Curse of Strahd as a Sandbox

So, if you've been following me for any decent amount of time, you will have scene by several rants about the Curse of Strahd book. I've complained that Death House as a dungeon didn't have encounters that reinforced the theme of the adventure. I've complained that the Village of Barovia is portrayed as a boring place with nothing interesting going on. But then I had a conversation with someone (I don't remember who, my friend Julia maybe?) about my frustrations, and she was all, "it's a sandbox, Lexi."

That made me take a step back. I've been treating the adventure path like a sandbox. I added a really fun story arc in the Village of Barovia with Ireena. Since she refused to leave before her father was buried, I added in this scene at the church. It was being assaulted by dire wolves as the father worked to dig a grave for Ireena's father. But the deadline for her father's soul to escape Ravenloft was midnight (I've come up with lore that if you aren't buried within three days after dying, your soul belongs to Strahd).

The priest was burying Ireena's father... only, Strahd had made a deal with him. Make sure that soul gets to me, and I will fix your son. So Father Danovich was digging the grave slowly, buying as much time as he had.

Eventually the characters realized what was going on, and has thousands of ravens swarmed in the skies above (raven swarms), they forced him to complete the burial ritual. Then the characters escaped the church and fled from the town as the ravens bit and scratched them to bloody pieces.

But finally they escaped into the fog. Only to come face to face with Strahd himself, and through the vampire lord experience just how horrific Ravenloft is.

It was a super fun adventure, full of tension, intrigue, and suspense. And at the end of it, I was angry that the book hadn't provided something interesting for the players to do like that.

Only, if Curse of Strahd is a sandbox, it sort of did. I didn't make up Ireena, or Father Danovich, or even Danovich's son locked in the basement slowly turning into a vampire. I did add the Direwolves in, but in other chapters of the book it's mentioned that Strahd uses them. The only thing I really added to the setting was some lore about the importance of burial rituals, and that they can only be performed by priests that Strahd has given the duty to. Everything else was there.

I just played with it, twisted it to my own ends, and came out with a really fun couple of sessions.

When the characters escaped Strahd, they badly wanted a town to rest in that wasn't the Village of Barovia. In my mind I thought that Vallaki was much closer to the town than it is on the map, so I introduced it as a place of refuge. And it's themes are perfect. Barovia is a hopeless place of the downtrodden, but on the surface Vallaki is a place of happiness and freedom! I'm so glad that I introduced this town early, because the juxtaposition between the two towns is amazing.

But when I started preparing for Vallaki, I approached it differently. Instead of expecting to find an adventure to run, I just noted down major NPCs. I noted what their motivations were, how much power they had on a scale from 1-3, and what their reputation was with the players. I came up with this:

The list below is a list of factions, a summary of power (rated 1-5), and it's reputation with the players (starting at 0 and progressing from -3 to +3).

Urwin. Innkeeper of the Blue Water Inn. Holding Tomb of Strahd. Quest: Retrieve the wine (award: treasure chest. 140 gp, 70 pp. 2 elixers of health, 3 potions of healing, and 1 grey bag of tricks). Power: 2. Reputation: -1.

Wolf Hunters: Szoldar Szoldarovich and Yevgeni Krushkin. Hunt dire wolves and sell meat and skins for a living. Will work for money. Excellent guides, some information. Know that people are shipped off to Castle Ravenloft, only tell if they are paid 100 gold. Power: 1. Reputation: 0

Rictavio: A half-Avariel bard. Aerie's son, and worshiper of the Gnome God Wildwanderer. His real name is Elaroth, but he has adopted Rictavio after the legendary vampire hunter "Rudolph van Richten." He has heard of the Keepers of the Feather and is trying to get in contact with them. He is also gathering information on the Vistani camped to the north west. They are working for Strahd (taking villagers from the Burgomeister and taking them to Castle Ravenloft). Once he finds out, he plans on attacking them with his saber-toothed tiger. Power: 1. Reputation: 2 (because of Ariane).
Rictavio's Journal: In his room, open on his desk, is a journal Rictavio writes to keep up the illusion that he is an entertainer in search of new acts for his traveling carnival. He makes frequent mention of conversations with Drusilla (his horse, although the journal fails to mention that). He also writes about various oddities he has seen in his travels, including:

• A "werehare" child (a boy who transforms into a rabbit on the full moon)
• A half-orc woman named Gorabacha who could chew through iron chains
• A giant, man-eating plant that has the most beautiful singing voice he's ever heard
• A pair of conjoined goblins
• A small man with no legs named Filmore Stunk who could drink whole casks of wine without getting drunk.

The Valakovich Family: Power 3, Reputation 0

• Baron Vargas Vallakovich: Ruthless. Unhappy. Bent on keeping the city free of Strahd. Festivals to provide hope. Publically the hope "Keeps Strahd at bay," but in reality, when people die of hope, he has their bodies shipped to Castle Ravenloft. Catchphrase: "All will be well" Secrets: Bodies, Almost 200 years old by virtue of Strahd's blood. Always accompanied by two huge mastiffs.
• Izek Strazni: The Baron's servant, and "Hand of the Baron." He is supposed to be in charge of the government's economic well being, but in reality he is the person that the Baron uses to disappear people. All the mimes on the street corners report to Strazni, and are willing to take out whoever he orders.
• Baroness Lydia Petrovna: Vargas' wife. She has desperately picked up her husband's insistence that "all will be well" but at the cost of her sanity, for she does not believe it. She hosts daily high tea ceremonies at the mansion, which is mostly attended by the poor because all the nobles have been put off by her strangeness caused by her desperation. She is the younger sister of Father Lucian Petrovich, who is the leader of the Church of Pelor.
• Baronet Victor Vallakovich: Miserable and depressed, wants nothing but to get away from the city. He is adamantly opposed to the "Tyranny of Happiness" that his father governs with. He found a spell book in the attic, and is trying to build a teleportation circle to escape (give players hope of escaping Ravenloft?)

Watcher Family: Power 2, Reputation 0

• Lady Fiona Watcher: Leader of the Watcher House. She craves to rule the city, and makes no secret of her loyalty to Lord von Zarovich (Strahd's official title). She is the High Priestess at the Temple of Shar, and is allowed some actual divine power by Strahd for her loyalty. However, at most she can cast 2nd level spells, and then only clumsily (all concentration checks made at a disadvantage). However, more than Shar, she is a member of the Cult of Awakening, who believe that the Eternal Sleeper will awaken from his slumber, and the world that is his dream will be destroyed. She has a book of summoning rituals in her private chambers, with the same snake symbol as that at the Death House.
• Nikolai and Karl: Brash Drunkards, always looking for trouble. They don't like talking about their mother, but they would be overjoyed to join a revolution.They love listening to character's tales of adventure, the more harrowing the better. Power: 0. Reputation: 0.
• Ernst Larnak: Fiona's spy. He is a super greedy person who would love to get job with the Baron, however Fiona has seen to it that he would never be welcome there. He knows Fiona's secrets, and would love to sell them to someone who would free him from her power.

Gadolf Blinsky: The toymaker of Vallaki, "Is no fun, without Blinsky!" Used to be a mime in the employee of the Baron's spy. He still feels a great debt to Izek for getting him the store, and makes free dolls for the man every month. The dolls are supposed to represent Ireena, and they are shipped to Strahd along with the shipment of bodies. He adamantly believes in the Baron's "all will be well" slogan, and he has a collection of super weird and creepy toys. Power: 0, Reputation 0, Contacts 2. 

Ivankov Valerianovich - Baker in town. No one leave Ivankov place sad! Power: 0, Reputation 1, Contacts 0

Manqoba's Fashion: Manqoba is a Shadar' Kai fashion maker who was banished from the tribe after trying to challenge for the throne. He somehow maintained his life, but he ran from the city, and the leader would love to have him killed. Luckily it is incredibly rare for Shadar' Kai to leave their village. His status as a tailor for the well to do gives him tons of information, and he is incredibly good at playing the game of intrigue. Power: 1, Reputation: 0, Contacts 4

I love this! If I was publishing it, I'd clean it up some. But it's just a list of NPCs that I can look at in the moment and decide what's going on. For example, the Baron is already pretty upset with two of my players for being unhappy on the streets. He has invited them to dinner at his mansion where he plans on doing away with them.

However, my players don't know that, and are just excited to go to the Baron's. They wanted to shop for proper outfits, and so I introduced Manqoba's Fashions. When Manqoba heard about the invitation he knew what was up, but he knows the game of intrigue. And so just as the players are about to leave, he says, "Oh, wait, I just thought of a perfect thing to go with that dress," and he pulls out an elegant silver Ouroboros (snake eating it's own tail) on a thin chain. It goes great with the dress, but the players have no idea it's the symbol for Lady Marks, and that by wearing it they are showing that they have her backing.

All of this to protect the players, and they don't even know it's happening yet. And although I've added in Manqoba, all the other players in this little intrigue are in the book. I'm just using them.

So, to sum up, I still have some problems with the actual book. But I also think I owe an apology to the book as well. It has some really fantastic situations, NPCs, and events. It's just up to the DM to pull that together. And in the end, as a fan of improvisational Dungeon Mastering, that's all I really want to do anyway.

Sending Players out of the Room

This is a topic that came up in the Curse of Strahd game that I'm running. One of my players decided to split from the rest of the party and go investigate a temple to the Raven Queen by himself. He worships her, and it was a private moment of reflection for him. He was surprised by the fact that I didn't pull him into a different room and do the scene in private.

I've run scenes in private before, but this scene didn't really feel right for that, which led me to think about the different tone and attitudes you create around the table by deciding what to keep private, and what to keep transparent. This is the theory that I came up with:

When you take a player aside to do a private scene, you add a sense of mystery and intrigue to the game. No one else at the table knows what that person is doing (obviously), and that can lead to people wondering, "just what is the rogue across the table up to?"

When you run a private scene with everyone at the table, it creates a sense of transparency. But I think it also creates a sense of teamwork, a consensus that the players are "all in this together." Nothing is hidden from them, so they don't have to worry that the chaotic neutral sorcerer is about to betray them to the big bad.

So why did I decide to run this scene at the table? After all, Curse of Strahd is a adventure of gothic horror, it would make sense to keep things secret, hidden, in the dark. It would add tension to the table, and create a greater feeling that anything could happen.

And I might get there later in the adventure. But right now the characters are still new to Ravenloft. They've faced some truly horrific events, events that have left a few of them questioning their ability to accomplish anything in the dark land. And that's the feeling I'm trying to push right now. Ravenloft isn't just dangerous. It's horrific. Even when you set out to do bad, things turn against you. I want them to feel like any way they turn could be a step in the wrong direction, but also build the tension so high that they have no choice but to take a step.

And through it all, I'm trying to make the characters feel like they can only rely on each other. They are the outsiders in Ravenloft, the only ones untouched by the shadow of Strahd, and the only trustworthy people in the entire realm.

And so I decided to run this scene at the table. I don't want players to be looking at each other side eyed right now, I want them pulling together against the darkness.

But this is early days, when the corruption that seeps through Strahd's realm hasn't truly affected them yet. Later in the game I will want the players to start questioning each other. Has someone made an agreement with the vampire so that they can return to their normal lives? Is someone giving away party plans to the spymaster of Vallaki for a handful of coin, and a promise of sanctuary in the city? Later I'll want that tension at the table.

But not yet. And when I look up from my notes and meet my players eyes, then say, "Everyone but Vaclav, I need you to leave the room," for the first time the change will leave them wondering what's going on even more.

So, I suggest that you think carefully about sending players out of the room. Normal dungeon masters have a set policy, but great dungeon masters deliberate over questions like these, and use these moments to craft the mood they want.

Freedom Fridays: Downtime as a System

It's Freedom Friday, where I write whatever the flip I want. Because seven days of blog posts is insane, and I'm going to die, and why am I still doing this?! I'm in a prison formed by my own aspirations, and all I want is FREEDOM!!!

I read a post earlier today about downtime in an rpg. I'm not going to link it because I didn't like most of it, but it did set me to thinking about what I didn't like, things I have used in the past, and the system I'm using now. Most of all, it made me think about what I use downtime for, and the reasons to have it in the game at all.

I used to be the DM that didn't use downtime at all. When I first started playing in D&D 3.5 I did the whole random encounter, play out a trip every day, and stay in a city for a long time between adventures thing. For the most part I thought it added bulk to a game that was already bulky. What did rolling a die on a percentage table add to the story if I rolled a random encounter with a displacer beast?

That led to a period of time where I cut all that stuff out entirely. If necessary, I figured out how long a trip would take (if the players were on a time sensitive quest), but I started waving my hand through the travels. The only time I would zoom in on that time was if there was something interesting going on. If the players were traveling with a circus, there would damn well be moments to capture that feel. There would be scenes with actors practicing their scenes. There might be scenes with the circus getting run out of towns. Or maybe the entire circus would be haunted and try to pull the characters into its curse.

But those things are thematic. So much of the time characters get on a couple horses, or just hoof it down the road to the next village. Or the end up in town for a couple weeks with nothing to do. And those things just weren't fun for me.

But then I started listening to an actual play podcast called Friends at the Table. I've talked about them before, and that's because they do a lot of things I like. They also do some things I really don't like - but that's besides the point. Friends at the Table played through a system called Blades in the Dark, and I fell in love. The system was built for gritty urban gang fighting. It has an entire system of street level gangs and organizations, each with their own power level, and each out to get what they want - even if it means going through the player's gang. But most of all it has a downtime system that I absolutely love.

Between each job that your player's gang takes, there's a bit of downtime. This represents the time it takes for the characters to find a new job, but also allows other factions in the city to adjust to the new status quo. Right after finishing a job, characters gain reputation with different factions, sometimes positive - often negative. It also represents a period of time that the players can recover their health and sanity.

Blades in the Dark offers the following downtime activities:

• Acquire an Asset 
• Work on a long term project
• Recover
• Indulge a vice
• Train

Recovering is taking time to heal, and Indulging a vice allows you to relax and rest your mind. Acquiring an asset let's you find NPCs to add to your gang (this is especially helpful to fill roles you don't cover as a group), look for a magic item, find a contact, or a variety of other things. Basically, any time you want to find someone or something that takes time to track down, you use the acquire an asset move. Training is working on a new skill. And working on a long term project is just that. A long term project might be building a magical device, researching a new spell, or a variety of other things that take longer than an afternoon to complete.

But what I love most about the downtime system isn't just what the characters can do. It's what the Game Master can do as well. Because Blades in the Dark offers one more thing: Entanglements.

Whenever a character uses one of the moves above, the GM can pull them into an entanglement, which is a simple situation that drives the story forward. It's often caused by the reactions of different factions to the jobs players have done. If the gang is at war with another gang, the player might get kidnapped (or have to fight kidnappers off on their own). If the gang is known for trading information, they might get approached by a new contact on a shadowy street corner. But it doesn't have to be related to the factions. I used this move to pull one of my characters into a river haunting. The whole encounter took maybe fifteen minutes to run, but it let me set up a story hook that I plan to use in the future.

Entanglements are why I love downtime, because the downtime isn't just about the boring things that characters do, but another opportunity to add story, intrigue, and problems to character's lives.

But as much as I love the system that Blades in the Dark uses, there's an Unearthed Arcana downtime system for 5th edition that I think deserves some attention as well. I don't like it quite as much, but it has some good things about it, and remembers that downtime should drive a story forward, not slow it down.

This system gives your players a list of activities for players to do while in downtime as well. But it also has the DM create NPCs that work as Foils to the character. It shows the DM how to create long term plans and goals that the foil is working on. The foil shouldn't be the current major villain of the campaign, but they are there to get in the way of the characters and make life complicated. It details how to create a time line for the villain, setting up a list of actions and events that happen if the players don't get involved.

It's quite a fun little system, and I used it in a game not too long ago. It worked really well, and coming up with the foils was a lot of fun.

So, it turns out that I actually like using downtime. But it needs to be in the game for a reason. Like random encounters, it's only appealing to me if it drives the story forward. I'll do an entire post on random encounters down the line. But for now, I suggest giving downtime a try. But remember not to let it get boring, and if you don't have anything interesting planned (or that you can improvise), remember that it's okay to wave your hand and magically make it three days or weeks later.

The Sunday Slog: Cooperative World Building

When I first started Dungeon Mastering I wanted to be completely in charge of the setting and the world. It never occurred to me that other people would create NPCs. That didn't make any sense. Other people were players, and allowing players to have that sort of input would lead to spoilers. It would let players know about things I thought were exciting, things I might use later in the plot, and to me that felt like the worst transgression in the world.

I wasn't even aware of my thoughts on the matter. Unless I was working on a setting with another Dungeon Master, world building was something that I did on my own. The idea of anything else never occurred to me.

But then systems running on Powered by the Apocalypse came out. The first one was Dungeon World, and as I opened it up I was met with a brand new idea.

Let players be part of the world design. It's been a long time since I've looked at the actual system, so I might get some of this wrong. But the idea is that when you start a Dungeon World game, instead of telling the players where they start and what they are doing, you have a conversation. It might go like this:

DM: I'm going to run a game that takes place in a small swamp village. Most of the houses and shelters are built on poles, or in the tree tops, or maybe around gigantic tree stumps. Let's see, one of you is playing a rogue. What brings you to a village in a swamp that's in the middle of nowhere? Have you been here long, and if not, where have you been on this map? (pulls out a mostly blank map and puts it on the table).

Rogue: I'm actually playing an Assassin. I'm part of an elite assassin organization. Can we call it the Black Hand, or the Shadowed Hand?

DM: Yeah, I like the Shadowed Hand.

Rogue: Okay, cool. I haven't been in the village long. I usually spend most of my time in a city. But since this village is pretty remote, maybe we can say the closest real urban center is two weeks away? Between here and there might be a couple small villages, but not many.

DM: That works. Where do you want to put the city on the map?

Rogue: Well, cities do well when they have access to the coast. So let's put it over here. (points to a place on the map close to a bay). I like the idea that's its a hub of commerce, and the Shadowed Hand has a training center here for the people they choose to join their ranks.

DM: Excellent. That sounds perfect. Which one of you is playing the Bard?

...

And the scene would go on from there. As each player adds locations to the map you pick up more plot hooks. The Rogue is in the village because he is on a job tracking down a judge that sent a major criminal mastermind to jail, but then had to flee for his life. The Druid is here because they are trying to find the location of a rare herb. The herb is said to grant wishes to those that can talk to it.

This is players adding real depth to the world, and I fell in love with the idea.

And then I ran into the Dresden Files game that's powered by FATE Core. And if Dungeon World let's players add some influence to the game, The Dresden Files RPG lets them have major influence in the game. The system even comes with a city building sheet that gets pulled out during session zero. As a group you all decide what kind of supernatural threats your city is facing, what organizations are helpful or malicious, what themes and ideas you want to explore during the game. And none of this is made up by the GM alone. You pick the city you play in as a group, design the city as a group, play in the city as a group.

Image Capture of a Dresden Files RPG city building sheet

Of course, once a game starts the GM gets to play around with stuff. But the core world building is completely cooperative, and again - I fell in love with the idea.

And then finally I landed on gamed like Dawn of Worlds and Microscope. These are games that take the idea of world building and turn it into an actual game! In Dawn of Worlds you get points each round that you can spend to do things like create a Diety, form a mountain range, or birth a new race. You get to declare wars, watch religions rise and fall, and instigate world changing apocalypses. And at the end of a game? You have an entire world in the middle of a story, perfect to pick up and run in a fantasy RPG game.

I love Dawn of Worlds, and I have used it more than once to generate a campaign setting with the group I'm going to be playing with.

But... why do cooperative world building at all? What about all those worries I was talking about before? What about spoilers, and keeping things secret to enhance player fun, and things like that?

Well... I think there might be an argument to be made there. Only, the thing is, even in Dungeon World where the world building is kept fairly small scale, it's still very broad. Yes, there is an assassin organization called the Shadowed Hand. But we didn't talk about who it's leaders are, what it's role in the world is, and things like that. The GM can still decide that the organization is really testing their assassin, and if they don't do their job right they will get killed in turn.

And in other, bigger games, it's even broader. I think that there is still a massive amount of room to hold some good cards close to your chest.

In addition, cooperative world building fits into one of my core DM tenants: Tell your player's stories. Don't tell your own.

Finally, I find that cooperative world building gets players invested in the game in ways that they aren't when the DM is making all the decisions behind the scenes. I didn't do any cooperative world building with my Curse of Strahd game because the setting is already there. And my players are invested in the Gothic horror around them... but not quite in the same way. I think that my CoS game is sort of missing some of the attitude I've grown to love because we didn't have that world building session.

If you haven't given cooperative world building a try, I suggest you do. You might love it as much as I do. 

Art Filler

Normally I make a post about homebrew content on Saturdays. But my boyfriend is here for the weekend, so instead I'm going to share five or six art pieces that I've saved. I keep a tumblr tag for art that might inspire a character, NPC, monster, or setting. These are some of my favorites:

By Vaejoun, they have some really adorable art

This one I found at The GM Screen. I love it because it's totally filling the Curse of Strahd vibe.

This one is from Eric Basilette

Max Kostin did this one. Isn't it cool and weird?

And last! This one meeting the whole cute and creepy asthetic that I adore! By Yuchen Hong.

Freedom Fridays: Micro Stories

It's Freedom Friday, where I write whatever the flip I want. Because seven days of blog posts is insane, and I'm going to die, and why am I still doing this?! I'm in a prison formed by my own aspirations, and all I want is FREEDOM!!!

Micro stories are a thing that I started doing for my Urban Fantasy game. I've been listening to a lot of Friends at the Table recently, and one thing I really like about what Austin does is the bits of story and lore that pop up at the beginning of each episode. Most of the time they are in the forms of letters or communications, and a lot of the time they don't talk about things that directly influence the plot. But they always add a tiny bit to the world, and I think that they are a great way to set the mood.

I have a microphone, and I have audacity. So I figured I could give my own version of micro stories a try. My players and I built the setting (Boston) of our urban fantasy game together, figuring out what supernatural creatures would be running around, the organizations and interesting locations, and where their home base would be... The Boston Public Library. But most of that was done in broad strokes, and the stories were ways that could flesh things out a bit. But I have a rule for them, the stories can't even answer questions, just create more.

This mix of story and audio is what I came up with:

An Act of Mercy

Entropy

The Light Drinkers

Each of those tiny audio files is only a couple minutes long, and sometimes the background music is better chosen than others. But I really enjoy putting these together, and it doesn't take much time at all. And it really does set the mood at the table. I sort of love it.

Improvised Thursdays: The Village of Barovia

"Captain, I'm givin' her all she's got. She canna handle any more!"

A daily update cycle?! What in the world am I thinking? Maybe I wasn't. I said when I started this whole project that I wasn't sure what the final form would be.

It probably won't be seven posts a week though. It's exhausting.

Still, what's a project for if not to run into like slamming yourself into a brick wall until you're burned out and beaten to a pulp?

I wonder how much mental stress I can take. I think I'm taking the minor consequence, "a bit overwhelmed."

Anyways...

Welcome to Improvised Thursdays, where I give advice on the actual theme of the blog - how to improvise better. 

As I make my way through Curse of Strahd I'm planning on providing something that I really wish the module provided - a list of improvisation suggestions for each chapter. I'm skipping the first chapter because I used a modified version of Death House to teleport my players directly to Ravenloft. Instead I'm starting off with Chapter Two.

Improvisation Guidelines: The Village of Barovia

The village of Barovia is the saddest place in the land, its residents so terrified of Strahd that they rarely venture from their homes. The village lies in the shadow of Castle Ravenloft, buried under fog but still unable to hide from the vampire's sight.

Until recently, Strahd had been paying nightly visits to Ireena Kolyana, the adopted daughter of the village burgomaster. Ireena carries the soul of Strahd's beloved Tatyana and looks exactly like her. Strahd intends to make Ireen his bride, and turn her into a vampire.

That's how the introduction to the village reads. During your prep time, don't be afraid to change things up. I've given Strahd a flavor addition - he doesn't just feed off blood, but emotions. He hungers for hope the most, but also feeds on anger, terror, and other powerful feelings. This has left most of the villagers feeling muted and apathetic.

Once your finished with your prep, start the game. But invariably you'll be faced with a situation you aren't prepared for. When you do keep the following in mind:

• Barovia lies in the shadow of Castle Ravenloft. Strahd's eyes are everywhere. Maybe a raven watches the players cross the street. Maybe a dozen rats start following the players. Or maybe a villager offers to help the players somehow, only to turn them over to one of Strahd's monsters.
• Barovia is the real introduction to Ravenloft. Hit your players hard with the themes you are running with in your game. The themes I'm running with are "Hope is the enemy" and "Ravenloft's shadow touches everything - even you." Whatever your themes are, create scenes that slam them home.
• The book will tell you that most villagers rarely leave their home, and those that do are too frightened to interact with the players. But that doesn't mean there's nothing to do. Remember that Barovia is a sand box, and you aren't limited to the couple of scenarios in the book. 
• A key element to the description of the village is that it's covered in fog. Remember that in your descriptions. Castle Ravenloft fades into view as the fog burns away. Or only the vague outline of the church can be made out through the thick mist. Or a heavy silence lies over the village, and the fog even seems to steal your footsteps. 

That's pretty much it. Remember to think about the key NPCs that you need to introduce, especially Ismark and Ireena if you're going to play out Ireena's story. There's also a mad woman and some hags to play with that could come up as well.

Hopefully this helps someone. Enjoy your game!

Story Wednesdays: My First Story Focused DM

Welcome to Story Wednesdays, where I share stories from my past that are fun, helpful, or inspirational. Or sometimes I just want to reminisce, at which point... stay on the boat, folks, because we are navigating a river of the damned, and if you get off, who knows what might happen to you.

By the time I entered college, I'd been playing Dungeons and Dragons for six years. I knew the D&D 3.5 Player's Handbook like the back of my hand. I could site rules and pages from memory. I knew (because me and my friend had stayed up one night until four in the morning checking through every book that had been published) that there were rules to regrow a limb, but there weren't any rules to lose one in the first place. Of course, it could happen for story reasons, but it seemed to us that if there were actual mechanics to grow an arm back, there should be mechanics to have it cut off in the first place.

That friend and I played D&D every day after high school for almost three years. There were other games with larger groups that happened on a weekly, or bi weekly, or monthly basis. But I could always count on my game with Marcus. It was always there.

The thing about it though, was that neither of us had played much outside of our small group. I longed for a group that wanted to take the game seriously, to pick up the rp and treat it as important as the rules, and that just wasn't the group I was playing with.

Then I got to college, and one Game Master made everything change.

I stumbled on the group three weeks into my first semester. I was eating in the cafeteria, and I overheard this group at another table talking about Tiamat, Raistlin, and Tanis. They were talking about Dragonlance, and if they were talking about that, it was almost a guarantee that they played D&D. I was thrilled. I hadn't met any other gamers yet. I had just gone from playing every single weekday to not playing at all.

I was having gaming withdrawal.

So I almost threw myself at this group and begged to be in their game. And they smiled, told me that their friend Geo was running a Final Fantasy game, and that they still needed a white mage for heals.

So I made a character in this crazy system and jumped in.

I was flabbergasted. Geo described things in such detail. Characters talked to each other in character. There was story. And not just a backdrop of story for shenanigans to take place in. No, there was serious story that felt like it had actual stakes. 

It was like nothing I had ever seen before. This is what roleplaying was supposed to be like. This is what I'd been searching for ever since I started trying to design my own table top games before I knew that table top games were a thing.

I played two other games with Geo. And by the end of the third game I had become a bit less enthusiastic. Maybe it was time. Maybe it was the fact that I was still running games at least two times a week, and was maturing as a GM myself. But by the end of that third game I was realizing something that has changed the way I think about games.

Geo's games had story. But it wasn't our story. It was his story.

Oh, we had some room to play in it. But in the end we were always going to go from point a to point b to point c. There was never going to be anything that would steer the game in a completely different direction. And that wasn't because our characters didn't have influence in the world, but rather that in the end they had no influence on the story.

We might die and create new characters. But if a boss was supposed to get away - he was always going to get away.

And as I realized that, my awe faded. I still liked playing in his games, but I could see the cracks that all of us have as Dungeon Masters. Because no one is perfect, and styles aren't always the same.

But his style influenced my style. A decade or two later, PbTA games would form my feelings into a single phrase: play to see what happens. 

I love that phrase. As a Dungeon Master I no longer prepare stories. I prepare settings. I prepare groups and organizations and cities and dungeons. I come up with story hooks to give my players something to do. But I don't come up with a specific end plot. Instead I let the players take control.

Because I don't want to sit at the table to tell my story. I want to sit at the table and enable the players to tell their own.

Bonus Content: Barovia

So I've been running Curse of Strahd. We just finished Death House. One of my players was switching characters, so his old one got kidnapped. I had an entire adventure planned on tracking him down, which my players deftly sidestepped.

It happens. Instead they decided to play around in Barovia.

So, for those of you that don't know, Barovia is a small village filled with villagers that are terrified of Strahd. None of the regular villagers want to interact with the characters at all, and most are so scared of Strahd that they don't even leave their homes. That's what the book says.

Worse, in the book there is hardly any action at all. This is the first real place that introduces Ravenloft, and I get that the book is trying to slam home how hopeless Barovia's plight is. But the only two possibly threatening encounters are a vampire spawn and a list of random encounters - both of which probably aren't going to come up.

I'll talk more in a future post about how I ran the session and what I put together. But, like, really. I love this setting so much, but this book is just terrible from front to back. I sort of wish that I hadn't bought it, and just improved my way through a Ravenloft game instead.

Taco Tuesdays: Costume Fairy Adventures!

Welcome to Taco Tuesdays, where I add more meat to your gaming tortilla by featuring cool, new systems! 

You guys, if I have a wheel house its cute things, and creepy things. And today's featured game is maybe the cutest game I've ever seen.

Remember how incredible Final Fantasy X-2 was? I know, I know. Everyone hated it. It was clearly made to market to a female audience, and it was crazy condescending. But look, it was exactly marketed to me, and I loved every second of it. Getting to play a Yuna Magical Girl game where clothes determined if I was shooting guns or casting Rage on people?! Yes please!

And this game comes closer to that experience that any table top rpg I've ever seen. Welcome to Costume Fairy Adventures!

"Ladies, I have called you all here today to steal this train... and jump it over the palace!"

That's the first line that introduces you to the flavor of the game. Isn't that amazing? This game is published by Penguin King Games , and it advertises itself as an "improvisational game for 2 to 7 players. About fairies. In costumes. Having adventures."

 I think that Penguin King Games has been spying on me, because never in my entire life have I run across a game that just speaks to me like this one.

The base mechanic that resolves situations is a dice pool influenced by your Facets and Quirks. Facets are a tiny bit like attributes in Dungeons and Dragons, while Quirks sorta work like Aspects in Fate. You get at least one die, extra dice depending on the strength of your facet, and you can invoke a quirk for an extra die by telling the group how that quirk applies to the situation.

And if you roll a six? Well, then you get a magic point and the GM gets a trouble point. That lets you use magic, and lets the GM screw you over however they want.

I haven't played this yet, but it's likely going to be the only game I'll run from now on. I'm running Curse of Strahd with my 5e D&D group, but starting next session I'm switching it around. The players will be playing fairies, fighting werewolves and vampires, and the theme will change from gothic/fantastical horror to super cute and creepy shock horror. It's going to be so exciting!

Okay, not really. Although I would run that game in a heart beat. Anyways, check out the game. It's incredible. And if you want to play in a one shot with me let me know, because I'll do just about anything to find a Costume Fairy Adventures group.

Bonus Content: Tavern Food

Mostly I'm showing this off because I made it, and I'm proud of it. But this would be perfect to serve in a fantasy game. I present: Berry Sweet Bread. It's a sugary bread with lots of blue berries and raspberries, finished with a pretty egg wash to make it gleam.

I shaped it like an S so it looked a bit more like a dragon!

Nefrondin: My Hypocrisy

+Kiel Chenier tagged me in a DM appreciation month challenge thing, and this is the original post:

Well, DM Appreciation Month is nearly over. Before it ends, I propose one last self-indulgent tradition.

Lore Garbage:
As a DM you get to post one really self indulgent thing about your game world. Something that isn't immediately applicable or useful to your players, but something that you just think is fun or cool or creepy or silly.
The kind of thing that if you told it to your players, they'd say "Oh, that's cool...hey, where do we go to buy dog armour again?".
You can do this however you like, but I suggest trying one of these two options:

• 10 Random Facts (that make your setting totally unique).Make a blog post listing ten random setting details about your game (no more than a short paragraph each) that differentiate it from every other setting. Stuff like "what are the dogs like?", "How does magic work?", "Which semi-important NPC is actually a poly morphed miniature pony?".
• Who's this dude? (and what's his/her life story?)Spend a blog post talking about a prominent NPC from your game. Give us all the weird and obscure details about them. Dip into spoilers if you want. Give us an NPC's backstory that your players will probably never get around to asking or caring about, but for some reason you do. 

When you're done, tag 3 people you'd like to see do the same. Know a dungeon master that could use some time to just twaddle on? Want to hear more about someone's game world? Tag them when you post to Google+.

Some players have characters that they bring to game after game. It doesn't matter who the Dungeon Master is, it often doesn't even matter what the setting is. That player always wants to play the character they have nursed to life over dozens of adventures.

Honestly, I usually roll my eyes at this. I prefer players come to my games with new concepts that they are excited to explore as our game grows. But that makes me a bit of a hypocrite, because there is one NPC that I bring into games over and over again.

His name is Nefrondin (Nef ren dyn). He has been many things, but originally he was a wizard NPC created by my high school friend Marcus. We used to play one on one all the time, switching DM duties back and forth. Nefrondin was made for an epic level game. He was a crazy powerful wizard obsessed with species, cloning, and mutation.

At the time I was playing an Elven Arcane Archer. By the end of the first encounter with Nefrondin I had been turned into a Drow, and the wizard had escaped. It was obvious that he was going to play a bigger part - but a few sessions later my character died.

For some reason we were both really captured by the idea of this wizard though. I'm not sure what about him intrigued us so much, but from that day forward he kept showing up again and again. For awhile I ran a game where most of the multi-verse had been destroyed. Marcus was playing one of a handful of divine touched characters that had survived the destruction. At first the world he played on was small, but as he grew in power, the world expanded. The idea was that the Divine Touched would restore the multiverse over time.

But there was a catch, most of the Divine Touched had been powerful characters before the apocalypse. But now their memories had been wiped, and they were all back to square one. I introduced Nefrondin in this game, and he picked up the title "First of the Humans."

It's been over fifteen years since those one on one D&D sessions came to a close. Marcus has moved across the country and I see him maybe once or twice a year. But somehow Nefrondin always ends up appearing in my games. Most of the time it's just in passing. My group is all new now, and no one would remember him from my high school days. And so they never know who he is.

Or sometimes I weave him into the background of my setting. In college I created a huge world called Cromina, and he featured there as the First of the Humans as well. There were myths and legends about how he came into the world and was lonely. They were god taking a rib from Adam type stories... only Nefrondin was gay. Not only did he need to find a companion, a husband... but he also had to figure out how to have children when the only two humans in existence were male.

And every once in awhile, if the power levels in a game get high enough, he comes back as a significant NPC, intact with his race changing lab and obsession with learning the secrets of life.

I'm not going to tag anyone because I'm really just getting started, an my friend over at Skullboy Rolls the Dice has already been tagged. But I really enjoyed getting a chance to share something about a character I've been attached to for over a decade. Thanks Kiel!

The Sunday Slog: Preparing Death House

This is the Death House. It's a manor themed dungeon with over thirty rooms to explore. It's terrifying... and not for the reasons you think.

Let me describe a room for you. It's room number 19. Spare Bedroom. This web-filled room contains a slender bed, a night-stand, a rocking chair, an empty wardrobe, and a small iron stove.

Let's do a second room. How about a bathroom? It's room number 13. This dark room contains a wooden tub with clawed feet; a small, iron stove with a kettle sitting on top of it, and a barrel under a spigot in the east wall. A cistern on the roof used to collect rain water, which was borne down a pipe to the spigot; however, the plumbing no longer works. 

How about room number 17, another spare bedroom? This dust-choked room contains a slender bed, a night-stand, a small iron stove, a writing desk with a stool, an empty wardrobe, and a rocking chair. A smiling doll in a lacy yellow dress sits in the northern window box, cobwebs draped around it like a wedding veil.

Well, at least that room has some interesting imagery. I do like the idea of cobwebs forming a wedding veil...

Do you get why Death House is terrifying yet? It's not because it's infamously dangerous, killing off entire parties with undead horrors (I've heard war stories about the encounter with the ghouls). It isn't because the house is a sentient murder monster that wants to embrace your cold corpse for eternity.

It's terrifying because the idea of running a dungeon crawl with over thirty rooms, only five or six of which are interesting, is about the most boring idea I can think of. I'd rather peel some ginger and put it where the sun don't shine. It would be less painful.

However, I did run Death House with my Curse of Strahd group, and we all loved it. So, what changed? How did I take this worthless slog with a cool concept and turn it into three excitement filled sessions?

I basically hit cntrl+a, and then delete. Then I took the actual good ideas and built around them.

First, I started with the history of the house, which I mostly kept. It was owned by some rich cultists back in the past that worshiped some sort of eldar god. When Strahd showed up, the cultists thought they had succeeded, and invited Strahd to the house. They promised to serve him, and do whatever he wanted. But Strahd saw only weakness and had no desire for their help. He walked away and ordered the manor to be burned down, with the cultists inside.

That is a cool idea. But the book was pretty hazy about what the cult was actually worshiping. I added some flavor there, turning them into a cult that wanted to "Awaken the Dreamer," and used a lot of snake imagery. The belief is that once the dreamer awakens, there will be an apocalypse that fractures reality, and after the chosen few will rule over their own worlds. I also changed the idea that they thought Strahd was brought to Barrovia because of them. Rather, they thought he would be a powerful ally. The vampire thought differently and ordered the house burned.

That wasn't quite enough though. I wasn't starting my players off in Ravenloft, and I'd already played through the early opening where the players are lured there by the caravan people (their name escapes me, and isn't important here :D ). Instead I wanted Death House to transport them to Ravenloft.

So I turned it into a wandering mansion. The house appears next to a village on a hill that wasn't there the night before, always on the full moon. While it's there people say spirits wander the streets and children go missing. Strange fog swirls around the hill, driving people insane. The house is obviously haunted, but it's said to contain a great treasure for those that are brave enough to face the ghosts.

There. A hook that picks up characters that want to save a town and characters that want to fill their pockets with treasure.

Awesome. I had some history.

The thing is, history isn't actually interesting unless it's informing the present... which is something that I think wizards forgot when putting this adventure together. The house literally burns to the ground over and over again. But there's no fire encounter inside, no moment when fire erupts through a room, burning everything inside to ashes. Instead there's an encounter with a suit of animated armor, a swarm of insects, a grick, and a mimic.

Screw that. Not a single one of those things enhances the history of the house. Why even have a history at all?

There are only two and a half encounters in the entire adventure that I find interesting. The first is with a Spectre that used to be a nurse for a baby that died in the house (more on that later). The second is an encounter with four ghouls that used to be cultists. The last is with an Assassin Vine, and the only reason it is interesting is because the cultists gave it a name. I give it half a point for that I guess, but no way would I describe it as an Assassin Vine. If I'd wanted to keep it (which I didn't), I would have described it as a multi-headed serpent to fit into the cult's theme, and then used the vine's stat block.

Okay, enough harping on what the book did wrong. Suffice to say that I kept the encounter with the Spectre, and then threw out everything else. Then I finally got down to the actual game prep. This is what my notes look like (and what I wish more published adventures did).

Death House: Introduction to Ravenloft

House History: (I put a link here that led to the history. If I was writing this it would look like what follows). The history of Death House is creepy, and it ends in a flood of fire. You don't need to know it to run the adventure, but it will enhance your ability to improvise when needed. You can find the history in the back of the book (insert page number).

Adventure Summary: Death House is a quintessential ghost story about a malicious, intelligent house that wants to kill all those who enter. Much of the adventure follows two ghosts: Rose, and Thorne. Both were children that died in the house and want their spirits to be released.

Important NPC's: Rose, Thorne, Olivia Durst (mother), Nurse. (This was enough for me. If I was publishing this, I would add short descriptions of each character relaying physical descriptions and simple motivations. More detailed information would be in the back of the book).

Information to guide improvisational moments: 

• The cult was trying to summon a sleeping snake god. If in doubt, add more snakes (imagery, encounters, etc)
• The house has burned down over and over. If in doubt, add more fire. (Smell of smoke hanging in rooms, fire elementals that are actually the burning souls of servants, etc)
• The house creates illusions. Almost everything in the house is an illusion (food, clothes, etc).
• The house is intelligent and malicious. It is actively trying to kill the players. The house will do its best to interrupt any sort of long rest. Rely on points above, or pull inspiration from other creepy ghost stories you're familiar with.

A note on Maps: (This isn't in my notes, but I would add it if publishing) You will find a small collection of maps in the back of the book. You will not find a map of the entire mansion. Most exploration should be run in the theater of the mind. This allows you to relay points of interest quickly to keep the story moving.

Prepared Encounters: (I'm not going to get too detailed on these here. I'll include short descriptions, but not any stat blocks or anything like that. Again, if publishing that would be in the back of the book.

• Ghosts at the Gate: The players are forced up to the mansion as fog presses in all around them, trapping them outside the gates.The mansion creates illusions of Rose and Thorne to lure characters inside. They are terrified about a monster inside the house, and worried that the monster is going to swallow their little brother Walter whole.
• The children are terrified, and refuse to go back inside
• The children refuse to go into the house until the monster is gone. 
• If the children are attacked or forced to go inside, they scream in terror and disappear.
• A Kitchen of Flames: The servants were in the middle of preparing a feast for Strahd when the house burned down for the first time. When players enter the kitchen they see that every surface is covered in pots, and pans, and cooking utensils. The smell of fresh baked bread and meats fills the room with a delicious aroma. Once all the characters enter though things change. The entire kitchen is covered in illusionary fire. The sound of agonized screams fills the air, the aroma of food is replaced with that of charring meat, and through the flames characters can see the twisted forms of servants burning to death.
• The flames deal damage each round until a character passes a wisdom save.
• Before the save is passed, it's very hard to get out of the room. The fire, smoke, and screams are disorienting. Pass an intelligence save to get out, but make it at a disadvantage.
• When a character passes a wisdom save, they realize the scene is illusory. They stop taking damage, although can still see the illusions as transparent, ghost like images. 
• A character that has passed a wisdom save can aid another character once around, giving them advantage on their wisdom or intelligence saves.
• Shadows in the bedroom: The master bedroom has a set of beautiful french doors that open up onto a balcony. Olivia used the balcony as a place to practice summons, and there are four small summoning sigils around the edge of it. Above the balcony is a star filled night.
• When a player steps out onto the balcony, the sigils activate. 
• It looks like four stars shoot out of the sky and land on the balcony
• The stars form into twisted shadows, the remnants of the creatures that Olivia was trying to imprison. 
• The shadows attack mindlessly. 
• Key in the Library: There is a giant library on the second floor. In the library is a writing desk with a secret compartment. There is a key in the compartment that opens the doors to the cellar and crypts. 
• Secret Room: One of the shelves swings outwards to reveal a secret room. Inside is a chest that contains the deed to the house, leaving it to Rose and Thorne. There are also six leather bound journals full of summoning rituals. 
• This is a good place to add treasure, or an item that will fit a specific character. Probably not a weapon. A ring or trinket would fit well here.
• The key: The key is in a secret compartment. However, it is necessary to move on. If the players pass the DC to find the compartment, reward them with finding a secret door. Players feel good when they succeed. But if they don't, just put the key on top of the desk or something. 
• Banshee in the Nursery: Before entering the large nursery, there is a much smaller nurses chamber. It has a pallet bed and a tiny night stand, along with a simple door that leads into the main room. 
• When a character moves to open the door that leads into the nursery, a blast of wind erupts. If the character fails a Strength save they are knocked into the opposite wall and take damage.
• The wind gathers up the blanket that's resting on the bed, and forms it into a tattered dress. The spirit forms in front of the door, blocking access, "Stay away from my lovely!" she screams as a baby's screaming picks up from behind the door.
• The woman is a Banshee. You probably aren't going to use actual banshee stats because of character levels. I wrote her up as an incoporeal ghost that only did a little damage. However, she could move through players in a straight line, sapping their life essence and turning them to stone. 
• On a 1st failed save characters are incapacitated. On a 2nd failed save they are immobilized. A successful save clears one step up (immobolized saves to incapacitated, which saves to shrugging off the effect).
• The Banshee also has a scream, which is actually the sound of the baby crying. When the battle starts it gets so loud that a constitution save is required each round until passed. Until then, every save is rolled at a disadvantage.
• She is vulnerable to fire and ignites like a torch. However, it risks setting the entire room and then house ablaze. If not contained, the fire will eventually burn down the entire building, characters inside if they cannot escape.
• The Banshee only attacks if the characters try to force their way into the actual nursery.
• Inside the nursery is a crib, but the sound of crying stops as soon as the door is opened. In the crib is a swaddling blanket with the bones of a very small child wrapped inside.
• A Bedroom of Ghosts: Across the hall from the nursery is a bedroom that Rose and Thorne shared. Inside is a set of bunk beds, each with the bones of a child wrapped in the blankets. 
• When a character enters the room, the ghosts of Rose and Thorne shimmer into being. These are real ghosts, not illusions. They have no memory of meeting the players outside the house.
• Rose and Thorne explain that they want to have their bodies laid to rest.
• If pressed the children will relay some of the history of the house. It makes them terrified to recall it.
• Include as much of the history as you think fits here. Consider including:
• That the house has burned down over and over and over again.
• That the first time the house burned down, a tall man in an elegant suit came to visit (Strahd).
• That Rose once followed her parents and the other cultists as the left the house and went around to the cellar. She hid in the bushes as she listened to scary chanting, and when the cultists came out, one was missing. 
• Remember that Rose is a scared child. Tell the history, but as Rose would relay it. Lots of hesitation, some stammering, etc. 
• If scared too badly (or attacked), Rose and/or Thorne will accidentally try to possess the nearest player. If the player fails a wisdom save, they are possessed.
• Possessed players still retain control. This is only a minor possession. Possessed players have the following:
• If Rose possessed a character, that character gains a flaw "I have to protect my brother." In appropriate situations, that flaw forces the character to roll at a disadvantage or advantage.
• If Thorne posesses a character, that character gains two flaws: "I'm scared of everything." "I have to hold on to my doll. I can't let it get hurt." Again, the flaws force advantage of disadvantage depending on the situation.
• Possessed characters can talk telepathically with the ghost in their heads, and the two can share memories. 
• The family crypts are kept beneath the house, accessed through a wine cellar. The crypts should be the final encounter of the adventure, and this is where that hook should be dropped. 
• It is possible that players will decide to look for a cellar earlier. If so they may miss this part of the adventure all together. Either way, the crypts are the last scene.
• The Sacrifice has come, The Dreamer awakens: The crypt is accessed through the cellar. As the characters descend, the sound of chanting gets louder and louder. The chant is in an ancient version of Abyssal, barely understood even if a character speaks the language. The stairs open up into a large central area, with hallways branching off that lead to actual burial areas. In the middle of the room is a stone alter, and there are nine ghosts of cultists forming a circle around it, with a tenth standing in front of it. The one in front of the alter has her hood thrown back, and is leading the chant.
• When the cultists notice the players, the chant changes from ancient abyssal. Instead the cultists start repeating: "The Sacrifice has come, the Dreamer Awakens."
• So long as the players don't try to go back up the stairs, the cultists will not attack. They can even move into a burial area and put Rose and Thorne to rest.
• If the players make a sacrifice the ghost cultists fade away
• If the players try to go back up the stairs, the cultists get very angry. Their forms dissipate, and then flow back together into one giant ghost viper that attacks the party without mercy. It has a poison that requires a constitution save.
• Either way, once the sacrifice is made, or the viper is defeated, the adventure draws to a close. The fog around the house has lifted, and the character's can exit into Barrovia.

I'm an improve Dungeon Master, so even this didn't go exactly as written. But it did leave me well prepared to run the adventure. I had the information I needed at the time I needed it, with the ability to dig deeper if I needed to.

I know getting through this post was a real slog. I think that Sundays are going to be the days that I go super in depth on things like this. I hope people thought it was interesting, and that this gives a good idea of how I prepare for games.

Bonus Content: Pictures from The Boston Public Library

I'm running an Urban Fantasy game that takes place in Boston. In it, the characters have set up shop in the Boston Public Library. So while I was in the city today I took some pictures. I'm not a professional photographer by any means - but this is what I ended up with:

The Front Entrance. I thought I'd taken more 

from this angle - but apparently not.

Side Entrance. 

Same Entrance, tried to get better angle on the statues

to each side

Corner of the Library with the

Old South Church in the background.

This is my favorite view of the Library.

Homebrew Saturdays: Dungeons and Dragons / Fate Core Smash Up!

I like Fate Core. I like it a lot, and this is something I've just started to realize. Until a few years ago I'd never had a group that was willing to expand past D&D very much. We made a couple attempts, branching out into Shadow Run once, and again into Warhammer 40k Inquisition. Both were great fun, but both systems felt clumsy and full of rules that were just there to be rules. And so we always came back to D&D, or to Pathfinder - which is so similar that I consider it part of the D&D family.

But then I decided that I was going to run an Urban Fantasy game, using the Dresden Files Fate Core book as a base. It wasn't going to take place in the Dresdenverse, but the system had a bunch of pre existing talents and supernatural abilities that fit into any urban fantasy setting you could think of.

The game is a blast. I love it. And someday I'll talk about the first session when my player gave me an "oh shit" moment about thirty seconds in.

But this post is not about my urban fantasy. It's actually about my Curse of Strahd game that I started about six weeks later.

I recruited players from a fantastic Discord D&D group that I'm part of. Its small enough to feel like I have something to contribute and not be lost in the noise, but big enough that games are fairly constant. When you want to start something new, it's easy to pick up some players and go. I love it.

I advertised my game as a heavily modified version of Curse of Strahd. I warned that people shouldn't come to it expecting things to play out like they do in the book, that some things would be wildly different, completely changed, or even cut entirely. People asked me if I was running any homebrew content, and I shrugged, "not really. It's mostly going to be 5th edition rules."

So I started talking to my players, coming up with character concepts, back stories, things like that. The game wasn't going to start for another two weeks due to some scheduling issues, so we had plenty of time to get session zero out in text chat.

Then, a week and a half in, I lay in bed at three thirty in the morning and had an epiphany. What if I took the aspect system that I love so much from Fate, and throw it into Dungeons and Dragons?! 5th Edition even has Inspiration points, which I could totally tweak a bit to work just like Fate points!

I should really stop listening to my brain when it pokes me at three am...

Anyways, this is the system I came up with (and my thoughts on what the system accomplishes in italics)...

Mute Banshee's D&D/Fate Collision!

1. Inspiration points work as Fate points. You can spend an inspiration point to get advantage on a roll like normal. You can also spend them to make a statement about the game (up to DM discretion). Example, the dungeon master introduces a massive library that will take years to search through. But you spend an inspiration point and say, "the library has a magical cataloging device that reads your mind, and shines a light to the exact book you need."
• The idea here is that by allowing players to make statements, you give them a bit of control over the world. I am a firm believer that players are more committed when they have influence over the setting.
2. Every player starts with 3 inspiration points at the beginning of an adventure.
• These will be needed to fuel the system below. Why three? It seemed like a decent amount without coming up with a reason that different characters would have different amounts.
3. You have a list of traits. Traits are short phrases about your character that can be used in interesting ways, "Violence is my solution to everything." "I want to protect my brother at all costs." Things like that. 
• I love that Fate has a player start with seven different traits like these that describe their character. I think it makes for a much more in depth character than one that has a simple bond and flaw. That being said - 5th editions background system is worlds better than any edition before it.
4. Every character starts with 3 traits.
• Maybe I just really like the number three... I thought about going with five, which I think is better. But I was remembering that I had to pitch the system to a bunch of D&D players. I felt like I was already changing up a lot, and five traits seemed to be asking a bit much.
5. The Dungeon Master can use traits to suggest actions to characters. For example, in a tense diplomatic situation where tact is super important, the DM might suggest to the character with "Violence is my solution to everything" get in a fight, ruining or delaying the negotiations. You can always refuse a suggestion by spending an inspiration point. But if you accept the suggestion you gain an inspiration point. 
• The idea here is that stories survive off of conflict, and failure is often more interesting than success.
6. Other players can give you one of their fate points to make a suggestion as well. If you refuse a character suggestion, you do not have to spend a Fate point.
• This gives everyone at the table a chance to affect the game in ways the normally couldn't, but prevents them from making decisions for another person's character.
7. Goals. Characters list out normal and long term goals. When a normal goal is completed, the party gains a quarter of the experience needed to reach next level. Normal goals are accomplished often, once every 5-8 sessions. When long term goals are completed, the party gains a level. Completing long term goals happens rarely. Each character might only accomplish one or two during an entire campaign/adventure path. 
• This helps everyone bring their own thing to the table. Sure, we are playing Curse of Strahd, but one player is also hunting down a magical flute played by the God of Music himself, and one player is tracking down the hunter that slayed their tribes animal guide... the last living descendant of the Great, Clever Rabbit. 

Typing this system out still fills me with a bit of glee. I designed it with the idea that it would drive story, and not just the story I am telling (which is the least important story at the game), but the stories that my players are telling.

I dropped the system in game chat, we talked about it, and players decided that it sounded pretty great. So we did all the needed preparation before the first session. I had every character's traits written up on roll20 so that everyone could see which traits they could make suggestions on. Most of what I run is theater of the mind until combat starts, so the only time I switched screens was when I needed a battle map.

Guess what happened? The system went completely unused. Unused by me. Unused by my players. About five minutes into the first session I settled into my D&D comfort zone, and everyone else joined me. By the time the characters had climbed a hill, following a path made out of bone as fog closed in on them from all directions, the homebrew was completely forgotten. And it remained so until the end of Death House.

Then one of my players said, "so, what are you doing with that homebrew system you made?"

And I thought about it for a second, and had a realization: Fate was made for those rules; Dungeons and Dragons wasn't. Which isn't to say that I couldn't have forced it, and it isn't even to say that the rules wouldn't have been fun. But if I wanted to use them... why wasn't I just playing Fate? I could easily have pitched my game as a "Fate Core game running a modified version of The Curse of Strahd." The Discord group would have bitten on that as much as they did my D&D pitch.

D&D has a lot of mechanics already, and the head space between the two systems is different. And so I shrugged and said, "well, I thought I really liked the system. But we aren't using it, and there's already a lot going on. Everyone okay with dropping it?"

Everyone agreed and we moved on.

The lesson here? Create all the homebrew content you want... but pay attention to when it just isn't working. And if it isn't adding fun to your sessions... well, there's a phrase used in writing all the time: don't be afraid to kill your darlings. I suggest using a chain saw, and hiding body parts in your cellar. Just don't hide the heart under your floor boards.