Tabletop RPGs

Some folks like to subvert expectations by creating an evil Santa Claus. To me, that undercuts the spirit of the season a bit too much.

Instead, I'm going to stat up Saint Nicholas as an ally NPC, using a monster stat block just because it's frankly easier when running an NPC.

Saint Nicholas run...

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Most factions are serious assistants or impediments to the party. This week, let's lighten things up with a faction we can play for laughs.

Darek is a charismatic, enthusiastic dwarf who leads a rag-tag adventuring party he's dubbed Darek's Delvers. Darek loves nothing more than diving into an aba...

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So you want to run a fantasy RPG! This series of posts will guide you in running your first few sessions, getting your group established effectively.

In my previous posts, I created a simple enemy faction that I'll use as an example for your first game session. As a reminder, here's that faction:

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In the cyberpunk near future, hoverbike gangs rove the streets looking for excitement.

Gangs are wonderfully versatile tools for the GM. Need to talk to someone? They belong to a gang. Need to get into a location? It's in the gang's turf. Need a complication? A gang drives by and takes offense a...

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Taking inspiration from the classes in the recently released Xanathar's Guide to Everything for this week's faction, today we come to the cleric. While the Grave Domain has some juicy options, I'm more drawn to the Forge Domain.

Kovalla, the Forge of the Gods. One hundred years ago, a small grou...

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In the first part of this post, I laid out the six things you need to know about a faction:

  • Faction Type
  • Leader
  • Name (faction and leader)
  • Goals
  • Resources
  • Current Actions

In that post, we defined the faction's basic type and leader, and named them. Time to finish it up!

The Faction's

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As with the frost mites from a few weeks ago, frost lizards don't challenge the PCs so much for their raw combat ability than for their ability to freeze their environment.

Huge frost lizards survive their extremely cold habitats by magically storing cold in their body and releasing it on demand....

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Surprise your players by throwing them a curve ball: higher-level bandits.

Kala, a half-elf woman, led an otherwise unassuming group of bandits on a series of raids along a lucrative trade route near the sea. One day, they fell on a group of adventurers who were transporting an artifact, and manag...

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