3 Techniques for NPC Names

A quick thought for today: Your players aren't gonna remember your NPCs' names. So, instead of trying to come up with clever names, try to find other names to make them remembered. Using names of famous people is one way. "Have you met my friend, Mozart?" Or maybe even "my other friend Buffy?" A famous name can be used to both create the picture, the voice and so on, and it will also be remembered better. "Remember that 2 years ago we met Mary Poppins?"

Another technique can be to call most of them with names like Jima, Jimb, Jimc... And then bring a name like Robert. It will make this name to stand up with ease. It will also help them to remember those not unique characters.

My last technique for today is by using descriptive names. "Do you remember Bluerobe?"

Although all of these techniques aren't natural, all of them have worked for me in the past. How about you? How do you make sure that your players remember the important names?

6 Reasons to Describe the Weather

"It's a sunny day, the clouds are rolling like babies in the sky, and the sun shines like a 24 Carat gold bar." Look at this little bit of weather description. What atmosphere does it create? Does it give hope for the day? Think now on an opposite weather description, of a lightning storm. Wouldn't an adventure seem desperate now?

Weather descriptions can give quite a lot to the game. Far more than I can write about in this post. Yet, it's one of the most overlooked bits of description. So, here are a few reasons for why you should use weather descriptions in your game:

1. Weather descriptions can help to make the world more realistic. If the sun is always at the height of the sky, not moving, not changing, the world doesn't feel alive- it feels frozen in time.
2. It can help to create and maintain the atmosphere of the game. A stormy day can detract hope from even the bravest hero, and if the storm will suddenly be broken, there will hope. Fog can bring paranoia, storms can bring horror...
3. It can bring the people of the world something to talk about. There's a reason that conversations about weather are a kind of ice breakers...
4. It can be used as a way to signal what you want from your players. If done lightly enough, weather can be one of the most cunning ways to say what you want from your players. "I will go and destroy the goblin village. -As you walk, the nearer you get to the village, the foggier the surrounding is..."
5. It can add little bits of colour to the game.
6. It can be a reason to important conversations. A woman runs during a rainy day to get cover, and a man suggests to her his umbrella. Suddenly, we have a meeting between the persons who can be the centre of the plot...

How about you? How do you use weather in your games?

They Called It D&D

They say that GM-less games are a special thing. They are, but not that much. Once, a long time ago, was a game that took the roles to an extreme. There was a person there who used to decide what every player will do. "So, Bob, you're going from left, Mellisa will go from the right". She was the only person to decide it. That person was able to ask for advice, but she was the sole decision maker.

Then, there was another one. She was there to recount everything that happened, and played the entire memory of the PCs. Whenever they had to be reminded of something, she was there, going through the memory lane, entering to house 241 and saying giving the name of the person, his occupation and why they should have remembered him.

Then was the calculator, she was there to go over the party's money, and was supposed to say what they can afford and what they can't. She was like the bank of the group, a money aspect in the story.

But it wasn't enough, as it seems. 2 people were there, who were supposed to go over the belongings of the party. One was there for the temporary things, and for those that dwindle, like food and water, just like a food spirit; the other was there for the magical and ordinary things that doesn't dwindle, that are there for good (or until they were replaced).

The last one was the health of the group. Whenever someone was hit, she was there to say if the hit character was still on her feet, or unconscious and dying. Sometimes, this health spirit was able to heal the dying ones. Other times, she couldn't.

They called this game a classic; they even said that this was the first game of its kind, the most popular one in the RPG market. They called it D&D...

5 Great Fears

Today I wanna talk a little bit about the things that we are afraid of. I talked a lot in the past weeks about information and expositions, about plots (twice) and about isolation. What I didn't talk about, though, was about what we're afraid of. I've touched it a little bit when I talked about how to create the monster in the story, but that's about it. So, without any more introductions thingy, let's get our hands dirty...

We can create about 5 groups of things that we're afraid of. Almost any horror story/ movie or the like falls at least in one of those groups. They are, of course, not frightening to the same degree, and a more frightening level is usually harder to truly achieve. Yet, it can be achieved, and it usually deserves this amount of energy. 

1) Evil Threatening Us

This is the least frightening level. In this level, the horror that we're dealing with, stalks us. The killer tries to kill us is the easiest example. Most of the Slasher Movies fall into this category. Look for example on Halloween. Michael stalks Laurie, trying to kill her. Even when he kills other persons, it's only after we grew a little bit of sympathy for them. He's not hurting anyone to make Laurie on her toes, but just to kill them. It can be seen in Psycho too, when Bates kills his victims only after we saw a little bit of them. We get to like Marion; we get to like the inspector...

2) Evil Threatening Others

A little bit more interesting level is the one where the horror stalks the one we're closed to, but we can't do anything to prevent it. Buffy's episode Passion is a great example of this: Angelus teases Buffy, but he kills Jenny in order to drive Giles mad, he kills Willow's fish to get her out of her comfort zone, he stalks Buffy's mother in order to drive Buffy out of her nerves, and all of this combination of things drives Buffy into making a few mistakes along the way (and almost costs with Giles life). 

It can be seen in The Exorcist too, where we see how our protagonists tries to save her daughter, calling for psychiatric help and later to the exorcists.

3) Creating Evil Ourselves

Now we're starting to get our hands really dirty. The horror doesn't come from the outside world, but out of our creations. Look at Frankenstein, for example, where we can see the Frank's creation is the one that destroys his life, or at Rosemary's baby, where Rosemary's afraid of the possibility that the child that she's carrying is a monster. 

One of the reasons that this is the level where we get really dirty is that in this level, the horror isn't only from the other side, from the outside world, but it also comes from within, "it was my creation that did this..."

4) Being Evil Ourselves

Advancement in the curve, the horror is really us. We are the evil thing; we are the monster that everyone is afraid of... Vamp stories are the clearest example of this: "I get to live forever, but at what price?" Werewolf stories address this level also, as we lose control of ourselves and become the monsters. We see the horror as it happens, remembering every little bit of it, but without the ability to do something. 

It can also be seen in such stories as The black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe, in which our protagonists is going mad and kills his beloved cat, resulting in a series of crimes to prevent the discovery of this thing. It ends really badly for out protagonist.

5) Living in an Evil World

This is the highest level of horror. Lovecraft used this level a lot in his cosmic horror stories, as this is where they come from. Most of the stories and films that happen in a dream world drive their power from this fear, as does some that are not horror (The Matrix is a great example of this). Living in an Evil World can also mean living in world with no good within it, or discovering that everything we thought we knew about this world is wrong.

And that's it for today. How do you use these fears in your games? To what levels do you strive when GMing horror?

Using Villain Songs to Flesh Out Villains

A little thought for today: When designing the villain for the game, find a villain song for it. Villain song is a great way to express the villain, and to get the hang of him/her. Think about the Dentist Song from Little Shop of Horrors, for example, and see how we get the essence of our main villain in a nutshell, in a moment.

It doesn't have to be a real villain song, though. Imagine a villain that is defined by a song about how the ragged people need help, or about a villain song like Annabel Lee.

A song lie this can bring us the background of the villain, his/her motivations and goals, and even the enemies. We can also get the personality of the villain. A villain inspired by Annabel Lee will be immature and insecure, while a villain inspired by the Dentist Song will be a sadistic person. A good villain song can also give us the way of action most favoured by the villain (like being a dentist in ordered to get paid for causing pain to others), although it's not a must have (as can be seen in villain songs like Pretty Women).

How about you? Do you use songs to create your villains? If so, how?

Different Kinds of Campaigns

There are many types of campaigns. Some are big, some are small, some are episodic and some are one long story that stretches for years with no breaks out of it. There are those dungeons who take the characters from level 1 to 15 and then a little more and those campaigns who take the characters from level 1 to 5 with 2 little adventures within it to call it a campaign. 

There are those campaigns in which each session is a complete adventure, with different enemies and goals. "Today, you have to collect the sheets of Amon-Ra", Yesterday they had to kill Shamalanious. The only connection between the adventures in this campaign is the main cast of protagonists. It's the same Spoke and the same Luke and the same Castle. If there's character advancement, it's small and not that grandiose. There are no weddings or childbirths, no funerals of the characters' parents, and the characters need years to advance emotionally.

There are also those campaigns in which each session is a complete adventure, except for a few 2-times to advance the plot even further. There's a clear big bad in the end, but there are breaks from him (or her) every few session to bring anticipation for the comeback of the big bad. The characters advance a lot, getting friends and losing them, getting closer to some ones and losing them and so on. The main cast of Buffy and Angel and many more is suddenly getting the help of Angel who turned into Angelus, they have suddenly the need to confront the big bad Geppetto and so on. Still a main cast, but there's also the main villain.

There are also the campaign that stretches for years, without clear ending, that just grow bigger and bigger in years, with the same big bad in the end, even after so many years, and no breaks to clear the mind have been seen since the campaign started. Neo still has to fight Agent Smith, even after so many years, and since the second age they are still trying to defeat Sauron. One day it may end, but 'till then there's no other choice but to keep getting closer to this end point.

And there are of course many campaigns that fall between the lines, between the walls of imaginary "no-trespassing", maybe parodying or maybe trying to advance those walls to save the games from becoming all too similar patterns. Campaigns in which each act is in a different style, campaigns in which every act has a different director or GM and so on...

How about your campaigns? To where do they fall? Do they have a category of their own?

5 Ways to Use the PCs' Families in the Game, and then 2 more...

You can use the characters' family, you know. Family is a wonderful thing for stories, as it can bring reasons to go adventuring, allies, villains, unique situations and scenes, and moments such as "I'm you father!" So, why don't we use it more in our games? I don't know, actually, but it's a thing that must be changed. Family means bonds and connections to the world, and as such should be created and encouraged. 

The best way to encourage this, at least to my belief, is by using these bonds in the game to advance the plot and to create drama... Anyway, here are 5 ways to use the PCs' families in the game:

1. A family member has been kidnapped. The most dreaded and cliche way to use it, but it's still a useful way to get the PCs on the adventure, once in a while. The characters have to rescue the fighter's brother from the dragon cave is a sure way to get the PCs on their way.
2. A family member has useful information. Maybe the mother of one of the characters is the most famous researcher of ancient dark medicine? Maybe the wizard's brother is a commando fighter? Maybe the cousin of the general is the prime minister of Great Britain?
3. An important family event. The sister is getting married, the cousin is celebrating his first child's birth, the uncle is receiving a grand prize, or even the mother is getting a nobility title... A scene like that can be the basis for an entire session or even as the starting point for a murder mystery (the groom was murdered a few minutes ago, for example).
4. A family member is the villain. Robert is the vampire lord, Mellisa is the head of an organised crime family, Cousin Mordechay is the genius who created the grand Vaporizer and Sister Beatrix is the new Darth Vader. A family member that is the main villain can bring both a dramatic peak to the game and a huge conflict. It also enables you to bring the infamous line "[insert name of a character here], I'm your father..."
5. A mentor for the character. A family member who is also a mentor for the characters can make things even closer and more emotional. A 2 for one deal...

And what do we do if the family members are all dead? 2 ways to deal with it:

• The body of one of the family members is being controlled by the villain and it draws chaos and havoc in the city...
• Let the character deal with the loss.

Either way, huge amounts of drama can be created by this.

How about you? How do you use the PCs' families in the games?