Travel as a Narrative?

Travel is perhaps one of the biggest parts of most games that I run.  Apart from combat, it seems that travel is probably the most utilized part of a game.  It is also something I tend to put the least amount of thought into.  I'm sure I'm not alone in this--many games I've played in have had lack luster travel sessions at best, but something that comes as rather obvious in many games, is that you often spend an enormous amount of time going from point to point.  Improving travel will definitely improve the quality of sessions, and fix something that sometimes can become one of the more tedious parts of a TTRPG for both the player and the GM.  

I find that the biggest problem, is lack of diverse encounters.  Travel often takes days, if not weeks in game, and you can only fight so many level appropriate bands of gnolls or orcs before you just feel uninspired as a player or a GM.  While it sounds rather obvious, the best way to immerse and world build, is by showing, or describing, the world to the players.  A perfect opportunity to do this is from going from point A to point B.  I want to look at a few things that should and probably are a part of your game, but are probably under utilized.  

Weather.  I try to roll for weather every day in game, but I usually fail doing that.  Weather is an easy way to have an encounter that isn't combat, and can throw players who tend to build just for a specific purpose.  It is also a great way to allow rangers to shine, because if we are being honest about 5e, they get few chances.  The new Wilderness DM screen from Wizards of the Coast is perfect for this, if you don't already have it.  I don't really intend to use this space to pitch products, but it is something I've already began using in my games, and it's fantastic because it puts things that can fill out your game right in front of you so you can't overlook it.  

Weird locales.  There are plenty of tables for this, and I would recommend taking from and using as many as you can find that make sense.  Like weather, it seems fairly obvious, but again, it's something I don't see as often as I would like.  One tip I also have for new game masters, is use as many of these as you can find to flesh out your world, and make a note of it on a "master" world map.  I use a dry erase hex sheet now and then transfer anything I think should be noted into a notebook with a world map in it.  

Dead magic zones.  Dead magic zones aren't something I see often in 5e.  Dead magic zones should be used not exactly to nerf the party, but force them to be resourceful and think outside of the box.  RPG games in general allow for characters to be able to do pretty much whatever is allowed within the rules, but it tends to come down to combat or abilities to just go through the same sequences again and again.  This will burn you out, and make your games boring.  All of a sudden, there is a five mile area where magic simply doesn't work, now the characters have to rely more on diplomacy.  Sometimes just getting players to talk in encounters works miracles for opening up role play.  

A final thing I would like to add about travel, is it is a perfect way to show major events in the world, without having to shoehorn the party into it.  I've played in plenty of games that have been ruined by DMs trying to create battles or some kind of major world events that just couldn't be pulled off.  As a DM, it's also way more work to try to do this, and as a storyteller, it is just lazy.  Everything should build in a game.  Players should walk into the aftermath of a battle, or some kind of major event more than seeing it first hand, at least at lower levels.  This is an easy way to push the story forward without having to force things, plus it is significantly easier to draw out events and prep for upcoming sessions as a DM then it is to just make something up on the fly.  

I hope this is helpful to someone.  After playing with many people I don't know over the past year because of Covid, I will say that travel seems to be one of the weaker parts of a lot of games.  It's also something that is almost certain to happen in most games.   

Zero Level Characters

 Welcome to the first of what will hopefully be a long series of posts about TTRPGs.  I have been entertaining the idea of creating OGL and third party content for some time, but I'm not sure exactly when I'm going to jump in.  I have also been considering making a physical zine, but I'm not there yet with content, so I was thinking a blog might be the best way for me to keep interest, and possibly see if anyone else has interest too.  

Welcome to 2005 with the Blogger site!  If this does well, I will probably be migrating it to a real website, but I don't really feel like paying for a domain or putting in the effort if I am just going to have a handful of viewers.  Anyways, enough about the how's and why's and let me get to an actual topic.

This topic is zero level characters, and I am going to focus on 5e Dungeons and Dragons.  I want to be clear that I am in no way affiliated with Wizards of the Coast, and nothing I am saying is official, just my experience running and playing in the system.  Saying that, zero level characters are not something that I have come across often, and when I am running a game, I often get push back from players about starting at level 0.  Even if players are open to it, I am always asked why would a campaign start at level 0?  Of course there are several reasons, but in particular with 5e, it is to utilize something that I feel is often overlooked, and that is the Background mechanic of the rules.

So, you're running or playing in a game, and you picked a background for your character.  This mechanically will add something your character can now do, and maybe give you a few items.  Something I see happen more often than not, is Background basically ends there in many games.  There isn't really anything wrong with that either, what the character did in the past doesn't have to have a bearing on the current game.  But one thing I have seen often as a player and a Dungeon Master, is awkwardness in role play, especially in early sessions.  So, a Background could be what the character did prior to becoming a "hero."

Something I have been able to do a few times in games, is have the PC do something "heroic," which sends them on the path to now being a level one character.  Maybe it is an act of self sacrifice or something else that can become a defining moment for the character.  I personally like this as an idea for characters, because it gives the player and the DM an opportunity in game to explore alignment (something else I find under utilized in a lot of current games).  Another way I have done the transition is more of an XP based approach, basically having 0 level characters kill some kind of threat.  While this sort of goes with the "becoming heroic" idea from above, it's often more dangerous to player characters in the fact that the outcome is really decided by dice.  I like to think of the two different ways as a milestone approach, compared to an XP approach.  

Mechanics

Since 0 level characters do not have a class, it's up to the DM to decide what the starting HP are.  There are different ways to do this, since this is an RPG, but one way that I like, is to pick a race, and add the constitution modifier to 1d4 or 1d6, depending on how difficult the DM wants to make level 0.  Basically, do the same thing with all stats, with a base of ten.  I personally like 1d4 because it makes the transition to level 1 have a drastic increase in HP.  

There isn't really much more to say mechanically, because I find 0 level characters extremely straight forward.  Using them does give the DM a lot of room to play with, and while certainly every game isn't suited for 0 level characters, I've found that long term RP heavy games can usually benefit from the concept.