Atmosphere in D&D: Are You Sure We’re In a Dungeon?

One of the stereotypical images of a Dungeons and Dragons game is the group sitting around a table in a dark basement.  While often seen negatively, it does highlight one of the important qualities of a good D&D game – atmosphere.  An excellent Dungeon Master can describe a situation is such a way that the players really feel immersed in the experience – the bright living room becomes a gloomy forest with a few well-chosen and well-orated words.  I am aiming to become that good, but I don’t think I am as of yet.  One of the tools which can help this process however, is to have at least a vaguely similar atmosphere in the real world to the one you are trying to create in their minds.  The basement therefore rears its eerie head once again.

Of course, some people just have awesome rooms

Here’s a story for you.  When I first started playing D&D, I was living in Brazil.  I ran a campaign in my friend’s living room – a quest filled with undead-infested cities and chasing elves through dark woods.  The only problem with this was, not only was I a rubbish DM, but it was a little difficult to make the atmosphere convincing when his living room was gloriously sunny with a beautiful view looking out over Ipanema Beach.  The lovely sunshine meant that every so often I would be saying “You enter the cathedral slowly, uncomfortably aware of the unholy aura emanating from the blood-soaked altar at the end of the aisle.  Shadows swirl about the place, obscuring the corners of the hall.”  The players would then look outside and look confused.  Sometimes, suspension of disbelief is a little more difficult.

Always appropriate

So other DMs have solved it with darkened rooms and relevant music.  I find music to be the most useful type of scene setter, because it is a lot easier to come by compared to an appropriately decorated/lighted room.  Muse makes excellent battle music, and Rhapsody of Fire have an entire album describing their own fantasy adventure which is fun to listen to.  I find Youtube to be a saviour of games, though.  A good mixture of music from Zelda, Bleach, and Kingdom Hearts gives a wide variety of moods available, and everyone enjoys listening to Gerudo Valley.  However, if it is possible to get a comfortable room which is appropriately themed to the campaign, then that’s certainly a help.  The artistically inclined could simply decorate the room with certain additions like tree branches.  I’m sure there are other ways of doing things, but I am not so inclined.

So DM’s out there, how do you deal with this?  Music is easy and effective, but does anyone go any further in creating a setting that is actually believable to the players?  A sunny living room is not always the ideal spot, unless you run a desert campaign I suppose.

Never Split the Party: Crisis in the Pokemon RPG

It is a well-known saying in the world of RPGs: ‘Never split the party.’  You will be outnumbered, you will never find each other again, and gameplay slows down because the DM can only focus on one group at a time.  Scooby-doo never learned this lesson, and Daphne can attest to the dangers of wandering off alone that result from this.

I’ve written a bit about the Pokemon RPG I’ve been running for quite some time now.  We’re in somewhere around the 20^th session, I believe, and it’s been going really well.  The only thing that doesn’t work well is the party.  When they are focused on a single goal, they are an unstoppable force.  Defeating Koga at a disgustingly low level was testament to that.  Unfortunately, this does not happen often, and it has now led to an irrevocable divide in the party.

It's even a book!

To be fair, it’s partly my fault.  I gave the assassins in the group the assignment of taking out Misty, the leader of the Water Gym and therefore of one of the other party members.  The assassins dutifully did just that, but not quite subtly enough.  It was very well done, but they were discovered, refused to go quietly, and we left the session with the pair of them sailing off in a commandeered ship, with the Water Gym party member following them with Sabrina, who was angry.  The other two players were both away and so their characters are in totally different cities.  Not to difficult to reunite each with one of the groups, but good grief.  I do not see it happening that the party will ever be completely unified again.  So, people of the internet, come to my aid.  I see three options.

         1)      Split the Party: Keep going as is.  I will have to switch back and forth between the two groups regularly, and one will side with the Ground Gym, and the other will side with the Water Gym.  It’s questionable as to who are the good guys, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the people who just killed Misty...  I’ve played games like this before and it’s worked fairly well.  The original Final Fantasy game I played in this game setting had party members all over the place every session and it was fantastic, so it’s possible.  But it will seriously cut into the playtime for the players.

         2)      Pick a Side: Either the ‘good’ characters get replaced by more devious ones and a new party is formed, or the ‘morally questionable’ characters are replaced.  Both scenarios work out within the game easily, and could lead to some very interesting new characters joining the party, as I would give them the option of choosing from amongst some NPCs they have met previously, such as Jessie (yes, that Jessie).  The other characters which have been replaced would not be simply killed off, but they would become significant NPCs under my control, and the party will probably meet them again, probably as recurring villains/nuisances.  So they would hear about their original characters exploits every so often, which could be fun, and they get to create a whole new character now that they fully understand the world in which it is set.  A new, unified party is created on one side of the fence, though that fence may just be broken all over again.

         3)      Radical Perspective Change: Most difficult option.  Total shift.  Everyone leaves their character behind and the whole tone of the game shifts.  Everyone becomes Pokemon, for instance, and has to work things from there, either as a liberation movement or a faction of war or even a diplomatic envoy.... unlikely.  Everyone moves up a grade and gains control of a Gym Leader or a Lieutenant.  The game suddenly becomes a massive war, with many units under your command and meeting the opponent on the field of battle.  It’s not my favourite option, and I don’t think they will like it either, but it’s a possibility, and it could be really cool.

So what do you think?  I’m most tempted to leave things as they are, but if the players want to make sure they get more playtime, then option 2 seems the best to me, and could be hilarious with the new characters they create and re-encountering the old ones.

Plagiarism in RPGs – Hilarious or Unimaginative?

I won’t lie.  My games are full of fairly blatant references, at least the homebrew ones are.  The Pokemon game I have going is crazy for them.  The party was recently set upon by a trio of assassins that looked kind of like this:

I like making up stories and interesting people for the characters to meet and interact with.  I’m quite proud of Lorelai’s son, Gareth, who is wandering around with a chip on his shoulder and a total lack of appreciation for the power of the Elite Four, because he’s grown up around them.  I really like what I’ve done with Blaine.  He’s not at all what the party are expecting, but I won’t spoil that for them here.  Quite frequently though, when I need a character quickly, or need a large array of characters to be created, I will just draw upon what I already know.  Hence, Stark and Chad from Bleach are in the world.  So are Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers (the party narrowly avoided encountering them a while ago).  I needed a plotline for their time in Fuschia, so suddenly one of the noble houses was titled the Iron Throne and a quest to go wreck an iron mine was created – fairly directly ripped from Baldur’s Gate.

Is this poor DMing though?  It’s certainly plagiarism, though I doubt it can really be taken to court.  It can add a little humour to the situation, and I do tend to run games which get a bit silly at times.  However, it means that my world is a little less... mine.  A little less... original.  And it wrecks the 4^th wall something terrible, as the players automatically know a bit more information about what’s going on than they really should, and it destroys a little of the atmosphere of a self-contained game world.

On the other hand, I just had the idea of a horrific boss combination: Deadpool and Psycho Mantis rip-offs.  Nasty mind-screwing times.