DM Notes

Wherein the DM posts general notes and table rules...

Magical Items
Magical items are rare and wondrous part of the campaign world. In Old Weir, a particularly magical town, the most powerful artifacts that are passed down over generations, are +1 weapons. These things are hard to come by, people are loathe to part with them, and it is often only possible to find them by adventuring. They are extra durable, superbly crafted, and holding them or wearing them feels remarkable. The Misfit Six have done well for themselves in accumulating so many this early--a testament to their time in a recently discovered ruin. A couple notes:

1. You can use this PDF to get a sense of what magical items exist in the world and how much they generally cost. You can decide if you think it’s reasonable your character has ever heard of these items. These costs are not sticker price, but more general ideas--the economics of magical items still apply and the table in #2 shows a multiplier based on town type. 
2. You probably can't find most items in one place. The rarer and more powerful the item, the less likely anyone in town even has heard of the item, let alone possibly sell it to you. Use the table below as a rough guide.
   
   
   
3. Crafting is a whole separate issue. It requires time, expensive magical materials, and know how. Sometimes finding the right gem or rare venom can be a real ordeal. The table below provides a general sense of the resource cost. 
4. Some magic items require attunement--for the bearer to understand it and carve out a place for it in their mind. A player can only be attuned to three magical items at one time.
   
   
   
   
   

Shared storytelling

The DM does not drive the story, but instead understands what's going on in the world: the motivations of people, timing of their plots, forces in their lives, etc., and considers how all those things interact with the PCs. It's the players that make choices that drive the game and steer the campaign.

The combination of the two is why it is shared storytelling. So if you catch yourself thinking "ok come on DM, what's next?" check that thought, and turn it around: "what does my character want to do next in this situation?" The world is wide open.

Play styles

Different players enjoy different aspects of the game. It can be helpful to think about which parts you like and try to recognize which parts your companions like. This way you can get into the things you enjoy and bring energy there, and also understand that another part may not be as exciting to you but for the person next to you it is the best part of the session. Do you enjoy:

• Acting -- getting into character and engaging with the world as they would; roleplaying social interactions; understanding and expressing your character's personality in all its subtlety
• Exploring -- seeking hidden treasure, finding the next mysterious dungeon, uncovering the secrets of the dark forest, figuring out how the pieces of the world fit together
• Instigating -- starting action, making things happen, rushing headlong into danger--sometimes at your party's peril
• Fighting -- kicking the shit out of monsters and villians, starting fights, measuring your character's progress through martial prowess 
• Optimizing -- fine tuning your characters stats, gaining levels, gathering cool items, decking out your character, achieving peak performance
• Problem solving -- scrutinizing NPC motivations, untangling villainous machinations, solving puzzles, and coming up with elaborate plans to best execute the party's goals 
• Storytelling -- contributing to the narrative, investing in how the story unfolds, uncovering aspects of the plots in the world, using encounters to advance events, shaping the campaign

Experience points and leveling
Rewards from team successes are generally split evenly. It's always a group effort that leads the party somewhere, the interplay of personalities and actions that lead to certain results, and it is hard to break out all the parts that contributed to any success. There may be some outlier examples where individual acts of heroism or skill or smart playing will result in different XP, but for the most part, advancement is fairly uniform.


Rolling dice

• Try to know what modifier you are adding to the die when you roll it so you can say something like, "I got a 14, plus 2, so 16...do I hit?" 
• Roll any damage dice with the attack roll to speed up combat, if you hit you already have the damage rolled
• Any die that rolls off the table should be re-rolled. Same goes for a die that lands askance and shows two numbers.