Staff Rules

Overview

New to running a game? Looking to expand your narrative horizons? Wanting to ascend to that heavenly game master role? All these things have one thing in common- you need a briefing on how to do this. Luckily for you, Lucertola boasts an excellent community of staff ready to help you settle into your position of GMing a game.

This guide aims to break down the process of building a quest from the ground up into small, manageable parts. One thing universal among all game masters is that we have tiny brains, and need the extra steps. If you don’t have a small brain, don’t worry. That can be changed.

First, we will figure out a concept. The concept is extremely important, as without it, your quest will lack a certain thing we call cohesion, where your quest makes sense from a thematic standpoint. Then, we will stitch together a story, and make encounters that work with it. Finally, we will cover the basics of formatting a quest, and discuss some dos and don’ts of GMing.

Before We Begin

Adventures have a certain process to them. Make sure that a game master and The Dungeon Master have checked your outline, so that you don’t step all over any lore you shouldn’t leave your grubby boots all over. Once the quest is designed and approved, post it in #adventure-announcements.

Step One: Make a Concept

Sometimes the most daunting part of running a game is figuring out what exactly that game is. Some quests delve deep into the politics of a region, others are simple dungeon-crawlers with traps and monsters. No matter your style, the concept is paramount.

To come up with a concept, you should keep a few things in mind:

• What is the end goal of this quest?
• Do you wish to focus more on intrigue or Hack n’ Slash?
• What environment does your quest take place in?
• What motivation is there to offer this quest? What motivation is there to accept this quest?
• Who is the antagonist of this quest? How are their underlings?

Lets run through an example. Flipping through the monster manual for inspiration, I come across an Azer. They are elementals who are greedy for gemstones. That’s pretty cool, and I want an Azer themed quest. Already, we have a theme for our enemies- the elemental plane of fire. While Azers are cool, their low CR means they serve better as a group encounter rather than a boss. However, I recall from my DM knowledge that Salamanders are much stronger, and hate Azers. So now, we can say a Salamander will be our Big Bad Evil Guy (BBEG), or the guy who is behind everything.

Now, we also have a bit of a plot hook. A salamander hates Azers, and Azers love gems. Why should we care, as adventurers? Why would the Azers care about us? To bring the concept together, we need a reason to have a gemstone, that the Azers will attack us for. Perhaps the adventurers were tasked with delivering this gemstone to a Salamander- perhaps to perform some sort of wizardry upon it. So like an escort mission, of sorts. And in return, they can expect some pay out of it. The salamander chooses to turn on them, and now they have to defeat their employer.

Now that we have a concept, we can move on to part two, and dive more into the nitty gritty.

Step Two: Filling in the Details

So you have a concept, but the concept is not enough to run a whole adventure. We need to add some meat to it, to give it structure and connection. This is where we will be deciding the plotline to our quest, and the gameplay to back it up. In any good quest, one must work to establish a balance of these things, as gaming without a story is pointless and a story without a game is equally so. In this part, you can be flexible with the process. Some game masters will prefer to make a story to fit their mechanics, while other game masters will stride towards encounters to enhance their story. Which route you pursue first is of little importance, you will get to the same place anyhow.

Creating a Structure.

The quest needs to have a structure to it- a general idea of how things are going to go. For a traditional quest, it is recommended to have around 3 encounters, constituting a day or two’s worth of in-game time. Quests should escalate from the first words of the quest to the climactic battle with the antagonist. If the best fight is at the beginning of the quest and the rest is dog poop, players are going to swiftly lose interest in whatever it. So do what I was taught in Composition I in college- start with a solid middle ground, then do your least memorable encounter second, and then end it on a climactic high note.

Starting and Stopping.

Remember to introduce your quest. It’s rare that a dm should start with combat immediately, so you need some way to introduce the exposition of the quest. Does a creepy old man in a tavern tell you what needs to be done? Does the party witness something they likely shouldn’t have? In addition, the quest should be resolved at the end- it is rare that a storyline is neatly packaged with everything ending on combat. Perhaps the employer has some grateful words to round us out; maybe the adventurers witness something absolutely grand; maybe they get to see the results of their efforts. A DM needs to keep in mind that a story doesn’t end the second the big bad is reduced to 0hp.

Designing an Encounter.

So I brought up how many encounters should be in a quest, but I never explained how to design those encounters. As a DM, you should have already peaked in the DMG and figured out how to make encounters, but I think it is worthwhile to cover some stuff the book just won’t tell you.

First of all, it may help to have a starting point for an encounter. Check out Kobold Fight Club, an excellent resource for quickly building 5e encounters. Remember to change the fields to tailor it to your needs, including environment, type, and number of enemies.

KFC is a great resource, but it doesn’t do all the work for you. CR is not the most accurate system to gauge difficulty in 5e, so to make sure you get things right, understand what the system is not telling you. First of all, KFC creates encounters for ⅓ a day’s xp, and so if you are bypassing the three encounters rule of thumb, adjust the numbers accordingly. Second of all, CR fails to keep in mind action economy. If a creature has pack tactics, it would be in your best interest to overestimate the encounter. If it a crap ton of creatures, overestimate the encounter. If it can inflict status effects, such as a beholder or a shadow, overestimate the encounter. Make sure you understand the impact of these skills, because they can be absolutely terrifying especially at lower levels.

Finally, and most importantly, make your encounters fun and thematic. A random gnoll in a quest about fae? There’s no reason for those two things to work together. Find creatures that work well with your narrative. Also, think about creature synergy. Some creatures work extremely well when paired with other creatures, such as boggles and dryads. If you need hints about a monster’s fighting style or possible synergies, look at the monster manual, which has a ton of cool, insightful information about how a creature may react to situations. An example I personally like is goblins. Alone, goblins are not very strong. However, reading their entries in the monster manual and Volo’s guide, they are master tamers who often have animal warriors. They are also excellent ambushers and have great trapping skills. And their unique caste system can create an interesting outlet for player strategy. One of the most important parts, in my opinion, is remembering that not every encounter is combat. Perhaps players must endure a slew of skill checks, or solve a puzzle. Finding a way to outlast a storm or having to negotiate for their lives are both excellent non-combat encounters that give roleplay-heavy characters plenty of room to shine.

Going back to our adventure into the elemental plane of fire, lets fill in some loose details. The adventure takes place in the Elemental Plane of Fire, which poses a few issues. First of all, players will need a way to survive in such an extreme environment, particularly needing breathable air and a way to not burn in the hot atmosphere. A challenge here is that due to the theme of our planned enemies, However, we have a convenient item to demonstrate a magical effect- a certain magical gemstone, that the party is already escorting. This item might produce a 10ft bubble around it, within which the atmosphere is room temperature and dry. The ground beneath it, while within the bubble, doesn’t seem to produce much heat, either. What we have done here is introduced a gimmick- something that encourages players to think out their strategy. Any character without fire resistance needs to stay within this sphere at all times, otherwise, they suffer extreme heat, as listed in the DMG. Metal and flammable equipment may heat up or catch flame, as per DM ruling. In addition, characters who need to breathe will need to hold their breath outside the sphere. Characters will now be forced to stick close together and move as a more coordinated unit, which is extremely hard in this small area.

Now, we have three encounters to do. When making these encounters, we need to account for the limited mobility of the players. Encounters should be somewhat easier, as otherwise, the difficulty of the gimmick and the difficulty of our encounters will overwhelm our players. However, we can challenge them by punishing over-reliance on the sphere- which brings us to our first encounter.

The players emerge from our portal in a small building. Composed of a portal room and a short hallway, the exit is guarded by a fire elemental. Not only is this enemy thematic, but its Fire Form ability is an excellent way to pressure our adventurers out of the sphere. It is an excellent way to introduce the consequences of leaving the sphere, without swarming the players.

The party defeats the elemental and leaves the portal hall, emerging into a small village of Azers. At first they seem to welcome the party. They explain that the salamander has been known to stir up trouble in the area. Long ago, he was prone to attacking this very village, but later stopped in favor of plotting against the efreetis who enslaved their race. The Azers notice the gem, and their greed wells up inside them. Soon, the Azers are forming a mob that runs them out of town. Boom, now we have lore, NPCs, and an encounter that isn’t about killing things so much as trying to outrun them.

So the party, having escaped the Azer horde, now reaches a small castle overlooking the valley. They enter to meet the salamander they need to deliver to. Here, they have a choice; in moderation, players love choices. They can hand over the gem, or they can try to keep it for themselves. If they hand it over, they lose their only defense from the environment. What players shouldn’t know at this point is that the salamander has no intention of paying them, or even offering them a safe way back to the portal. If they don’t hand it over, the salamander loses their temper, and attacks them even without confrontation. We will only have one salamander for this battle, as he is meant to be the BBEG. However, we can add as many fire snakes as we need to adjust the difficulty to something memorable. This fight is a back and forth of stealing and losing the gem, to refresh their breath.

After slaying the salamander, rewards can be found amongst the salamander’s castle. The party is then free to travel back to the portal, the Azer’s now reverent of the party’s deed. They do not try to take the gem from their benefactors this time. The party returns home, and the gem is shattered in the dimensional travel, leaving two halves of a non-magical gem worth 1000gp (can be sold for 100gp-500gp total) and a Necklace of Adaptation. We do this to ensure that the orb, which is not an official or necessarily balanced item, doesn’t go back to Lucertola and have adverse effects on later games.

Step Three: Running the Game

Now that we have an idea of what the adventure is, we need to actually host it. Running an adventure is something that can be improved through practice; if things don’t go your way the first time, it only means you know what not to do next time. That said, let’s dive into some rules of thumb, tips and tricks, and overall guides on how to make your adventure the best that it can be:

Formatting.

Lucertola has a very specific formatting system, and Game Masters are no exception. When narrating the events unfolding, we use italics and bold in conjunction, which can be done with three asterisks on either side of the text.

Ex. ***As Ronald peers down the hall, he watches as the wispy, tumultuous form of a

raging flame element sends a warm glow echoing down the dark-lit hallways.***

When working with NPCs, we put dialogue in block-code formats. A nice thing many people forget about block code formats is that there are some key words you can find online that let you change the text color for people on desktop. However, that is in no way required. We accomplish this with three graves wrapping the text.

Ex. ```I said give me the gemstone, or you will never see the light of day again, fleshlings.```

When working with OOC, we are pretty flexible, but recommend using inline code formatting. To do this, you can put a grave on either side of the text you are wrapping. However, some GM’s take all OOC to a separate channel, and more wrap OOC in parentheses or square brackets.

Ex. `Make me a dex save, Ronald.`

Adjusting Encounters.

Sometimes, it becomes apparent when an encounter was vastly over or underestimated. Fret not- for as the Game Master, you have the power to fix your mistakes. Good reasons to adjust your encounter is a lack of oversight when planning, an unexpected amount of player skill, loss of a player (such as a really quick player death, leaving the fight every one-sided), or other unforeseen circumstances. Bad reasons to adjust encounters is to fix character mistakes- if a player does a dumb, we urge you to let them feel the consequences of that dumb.

To address the elephant in the room, let’s talk about dice rolls. Here is the thing about dice rolls; as DM, you have final say in it. If dice are rolling extremely well or extremely poorly on one side or the other, feel free to adjust the encounter as needed. The catch to this, however, is that it breaks apart the fundamental randomness of dice anyhow. If no matter how you roll the encounter is the same difficulty, the effect of high rolls can chop up to nothing, or even make players dread the addition of enemies. To reiterate, you can change encounters based on dice rolls, but know that doing that doing it too obviously or too often will have an effect on the game and players.

Character Death.

One of the hardest things as a game master is to handle character death. When a character dies in a quest, usually it should be thoroughly roleplayed, then that character should receive the unapproved role and be told to roll up a new character. If they protest, remind them that it is a normal part of the game, and if they believe that it was an unjust death, take the discussion to a channel where it will not disrupt play (or PMs, just make sure to keep screenshots).

You have other options, as a DM. If you feel that it is warranted, you may offer an alternative to death. For example, pressuring a player into taking a warlock pact is a wonderful way to keep a character alive without letting them get by scotch free. Another option is to let them die, and then use that death in a narrative way. A solid example is allowing a character to rise as an undead or spectre, to exact vengeance or for a final moment of roleplay. Do not be afraid to exercise your creative freedoms!

Adventure Outline

You can use the following outline to write and propose your quest to the other game masters and to The Dungeon Master. Make sure you propose any new elements in the Staff Filter channel!

>>>[Adventure Name]

`Game Master:`

`Players:`

`Level:`

`Backstory:`

`Encounter 1:`

`Encounter 2:`

[Include any rests they may take between encounters.]

`Encounter 3:`

`Notable Planned Rewards:`

`Narrative Effect:` [Will this affect the lore of the server? How? ]

`Notes:` [Include anything else the other game masters should know before approving your quest.]

Adventures Posted here need several things.

1. They need at least 2 "plot hooks" that we can use to start it. they can be party/character specific but do keep it light. can't be too rigid so improvisation is possible.
2. They need to have a general suggested guideline of how its expected or should play out. this again shouldn't be too rigid or detailed, but this is basically a tl;dr where you would mention anything that would lead to more detail heavy stuff.
3. They need to have any monsters, enemies, loot possibilities, EXP totals, and major NPCs mentioned in some detail.
4. Please include any possible endings, branches, and sidequests.
5. When an Adventure is complete, please edit your post to include the end and the results of the quest.

**Adventure Template:**

>>> :white_circle: `Initial Plot Hook:`

:white_circle: `Plot summary:`

*-Moral Questions:*

:white_circle: `Enemies:`

:white_circle: `Established NPCs:`

:white_circle: `Rewards (XP or Material):`

:white_circle: `Rough IRL time Prediction:`

:white_circle: `Level:`

:white_circle: `Party Size:`

:white_circle: `World effect:`

Please remember, this is only for planned missions, you can still do sporadic missions, but it would be nice if you filled this out at some point during or after the sporadic improv stuff.

Once you have finished your Layout, If you are a GM, Post it in #adventure-layouts, if you are a Trial GM, post it in lesser staff chat.

Regardless, both Roles should be open to peer review of their Adventure, and if the Dungeon Master says you can’t run it, you can’t run it.

NPCs: Non Player Characters are a vital part of a Game Master’s toolbox, They are your primary way to have the player’s interact with the world. Everything from the King to the lowliest goblin is a way to express a story through the world. That said, there are some guidelines to running NPCs in your adventures and encounters.

• Firstly, named NPCs, These are NPCs that are important enough to need a Name. they’re often recurring, in both the world and Adventure. Use them wisely.
• whenever you are thinking of making a named NPC for use in your adventure, check out #npc-lodge, that is where we store all the Named NPCs for future use, if an NPC there fulfills what your new NPC would do, use it instead.
• When Making a Named NPC, be sure to post it in the staff filter instead, it could clash with something you had not foreseen and cause problems down the line.
• When you are determining the purpose of an NPC, it is crucial to understand its position in the world and its consequences, an NPC being a simple knight is one thing, an NPC being a Demigod Chancellor of the righteous is another. And creating politically important or overwhelmingly capable NPCs for use in your adventures may lead your Party to feel unimportant or useless. To avoid this, most NPCs should be kept at about or below average Player level when possible.
• DO. NOT. CREATE. GMPCS. Do not use the NPC tool as a way to create your own power fantasy.
• If you are creating an NPC that is involved with an Organization, it is important to note how that affects the world. Do not try and create a character that defies conventional interpretation on a blatant level, Such as a peace loving druid that's part of the inquisition unironically.

Random Encounters: People don’t like to be bored, and for some, hunts are not enough. For those people, we have random encounters. Now, encounters don’t always have to be combat, but they’re always some kind of fun. I’ve put together some tables that may help out for both adventure building and random encounters.

Random Encounter Table:

This section is for whenever Character parties or adventurers leave the city. This can be for whatever purpose needed. If the Party isn’t intentionally going out for random encounters, roll a 1d20, on a 13 or higher, They will face a random Encounter.

To generate a Random encounter, go to one of these sources and input the parameters of the number of players, their levels, the environment, the difficulty, etc.

Remember, they don’t all have to be combat, 6 pseudodragons could simply want to play a game of riddles.

http://tools.goblinist.com/5enc

https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/random/

For Difficulty, keep into account any magic items the players have as well. Try not to bust their balls too hard.

And be aware that some of the generator’s results may be contradicting the lore of the land, so be sure to get a peer to review the result.

(these generators can also be used for gladiatorial combat, just a heads up.)

D&D was initially formed as a way for people to come together at a table, eventually through the decades and the advances of technology and digital media, Play-by-post and online voice chat games were derived from that system. Each system offers a unique advantage, but Play by Post is the polar opposite of Voice chat games, so to account for the differences, Game masters that are interested in running games set in Lucertola through Voice chat will need to be vigilant in note recording both before, during, and after the session. It's important that your details are passing through the filter, and that you know the setting well enough to improvise without destroying what everyone has established.

That said, running a voice campaign for Waking Myths would likely be much easier to manage due to its short burst nature, maintain a schedule and taking notes should make things easy. Just be sure to post adventure outlines ahead of time and plan accordingly.

When you post a Game for Voice chat, make sure that the players can attend that game on a consistent basis, and have a set date to run it that everyone can agree on. Make sure they realize it's a voice game as well.

When a Major Staff or The Dungeon Master Finds something that needs doing, they will post a Job in #job-log whereupon any staff with availability and the required skill set can react with a thumbs up emote to confirm that they will do it. More then one person can work on a job at a time, whether or not they work together, They will then post their results or a notification of completion in the main staff chat. Game Masters are also expected to take jobs as well. And you can notify the server owner if there are additional jobs as a result.

**Job:**

**Effect:**

**Required Role:** 

**Notes:**