DM Jinx's Events

[Tahlisar]

The seven habbits of Jinx

1. Be creative, role playing does not finish when combat starts. If you want to throw someone through a window, do it! If you want to kick someone off a cliff? Do it! Use the evironment and fight smart.

2. Your character is as much a living breathing person as you are, they are affected by events going on around them. Dynamic character growth is a must for long term campaigns.

3. Respect the players involved. Or, what happens "In Character" stays "In Character". Antagonistic encounters with other players will happen. If they happen during the course of my events, I will expect a much higher standard of role playing than is generaly considered the minimum. If this is not forthcoming, I will adjust xp rewards to reflect this.

4. There will always be more than one way to do anything. Spotting a lie, can be done with Spot, Listen, Diplomacy, Bluff, Wisdom, Lore and quite conceivably any other skill, on a case by case basis. For example, if someone tells you something about place X, and you happen to something about that place (Lore check) you can spot the lie. Similaly, many other IC actions can be done using different skills, but the results, will be very subjective.

5. I run events alot closer to the Forgotten Realms campaign setting as portrayed in the 3.5 sourcebooks, the game engine puts limitations on some spells that are artificial, for example Etherealness allows you to pass through solid objects at will, travel in any direction and makes you totaly undetectable. But you can however be attacked by other "Ethereal" creatures or characters.

6. Events are planned, but entirely subject to player action. There is no script, only a few NPC's with goals and motivations who's interactions can be shaped by players.

7. Enjoy yourself.

[Tahlisar]

... This time its personal.

I'm steadily taking in character backgrounds and using eliments of them to work into existing and future campaigns and events. I've got rather a few now and reading them all takes alot of time, so, here's a few guidelines about what I want from you.

- Prose is nice, but concise is better. I've got more than a few multi-page wall of text backgrounds. Now, reading a six page novella is good, but unless your reasonably confident I can skim it to get the key points... don't do it please. I've got alot of stuff to get through, what I want from you, the player is...

1. Who your character is - Less than five hundred words, idealy written in the third person as if the character were being discribed by an impartial observer. Phyiscal description if you like, scars, how you got them. Family, friends, political views, religious views, old enemies, past scrapes. Again, hard to cram into five hundred words, but please try.

2. Check your spelling and punctuation. I'm dyslexic, I know many people are, but I'm also fairly confident that my typing is atleast 95% accurate, and when I finish, I proof read. Please also make sure you punctuate and use paragraph breaks. "Walls of text" are difficult to read and if you don't use correct sentence structure, I may get lost or misunderstand you.

3. Out of character gamer profile, wait what!? Yes, I want to know what you want from my game. Do you want to hack through a mountain of dragons and feel like the punnisher on steroids? Do you want to throw chairs at people or kick them through windows? Do you want to manipulate your enemies with a few well chosen words and start wars with a carefuly forged note. Or... do you just want to explore your characters past and try to come to terms with something you once did wrong.

3.5. (Yes I made a D&D joke on a D&D forum, sue me.) Please, be honest about your play style. The only rule I have is that I won't run a "monty hall" dungeon crawl with zero role play. I lean towards hard core deep role play. That means if that isn't your cup of tea... probably stop reading here because...

4. Character growth, do you have some idea of where you want to go with your character. Okay, your a human who realy, realy hates Dwarves. Well, if you meet Dwarves, and have good experiences with Dwarves... are you realy still going to religiously hate Dwarves? If yes, have a damn good reason. Incidentaly, apply common sense to this, some prejudices will never change, because they're too ingrained. Make this clear to me.

5. Think long and hard about your background. I want three things from it.

5.1. Why is your character <alignment>, if its because your parents were killed. Stop, and rethink your background. Anger, is not the only response to this, and it very often does not last. As a life goal, being batman is about as shallow as a puddle of rainwater.

5.2. Why does your character doubt him/herself. Everyone has doubts, some people crush them, some people listen to them, but they are there.

5.3. If your character had ten thousand gold pieces to spend what would they buy?
- A very good past answer to this question was. "How many pints of beer is that? And do I have to tell my wife I have the money?"

Thanks for reading. If you want to send me your background, post your PC name here and wait for me to reply asking you to send it to me. I don't want to log in and see ninety PMs in my inbox, because my head will explode.

[Tahlisar]

Numb3rs and the Golden Rule.

The Numbers.

Your character sheet, does not determine where your character ends, but it does determine where it starts. That is to say, your do have stats and they do place limits on what your characters physical and mental atributes are.

If you've taken a min, to get a max, I will expect you to role play your min, as much as your max. Its not fair on those who built balanced characters if, after you stuck your thirty points in strength or constitution and left your mental stats as eights you still think and talk like a genius, comedian and diplomat.

So how does this affect me?

I will assign a higher priority with regards event scheduling and time allotment to characters who stick closer to my Golden Rule. This may mean, that if you've minx maxed, taken a power built set of classes, and skimped on your role playing of your characters flaws and growth, that... I don't run very many events for you. I won't ignore you, but... building a character capable of killing everything, means that the characters built for role play miss out. My stated intent is to make playing role play builds more fun and exciting.

What is the golden rule?

Do not take the piss.

You could, min max your stats, take a power built class structure, and ignore role play with a total disregard for a consistent personality or stat linkage. If you do, your taking the piss.

So... what do I make of your stats.

6. Poor. (Orc Inteligence, you barely speak common)

8. Bellow average. (Gnomish Wisdom, your a little absent minded)

10. Human average.

12. Above average. (Elf Inteligence, you are quite quick)

14. Very Good. (Dwarf Toughness, you can take a punch to the face and keep smiling, even as you spit out your broken teeth)

16. Excelent (Orc strength, you can heft a great weapon without much effort)

18. Legendary. (Drow Cunning, You ensnare others in complex schemes almost without thinking)

20+. Epic. (Elminster's Inteligence, You solve complex problems of planar mechanics and magical interactivity theory without bothering to show your working out.)

[broham1]

Numb3rs and the Golden Rule.

The Numbers.

Your character sheet, does not determine where your character ends, but it does determine where it starts. That is to say, your do have stats and they do place limits on what your characters physical and mental atributes are.

If you've taken a min, to get a max, I will expect you to role play your min, as much as your max. Its not fair on those who built balanced characters if, after you stuck your thirty points in strength or constitution and left your mental stats as eights you still think and talk like a genius, comedian and diplomat.

So how does this affect me?

I will assign a higher priority with regards event scheduling and time allotment to characters who stick closer to my Golden Rule. This may mean, that if you've minx maxed, taken a power built set of classes, and skimped on your role playing of your characters flaws and growth, that... I don't run very many events for you. I won't ignore you, but... building a character capable of killing everything, means that the characters built for role play miss out. My stated intent is to make playing role play builds more fun and exciting.

What is the golden rule?

Do not take the piss.

You could, min max your stats, take a power built class structure, and ignore role play with a total disregard for a consistent personality or stat linkage. If you do, your taking the piss.

So... what do I make of your stats.

6. Poor. (Orc Inteligence, you barely speak common)

8. Bellow average. (Gnomish Wisdom, your a little absent minded)

10. Human average.

12. Above average. (Elf Inteligence, you are quite quick)

14. Very Good. (Dwarf Toughness, you can take a punch to the face and keep smiling, even as you spit out your broken teeth)

16. Excelent (Orc strength, you can heft a great weapon without much effort)

18. Legendary. (Drow Cunning, You ensnare others in complex schemes almost without thinking)

20+. Epic. (Elminster's Inteligence, You solve complex problems of planar mechanics and magical interactivity theory without bothering to show your working out.)

This should hold true for ALL Dm'd events. The character sheet is all us DM's have to go on as far as a quick overview of your characters is concerned. Nice work Jinx.

EDIT: you can delete this Jinx if it is clogging your thread. Just wanted to let it be known that you aren't the only one that feels this way.

[Tahlisar]

Since it's come up.

IMPORTANT:

This is by no means a fully comprehensive list of all the possible interpretations or meanings of these stats. This is intended as a detailed guide to cover stats of human minimum and bellow.

What is a min?

I'll look at each of the classic DnD stats in turn and examine what one common side effect of a minimised stat entails.

Strength (STR): Strength is a measure of muscle, endurance and stamina combined.

Strength 8 or less. - You are extremely physicaly weak. You may suffer from arthritis or have been maimed in battle. But for whatever reason you cannot lift heavy object without assistance nor do you have a full range of movement. You may also tire very easily.

Dexterity (DEX): Dexterity encompasses a number of physical attributes including hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, fine motor skills, balance and speed of movement

Dexterity 8 or less. - You have a serious loss of fine motor skills, you may have lost some fingers or been wounded in an accident or in a fight, but you find manipulating small objects, or perhaps making sudden movements accurately and writing things down extremely hard.

Constitution (CON): Constitution is a term which encompasses the character's physique, toughness, health and resistance to disease and poison.

Constitution 8 or less. - You may have had a fall in early life, or been poisoned, you may suffer from a congentical illness or simply have a small frame, but you are not as tough as most people. You feel the cold, you don't travel well either on horseback or perhaps by sea, you may be picky about what you eat or you will probably have a "glass jaw".

Intelligence (INT): Intelligence is similar to IQ, but also includes mnemonic ability, reasoning and learning ability outside those measured by the written word

Inteligence 8 or less. - You lack the complex reasoning skills of most people and find problem solving difficult. You find may struggle with languages and will certainly not have a wide and varied vocabulary. Planning anything involving multiple variables is almost certainly beyond you.

Wisdom (WIS): Wisdom is a composite term for the characters enlightenment, judgement, wile, willpower and intuitiveness.

Wisdom 8 or less. - You are very naieve or perhaps just gullable, but you believe what most people tell you without realy giving it much consideration. Perhaps your memory is quite poor or you simply haven't traveled much, but you lack the "savvy" most people have to accurately weight up the risk versus reward for your actions.

Charisma (CHA): Charisma is the measure of the character's combined physical attractiveness, persuasiveness, and personal magnetism.

Charisma 8 or less. - People just don't like you. Maybe your ugly, maybe your just rude and obnoxious. Perhaps you've just got a way of speaking that isn't that sophisticated. But you find it hard to relate to people, to understand them and to make them understand you. You lack leadership skills and may be prone to skyness or perhaps your a bit of a loner, but either way, your more comfortable on your own.

[Tahlisar]

Just to clarify, "Intimidating" someone, does not mean you shout at them and they "turn blue to you".

That is an oversimplification of an event that in the PnP, could include...

The hospital Matron glaring at the man who's just dropped a cigarette on the floor of her ward. She dosen't need to say anything, but that "look" makes him pick it up and put it in the bin.

He's not actualy afraid of her, but she's made her point and at that point he's done something.

In this instance, the specific emotion she has used was "Guilt". But she herself, has intimidated him into doing it.

The policeman tells calmly you to get out of your car.

Here, despite the fact that you may not think you've done anything wrong, or that you're actualy not fond of the law, there is the knowledge that if you don't do what he asks of you, you might go to jail.

In this instance, the specific emotion is either, fear. Not blind terror perhaps, but rather the knowledge that if you don't do what he tells you, eventualy, it will end badly for you and you realy, don't want to go to prison.

In each of these cases the "victim" of the intimidate check, reacts and obeys the command, but the emotional responses are both entirely different. When "intimidated" you should consider it your responsability, as the person who failed the check, to find a reason for your character to do what the other person asked you.

But Importantly: The person making the check, must first give them something to work with that is reasonable. See bellow.

The Drow slowly lowers his hood, draws his sword and smiles as he opens his mouth.

"Get out of my sight, or I will kill you."

In this instance, the Drow, being a race feared across the realms, has given his opponent a valid emotional response to role play "fear". However, this is not always the best response. A better way of doing this is...

The Drow slowly lowers his hood and draws his sword smiling.

"I am Drow, even if you kill me, there will be others, and my House will never stop hunting you. They will find something, a drop of blood, a scrap of cloth. A single hair is all it takes, and you will never escape us."

Here, no matter how stupid, blase or downright brave our attacker, he knows, what the Drow is telling him is true, and grudgingly he can accept that it isn't worth the hassle of spending his whole life looking over his shoulder.

In order to resist this, your "will" to do what you want, irrespective of the wishes of others is what you fall back on. This however, is very situational, and should idealy only be used with common sense, and cooperation between the players.

[Tahlisar]

Door open again for background submissions, if your interested, please read post two of this thread before sending me anything.

Jinx.

[Tahlisar]

Okay thanks to those who've sent me backgrounds, replies have gone out today.

To answer a few general questions...

1) I won't incorporate anything without first giving you a chance to revise it. Much of what I've used and am using now has gone through multiple revisions in collaboration with the originating player.

2) I don't generaly run anything that isn't connected to someone's backstory somewhere, because quite frankly I have enough material that to run my own disconnected campaigns would be pointless. There are plenty of avialable buy in's and just having a guy with a beard turn up and pay someone some gold to kill rats is boring as sin.

3) I won't kill you without first asking for your explicit permission to do so. That's not to say I won't destroy your sanity, maim you or drive you to alchoholism first on a "without notice" basis.

4) Rewards generaly speaking scale to your actions, if you throw someone through a window, emote body language and demonstrate depth of character, beyond "kill more monsters, get more stuff" you can expect to see your behavior rewarded.

[adzling]

m

[VanillaRose]

I think my character background is on the DM boards already, but I have one for my character, Selis Vhaire, if you would like it.

[Narijika]

If there is still a chance to send backgrounds in, may I send mine to you?

[Aethor Siger]

If you still taking backgrounds I would love to send you mine as well. I have been meaning to post it on the forums anyway.

[Tahlisar]

Bit hungover, replies will be going out late Aethor mate sorry.

To answer another question.

There is no "wrong answer" per-se to any question I put to you about your character. At the end of the day the exercise exists not to generate answers but to get you to think about your PC in ways that you perhaps haven't before.

We all know almost instinctively what they would do when confronted with a "red" goblin. I want to know what they do on a rainy day or at the weekend when the Dragons are on statutory leave and the liches are in re-hab.

What's your PC's favourate drink? If they don't drink, why not? If one small event in your PC's past were to be changed, which event would it be and how would it effect them?

These all help me get inside your PC's head, and when I can do that, I can find your bank account details I can try to make the events more the kind of thing your PC will be hooked by.

As with all things, I will do my best with what you give me, but if you can meet me halfway, I have more time to spend on the things that matter. Like, eating pizza and watching Kevin Smith films running events.

[stratigo]

Unto Jinx I have rendered the character sheet of Alexi Arminov.

[Tahlisar]

Replies have gone out.

A little word again on how you do your writeups, it's a small thing, but it would help me immensely if you could but in some more paragraph breaks and chapter headings. It means I don't have to read a solid wall of text for that one referance to your childhood best friend.

Thanks for the backgrounds guys.