Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Strengths
Weaknesses
- Good at voices and defining mannerisms for NPCs.
- Adjust campaign arcs based on what players are showing interest in.
- Nothing is "true" until it hits the table. I frequently am changing details and whole bits to work them into what's going on and also player interests/expectations. My campaign arcs at the end of a campaign look nothing like the few I had envisioned at the beginning.
- Good (and accepting) of players adding to the wrold - fleshing out cultures, organizations, and the like that relate to their characters. Gives players a sense of buy-in.
- I run multiple plots all at the same time so that the players always have lots of choice what to d next - and frequently improv when they do things I didn't expect.
- Give each character character arcs taken liberally from their backgrounds as well as in-game actions. Make sure that I give each character spotlight opportunities every adventure. Related, I look for character features and skills that haven't come up recently and use those for inspiration on session prep. "Hmm, Silas hasn't had a chance to use his trap skills recently..."
- Love giving "Faustian bargains", where a character can get a short term advantage for a longer term problem. "Well, you strike at the baleful cauldron with your magic axe, but didn't roll well enough to destroy it. You see more of the undead spawning in it's depths. I'll give you a +5 on that roll if you're willing to sacrifice the axe in the destruction."
Weaknesses
- Horrible at doing episodic - never developed the skill.
- Need to get better at moving things along. Both helping players take actions (look, a 2 hour morale debate - which I love - but not much done in the session) as well as streamlining some things. For example when entering a new city I'll give feelings about the districts they are passing through, describe some folk, maybe street entertainment - it gives a good feel, but having the characters nip into half a dozen stores I describe to see if they have anything neat could perhaps be collapsed into a out-of-character buying session with a few rolls for discovering some unusual things for sale that I prepared.
- Lousy memory, so if I don't have it written down it will fade. My players often remember bits about my NPCs that I don't - something that came up in play and I improv'd it but never recorded.
- Prefer doing high level grand vision prep to the nuts-n-bolts prep of what I need next session.
- Can't stand running campaigns in someone else's well defined setting, especially if some players are more familiar with it than I am.
- Making combats as dynamic as they can be. Sometimes they bog down into grinds. (One of the reasons I like running 13th Age - it has the Escalation Die mechanic to prevent that.)
I mean... I am good at it in the other sense too... like really good... (call me?)
