Random Roll 100 - The Randomness

Brought up away from traditional orcish society in the forests of the Land of the Linnorm Kings, this week’s character is an orc who does not follow traditional orcish norms. Still stronger than many humans he is weaker than even an average orc. He is still tough but in comparison he smarter and more socially adept than most of his kin. A follower of the goddess deductions, mind reading, and subtlety we have a lot to work with for this week’s character.

Gender: Male

Race: Orc

Nationality: Land of the Linnorm Kings

Age:  17

Height: 6’ 7”

Weight: 268

Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Str: 12

Dex: 10

Con: 15

Int: 12

Wis: 8

Cha: 14

Homeland: Unusual Homeland - Forest

Parents: Both of your parents are dead.

Siblings: You have no siblings.

Circumstance of Birth: [Lower-Class Birth] You were born among peasants or slum denizens. You grew up working the land around a village or manor, practicing a rudimentary trade, or begging in a settlement.

Parent's Profession: Serfs/Peasants

Major Childhood Event: [Bullied] In your early life, you were a victim— easy prey for those stronger or cleverer than yourself. They beat you when they could, using you for their sport. This abuse nursed a powerful flame of vengeance.

Influential Associate: [The Lover] You had a romantic connection in your adolescent years, and this person deeply influenced your personality. Perhaps this was a first love, a casual partner you grew close to, or the one who got away. The experience bolstered your confidence in romantic interactions even though you often find your thoughts still straying toward that special someone from so long ago.

Conflict: [Malign Associates] You allied with a destructive creature, organization, or individual.

Conflict Subject: Spellcaster.

Conflict Motivation: Hatred or Malice.

Conflict Resolution: [You Enjoyed It] Those who cling to petty morals have no understanding of what true freedom and power is. The fact is, you enjoyed your part in the conflict and would do it all over again if the opportunity presented itself. Many people know of your misdeed, and they also realize your complete lack of remorse.

Deity/Religious Philosophy: Erecura

Romantic Relationship(s): [A Few Significant Relationships] You’ve tried to make deep connections with individuals on several occasions, but it’s never worked out.

Drawback: [The Past] You long for the world to return to a past age. You’ve adopted the manners and style of this age, and are fascinated by its customs, relics, and artifacts, and by the historical figures of that time. Perhaps you live so much in this past age that your connection to the present is tenuous. Or your pretentiousness annoys others.

(Trait) Bullied

(Trait) Charming

(Trait) Log Roller

(Trait) Orphaned

(Trait) Poverty-Stricken

(Story Feat) True Love

(Drawback) Sentimental

In the comments tell us this orcs story? What class would he most likely become? Why did his family live in such an unusual place? Who were his bullies? How did he come to worship a Erecura? And don’t forget to stay tuned Friday when my background hits the CRB.


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Talk It Out

On Punishing Player's IC for OOC Problems

We’re gonna take a break from world building today because I’ve seen a particular conversation pop up no less than a dozen times between all of the Facebook and Reddit RPG boards I’m on. A GM has a problem with a player -- whether it’s their gaming style, one little habit they have with their character, or even something out of game like chewing on ice really loudly -- and they want to know how they can deal with it. The problem is that they don’t ask about dealing with the player, they ask how they can punish the player. And even when the petitioner doesn’t specifically say punish it seems that the first thing a lot of GMs will chime in with is how to punish them.

First off this isn’t kindergarten. You aren’t a teacher. Your players are not unruly five-year-olds. It is not your job to punish them. There are going to be problems, that is is the nature of groups of humans getting together. Not everyone is going to be able to handle every little quirk or idiosyncrasy of other human beings. But we’re adults now, for the most part, and the way we deal with these problems isn’t by taking it out on other people. What we should be doing is talking with them.

Now I don’t know where or when this started. It may have been before I started gaming but it needs to stop. A lot of times the problem is a juxtaposition of gaming styles. This isn’t insurmountable, but every time a GM laments that one of his players is a powergamer the first answer from a lot of people find a way to in game torture them, or to just stymie them at every turn. When a GM asked about a player who tried to find weird ways to make the rules get a job done even Chris Perkins tweeted back to just tell him that you won’t allow it. The problem is that this doesn’t solve the problem; it just causes new ones.

If someone did something wrong and you don’t say what it is they did but just go out of your way to stymie their every move it’s not going to change their behavior. I’ve seen it time and time again, it only escalates the situation. Now the player feels like you’re picking on them and their attitude sours, which leads to other undesirable behaviors. Instead of fixing the problem you’ve created new ones. If your answer to these new issues is more denial and in game torture then it just becomes a vicious cycle.

I’ve seen people recommend giving people a curse, killing their family, taking all their magic items, and many other petty acts of revenge to deal with a minmaxer, powergamer, or spotlight hog. The truth of the matter is if you resort to these types of tactics then regardless of what the player did you are now the bad guy. There are places where fighting fire with fire works, this is not one of them.

So how do we deal with these issues instead? It’s a pretty simple answer; a novel concept some may have heard of: we talk with them. If you have a player who likes to tool with rules to get interesting things done but steps on other people’s toes just talk with them. “Hey Bob it’s nice that you like to think outside the box, but when you have to spend 15 minutes trying to see if you can cajole thing A to do thing B it slows the game down for everyone. And really thing B is Tim’s niche so it would be nice if you could let him have his time to shine. I promise I’ll make sure you have some big moments for you too.” It really is quite that simple.

And sometimes the problem can’t be solved. The player is dead set in their ways and it’s going to be a constant clash. It’s ok to ask that person to leave the game. Or if that person is central to the group – friends with all the other players – it’s ok to say you can’t deal with it and remove yourself. Look, I know finding a gaming group is not the easiest thing in the world, but this is your free time. If you’re like me you have very little of it and having to deal with people who take the fun out of your free time is just something you shouldn’t do.

There are also ways to nip this kind of thing in the bud before it starts. Session zero, which goes around a lot, is super important for this. Not just for character creation but for talking with your players about what their expectations of a game are and what yours are. There are a number of questionnaires out there that will help you determine if what you are looking for in a game is the same thing your players are looking for. If you take the time to do this in the beginning there are usually fewer hiccups further down the line.

So in closing, don’t be that guy. If you have a problem talk it out.

How do you handle issues when they arise at your table?

Words are one of our greatest tools. Not only can we use them to solve problems but also to relate ideas to one another. If today’s words have hit home, please consider becoming a contributor to the CRB. Monthly donations of as little as one dollar can be made to my Patreon. A one-time donation can easily be made to my paypal. Every bit helps me keep the lights on so I can concentrate on bringing you the content you deserve.

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The Path To Hell

When Good Falls

Illustration by Luis Perez

There are many stories that we like to see over and over again. They may get retold in different fashion but the same basic principles of archetypal stories have been enjoyed for years. Fitting into one of those many archetypes includes the fall of good, their rise as evil, and usually their ultimate redemption. This makes for some great storytelling, although it can sometimes be iffy in gaming and I’ll get to that as well.

The fall story works best the when the character is near the pinnacle of what it means to be good. When it’s a shock that the person who becomes evil does so, the whole story keeps your interest longer. In star wars I didn’t care so much that Anakin fell — and not because I knew it was coming — when the entire second and third movies he was kind of an over confident jerk. The fall didn’t see that big of a deal.

Reasons for falling are very important to the story. Characters who fall because they see so much atrocity that in fighting against it they become the evil they once sought to destroy is one great way to have a character fall. Characters who fall to protect the ones they love make the evil character more relatable. The necromancer who went to the dark arts because his family was savagely murdered and he just wants to find a way to bring them back can be an excellent foil to your protagonists.

There are even epic falls on a cosmic level. Lucifer’s fall from the kingdom of heaven is an excellent example. Depending on who is telling the story, the devil isn’t such a bad guy. In Pathfinder Asmodeus, the king of hell who saw the destruction that chaos — specifically mortal’s free will — wrought and so he tried to impose order and in doing so became totalitarian, and thus his slide into being evil.

So a character has fallen, the rise is the time to really get into the meat of the tale. How do his former friends or family members bring him around? How many vile acts does he perform in the meantime? What is the catalyst for his eventual eye-opening to what he’s done? Maybe the necromancer finally retrieves the souls of his family but they don't wish to come back. They confront him with the evil he’s done and he cracks. You can always be very cliche and have him yell, “what have I done,” but it's up to you.

As much as I love these stories — and so do many others, as we retell it so often — they do not always work in a gaming setting. Some of the worst games I was ever a part of were when a GM literally went out of his way to put the paladin in situations where he would have to fall no matter how he tried to get out of a situation. Some players don’t want the fall from grace story. It also doesn’t work very well in a game with a group dynamic because now what does the good aligned party do with their villainous member?

Unless it's an agreed upon part of the story, a fall should probably happen to NPCs. The childhood friend who rose to greatness with the party members who has now turned to evil is an excellent adventure. How do they both stop and hopefully redeem their long time friend? Can he be redeemed in the first place? This allows you to tell the tale while not driving one of the PCs away from the party. Unless, of course, the whole party falls.

Have you used the fall from grace story in your campaign? Have you additionally added the redemption story? Have you worked it in with a PC? And if so how? Tell us your experiences in the comments.

Stories are the central crux of any good RPG. If the CRB sparks ideas for the tales you are going to tell please consider contributing to my Patreon. or donating directly to my Paypal. Your support of content providers allows us to focus on providing you the content you love without dealing with life’s little difficulties, in this case replacing the cracked monitor on my laptop. If you don’t want to miss a beat make sure you sign up to get the CRB pushed directly to your e-reading device with Kindle Subscriptions.

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The opening illustration was created by the fine artist Luis Perez. You can find him on Twitter, Tumblr, and on Instagram at luisperezart. 

Cultures of Celmae: Oyapok

Hot of the presses from Wayward Rogues publishing comes a look at the marsupial like Oyapok. Heavily Cajun flavored, you can add a taste of the bayou to your game with this small semi-aquatic race. Tied to the land of their birth join them as they begin to travel beyond the waterways of their home. Include are the Oyapok’s history, physiology, and societal structure, as well as family and religious customs. Full mechanics for bringing the race into your game including two racial archetypes geared toward their mastery of the spirits of the river.

The Things They Leave Behind

Filling Your Dungeon with More than Monsters

Last month I spoke about dungeons and dungeon crawls, and how they should remain an important part of Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder. One of the major complaints about dungeons – which includes crypts, ruins, caves systems, and other contained, linked areas – is that they are little more than a gauntlet of seemingly unrelated monsters. To help get away from that, it is important to fill a dungeon with more than just room after room of creatures and clever traps, but with objects important to the people who built the places the characters will be exploring.

Two of the most common places we use as dungeons are ruins of ancient civilizations and crypts that house the dead. Ruins are places that at one point people lived or worked and these places would contain artifacts of the people who left them behind, if they haven’t been overly raided already. Tombs and crypts of ancient civilization often have the objects people loved in life buried with them, and in some cases depictions of those people in art or books about their lives.

The first thing you have to decide is the purpose that room in the dungeon served. Many times GMs just throw together a few random rooms without a care to their original purpose. They then fill these rooms with monsters making the entire place a meat grinder. This is what gives dungeons the reputation as being little more than a vehicle for hack and slash. Was this a research facility? If so what kinds of rooms would be there? Is this a notable person’s tomb? Many times the rooms here represent the things they most loved, so what did they do in life?

I’ve been running Paizo’s Shattered Star campaign over the past year. Honestly without the extra stuff I’ve added it’s little more than pushing through a giant dungeon in every book looking for pieces of a MacGuffin. And these dungeons could very well be bland if they weren’t given such life. Every floor of the first dungeon serves a purpose, each room is outlined for the purpose it served. In just about every room objects for that purpose can be discovered; some destroyed, some mostly intact, and some magically preserved. Each object found gives not only a clue to the inhabitants lives, but when you look back a few books in you realize many of them were also clues.

Some of my favorite pieces of dungeon window dressings are art. Frescoes, tiled mosaics, tapestries, and carved pillars show glimpses into the past. You can use these to foreshadow the future as well. Your big bad is an ancient evil rising from the past, or maybe a cult of an elder deity long since forgotten. These pieces of art can give clues into how to defeat the creature. An ancient weapon may be depicted in mural on the wall of an ancient temple. A poem written around the edges of a tapestry might hold the beginning of an ancient dismissal ritual.

My second favorite find in a dungeon is books. Old libraries, scientific or magical notebooks in research areas, and personal journals buried with the deceased; all of these can help the PCs learn about the history of your world, or the life of your bad guys. An undead creature has risen and is seeking revenge, maybe the journal in his old tomb will give you clues to defeat him. Your adversary has been sending creatures the likes of which you’ve never seen, The ancient library has a book with an entry about them, but where did he learn of their existence if they are this old?

I also like to add empty rooms that just have objects geared toward the room’s purpose. This can tell you much about the people who lived here. You might find many sleeping chambers each with a prayer mat in them, maybe these were a very religious group of people. You come across floors of cells and torture chambers with creative tools in them, perhaps this was a sadistic civilization that reveled in pain and control.

Monsters are all well and good, and what would a dungeon be without at least a handful of encounters? In truth though, if you want to make your world a much more robust place, then the people within – especially the ancient people – should have had real lives, and real lives leave artifacts. The more detail you put into your dungeon the richer the experience your players will have.

Are your dungeons more than just a string of monster filled rooms? What kind of objects do you litter your tombs and crypts with? Does every room in your structures have a purpose? Share your experiences in the comments.

Like an ancient tome in a lost library, the CRB seeks to aid you in your quest for knowledge. But at some point that library needed to be built, so consider contributing to my Patreon and check out a video message from me when you go. The CRB has also exploded into the realm of social media. Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook all have a CRB presence. Come join the expanding family of GMs, players, and all around creative people. If you have questions one of these arenas is the best place to talk to me about them.

Random Roll 22 - The Randomness

No one picked a race this week so I decided to pick one of my own. I want to see what I could do with the most basic most common race, Humans. To that end I added an extra challenge and let it pick a home region, alignment and religion for me. So join me as I try and see what I can do with these stats.

Neutral Good

Human

Male

Human Ethnicity: Keleshite.

Nationality: Andoran.

Height: 6'1"
Weight: 195 lbs.
Age: 19

Str 10
Dex 16
Con 10
Int 14
Wis 8
Cha 16

Homeland: Town or Village

Parents: Only your father is alive.
Siblings: You have 1 biological sibling and 2 half-siblings.
- biological older sister
- younger half-orc sister
- older half-elf sister

Circumstance of Birth: [Noble Birth] You were born to privilege among the nobility. Unless one of your parents is the regent, your family serves a higher-ranked noble but lesser nobles serve your family in turn.

Parent's Profession: [Baron] You are the child of a baron or baroness, a noble responsible for a land encompassing several smaller manors that pay tribute. Your parents receive orders directly from the monarch, and you're expected to attend the royal court. You are entitled to hereditary estates, titles, and land.

Major Childhood Event: [Kidnapped] You were kidnapped at some point in your childhood. The kidnappers might have been pirates, slavers, thieves looking for ransom, a powerful guild seeking to blackmail your parents, a cult, and so on else. Before you were released, were ransomed, or escaped, you picked up on various aspects of the criminal underworld.

Influential Associate: [The Mystic] You were especially close to a holy person in your community who fundamentally changed your life by opening your eyes to the incredible powers that exist beyond the natural world. Regardless of whether you follow a faith, certain religious artifacts, rituals, and texts played a large part in making you the person you are.

Conflict: [Destruction] You destroyed someone else’s property.

Conflict Subject: Humanoid monster.

Conflict Motivation: Family.

Conflict Resolution: [Regret and Penance] Not only do you regret your action, but you have publicly admitted to it and did your best to make amends for the wrongdoing. Most know of the conflict’s details and those who don’t can easily find them out if they know where to look or whom to ask.

Deity/Religious Philosophy: Shelyn

Romantic Relationship(s): [Experience but No Substantial Relationships] You’ve had a fling or two, but have so far shied away from any ties or commitments.

Drawback: [Family] Your family means everything to you, and there is nothing you wouldn’t do for them. Maybe your ties extend to your entire clan or bloodline, or perhaps there is one specific member of your family you hold closer than any other.

Possible Traits

(Trait) Canter

(Trait) Child of the Temple

(Trait) Ear for Music 
(Trait) Influence 
(Trait) Kin Guardian 
(Trait) Militia Veteran 
(Trait) Rich Parents 
(Story Feat) Liberator 
(Drawback) Family Ties 

Friday you’ll get to see what I can do with these stats, until then you can subscribe to this blog on the sidebar and get email notifications when new posts arrive, including the background. You can also follow me on twitter @SimonSezCRB for tweets about updates and the occasional random though on gaming. And if my work excites your imagination you can show your support on my Patreon and help make being creative more sustainable for yours truly.

Sins of The Father

Legends of Neshen's Faithful

There are those who fight physical evil and those who seek to cleanse the evil from the souls of others. The Empyreal Lord Neshen’s faithful suffer so that others need not; Repent so that other’s misdeeds may be cleansed, show penitence for the actions of others so that they might start anew. The Knight of the Steel Lash and her followers are if nothing else selfless in the face of evil.

For more information check these two sites

Neshen Pathfinder Wiki

Neshen Archives of Nethys 

Even for one of the lesser divine beings there is zero about Neshen on its Pathfinder Wiki page. We don’t even know if Neshen is a male or a female just that it is an angel of great power.

Many of these write-ups are done in the form of  a handful of sects representing different aspects of the beings portfolio. Today however I’m going to tell you a story, a story about a sin eater.

As the light of the sun was eaten behind the mountains and the fire of the camp became the only illumination on the faces of the weary travelers, one of them began to speak. He was a young man if I remember correctly, no more than twenty if a day. Dressed in the finery of someone whose travels barely took them off the main roads that run through Varisia. But his voice was soothing after a hard day and the company at the small roadside encampment with the shrine to Desna was much appreciated.

He told the tale of a man that he swore he met in his travels and I remember his description vividly. A tall well-built Shoanti man, one who seemed older than his years, whose eyes spoke of constant sorrow. He described the man as having dark, weathered skin from many days out under the sun, but what’s more, every inch was covered in tattoos. The taleteller made sure to point out these weren’t your standard tattoos, symbols of meaning to the adorned, but they were just writing. The writing seemed to have been scrawled haphazardly, in multiple directions, as if no care was given to the position of the reader. The language was unknown to the bard, so it wasn’t the other traveler’s native Shoanti. Although the mishmash of words covered most of his body, in some places there was naked skin where an expanse of text was missing.

Now I’ve travel the road a long time and I’ve seen and heard many things. I’ve fought monsters that should not be, seen priest bring down the powers of the very gods themselves, and even fought alongside the crusaders in the Worldwound. But what the bard relayed as the story of the tattooed traveler seemed far-fetched even for me. Tall tales and taller claims are of course no stranger to those of us on the road, but still.

The tattooed man, apparently, came from a small group among one of the tribes of the Shoanti. Don’t ask me which, I know little of their people. Among his people, however,  there was a growing corruption. Although it began to appear as a wasting of the flesh, in reality it was a wasting of the soul. He claimed this happened once every few generations as the weight of the sins of the whole tribe past and present manifest themselves in the real world.

The elders of the tribe came together with the medicine men and looked to the old tales on how to combat this wasting, as it hadn’t been seen in an age. Some thought they could use a scapegoat to imbue all the evil and cast the animal out of the tribe, but the wasting was just too much. Only one venerable elder could remember a tale of the last time the sins of the tribe had become so great.

So it was with great sorrow that the elders called this righteous man into the longhouse and spoke with him. He was a fine warrior but beyond that, his sense of duty, honor, and steadfast adherence to that wich was right drove them to call for him. The elder told him that the evil, the sin was too much, and to rid the tribe of the wasting it would all have to be tied to a man and not an animal. Without hesitation, the man stood and accepted the onus of bearing the tribe’s sin. He knew full well that he would be cast out of the tribe for his act selflessness but he stood anyway.

Before the great ritual, the elders gave him one warning and one hope.  The sin would try to corrupt him. He was chosen for his own dedication to what is righteous and good, but the sin would try and destroy him from within. However, if he could make penance for the sins they would slowly fade from him and he could regain his place amongst his people. Still determined, the man not only accepted his fate but saw it as his duty.

The ritual lasted seven days and seven nights and in the end the man had accepted the sins of his tribe upon himself. These sins were inscribed, not just in his soul, but on his body in the form of the tattoos he exhibited to the bard. The blank spaces he said were where sins he had atoned for once existed. He hoped to have cleansed more from himself, but in the intervening years he had taken upon himself the sins of others so that they might find peace in the afterlife.

One of the unexpected turns of fate for the man covered in sin was that his act did not go unnoticed. The Empyreal Lord Neshen came to him in a dream and told him that all the gods had seen his sacrifice and to help him he would be imbued with the power of all that is righteous and just. Though he was never a devout follower of anything but the spirits of his ancestors, Neshen promised to look over him the rest of his days and that even if he could never remove all the sin from himself, as long as he didn’t fall before he passed from this world she would find a home for him in her realm.

Now I’ve never met the tattooed man, and I’m not sure how much I believe the stories of a well-travelled man without well-traveled clothes, but... I like to believe this man is out there, this tattooed sin eater. And should my life end before I can make up for my own misdeeds, he would take them upon himself that I may walk the path through Pharasma’s Boneyard and into the upper planes of the heavens.

Would you like to meet the tattooed man, then you can subscribe to this blog on the sidebar and get email notifications when new posts arrive, and maybe he’ll show up again. You can also follow me on twitter @SimonSezCRB for tweets about updates and the occasional random thought on gaming. And if my work excites your imagination you can show your support on my Patreon and help make being creative more sustainable for yours truly.