Issues with alignment (a minor ramble by Owler)

It has been brought up a lot recently especially with the news of D&D Next being prominent news in the community and it had already been confirmed through leaks but officially said in today's Rule of Three article by Rodney Thompson that the next edition will have the original 9 alignments (Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil & Chaotic Evil for those who didn't know them)  in the 4th edition it was scaled down to 5 getting rid off all the neutral alignments (good being a mixture of neutral and chaotic and evil becoming a mixture of lawful and neutral)  and introduced the Unaligned option which would mean they have no Alignment if the word was used properly.

It makes me wonder why they couldn't use the word Neutral well the same reason people would interpret it differently many people interpret it to mean do what they want which isn't right same goes for the classic Chaotic Neutral. many people see it as just acting crazy and doing what ever the hell they want...

 the second part is admittedly true but the first part isn't always true not all chaotic neutral characters do completely random things because they can, some characters of this alignment could even have very complex motives and drives and also be quite cunning in their methods and plans...

What many people think when they here Chaotic Neutral.

A much better way to play Chaotic Neutral in my book.

so where am I going with this...um wait I had a point to make somewhere...
Oh right yes alignments personally it can be very very difficult to make a campaign that doesn't focus on good vs evil with out it becoming difficult. if the party know they are the good guys then the villain hasn't got much going for them if they have to be evil. also doesn't it really depend on perspective for instance the Drow are considered to be mostly Chaotic Evil (originally) then Neutral evil now in a standard setting where they are constantly back stabbing (literally in many cases) there isn't an issue. but say you want to do a campaign based on political intrigue or exploration of different cultures views of good vs evil where do you start with out making certain things completely evil or completely good it gets to point where you have to step back and make certain races designated bad guys.

Well with my personal idea of just 3 alignments it becomes less of a difficulty these 3 alignments are simply Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic with good and evil being objective on the scale it doesn't prevent Chaotic Good nor does it prevent Lawful Evil with it just being those 3 you are less bound as a DM and a Player in some circumstances. with the old alignment system Paladins had to be Lawful Good in my idea they would just be Lawful and couldn't act in a Chaotic act or ally with people who acted in an opposite manner to their leanings (Lawful leaning towards evil couldn't hang around Chaotic leaning towards good and vice versa).
it allows for more complexity in the way you portray villains, this is admittedly if you want this complexity if you are happy to run it with Good vs Evil then by all means do it this is just my opinion.
That's really all I have to say on the subject really tell me what you guys think Comment is free and it's fun to debate certain things (providing it doesn't turn into a flame war), Until next time this is, Owler signing off for now.

Confessions of an Average DM 4 (The Life of an NPC)

One of the most important things for a campaign is it's NPC's the thing is they also can also be the hardest thing to get right.

Depending on the campaign depends how much NPCs factor in of course some times they are treated merely as quest providers and that's fine if that's the campaign you are going for then you don't need to go develop them any further then go to cave and kill X amount of goblins (the problem with that is well it's too much like a computer game in my opinion) now I'm not against Dungeon Crawls they are fun but require a great deal of work and we are talking about NPCs anyway. but then one day you suddenly have an idea for roleplaying that could greatly change the way the group plays the campaign (make sure that this is a good idea before doing so or you may regret it) and so you produce a very plot relevant NPC with a personality and  mannerisms and everything else you could think of what could possibly go wrong...

Well a lot can, firstly you must try to make a personality that isn't automatically irritating.(stupid speech pattern, overwhelming urge to perform "zany" antics) in one case (I was a player) we met an NPC who was prone for crazy antics such as stealing a wagon for us to travel in and causing the ere of the city guards. he then found a pair of shoes that allowed him to teleport (soon after the party jumped him , knocked him out and stole his shoes he then woke up and ran away crying like a baby) it later turned out he was the mayor of the next town we came across (much to our unending joy).

Then again they have to at least be a little bit original (well most of the time) it soon becomes obvious if they are a Drizzt clone or even if they are a clone of any other campaign or literary character (well unless the party have no clue about the setting in that case clone away).

Oh Drizzt how many DMs and players have copied you I wonder.

One thing is for certain when it comes to at least important NPCs (doing it for every NPC would be needlessly complicated) you should probably note down certain things about them (appearance how they speak, how the present themselves any important secrets that will be possible plot hooks later on etc).

Another thing some people might not do which is a shame is develop ideas and change things to fit better as long as something hasn't been well established yet it can be changed I had a fairly important NPC start off with  a very weird background after a couple of times having that character interact with the party I realized it would spoil too much of future plot points (and other characters that were yet to be introduced) I also changed their backstory for a another reason they had a strong link to the current party of characters but then, I thought what if so and so died then, shit too many plot holes. so I changed it and it worked  a lot better, pity the campaign died (my own fault).

The final thing I can think of that could be an issue with NPCs is the possibility is the creation of a Mary Sue character. Most people know what these creatures are and are rarely liked especially if the campaign becomes centered around them and not the PCs (great way to kill a campaign there if it gets too over the top).

so um yeah I think I've rambled on long enough on NPCs, next entry will be about Villains. until next time this is Owler signing off for now.   

An Introduction of Sorts (part 2)

    Right then, I've decided I've been quiet for far too long. Hello everybody, I'm Alifornication, the other half of the Dungeon Monkeys. Whereas my co-blogger has jumped right in with his 'confessions of an average DM' my posts will have no such order or theme. Instead I will be posting allsorts of stuff starting with a post (or three) about a short lived campaign I ran a while back. I suppose my main focus will be tabletop and wargames and how NOT to play both but I may talk about other topics too. Now that the boring part is out of the way, let's get stuck into a pathfinder game. Also, to those who read this, please leave comments or vote or whatever it is you do on these things.

Till then, peace be the journey.

Something extra (a brief review of Heroes of the Elemental Chaos)

I recently got my copy of Heroes of The Elemental Chaos and I thought I'd give a very very brief opinion on the 2 new classes introduced in the book.

Firstly I will briefly mention the new options for Druids, Monks and Warlocks. all in all a few nice things the new Sentinel build is a nice touch having one focusing on a Druid that focuses on waste lands such as deserts can be pretty good if you were doing a dark sun setting or one that focuses on deserts in general the new option for the core druid I just shrug my shoulders new option that's all really for me. the new Monk stuff kind of cool and new build options allow for some new ideas like a Monk with high charisma  interesting idea I spose, Warlock Elemental pact interesting if you like elemental themed warlock over fey or other sources of power.

Now to talk about the new classes, first the Elementalist Sorcerer, In my opinion a nice edition to 4e (shame it comes in the Twilight of 4e's lifespan and not earlier. as an essentials class it's pretty good very simple and can do a lot of damage the fire Elementalist just in general seems to be the best for damage but obviously is limited to fire attacks so against fir enemies they are kinda screwed for damage they also eventually get a unique move option but fire gets probably the best with an at-will teleportation speed wheres as air focused ones get fly speed (which is handy but still provokes opportunity attacks.Waters swim speed can be useful as for   Earth's burrow speed just... too bad you don't get this bonus till level 23 by which point most epic destinies do far more interesting shit but all in at least it seems fun to play.

The Sha'ir Wizard, oh where do I begin, oh yeah easy zzz. seriously this class just looks so boring less spells then any other wizard type and a mildly better (well more combat orientated) familiar over the witches options special power to separate them from the others... you can change a daily power or utility once a day from any other power of the same level. so a bit better version of the wizards spell book a problem is well it's any spell form any of the published books there are at-least 6 or 7 books with wizards spells so if you use this power you will be flicking through books a lot if you want to choose a new spell more fitting to you (if you have the online character builder then it's not as much of a big deal but still) so probably half the time you will not use this feature meaning you have a mediocre wizard with a meh familiar. stick with the mage or core wizard (or the Bladesinger they're awesome) or even the witch if you are so inclined.

that's my general thoughts on the classes I like heroes of the Feywild stuff more but maybe it's just the stuff that was added in it was more to my kind of thing (I gotta admit I like the Bard and Barbarian options in that book) this was a ramble about D&D 4e, this is Owler signing off for now.

Confessions of an Average DM 3 (life on the rails)

Welcome again weary adventurer to this little blog, a bit of a delay getting it out but we move on to our next topic of story in a campaign. in all honesty I must admit when it comes to railroading I can think of a few times I have done some rather egregious attempts of railroading. I have improved over the time as a DM and have had around a years worth of DMing experience all told (only really been playing table top RPGs for little over 18 months so 2 thirds of that as a DM) some examples I have done include making it rain rather violently so the party had to stay in a town for plot to happen because the party where simply (an admittedly sensibly) flee the town before bad shit happened  =_= not a very good way to handle it and the campaign soon fell apart shortly after not just because of this but it was one of the first warning signs in hindsight.

Railroading the Eberron way

 This moves on to my main point (how well is up to you) how important is story in a campaign , well it really does depend on the DM and the players of course I my self like having a very plot-centric campaign in my own setting using my best ideas when ever I can this means however I use the rails rather strictly, however I have learnt to use rails in a good way I simply use the characters backgrounds (which I insist on my players having at least some form of backstory) as a means to move the story forward sometimes successfully sometimes not so much having villains be part of an an important plot hook for a player is a good way of keeping the player interested but has its own problems such as the player thinking that the campaign is about their character and what if that character dies what then, simple you improvise but in a more open ended campaign just using a world as a back drop you can get around a character death or even a total party kill by shifting focus to somewhere else entirely with new characters (admittedly this is depends very much on the group) but if the actions of the old party did effect the world for the new party the players might like this touch and it would be  a good way to improve your abilities at building a campaign setting.

I think I should talk a little more about open world or sand-box type campaigns it pretty much is  a type of campaign with little in the way of a main story, well this can be untrue and in some great campaigns I'm pretty sure it can be very untrue the trick with the open world campaigns with plot is well a lot of things happen behind the scenes (and therefore in the DMs head) if you can pull off a world like that more power to you because it will take a lot of effort (and lots of notes). if you have an idea for a story line in this world for the party to interact with then one of the better ways is to make changes to it if need be such as instead of one country being involved in some form of dastardly plot to destroy another make it one that is nearer to the characters a cheap tactic I admit but it would feel better over the party is suddenly transported to another part of the world entirely against their will the party are far less likely to rebel if you do it the first way.

All in all plot rails can be a good way to control a campaign as long as you don't make them the only option it can lead to a fair few unhappy players and then an unhappy DM. Well that's all I have to say for story focused versus open world settings, this is Owler signing off for now.