Irish Inspiration: Good Craic

The Irish are known for their fellowship and friendliness. Maybe it’s a stereotype, but as stereotypes go that’s not a bad one to have. And that friendliness and sense of fun is infectious—last week I spent my nights hanging out with Aussies, Israelis, Germans, and French until the wee hours of the morning (something that did not always occur in other places I’ve hosteled). And let’s not forget the music—live performances in almost every bar with no cover every single night of the week. I was in heaven.

In D&D, the habit of pumping strangers for information in taverns and inns is so ingrained we rarely think about why most people go to bars—for fellowship, friendship, and distraction. And while many social interactions might be glossed over in the interest of pacing—“After two days of searching, you hear a rumor that the Winter Blade entered the city only yesterday”—it’s worth occasionally slowing down to actually spend some time in the characters’ favorite inn, tavern, or festhall.

Here are some tips on keeping the ale pouring freely:

Make bards the stars. Unless your bard has tragically misspent his skill points, he’s likely to have the most ranks in Performance in the joint, along with a pretty darn good Charisma. People are going to beg him to play and sing. Patrons are going to want his attention, respect, and affection (and will compete to get it). He is going to be the life of the party. So let him be.

For even more fun, you can play this for a running gag. Imagine your party’s three-foot-tall halfling being able to get a drink in any establishment, while the fighter twice her size is habitually refused service, or perhaps can’t even make it to the counter!

Similarly, some DMs like to set up rival adventuring groups as foils for the PCs. If so, make sure they have a bard—particularly if the party doesn’t have one. Watching their rivals scoop them on rumor after rumor will drive your players absolutely nuts.

Encourage—and reward—players for good performances. Whether it’s a use of the Performance skill or simply good role-playing, players who put resources into social encounters (whether skill points or time spent role-playing) will both have more fun and should benefit accordingly. If the party’s gnome evoker took the time to learn the fiddle, make that expenditure of cross-class skill points worth it.

If it’s an encounter, it can have an Encounter Level. Anyone who has survived middle school knows that social encounters can be more chill-inducing than any wight. If your party bests a foe in a conversation, a negotiation, or even a flirtation, it may be worth an experience award.

Have a night in a bar where nothing happens. It’s perfectly okay to role-play a night out at the bar and have nothing of significance happen. In fact, this is something you should do. Not too often, of course—there are orcs that need slaying—but every once in a while. This forces your players to really act in character for long periods of time rather than relying on dice rolls, and gives you insights into the characters that can be useful later on. Plus, when players and characters come to truly like and loathe certain NPCs, you know you’ve really developed a living, breathing world and not just roughly sketched a setting.

Irish Inspiration: Giants in the Earth

As I mentioned, I just got back from a trip to Ireland, and while for the most part my attention was devoted to sightseeing and fine stouts, I did keep my eyes peeled for role-playing inspiration.

One sight in particular caught my eye: Inishtooskert, the Sleeping Giant. Just off the coast of the Dingle Peninsula, this island truly earns its name, looking for all the world like a giant in deep repose.

Set amid waters that are hazardous even in the best of weather, this island is difficult to visit up close, but captures the mythic imagination when seen from afar. Battered by wind so hard that our guide warned us to keep hold of the car doors so they didn’t bend off their hinges, it was easy for me to look out over the coast and put myself in the mindset of people from an earlier age. To them, giants wouldn’t be creatures of legend. They would be fact—or at least a likely probability (perhaps recently extinct, like the South American flightless carnivorous birds who may have coexisted with early humans and lived on in local tales). The evidence would have been there, right in front of them. Or it would have at least made for a good story to tell around the turf fire. Looking out through the mist, I wanted to believe.

What if it were a real giant or titan? This could be the central mystery of a campaign, an intriguing side trek, or an enigma purposefully left unexplained. How would it have gotten there? Would it be asleep, dead, ensorcelled, or cursed? What impact would its presence have on the people who lived near it? How would they interact with or avoid it? And what would the consequences be if it woke up?

Here are some more thoughts for making the most of giants in your campaign:

Giants live where people give way. Mountaintops, islands, canyons, icebergs, deserts…all are the provinces of giants.

Pick your period. Most campaigns take place in a late medieval/early Renaissance (or even steampunk, thanks to magic) period. Giants in these eras will be on the run, or consigned to far distant lands (think Xen’drik on Eberron). But if your campaign is set in a period reminiscent of the early Middle Ages, the Dark Ages, or before, giants will be uncomfortably close neighbors. They may even be more sophisticated or magically adept than humans.

Introduce them early. Characters should hear about giants while they’re still 1st or 2nd level. Bards and innkeepers should tell tales about them that make the blood run cold. They should leave tracks in the snow deep enough for livestock to flounder in. Most importantly…

Characters should run into their first giant well before they’re ready. And they should lose.

Note that this does not mean a fight to the death. Perhaps the giant loses interest in them, is scared off, or otherwise heads on its way. Perhaps the characters are captured and sold, thus springboarding them into another adventure. The point is, the giant should win handily—because that scares the bejeezus out of characters like nothing else. From then on, whenever you mention giants, they will quiver in their comparatively tiny boots. And when they finally do beat their first giant, many levels later, the party’s early defeat will make their final victory taste all the sweeter.

Ignore all of the above if it makes for good fantasy. One of the fascinating successes of Athas, the world of the Dark Sun setting, was its cosmopolitan half-giants, who lived among humans and changed alignments and philosophies as freely as clothes.

A Tardy Return

Well, I’m back from vacation! …And already posting a day late. *Sigh* Mexico and Ireland were great (as was the long weekend in Baltimore and Philadelphia in between) and I even managed to mine my travels for some D&D world-building ideas. But a fever has made my reëntry into the daily grind a bit rocky.

But never fear, I am indeed back. Rather than posting every weekday, I’m going to try to keep to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, both for my own sanity and to keep the quality of the posts high. So look for a new post tomorrow as I dive back into realms of myth, magic, and mayhem.