board game, and if you read my previous post then you know what this one is all about! If not then you should know I’m going to be creating custom additional classes for play with the game, starting with this Paladin.
I’m hoping this first one came out as professionally as I’d hoped so please let me know what you think of the of the design and overall quality of my work. Get out there and playtest this bad boy!
Those of you wondering “why a Minotaur paladin” it’s because I didn’t want to add a 3rd human or 2nd dwarf into the mix and I thought this would put a unique 4e twist on things, being that that’s the spirit of the game and all. You can hit the “keep reading” jump for the full profile and there is also a downloadable version (PDF) over in the Downloads section of the site so please share and enjoy!
