DM's Corner

A few random DMing tips I've been mulling over:

• Use Voices: Using unique voices almost never hurts. Make up a goblin voice, a kobold voice, and orc voice, etc. They'll be silly and inconsistent at first, but eventually they'll be at least consistent, and you won't have to tell your players the voices sound like those of orcs.
• Use Lingo: Not all the time, and don't use it ambiguously. But if you've got an encounter with orcs, make up one orcish synonym for "weakling" and have them shout it in reference to the PCs. Or have a gnome merchant call longswords something other than longswords. Like I said, not too often, just a light sprinkling.
• Customize Magic Items: Does that amulet of natural armor cause the wearer to grow tufts of fur or scales? It matters. The little things are where the game comes alive or falls flat.
• Gloss Over Boring Stuff: Have a huge long political intrigue encounter prepared but the players are bored with it? Suck it up and move on. Convey the necessary information and get them to something they find interesting.
• Dwell on Interesting Stuff: The players having way too much fun talking to some random-ass nameless NPC about the booming rainbow trout industry? Whatever, go with it, they're having fun, and more likely than not you can make that random NPC important later. Just don't forget the details you made up on the spot.

Troll in the Corner Pathfinder RPG Giveaway

I'm assuming that most of you who read this blog regularly have at least an active interest in (if not debilitating addiction to) the Pathfinder RPG, so I'd like to direct your attention to Troll in the Corner's Pathfinder International Giveaway. One lucky winner will take home the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, Bestiary, and Gamemastery Guide hardcovers, and fifteen more will win various PDF rules supplements. Just be sure to enter before the deadline on August 4th.

Engaging Players with Terrain: Levels

When constructing encounters, one of the easiest ways to add interest (and one of the easiest things to gloss over) is the terrain. There's only so far monsters and NPCs alone can get you, especially if your players have been around long enough to know the Monster Manual backwards and forwards. Beyond the standard (and therefore rather boring) difficult terrain, there are a number of simple terrain features you can use to spice up nearly any encounter.

Adding levels to any terrain is easy and forces the players to think in more than two dimensions, and, if done well, can lead to the party becoming split, which is often dangerous and, thus, fun. There are many ways to manage this this: Put snipers in trees in a forest, have ninjas jump in from the second story of an adjacent building, have trolls attack from beneath a bridge, whatever your imagination conjures forth.

There are several ways to go beyond the simple addition of levels, however. After all, levels are little more than a simple barrier if the PC aren't forced to interact with them. Pit traps are an easy way to force this interaction. In one dungeon I designed many years ago, there was a tomb with an aging stone floor that had a chance of collapsing under their weight, dropping the PC in question into the carrion crawler-infested area beneath.

More than just traps can force the PCs' hands though. Simple placing the PCs' goal on a different level than they begin on is more than enough. In one adventure Michael DMed, the PCs had to scale a mile-tall tower to its apex, the last stretch of which was a narrow walkway that spiraled around the outside of this tower. And we had to do it while a flying ooze attacked us.

One 'level' that is nearly always available is the space above the ground. Of course, only creatures capable of flight are capable of reaching this space normally, and as most PCs won't have this capability, be careful how you use this space. Try to add additional terrain features (trees, easily-climbed cliff faces, etc.) that allow the PCs to join flying foes in this area. The flyers will still have the upper hand, but it'll avoid leaving the players feeling useless.

I'm sure I'm not the only one with harrowing tales of multi-tiered battle, so let's hear your war stories in the comments.

New Magic Item: Black Coffer

Sha'nes ducked behind a fallen tree, narrowly avoiding the blast of brackish green energy that seared away the brush around her. Wiping cold sweat from her brow, she leapt back atop the tree trunk, charging through the moonlit woods, rushing toward the necromancer. She punched him once square in the chest, knocking him back a step, before he hoisted a small darkwood chest in his arms. The thing gave off a palpable enervating energy which grew stronger as the necromancer undid the lock keeping it shut. As the lid lifted, a thin mist raced through the air, searing Sha'nes's skin, opening wounds where none had been before...

Black Coffer

Aura strong necromancy; CL 15th
Slot —; Price 200,000 gp; Weight 15 lbs.

Description

This item is a darkwood chest bound in black chains. If any living creature dies within 30 feet on the black coffer, its soul is instantly trapped inside unless it succeeds on a Will saving throw (DC 22). If the coffer is open when a creature fails this save, it immediately closes. Creatures whose souls are contained in the black coffer cannot be returned to life until the soul has been released except by the intervention of a deity.

If used as a spell focus for a Necromancy spell, the caster gains a +1 circumstance bonus to caster level per soul trapped within the black coffer.

If used as a spell focus for a Conjuration (healing) spell cast to return one of the souls contained in the coffer to life, the soul can be released as part of the spell. This drastically reduces the physical stress of returning to life, negating any Constitution drain or permanent negative levels the target may have incurred as part of the spell, and the target instead suffers 2 Wisdom drain from the mental stress of having been in the coffer.

The coffer can be opened as a full-round action. Trapped souls are immediately released when the coffer is opened, and these confused spirits harm any creature nearby as they escape. If the black coffer contains at least one soul and is opened, all creatures within 30 feet a number of d6s of damage equal to the CR of the creature with the greatest CR whose soul is trapped in the coffer. A Fortitude save (DC 22) halves this damage. An open coffer also emits an area of desecrate centered on itself regardless of whether any souls were trapped inside.

The black coffer holds a maximum of five souls at a time. If a new soul enters the coffer while it contains five souls, the soul that has been in the coffer is immediately released. As it escapes, it emits a terrifying moan, and all creatures within 30 feet of the coffer must make a Will save (DC 22) or be panicked for 2d4 rounds.

Construction

Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, desecrate, trap the soul; Cost 100,000 gp (+8,000 XP for D&D)

Goblin Mutations

Goblins breed with notorious speed, and their industriousness in this occupation, aside from providing numerous warriors to replenish the ranks, results in a rather high frequency of physical mutations. Aside from the usual bugbear and hobgoblin, there are a variety of other goblin mutations:

Caveling (CR +0): These goblins hail from the deeper parts of the world. They gain darkvision 60 feet, light blindness, two claw attacks that deal 1d3 damage, and a climb speed of 20 feet.

Gibberling (CR +1): These goblins have been touched by aberrant influence. They gain light sensitivity and the gibbering ability (see gibbering mouther) which can be activated as a move action with a range of 30 feet.

Hellion (CR +1): These goblins are born of dark energies, and are immediately identifiable by the flames that dance in their mouths. They are immune to fire and gain a bite attack that deals 1d4 damage plus 1d6 fire damage.

Lasher (CR +1): This type of goblin has an unusually long tongue. As a standard action, they can use their tongues to perform disarm or trip attempts against targets within 10 feet with a +2 racial bonus and without provoking attacks of opportunity.

Thorn (CR +1): Some goblins are born covered in soft thorns that grow rigid as they mature. These goblins gain a slam attack that deals 1d3 damage plus grab. In addition, a creature in a grapple with the thorn takes 1d3 damage at the beginning of the thorn's turn, and any an attacker who successfully strikes the thorn with an unarmed attack or natural weapon take 1d3 damage.

For the Darker DM: The Allure of Vice and Flaws

A lot of times, our choices in character personality tend to reflect on our personalities, strengths, and insecurities. I don't often see people with powerful personalities play non-confrontational characters, for example. One of the things I have noticed, however, is that a lot of the most famous characters in literature, movies, or our D&D games tend to be heroes with at least one vice.

What is it about the brooding hero struggling with addiction that draws our interest so? What makes the character battling his inner demons so much more intriguing to know about than the well-adjusted hero?

For me, there's a little niggling part of me that likes to see obviously flawed individuals perform so spectacularly. We each have our own demons and our own vices that can damage our own views of ourselves, and knowing that our flawed characters can overcome these challenges can sometimes spark the confidence within us that we, too, can overcome our own flaws to accomplish something great. These sorts of negative inclusions to our characters can take several different flavors, but they all can help you understand more about your players.

The Middle Finger Marauder

For players that tend to prefer the darker aspects of roleplaying, this can sometimes take a rebellious nature. Creating characters that are both heroic and heavily flawed is kind of like throwing the middle finger to society. "Yeah, I shoot heroin, but I'm the only one who can save us from the Zombie Invasion, and you got disemboweled in your minivan, you soccer-mom slut."

This sort of player is easy to identify. Generally grungy and constantly defying convention for the sake of defying convention, what turns him on about his character flaws is that he is reinforcing his belief that that either society is wrong about his vice of choice, or that he can succeed when many believe he can't. These characters will often have the most crippling addictions or severe character flaws, as to enhance the mental victory they provide and to highlight the fact that these sorts of topics do not make the rebel uncomfortable.

When you encounter a player like this, you have a wonderful opportunity to enhance their gaming experience by having your in-world society actually look down upon him for his choices. As long as the critical good NPCs are more tolerant of him, the hero will take great pleasure in doing the impossible with the knowledge that everyone expects him to fail.

The Confused Do-Gooder

Many otherwise virtuous heroes will inexplicably have a non-personality related vice, such as a tobacco addiction or tendency towards rambunctious alcoholism. This is often a last-ditch effort by the player to nail on some sort of interesting quirk to their character, but these sorts of players often have no clue how to express themselves or show that their characters are interesting, too.

The vice itself is not an integral part of the character. It gives him something to do when he has no hook and needs to stay relevant. The key to engaging this character is presenting him (specifically) with situations where he can make a decision that reveals more about his character.

This sort of player doesn't know how to internally flesh out his character without external stimuli. With enough gentle prods, he will quickly develop a personality and be more self-confident with his social interactions, knowing that he has created a unique individual.

Keep in mind, it's also possible that your player added the vice to their character simply because it seemed like it fit and they are indeed merely using it to create an in-depth character. Sometimes, the little things really don't mean anything at all.

The Vice in Bad Guys

An interesting spin on the vice is when it falls on the BBEG's shoulders. Does he have a crippling addiction to dragonscale extract? Is he a compulsive gambler? An incurable womanizer? The party can use these flaws against the evil guy just as well as they could use the information that his fortress has a weak eastern wall.

Consider this; an Ocean's Eleven-style ploy where the party dupes the scepter of ultimate badassery from the antagonist by luring him into a dangerous gambling situation after the hottest female member of the party gets him deliriously drunk.

Don't forget the worst character flaw of them all; Pride! In a previous Darker DM Article, we discussed how the nicest and most holy-seeming individuals often could make excellent enemies - the inclusion of their insufferable pride and honor leaves this sort of trickery wide open. Darker PCs can taunt an insufferable paladin into a bad position by calling on his honor, and a dirty politician can't help but keep a good public image - I hear blackmail is a great way to learn more about his shadow government bosses.

Think about what negative character traits drive you and your enemies. Have you had any good encounters where your flaws got the best of you?

When The Heroes Aren't

Over the past few weeks, I've been teaching a group of D&D newbies the ropes, playing through the Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder adventure path (modified to run on the Pathfinder RPG ruleset). This isn't my first time teaching the game, but I've encountered an anomaly I wasn't prepared for.

The heroes are cowards.

That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. The last combat encounter we ran was against eight goblin warriors, and the five PCs nearly ran. Granted, the goblins surprised the party, but they had things under control. And yet, nearly all of them contemplated fleeing when it came to their turn, and only remained because of my gentle encouragements.

The oddest part of this is that, if you'd asked me only a month or so ago, I'd have given anything to have more cautious PCs. PCs willing to run when outmatched, willing to fight defensively, or even spend a round moving into a defensible position rather than attacking. The enigmatic co-author of this blog, Michael, is infamous in our gaming group for charging anything that moves, and this is the style of play I'd become used to. There's nothing wrong with it, I just thought I'd like a little variety. I may have been wrong.

The thing is, it's not entirely that my newbies are playing defensively. They're playing scared. Their defensive posturing isn't done to gain a legitimate tactical advantage, it's to avoid all foreseeable danger. I suspect this is a side effect of being new to the game, and not knowing what situations actually provide dire threat and which are simply challenging.

My solution to breaking them of their fear? Push them.

• No Escape: I'll start off by creating a situation from which there is no real escape for one or two PCs. That's the most important part: The other PCs will be able to escape no problem, most likely unscathed. They'll have to make the choice to stay, or leave their former allies to die. Victory (the likely outcome) will provide a positive incentive for their choice.
• No Hope: Finally, I want to set the PCs up in at least one situation that seems impossible to survive, provide odds that seem insurmountable... Only to have them persevere. Only when they go through a trial by fire and come out the other end alive will they have the hardened confidence my more experienced players exhibit.
• No Fear: At various points in their adventures, townsfolk NPCs will ask them to recount their exploits, reinforcing the myth of their power. Though they may meet the precipice of death many times, and in fact be very near to tumbling off, these experiences will work to bolster their faith in themselves.

Oh, and by the way: The PCs defeated the eight goblins. Maybe they'll remember that when I've got them surrounded by twelve.

You're Making it Too Easy

Has anyone else had this problem before?

You're step-step-stepping along through the dungeon and all of a sudden you come to a dead end. There's no "other path" you haven't explored - this is where the dungeon should continue and yet it doesn't. Just as the party is about to break into problem solving mode, the DM smiles and says, "You should probably check the right wall."

Thanks. I check the right wall. I make a search check. 22. Oh hey, a secret door. Experience too? Great.

Except I didn't do anything.

At its mathematical base, Dungeons and Dragons is actually a very boring concept. The game mechanics themselves when stripped of their importance are only of mediocre entertainment. It would be like playing World of Warcraft, except the main character is a two-dimensional circle on the screen - you run around a 2D plane and press some buttons as a bunch of other circles die while numbers float above th-

Actually I'm pretty sure WoW players would barely notice. Bad analogy.

Core Demographic-bashing joke aside, I seriously can't stand when a DM just hands us the solution to something that was just barely more than a skill check, anyways. It's the same thing when it comes to monsters - telling the players this crazy spider does Con damage before it ever poisons someone immediately sets the party in "that monster needs to die in a ranged fire" mode. The game fades into a monotonous set of skill checks, attack rolls, and victory themes as my experience bar climbs higher and higher.

The part of the game that challenges our problem solving skills is actually one of the more interesting and rewarding parts of the D&D experience and taking it away to ease the path for "frustrated" players is doing them more of a disservice than a service. Let us figure it out the hard way. We're big boys. We can take it.

Make a Knowledge (Top Ten Uses For Knowledge Checks), Part 3

And we have reached the exciting conclusion of our series today. Hold tight, folks, this is gunna be a well-educated and knowledgeable ride!

3. Knowing Stuff

And you thought I wouldn't stoop this low, didn't you?

One of the best reasons to take a knowledge skill is to know stuff. This includes, for example, knowing that the powerful overlord in front of you has no tolerance for jokesters, or that it's illegal to use magic within the walls of the Celestial Kingdom of Nullmagica. (The DC for the origin of its name is pretty low, to be fair.)

As long as you have a DM that can keep up with your questions then you can learn a lot of stuff that will probably come in handy. Most of the premade adventures I've skimmed through contain a lot of tables here and there with information to tell the players if they roll high enough.

One of the best ways to arbitrate knowledge checks is to ask the player to roll their check, and have the most difficult piece of information in mind while they're totaling. If you set a DC 25 and they roll above it, congrats! You don't need to come up with anything better. If the players rolled less, give them a smaller piece of the picture - the more they failed by, the less they know. ("You got a 4? You find that the moss is mossy.")

But it's incredibly important that a knowledge check not bog the game down. Every time someone makes a knowledge check and you reference two books and keep the whole party waiting on a piece of information that is more than likely passingly useful at best, you decrease the quality of the game. I'll get into game bogging in a later article, so we'll just leave this as a warning.

But what if your DM can't keep up with you? Well, harsh words ahead, but that's his fault. Which of course, brings me to number 2...

2. Forcing Your Story-Averse DM to Actually Think About His World.

Human Bard 1

Int of 18. Feel free to dump everything else. Wear Full Plate and use a Tower Shield, even though you aren't proficient. Dump all of your skill points into knowledge skills. Max out as many as you can but make sure you get every single knowledge, even if it means that you can't spend all the points you'd like in it. If you've got room, take Decipher Script. If you still have room, start accumulating languages.

The basic gist of this character is that you make yourself virtually unkillable by hiding worthlessly behind your tower shield every round. What, you ask, is the purpose of this?

To make knowledge checks every time the DM so much as mentions anything in his world. You've got every single knowledge skill, and if for some reason you don't have one, you can Bardic Knowledge it. This can be a sort of test for the DM to see how long he can keep up with your constant pestering (indeed, this sort of character should never be fielded in any campaign you are serious about, or even against a DM that you like and/or is pretty decent), but the point comes across eventually - if he finds himself totally unable to answer your questions he doesn't know enough about his world. If he hasn't written enough down about his world, and he's still stumped, he hasn't mastered the single most important thing a DM can learn.

Make it up.

(Disclaimer: The above character is a joke and should never be used in anything other than a joke campaign or a seriously terrible DM you're looking to seriously annoy.)

1. Knowing Everything and So Much More.

So who here is familiar with the Omnificer? He was a fairly popular example of over-the-top powergaming on the WotC forums for a long time, although since the archives have been cleared I can't locate who, exactly, came up with this idea first.

Engineered as a rebuttal to the omnipresent Pun-Pun, the Omnificer takes knowledge to a whole new level with a series of short tricks. By utilizing magic items crafted by an Artificer (Ebberon Campaign Setting), this can all be accomplished by level 4.

1. You and four of your friends get together. You cast Shield Other on each of them. Then, they all cast Shield Other on you.
2. You all cast Delay Death and Beastland Ferocity on yourselves. Delay Death makes you immune to dying by damage for a round/level, and Beastland Ferocity keeps you conscious while below 0 hit points.
3. You cast Masochism on yourself. This spell, from Book of Vile Darkness, gives you (among other things) a +1 on skill checks for every 10 damage you take.
4. You use some feat (there are like 5-10 that do this) to give yourself the ability to make knowledge checks as if they were trained.
5. You jump off a cliff.

Jump off a cliff!? Why would you do that! Ugh! You take 20 damage!

...Well, actually, you take 10 Damage, and each of your friends takes 10 Damage. And actually, they only take 5 damage, and you take 20 damage (5 each). Really, if you think about it though, you only take 10 of that damage, because they each take half - 10. Which of course is really only 5 damage, because you're taking half of theirs, which amounts to 20 for you. Which really...etc etc etc.

You take infinite damage immediately. You do not die because of Delay Death. You do not go unconscious because of Beastland Ferocity. You immediately gain +INFINITY to all skill checks. In an instant (because knowledge checks take NO TIME to perform, as listed in the skill description) you make as many knowledge checks as you need to immediately learn everything there ever was to learn. No matter how high the DC could ever possibly be, you learn it. Everything.

I can see some of your jaws hitting the floor, but I assure you it's perfectly legit. You are, of course, at negative infinity hit points (and actually still taking hit point damage) so you should probably dismiss Shield Other. There are a variety of ways to get your hit points back, so the damage isn't really a big deal, only that you resolve it within the next couple of rounds before Delay Death wears off and you explode into nanoparticles.

The important part is that you have become Omniscient. I, for one, think that's a great way to end our article on Knowledge.

Master of the Dungeon: Kriss Morton

In a new segment I almost named "DM Spotlight", I'll be interviewing DMs from around the country (and perhaps the world!) to dig deeper into the creative skulls of those who power our games and make our dice roll. Our first victim is a CR 6 named Kriss Morton who hails from the Portland, Oregon area. I've played a few of his games over the interwebs before, but never in person. Hopefully he'll be able to give us a little insight into the Dungeon Master mind...

Welcome to the first ever Master of the Dungeon, Kriss. For starters, how did you get into Dungeon Mastering?

One could say that I've been Dungeon Mastering since I was about eight, running solo campaigns with one of my close in-person friends or just random people online using quick-and-simple systems (if you could call them comprehensive systems) I'd devised in half an hour or so. I grew up surrounded by the oldschool D&D books and watched my dad DM some sessions with friends of his, so I became attracted to the whole thing long before ever actually meeting a clique of friends to play with.

I would occasionally run through oldschool AD&D modules with my in-person friend, but with no preparation or real knowledge of the rules they turned out to be more exercises in spontaneous DMing rather than AD&D itself. Years would pass before I'd ever seriously run a D&D campaign.

For the sake of earning the serious ire of a fraction of our readerbase right off the bat, what would you say is your favorite system to GM for, and why?

D&D 3.5 and d20 modern / future and the like. Say what one wishes about the numerous shortcomings of these systems (I sure have); they work, or at least can be made to work with a respectful, responsible playerbase and a creative GM who isn't entirely a doormat. Given house rules, I find that I'm familiar enough with these systems to adapt them to any sort of campaign setting, style or genre I wish to run. There are plenty of good systems out there that I love to run (I feel that Dark Heresy deserves mentioning), but I find creative empowerment in the non-specificity or rather flexibility of the above two.

That’s our favorite too.

I hear that GURPs excels exactly at the quality I've just highlighted, but I've never played it so I can't speak for or against it.

What sort of aspects of gaming do you find most enjoyable when GMing? Are you a social interaction improvisor, or a tactics fiend? In other words, what part of the game really drives it home for you?

I have my days of being a tactics fiend, or wanting to create the perfect "epic" battle for the scene, or seeing just how over the top I can make a certain aspect of the session be. But the most rewarding thing to see as a GM and, heck, even as a player, would have to be the building of relations between characters. This includes defining moments, like realizing what one's true purpose is or defeating / being bested by one's mortal enemy, that affect a noticeable transformation on a character. Even if the forces driving the story are questionable and the action is lackluster and the GM is inexperienced, I know I can have a whole lot of fun playing a campaign as long as there's good chemistry between the characters: you know... like this character constantly fighting and quipping with another, or these two happening to be buddies, or these two constantly plotting against each other... but in a positive, engaging, storyworthy way (rather than it feeling like two players at each others' throats)... something, social activity, that good stuff. Watching these sorts of things unfold as a GM is likely the closest experience to watching a child grow up that I expect to have in the near future.

Incidentally, I took a "What kind of player are you?" survey, with 'Tactician' and 'Powergamer' and a small handful of other possible results, and scored overwhelmingly on 'Method Actor.'

One of the reasons I'm starting this series is so that new and inexperienced GMs can have some examples to draw from when it comes to improving themselves. What would you say is something newbie DMs tend to fall short on the most?

They either try to control too much, or worry too much about control.

Care to elaborate?

Okay, actually, this is sort of a personality thing as much as a new DM thing and not all new DMs go through this (some go through the other extreme), but it's something I've seen a handful of times. One thinks, "Oh, but I have to be super prepared and have all my maps and my stuff drawn out and every possible contingency addressed in the adventure and if a player goes off of it then it's all a disaster and I've failed." Or one runs a pre-written adventure and insists on following the script with next to no deviation from it, as though their sole purpose is to arbitrate the machine which is already there.

I wouldn't wish my words to be heeded as some sacred text in this regard because we're touching upon a stylistic thing as well; I am a 50% preparation / 50% improv DM. I know DMs who run heavily off of long hours of preparation and run good campaigns for it, and that works for them, but I find that much of the magic is what unfolds in the immediate, and unexpectedly. This is also the reason I rarely, if ever, mandate complex backgrounds and explanations of motivations. I don't even know what my own characters want / will do in situations X Y Z until I've played them for a while and gotten a feel for them.

I expect people to make discoveries about their characters in-game and I expect to make discoveries about them and myself when I run. In a nutshell: the most common mistake of any GM is to forget that the ultimate purpose of this is to have fun, and while we may agree upon specific ways we wish to have fun (being epic, being scared), all else must be ancillary.

My plan was to ask you what sort of advice you would give to new DMs to avoid this, but it seems like you were pretty thorough there.

I would also like to add: if you're new to the system, don't get too caught up in the fine mechanics; you won't know them all and you probably won't be expected to know them all. Focus instead on improvising creatively to make the flow of the battle / encounter go the way it must. Don't bog up the fight rolling initiative for all 17 kobolds you're going to send at us, or going through your cluster of papers to find precisely what that one monster's stats are. Just make it work and get comfortable with it.

If it comes down to that, a rules-loose game is perfectly acceptable as long as the players understand that it will be a rules-loose game, at least until you get the hang of things.

Is there any one moment in particular that stands out as the pinnacle of your DMing career? Anything off the epic charts, or a particular triumph of yours you’d like to share?

I've never ran a session or had an encounter reach what I would call perfection. I suppose that's the way it ought to be, because it means I always have something better to strive toward.

That's not really an answer to your question... but it comes to mind. The most recent DMing moment that I was very proud of came at the after-math of a climactic battle resulting in the death of a major antagonist who had done the party significant emotional grief. It rained upon the bloodsoaked field and the party members held up the spoils of their victory to a roaring crowd while also not really hearing their chants, instead being caught within their own contemplations for what had just come to pass. And one of the player-characters saw in the rain the image of his former mentor, long-since-dead, turn around and regard him briefly and then fade... such that nobody else saw him, and indeed he may've been less than a ghost and nothing but a mirage. It was potent because I could tell that the players were having a reaction to it, and because I myself could see the image very clearly and feel that it was right. Not perfect, but memorable.

Also I was listening (and having the players also listen to) a really fitting track from OCRemix that completed the mood. For me, at least.

That sounds pretty epic to me. One last question before we let you go, though; You are moving through a dungeon and you see a blurry rune inscribed upon a wall at the end of the hall. Do you inspect it closer?

Depending on what character I happen to be playing, I very well may. If I, Kriss, became an adventurer and explored such a dungeon, I would not be caught dead near any strange runes.

Good answer. Good answer.

If you know anyone that deserves to be on Master of the Dungeon, feel free to let us know!