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The Nature of the Gods

Today we are going to discuss an important element of most fantasy campaigns: the deities. What is interesting about most fantasy campaigns is the fact that the people KNOW the gods exist. Through the use of divine magic and planar travel the mortals of the fantasy world interact with deities that listen to and respond to their prayers. I have found that this idea is often difficult to reconcile with our conceptions of faith based religions. If you really think about it the paladin of Bahamut does not need to have faith in his deity because he knows that the god exists. This stands in sharp contrast to modern Christians who must use faith to support their beliefs since they have no obvious evidence of God's existence.

The knowledge of the existence and power of the gods create an interesting dynamic in most campaigns. Indeed, people do not have faith in a deity as much as they serve a particular deity over the others. In this sense fantasy deities are more like patron saints rather than a true polytheistic pantheon. Historically polytheists venerate all the gods to make sure they do not get in trouble. Even though they might more devoutly worship a god related to their profession they still acknowledged the others for fear of that god's power over other spheres of their lives. Promote this in your campaign, instead of having the dark gods only spoken of in whispers and their followers shunned, have people sacrifice some of their livestock and crops to the god of disease lest he punish them by taking everything.


often when you use the traditional system of fantasy deities you end up using the god's as one dimensional representations of virtues and vices and alignment rallying points rather than sentient beings of great power. So in my own world building I have used several methods to create a more historically accurate polytheistic pantheon.

First and foremost, the gods and their roles have overlap, one goddess might represent the fertility of women where as another represents the fertility of the land.

Secondly, the gods don't always answer the prayers of their followers. This is a great tool because it drives home the idea that the gods are sentient and have whims and tempers. An example of this is not letting a divine spellcaster heal or buff someone who has slighted the god in the past or not letting that caster harm someone who is dear to the deity.

Thirdly, vary the worship of the god's from country to country. between Rome and ancient Greece there were different names, spheres of influence, and stories for the gods. For example in my current campaign the goddess of lust, battle, beauty, and pleasure is seen as a goddess of enlightenment by the wild people who worship her first and a tempting devil by the elves and other more ordered societies who see her as a trickster. Another example is that in that same world the main god of law and justice is seen as a tyrant by the wild peoples where as the "civilized" societies see him as a savior and bringer of peace.

Remember also that gods are not really good or evil, they just are. The followers of a god should be the source for the overarching alignment of the cult because after all pestilence is not evil, but people who would worship it probably are.

Finally, gods manipulate their followers and gods make mistakes. Common to the stories of most polytheistic religions is that the gods lie, seduce, and manipulate mortals into achieving their agendas. There is a mountain of roleplay that can be mined out of a paladin being misled by his deity, or by having an all powerful god using the party to get revenge on its unfaithful lover or servant. The gods themselves can also be misled or lied to by mortals and one another.


I feel that by treating your deities like sentient beings instead of bots that always follow whats written in the book you can add a great deal of flavor to your campaign.

More to follow on this as I will be posting my deity system for my current campaign.

- Spin

Long Term Plot Development

Patience is a virtue, especially when it comes to running an enjoyable campaign. Often times I feel that campaigns focus too much on instant gratification/consequences to the actions of the players. While this practice keeps the party engaged in the short run it gives the party a complex where they never think about how their actions influence the long term campaign or their interactions with NPCs.

As a storyteller it is important to remember that any action has consequences beyond the immediate and readily apparent. A quest to capture a bandit king might lead to peace for the area and glory for the party in the short run, but in the long run might lead to the rise of a worse bandit leader to fill the power vacuum.

The party cleaning out a group of corrupt officials may make potential allies hesitant to work with them, lest their own secrets be laid bare.

On the flip side, the party saving a town from evil may make that town and its people willing to break the law or believe in the party even if the wider world believes them villains.

In essence you should be thinking of the events and side quests of a campaign both in how they effect the overarching goals of the campaign but also how they effect the greater world and how it views the players.

Going back to the ideas of previous posts, you must think of the world as a living breathing entity independent from the players. Do not mold the world to the players but let the players change the world. With each action they take they not only succeed or fail in their goals but influence society to a greater or lesser degree.

While much of this would seem obvious it really is not. Most D&D campaigns are very Ego centric, focusing only on the immediate activities and goals of the party. Prior actions are usually forgotten except for how they effect the major objectives of the party. Remember that the flavor of a campaign is the small details, the everyday interactions and realism.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

It is easy when playing D&D to think of alignment and morality as bedrock solid. After all, in RPG games the gods tend to be real and their powers are granted only to those who follow their code. I feel that sometimes this can lead characters (especially the ones at the extremes) to be very one dimensional.

When creating both PCs and NPCs you should remember that good and evil are primarily social constructs, varying greatly in scope between societies and individuals. This idea can be applied to D&D pretty easily. A paladin of Hieroneous must protect the weak from oppression by the strong. Think of how many ways this could be interpreted, a paladin could seek out evil men and kill them and still be fulfilling this part of his code. In this way he is now evil and good, but if the Necromancer he killed threatened the lives of thousands he would be called a hero. The idea here is that people are not perfect, they can lose sight of one part of a code in favor of another and they can do bad things to achieve good ends. On the flip side an evil character does not always have to be evil. He/she can engage in good acts to gain trust or to gain fame and influence only to execute a plan using the boons from those good deeds. Instead of thinking of the gods and their favor being granted based on a strict behavioral code have them grant power to characters that achieve the ends they desire. When used with a dose of common sense, this practice not only promotes character depth but also adds an element of intrigue and mystery to the gods.

Here are some examples of what I am talking about:

First a PC

A Paladin is lawful good, defender of the weak, protector of life, destroyer of evil. This character contains a contradiction, he is tasked with destroying evil and protecting life. A real person would not have an iron clad sense of mercy and compassion when faced with darkness on a daily basis. most of the Paladins I have played have difficulty finding mercy in their hearts for truly evil people. One of them became a monster himself when faced off against true evil, fighting with glee and reckless abandon, a villain himself, scaring the rest of the party. In this way he could retain the favor of the God he serves for fulfilling the tasks but he is a flawed, realistic character who represents the contradiction of a lawful good character trained to destroy.

Now for NPCs

lets talk about Villains because I feel many bad guys are designed in a one dimensional and cheesy manner. People think of villains as bad guys, morally bankrupt and without any redeeming qualities. Well I am here to tell you that a villain doesn't need to be a total sociopath in order to be memorable. Remember that real people don't wake up, look themselves in the mirror and say "I am an evil bastard". Usually descents into evil and madness are very gradual, as an individual becomes more and more isolated their thoughts can become more deviant. Events and tragedies push them away from others and warp their goals and outlooks. Remember that villains are the heroes of their own stories, they probably didn't start with evil goals, Maybe they were a lawman who snapped under the pressure of a system that allows bad people to get away. Maybe they were a paladin who watched the weak die despite their heroism and decided that the weak didn't deserve survive. Maybe a eccentric and unsociable wizard loses his wife and becomes consumed with using any necromantic ritual to bring her back, regardless of the cost to others.

all of these villains could be monstrous, callous, and evil without being one dimensional. They have some sympathetic elements that made them more memorable and may make the party feel guilt or pity when they fight them.

The Character Optimization Arms Race

When creating a character for a game you need to be sure your optimization doesn't lead to an arms race between you and the storyteller. Allow me to explain what I mean when I say arms race.

Let's say you are an experienced player and you know the character creation rules. You know the combination of abilities that will give you the highest possible damage yield for X type of character. If you know how to be the best rogue possible, why shouldn't you be? Because in doing so you may do significant harm to the campaign and reduce the enjoyment that the party gets out of the campaign.

What happens when one PC is far and away more powerful than the rest of the party? Usually as a storyteller in order to keep the game challenging for that character I have to increase the difficulty of encounters. In doing this I end up going beyond what would be a challenge for the rest of the party and just like that the rest of the party is playing second fiddle to one character. If you are that PC then you get to be the star but the rest of the party probably will not enjoy themselves as much as you do. They will miss more than you and they will get hurt more than you. By doing this you have challenged the storyteller to an arms race which leave him in a hard situation, if he doesn't up the difficulty to meet the highest player he risks not challenging the party but if he does the rest of the party is left in the dust. Remember that no one likes to feel useless in real life or in a game. Your objective should not be to outdo the rest of the party but to work with them to overcome challenges. Furthermore you are punishing yourself because as the most optimized character, the storyteller will likely give you less gear rewards in order to keep you from pulling farther ahead from the rest of the party.

But what if the whole party is optimized? Well if thats the case the whole party may have fun and revel in their damage potential. However they should be aware of the by products of having the perfect combat party.

The challenge is what makes combat encounters entertaining. Without risk of failure there is no tension or excitement and while most times a party is not in extreme peril there is always a risk, a challenge involved. If the entire party is optimized for combat effectiveness a storyteller must rely on the most dangerous and challenging encounters the players can possibly handle. From my experience that means that when the bad guys hit they hit hard, actually increasing the chances that a PC will be killed. Also encounters take longer to finish due to the sheer number of bad guys or because of the huge pools of hitpoints the bad guys have. Both of these reinforce negative player behaviors by making them even more obsessed with doing damage and increasing their optimization to keep up with what they perceive to be an upped ante from the storyteller. In essence it creates a damage arms race that often leads to a completely combat oriented campaign and/or frustrated players/storyteller.

Deciding Who Gets to Roll

For today I have a brief post about how you can differentiate skill/knowledge checks into subcategories.

What I mean when I say subcategories is that diplomacy is a broad skill, checks with a noble require a different set of conversational maneuvers than getting information out of a hardened information broker.

For example if two characters are trained in heal but one is a Cleric and another is a fighter you should let them both roll on checks to dress wounds but maybe only the cleric rolls on diseases and other complex infirmities. Maybe the fighter is better at stabilizing people in combat than the cleric due to his combat experience. In this way, even though you are stealing a bit of thunder from both players maybe you've made each feel more unique and clearly defined in his/her utility to the party.

Another and perhaps best example is something like history checks. If every character is trained in history but only one is an arcane caster he/she should either be the only one to roll or be the only one without a penalty to identify an obscure historical wizard.

This idea can apply to pretty much every situation and you should be careful not to overuse it. Indeed overuse of this system can make people feel like they do not get the benefits of being trained in a skill. However, when used correctly this system can increase the degree to which a player's class is unique and useful out of combat. Subcategorizing skills like this can also add a great deal of realism to a campaign by once again making characters function more like real people.

The Fun of Flawed Characters

Sometimes the perfect character is not the best character. In my experience some of the most memorable and fun characters are the ones who are flawed. I feel that drawbacks, weaknesses and personality quirks are some of the best sources of role play in any game.

While any experienced gamer will tell you that you need to design a character that is good at what he/she does, the strive for perfection should be avoided. It is the weaknesses and drawbacks that lead characters to rely on one another, form bonds, and make characters more realistic. Real people have real problems and are usually not perfect. Plus having a flaw gives you more opportunity to roleplay instead of rollplay. Furthermore, as I will show, having character flaws can allow people to have fun rather than gripe when they make mistakes or have unlucky streaks.


The example I will give is from a campaign I ran last year. The character was an old wizard, So old in fact that he had forgotten more about magic than most will ever know. He had before senility been a mighty and famous caster but now was struggling with the most simple spells (returning to level 5). The player had designed this character will comedy in mind and played him well enough to be entertaining but not enough to be a burden or a distraction. Needless to say having a crotchety old man running around with young adventurers led to a lot of fun conversations and NPC interactions. What really made this character memorable however was how the character handled failure in combat and stressful situations. Instead of getting frustrated he roleplayed the character forgetting the words to the spell, casting the wrong spell (like a harmless illusion or cantrip) or reaching into his bag and pulling out the wrong components. Furthermore when critical successes occurred he roleplayed moments of clarity where the other characters got a glimpse of his former glory. In this way by designing a character with a major flaw he turned in game failures from a source of frustration to a source of comedy and entertainment for the party.


The principle is that flaws make characters more interesting and therefore encourages more roleplay. Think about most of the movies, comic books, and books you've read. What makes you feel a connection to the characters is not how they are perfect but how they are flawed. This is especially true in western pop culture where we LOVE our anti-heroes.

As a storyteller you should encourage your players to give their characters drawbacks that enhance the game with memorable moments and stories. You can encourage this by offering rewards to those players that give their characters meaningful drawbacks, skeletons, flaws. Even if these flaws do not have huge combat or mechanics consequences they will enrich play.

Promoting Fun Party Conflict

Character interaction, a mythic beast in many games today. most often interaction occurs between the players and NPCs. Interaction between PCs usually occurs only when a conflict of interest arises. Some might argue that PC interaction also occurs during planning conversations, however I have found that these conversations are more OOC since they talk not as their characters but as players trying to overcome an obstacle, weighing their assets and skills objectively.

The problem becomes facilitating party conflict that helps the story and entertains the party. Players create backstory and most of them expect it to come up. If they hate a certain country, they want to encounter soldiers of that country. They want the opportunity to show who their character is. A lot of the time, my own games included, I set events in motion that I know will create party conflict and have been burned by the results. The game grinds to a halt because I underestimated how important certain aspects of the character were to the player and/or it just now becomes apparent that two or more characters have irreconcilable differences. The players stop having fun and turn into politicians in British parliament.

The seeds of this problem start in character creation but ultimately rest with the storyteller. You as the storyteller need to communicate with your players about their characters both as they are created and as they grow during the game. In order to have resolvable and fun conflicts you need two things:


1. Characters who have enough differences to make the game fun but not enough that they can't adventure with the rest of the party.

2. an overarching goal that appeals on some level to all of the players. That way they have a vested interest in moving the plot forward and will be more willing to compromise or let something go. (example: if you have a rogue that only cares about money, even if they are getting paid they will be much more stubborn. The character has no vested interest in achieving the goal since other quests give money just as well. To combat this make the quest have a challenge or item affiliated with it that the rogue would be interested in. He could become as famous as the prince of thieves or get X item that is UNIQUE)

Steer a player ever so gently towards a more appropriate character. If you know the rest of the party is lawful good and they want to play a social Darwinist assassin you might need to haggle the player down. makes sure the skeletons in his/her closet are not things that the rest of the party would shun/kill/arrest them for. If you have an uber do gooder, ask the player to temper the character with a more realistic view of situations and the importance of the spirit of the law. That having been said if a character is dead set on playing a difficult character, make sure they are comfortable with the consequences of their character. If a player is willing to risk death or imprisonment at the hands of the party to play out that moment of revelation, so be it. I can guarantee that event will be memorable in the campaign. It is a fine line that must be walked between to much conflict and not enough.

Conflict is ultimately the source of action for any campaign. Most of the time it is external conflict with NPCs because both players and storytellers fear interparty conflict. I think with a good group of players and well thought out characters party conflict can be an incredible source of fun.

Information Control Between Players

You just made your favorite character ever. The backstory is great, the abilities you picked are perfect, the character is dynamic and has a rich personal history that you are certain is a stroke of genius. What is the first thing you do? you brag to the other players and proceed to recite your complete backstory so they can bask in the glory of your new character. What harm could it possibly do? its not like they weren't going to find out about your character anyway. Plus, you worked so hard so you want someone to know it so you can get the praise your hard work deserves.

Unfortunately, by doing this you have deprived your fellow players of really enjoying the character you have created. They will not be surprised by anything you do that fits that backstory. Furthermore they will react much less realistically when your secrets are revealed in game. Also, they now have expectations as to how your character will behave and will apply their own interpretation of your backstory to your choices. I'm sure any player who has engaged in this behavior has heard "but thats not what someone with your backstory/personality/alignment would do". By giving your characters personality and history away as out of character knowledge you have fundamentally changed the way the party will act towards you, whether they know it or not.

as cliche as it is, Out of game knowledge is like the parable of the caves: what has been seen cannot be unseen. To put it another way, once you know something you can't make decisions without using that knowledge. Try as they might, most players cannot pretend like they don't know that your character is lawful evil, or that he seeks to bring down the government, or that he made a deal with the devil, or that hes secretly a justiciar, or a paladin in hiding, or that he's the true king, etc.

Which brings me to information control. When you make a backstory it is imperative that it stay between you and the storyteller if you really want it to have any bearing on character interactions of the party. This includes not explaining why your character does things out of character. When you are doing something strange that the party will question, don't hit the pause button and utter the phrase "out of character: the reason I am doing this is X". I hear this all the time, and by informing the party so completely you've deprived the campaign of important roleplay/storyline elements.

Remember that in real life people do not walk around telling total strangers their life story. So by telling your character's life story/explaining their actions to the other players you have decreased the likelihood that they will play out their character forming a relationship with yours. Why would they, they already know for strategic purposes everything they need to know about the character. Even if the characters act as if they don't know what you've told them, the fact that the player knows it will decrease the amount of character interactions that will come up during morally ambiguous situations and emotionally charged milestones and setbacks. Furthermore, lets not forget that revelations about a character's backstory are a huge source of material for storytellers and can be adventure hooks / major events in and of themselves. The spoiling of these mysteries can take a lot of the suspense and fun out of a campaign.

Also knowing the ins and outs of your character may cause other players to change the way they play their own character to make interactions flow more easily, preempt you going against the party, or to purposefully do something they know will piss off your character and cause a conflict. All fueled by out of character knowledge they will swear up and down they aren't using to make these decisions.

Therefore I suggest restraint, build a great backstory and personality for your character and keep it to yourself. let the other characters get to know yours as if they were a real person and you will have the opportunity to show them the great character you've made. Believe me if they get to see your traits and secrets come out at key conflict points or during important storyline events, it will have them talking more than if you recite your backstory like an epic poem.

So in closing do yourself, your fellow players, and your storyteller a favor and limit the amount of out of character knowledge you give your fellow players. I think you will find a bit of uncertainty and the knowledge that everyone has secrets will enhance your playing experience.

The Setting as a character in the story

Making locations memorable is a challenge in RPG games. Often times the adventure takes place in what is largely an ignored theatrical backdrop. Most players space out during the overwritten descriptions of port towns and forbidden castles we as storytellers work so hard on, just barely paying attention in the off chance our descriptions hold campaign relevant information or clues. indeed in most situations the setting is as important as the stage scenery is to a play.

I found that often in my games this occurred for two reasons:

1. The flowery backstory of the town had no influence whatsoever on the experiences the players.

2. There is a lot of assumption that occurs both on the part of players and storytellers as to what different settings are supposed to be like.


To address these issues I came up with an anthropological approach to location building.

First, I thought of the history of the place, comparing it to similar locations from real life and creating location features based on that. (of course this does not apply to deserted castles and the like)

For example, If a city was on a river I would change the way the gods were worshiped and viewed to reflect a fisherman's way of life. If a town was on the border with a hostile nation I would make REAL xenophobia something the party had to contend with.

in short think of the location like a character in the story, think of how what has occurred in that location influences its traits. If the landscape itself comes alive with its history and is unique because of it, the players will interact with it and remember it

Also places do not just sprout up and then stay stagnant, they change, they have bad years and good years, bad leaders and good leaders.

think about these things and come up with the evolution of an important location that you will probably never tell your players outright. just create the history so you know how it is different from other places. When all is said and done making interactional features of the city unique is what will make it memorable.

Secondly, If there are assumptions at play, challenge them. I am not recommending making your locations completely unpredictable or without similarity to others. However, if every town functions much the same as the last, no amount of flowery description will make the players remember it much past the session.

instead of a Governor have a council of elders.

if the town is on a border between two cultures blend the styles of dress and the laws.

Change the festivals, change the laws. What if a town of farmers allows no one to carry weapons inside it for fear of losing their freedom. what if a abandoned castle full of monsters and treasure has a small squatter community living outside of it. Another way to do this is change the religious affiliations, a dark god for some may be a primal protector for others. all of these things plus many more could be implemented but in order for them to have an effect they must be more than backstory, they must influence the party. Make sure if the town is hostile to X country if you have a knight of that country in the party that he meets with realistic animosity and lack of hospitality. if the party is in a far flung fantastic city, make sure exotic events are common to their experience.

a common oversight is that many storytellers let the party walk around fully equipped all the time. having to take off weapons and armor to meet with leaders and questgivers not only makes the experiences more realistic but forces the party to think on their feet if problems should arise.



A perfect example: In a game I played in the party had taken refuge in a small elf village deep in the jungle that believed the ending of life was a solemn and grave matter. Like the blue kitty people in Avatar they cherished life and would only kill for food. All crimes were either punished by community service or exile. When asked how we had gotten there our paladin described in heroic detail the swathe of destruction we had carved through the "monsters" of the forest to get away from the other humans we had been fighting as part of a war campaign. The DM made the revelation of that knowledge change the way the elves treated us. They knew we were outsiders but now they knew we were murderers and while they were cordial and allowed us to resupply, their children ran away from us and they were quick to send us on our way. The DM could have expedited the process and let our party pass through the town without really interacting with it, But by doing that he made it memorable and taught us a lesson about how our heroism could be perceived as villainy by others.

too often what kills locations is the generic nature of the interactions regardless of the descriptions.

The Philosophy of Character Building

How can you use the Socratic Method to create a good character? let me explain how I use a series of questions to help myself and my players create dynamic personalities for their characters.

But wait, Everybody Knows how to make a character for an RPG right? Pick your race, assign your points, pick your special abilities and then come up with a backstory that will explain him/her being in the party. throughout my time as a DM I have heard people explain their characters like this:

"My character is a Brutal Warrior whose only desire is glory on the battlefield. He hates orcs and is chaotic neutral"

"My character is an outcast dwarf who seeks redemption and honor in helping others"

Both of these are excellent starts and are seeds that could grow into dynamic characters. However, these backstories are very broad and while they speak volumes about where the character has been and their large scale goals, they don't really reveal much of a personality. I think often in games people are told to create a history for their character but not a persona. Where a character has been and what they have done informs their personality of course but it does not define it.

Due to the emphasis on a character's history instead of personality many characters suffer from an inconsistency of behavior or what I call "situational personality disorder" (SPD). You have all seen this, a character has up until that point not engaged in X behavior or expressed any leanings towards X but since the campaign now requires it in order to overcome a challenge the character shifts his or her behavior to fit the situation. I believe that in many cases this occurs because the player never established what the character would do in morally ambiguous situations. The answers to the questions that follow form a frame of reference which can help the player react to situations in a manner consistent with a dynamic (realistic) personality.

These questions take the character from a collection of characteristics and abilities on a sheet to a unique individual that the players will feel more inclined to play with consistency of behavior, almost like they are doing the character wrong by not following what their personality would desire. These questions also create a framework in which they can think like their characters instead of thinking only in terms of game practicality.


Question Examples:

how does the character feel about killing? is it ever justified? does he feel that monsters can be killed with impunity but not humans? what about Dwarves, Elves, Aliens, etc?

What is the role of the law in the character's mind? is it for the good of all? does it stifle freedom? is it the tyranny of government? does the character obey the law? what kind of situation does it take for the character to commit serious crimes?

does the character believe in higher powers? what does character believe he owes the gods?

how does the character think of those higher in society? Lower? what does the character think of his/her place?

what about the opposite sex? Strait, Gay/lesbian? are the opposite sex to be protected or to be manipulated?

how loyal is the character to his/her word?

how does the character feel about other adventurers? does he/she seek camaraderie or just the accomplishment of personal goals?


Does the character care about the opinions of others?

does the character want to find love?

does the character have a family? wife/husband/Lover? where are they? what are they doing?

why did the character join his profession? is his profession in line with his class or was he a farmer until he became a fighter to defend his home from bandits?

these questions are just a small sampling of the questions I ask my players to answer when making a character. I tailor them depending on the vague backstory they give me and the setting I plan to run.

I have met with a lot of success using this system. The players have often created memorable characters they love to play. Using this system I have actually seen long time dungeon crawlers try to skip through combat to get to character interactions.

I wish you luck and good gaming,

Athanasios