On Learning to Go With the Flow

I recently began a Dungeons and Dragons campaign with four of my friends. I volunteered to be the Dungeon Master and run the world they were going to play in.

Now, the world that I created is basically a mash-up of David Gemmell's Drenai series, Glen Cook's Black Company series, and a few bits and pieces from Skyrim all within the framework of the 3.5 ruleset. 

Basically, I set it up so that there were pretty clear 'good guys' and 'bad guys' in this world and I was interested to see if my friends were going to choose to become heroes intent on deposing the Dominator and his evil empire, or villains to enslave the last few bastions of free and good people. 

My friends chose to become con-men.

I was prepared for brutish warriors, intellectual wizards, and greedy rogues ready to be anti-heroes or villains looking to slaughter villages for the fun of it.

But how do you handle a group of people who, with world shattering events happening around them, simply want to dupe everyone they meet out of their money?

From a story telling perspective, what they want to do is actually kind of hilarious. And they do make me laugh a lot.

From the technical aspect, that laughter usually ends up in the tired/incredulous category with me wondering "What's the rule for that?"

This last time that we played was pretty much the best example I can come up with for their behavior. 

After scamming a military officer out of 2000 gold pieces, the party took a boat headed for the south. Unfortunately, during a random encounter with dinosaurs (because I can, that's why!) one of the party members turned into a werewolf for the first time (whoops). When everything was settled, the ship's crew was a little... miffed... that one of their passengers has torn out the throats of some of their friends. A little bribing and a lot of high diplomacy rolls convinced the captain to allow the party to stay onboard until they made port the next day.

So what do my lovely little scoundrels do the moment that their feet touch dry land? Well run a huge scam of course! First they found passage on another ship heading along their course leaving in two days (that's important), forge some official looking documents, and then they hire a bunch of unskilled labor to begin constructing a ring for a tournament. They make posters and hire town criers to spread the word about a single combat tournament that's happening in three days. So one of them sits and takes admission fees from hopeful fighters from all walks of life, another sits and sells tickets to the rich and poor alike, while the last two help the town criers. The morning of the tournament they're on a ship heading south with a few hundred more gold than before and they didn't even leave so much as a note saying sorry at the unfinished stadium.

The most annoying part is that no matter what I set the dice checks for their rolls,they made them. The only control I had was how much they made.

And of course, on their new ship, they just had to look for things to steal. Well, they found some, and in the process, they killed a guard, a druid, and framed an innocent indentured servant for the crime while making it look like one of the Dominator's lieutenants was responsible for instigating the act against another lieutenant even though the druid was creating gifts for the former at the behest of the latter.

This story is getting complicated.

Like I said, I was ready for the normal archetypal characters that most people make, and I thought that I was ready for the chaos that inevitably follows the actions of two of my friends when they're players (when one of them is DM and the other is a player they tend to counter each other fairly well).

You can see why I have fun with this even though they make my brain tired.

There are some DM's who will try to control and influence the path of their players as much as they can. Some groups are just fine with that, but that's not how I want to play. I'm going to keep giving them the opportunities to interact with the big events happening in the world as the Dominator keeps trying to, well, dominate it. And if they want to keep pulling scams and running away from angry mobs well... I guess I'll just have to deal with it as best I can and learn some new rules. 

Thanks for reading!

Is It Just Me, or Are Things Getting Biblical Up In Here?

First off, I just want to apologize for missing the last few weeks. I've been in something of an energetic and creative slump. I'll try to do better, I really will.

 Anyway, a topic that's come up a few times with my friends and co-workers has been prophecy. Particularly prophecy concerning the last days before the Second Coming. And I have to tell you... I find it rather convincing and extremely interesting.

 One thing I remember is reading through Revelations back in Jr High, and it talked about huge armies besieging Jerusalem. At the time I couldn't imagine where those armies would even come from. I don't think we really need to imagine anymore. Israel is surrounded by Muslim nations just waiting for the right moment, ISIS is cutting a bloody swath through Syria and Iraq trying to establish a new Caliphate (and right now the US is letting the barbarians do it). We have widespread violent persecution of Christians and everyone not Muslim...

 My point, that I'm so inelequently trying to make is that Islam is making itself pretty clear to be one of Satan's mockeries of more divine systems.

 This article makes that point fairly well, I think. Don't get me wrong, not all Muslims are violent extremists, but it's becoming fairly clear that any Muslims that take their 'religion' seriously should be dealt with cautiously. There have been too many cases of "Sudden Jihad Syndrome" not to.

Seriously, the symbol of Islam is the Morning Star... also known as one of the Devil's titles.

During a lunch break a week or two ago, one of my co-workers brought up Jewish prophecy concerning different periods of time that are about fifty years, I think... I forgot the term he used, but essentially, the British (an overseas empire) ruled Israel for 2 or 3 of these periods, and the Prophecy says that the Jews will self-rule Jerusalem for one of these periods (which I believe started in 1967 and look at that, ends in 3 years...). Apparently every time that there's a blood moon something big and/or bad happens... and we've got 2 or three more to go before 2017? My Co-Worker also said that the prophecy talked about a Pope who resigns without the cause relating to health, age, or death and... That gives us Pope Benedict XVI. And after that Pope will be the last Pope, who came out and said that he probably only has about, get this, 3 years left.

My co-worker made a much better presentation of it all, and he does have the gravitas of age and experience, but isn't that cool? We've got Christian and Israeli prophecy coming to be all the time. Honestly, if 2017 isn't a big year I'm going to be disappointed. At least there'll be 8 comic book movies that year to take solace in.

Was this a depressing topic? Because it's one that I enjoy talking about and hearing about. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for reading!