Running a table top RPG, advice, suggestions?

[Moss]

So as a present for a certain someone I bought a copy of the Cthulhutech core book and have been setting up a game for her and a couple of our friends.

We're doing character creation on Sunday night and I'm currently throwing together some background materials for everyone to look over before hand. I've got a decent framework for a story and the game rules are simple enough that I shouldn't have too much trouble running it, but the catch is neither I or any of the players have ever played a table top RPG before.

So, any hints, advice, suggestions for a virgin GM?

 

[Mage246]

Expect players to either do everything in their power to go off the rails of the adventure you've planned, or to have absolutely no idea what you want them to do and so just wander around aimlessly looking for clues. Also, never ever give your players the chance to kill off anyone important to the story, because chances are if you do they *will* kill them. This is because most story-driving NPCs are insufferably bossy/mysterious/annoying/stuffed to the gills with lewt/evil (pick one or more), and thus the players will consider themselves sufficiently provoked.

 

[Suspect-Device]

Traps, lots of them.

 

[Archonsod]

Not played it myself, but it looks like ye average cyberpunk-conspiracy-horror thing with big robots right? There's a host of tips I could give you, but I'd need to know more about what you're intending to play.

For the basics - chuck your story and the rulebook out of the window In order for an RPG to work you need to get that old suspension of disbelief going, in order to do this you need to build up an atmosphere. Quickest way to spoil that is to have someone (whether you or a player) reaching for a rulebook or notes every five minutes. Keep the game flowing rather than worrying about whether you're doing it right; if you can't remember the specific rules then make something up on the fly. It's going to be a particular problem as both you and the players are unfamiliar with the game so the temptation will be there, but remember you're the boss. If you're unsure of a rule, improvise and look it up later. Useful tip for horror/conspiracy games - if you do improvise and are caught out, smile knowingly and infer hidden influence. You can always build up a reason later which can weave into the story as a useful plot hook or diversion (see, it was that evil cultist's curse that forced us to use the D6 rather than the D10 for that roll ).

As far as story goes, the players will start chucking spanners into it from character creation. Rather than worry about the details it's more useful to come up with an antagonist and flesh them out fully. Ask yourself what they want to achieve, why they want to do it and how they would go about doing it. If you can get a handle on the motivations of the antagonist (this applies to individuals, groups or natural occurrences) then whatever the players do you can craft a suitable response (and at this point, the story almost tells itself). Naturally a synopsis of the plot is useful, but don't get too hung up on the details.

To that end, I find it useful to look at the main locations I'll be using and come up with two or three generic encounters for each. Nothing overly detailed or fancy, just a brief synopsis of an event which might happen there (think of it as a mini-story if you like). The idea is to keep them simple enough that you can modify them on the fly to fit with the theme of the game at that point, and plug them in to the main story (or not, as the case may be) to keep the players occupied. If things start bogging down you can then chuck one of these out to give the players a little kick up the arse, modifying the details on the fly to either give them a break or get them back on track. As long as you're good at improvisation the players will probably never notice the resemblance between the ranting drunk and that insane fisherman they encountered a while back.

 

[Elenmmare]

Wow, this is a very interesting insight into the RPG world. Nice read, Arch.

 

[CrazyEyes]

Give the players plenty of opportunities to roleplay and to flesh out their own characters. This seems like a non-issue, but really I'm talking about dialogue and NPC interaction. I've made the mistake before of "too much" action - not "killing stuff" action, but even just traveling or shopping or what have you. I find this to be one of the more fun aspects of an RPG, when you can really portray that character that you've been working on.

 

[Moss]

Thanks for the hints guys, I might have to rethink how I've structured the game. Thankfully we shouldn't have too many issues with the rules, they're nice and simple, basically stats vs stats with 1-5 dice added depending on your skill levels in whatever skill you're using.

I'm thinking my storyline might be a little too well thought out though, it's supposed to be pretty short and a stand alone thing considering that we only have four sessions all up, but there's not a lot of room for people to act out their characters, it's more of a murder reveal than a murder mystery. I'll try to think up some more situations where people can socialise with the NPC's.

For those interested this is what I've got so far:

Spoiler

Players receive dreams looking out from the eyes of a man, showing his day to day routines. He's trying to contact someone, anyone. This leads them to a subway station and a locker they know the codes to.

Inside the locker is some personal effects, money and a leatherbound journal (quite the anachronism given the setting). The Journal gives them a name, but also worrying insights into the person who's been reaching out to them. Basically an unregistered sorcerer, he takes private investigation jobs, or whatever else puts food on the table, using scrying magic and dreamwalking. He's hardly a talent and what work he does find is low paying. Unfortunately he's stumbled on something rather larger than him. Basically corrupt policemen and government officials are working with cultists to bring things of the horrible variety into the city.

At this point they can:
a) Do nothing. Go back to their normal lives and pretend all is well, or if they're smart, high tail it the hell out of the city/arcology.
b) Attempt to report it to the authorities. The information they get from the journal should be enough to make them think twice about this, but I won't stop them if they try.
c) Get their Sherlock Holmes on and try to track down the sorcerer.
If they do the first or second they'll be getting visitors of the unfriendly variety, if they survive they'll know that they have no choice but to get some solid evidence so they can get some protection. Or they can run, but that doesn't work very well when the authorities have you listed as criminals and nearly every way out of the city has strict security check points.

When the decide to investigate the matters themselves between the images from the dreams and the journal they'll know that he lives somewhere in the pit, in the lower arcology, basically a slum. Eventually they'll make their way down there, and with a few skill checks avoid any trouble (any trouble not avoided will probably be short). From there they learn the general where abouts of his home, which is off in the tunnels (the pit is basically the basement level of the arcology and it's design is largely industrial). A short run in with a gang later they reach the door of the man they're after, only to find it's locked. Picking the lock/breaking down the door reveals the sorcerer lying in a pool of his own blood, there are no other entrances or exits, not even vents.

From here it's revealed that he managed to find out the time of a meeting between the cultists and corrupt men, a good opportunity to get some actual evidence if there ever was one, but unfortunately whilst he was looking out the eyes of one of the cultists, whatever they were bringing in to the city saw him there. The rest of the journal entries are just terrified ramblings.

Knowing the time and place of the meeting (a warehouse) and having a few days to prepare the players should have no trouble getting in and setting up some surveillance. When the meeting comes it's revealed that the corrupt policemen are headed by the chief of police, renown for his anti-cult efforts. Depending on the firepower and confidence of the group they may:
a) Take photos/video for evidence then leave.
b) Pop a cap in their asses.
Option a will result in a happy ending, they have proof of a high ranking corrupt official and will be able to bring in the appropriate authorities to deal with it and protect them, the police chief will be arrested, but will kill himself whilst being brought in, as well as all the other men present. Some shoot themselves and others tear open their wrists with their teeth. Several days later things will swarm up through the maintenance tunnel, tear through the pits and then up onto the streets. The police and military reserves offer resistance but will be over run, it's up to the players to attempt to escape the city alive.
Option b will result in the dying police chief (who gets hit in the fire fight) telling them that he was doing it because they promised to save his dying wife. The cultists are bringing in some kind of creature with telepathic powers, which they plan on using to influence politicians and other people in power or possibly to assassinate people through good old fashioned mind rape. He tells you that whatever it is it hasn't been released from it's wards yet, so it's power is limited, but they'll do so soon. There's only a few cultists left and he begs you to stop them quickly.

At this point they can opt out and call in the cavalry, but they shouldn't feel the need, I'll have him stress that it should be a cake walk. If they do opt for it the authorities arrive too late and the cultists have already fled, wards broken, which then procedes to option a above if we have time. If they go on the chase and take matters into their own hands they'll get far enough into the underworks of the city to be thouroughly hosed before they realise that the police chief didn't know the half of what was going on. They'll be in the thick of a veritable feck-tonne of bad guys and bad things and all the time they'll have the big bad screwing with their heads and giving them hallucinations. If they're smart they'll try to run at this point, if not they can try to pull off some serious heroics, kill the big bad and the head cultists before they can rip a portal open and bring some seriously unpleasant things into the city.

Edit:
I should point out that due to the nature of the game most of the players won't be trained soldiers. Player classes don't really feature in CT and unless you're playing a combat focused campaign characters aren't going to prepared for big fights. Most of the players will be civilians of one kind or another, they'll still be able to point and shoot a handgun, but they're not going to have combat training and they won't have access to automatic weapons and armour.

 

[Tuckles]

Too linear IMO.

And you don't expound on the choice of them just leaving it alone or going to the authorities. Those are both just "THE END"s? Lame.

 

[Moss]

Sorry, probably should have explained that better. Those aren't "The End" scenarios, those are things I don't have any definite plans for yet. Basically the game will shift from detective work to us playing through their attempts to escape a city infested with horrible things and horrible people. The game goes in another direction, but it's not over until they've won the day, escaped or died horrible, horrible deaths.

If they go to the authorities before they can prove anything then they have to contend with the attempts on their lives, in the unlikely event that doesn't convince them they need to do something I'll just free form it and we can play a cat and mouse thing for a while before we move onto the "and then all hell breaks loose" scenario.

Edit:
I'm thinking I should add more options than "ask the bartender at the place he drank at", maybe I should work in some more supporting characters, have them track down people they've seen in their dreams of his daily life/memories and get information from them? If I make him a recluse it means they'll have to look around a bit more, dig into his past, have to deal with explaining why they're trying to find him to complete strangers, which should be more satisfying than just getting a "oh, he's over there, eigth corridor on the left".

 

[Archonsod]

I'm thinking my storyline might be a little too well thought out though

It's a good idea for a story, but you've plotted it too much. You'll end up either railroading the players. The other problem is exposition, from the sound of it they're getting infodumps at regular intervals, which is horrible to the game flow.

Rather than dreams, a better idea may be to have the sorcerer somehow related to all of the characters, and after his death the characters are nominated to receive his legacy, perhaps as a will or perhaps they are asked to identify his body. You can then have them given the journal as one of his possessions. You don't have to abandon the dream route either though as it could be a useful mechanism, if any of the characters are magically sensitive themselves (or in a pinch, the sorcerer cast a spell on his journal which would affect the first character to read it) they could begin reliving his last few days. Don't give too much away through this however, perhaps the character would get the feeling that something is important, but not know why unless they put two and two together themselves.
To future proof, perhaps have the circumstances of his death noted in a police report too, it could be useful to spur the players on later. If the guy was stabbed to death by a funny shaped knife in a sealed room then having an assailant wielding an identical knife materialise in a characters room and attempt to murder them is an easy way of putting them on track if they're lax in their investigation. Naturally, the attack would be smoothed over by the corrupt cops, but if they need another prod down the line then they could be hauled in for questioning regarding the homicide and threatened with imprisonment if they continue investigating .... and so forth. Don't worry about this kind of stuff too much, the players may or may not go down any particular route. The more doors you can leave open for yourself the easier it is for you to deal with what the players decide to do.

You need to flesh out the cult too. Like I said, the more you understand the nature of the villain, the more natural you can make the game flow. They're bringing in monsters, but why? Consider the following:

They're paid to bring in these "packages" by another figure. This means they're criminals rather than cultists, and as with organised crime everywhere then some city officials are in their pocket. It changes the nature of the threat too, if the players become a thorn in their side then the response is likely to be underworld thugs, paid hitmen and intimidation. Do they know the nature of the trafficking they're involved in? If so then perhaps the head of the crime family is the only true cultist. If not, perhaps the players can find evidence to prove the gang is being used, and convince them to team up to thwart the plans of the cult.

They're bringing them in for power. The creatures are part of a ritual or similar designed to increase the magical power of the cult. That being the case, the players may face mystical as well as physical obstacles. In addition, where do the officials stand? Are the city officials secretly corrupt sorcerers who use their position to hide the unspeakable evils at the rotten core of city government, or are they simply allies who were swayed by promises of unimaginable power? If the former then perhaps the city cannot be redeemed, if the latter then maybe the players can instigate a revolt, or blackmail one of the cult's allies into helping.

There's a host of other options there too, like I said the more you understand who the cult are and what they are trying to do the easier it will be for you to shape the game, and judge how the cult would react to the meddling of the players. It also helps to establish other strands you can use to weave the characters in, if for example you went with the first option then perhaps players familiar with the criminal fraternity might hear rumours about a small time gang who appear to have gained in power rather quickly, or maybe one will be invited to assist in a "delivery".

Basically, you're thinking too much in terms of story and not enough in terms of character. The story is written as a collaborative effort during the game, not by the GM beforehand Come up with a well fleshed out foil for the players to face and let them dictate what actually happens. Maybe they'll discover the chief of police is corrupt, maybe not. It doesn't hurt to have these ideas floating around, but don't try to screw it down too much. To give one problem with your plot thus far, at several points you say the players could leave town, but nothing after that. If the cult see them as a threat is it really as easy as just quitting town? What if this is your first play session, do they spend the next three twiddling their thumbs? Figure out how the cult would react to it and instead you can fill those three with a daring flight across the wilderness pursued by raving madmen and slobbering things of unpronounceable names instead.

In short, don't try to plot it all out beforehand. You'll need a hook or two to get the players involved in the investigation, and you need to know what the cult plan to do and what will happen if they're not stopped, but everything else depends on the actions of the characters. As long as you have a rough idea of where you want the story to go so you can nudge them one way or the other that should be enough.

I should point out that due to the nature of the game most of the players won't be trained soldiers. Player classes don't really feature in CT and unless you're playing a combat focused campaign characters aren't going to prepared for big fights. Most of the players will be civilians of one kind or another, they'll still be able to point and shoot a handgun, but they're not going to have combat training and they won't have access to automatic weapons and armour.

Key thing to remember in any setting where there's a force for law and order is carrying weapons all the time and killing people out of hand tends to have consequences, and that applies to both the players and their opponents. Personally I never kill a character unless the player is being monumentally stupid or has screwed up somehow. You don't have to have them killed, maybe they just get roughed up instead, or knocked out and captured. And to paraphrase the old CoC rulebook, even when KO'd by a monster they may still awake to find only their left forefinger missing, for who can predict the actions of something man cannot comprehend ...

 

[Moss]

I'm not sure to be honest.

On the one hand you've got a hell of a lot of good points and I know that no matter what I do somehow the players are going to find a way to do something completely unexpected and take the story some where else completely.

On the other hand though time is very short, we'll probably only have three session of about two and a half hours and most of the players will be going home, on holidays or working after that and I'd really like to have the story wrapped up before everyone has to leave or knuckle down for the exam period. I don't want to end up rushing some kind of hackney ending and forcing the players into it simply because there's not enough time.

I'm not sure what my group will be capable of, none of them have done this before, so I'm not sure to what extent they'll be comfortable taking control. Last thing I want to do is steam roll them, a story isn't worth making if it's not entertaining, but I'd rather they didn't get lost either. I think I'll have some events lined up so that I can push them in a direction if they're feeling lost but only set those up if they can't get the story going themselves.

As for the bad guys, the general idea is that they're part of one of the larger factions, the Rapine Storm, think the reavers from firefly, the nice twist to them though is that a sub set of their cult takes a different approach to the raping, pillaging and murdering thing. They corrupt from the inside, through black mail, fulfilment of dark and base desires or offers of aid that come at high prices. Some people they get through greed, others through lust or perversions and others, like our poor chief of police, through desperation. Regardless of their methods their aim is still the same, wallowing in mankinds darker side.

The beast they're bringing in is a form of demon. Man sized, horribly deformed, rotting flesh, organs hanging loose from it's chest, that kind of stuff. Although physically capable of tearing a man in half it's true power lies in it's ability to get inside peoples heads. It can cause hallucinations, voices, images, that kind of thing. Worse than that though is it can stalk dreams, giving it a back door approach into people's minds. A little nudging here and there and it can make things happen, if it really wanted to it could break your mind and wear you like a glove. If it was feeling particularly vicious it could do worse.

Our poor chief of police and the few other men who actually know what's going on just think it's going to be used to play with some politicians minds, help grease the wheels for the cults various businesses or enterprises, maybe help make a particularly beneficial target slide that little bit further into the cults grip. The real reason they're bringing it in though is to bring down the defenses. It's there to hit the people who might notice something going on in the waste works. People who might notice an eldritch power, an ancient relic, opening doors to places beyond the realm of man. In the end they want the fall of the new earth government and the subjugation of it's people to the corrupting whims of the dead god Hastur, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Archonsod]

Time isn't a problem. What might work best in your situation is to set clear real world times for certain events. Say the cult will bring the demon into the city at the end of the second session, at that point either the players will know what is going on and be able to prepare to stop it, or they won't in which case you just pretend the demon arrived early and all hell is just starting to break loose (so the supernatural wackiness just begins at the end of the second session, no matter what the players are doing). You can then use your last session for the grand finale, which is either going to be a titanic struggle against the cult to prevent them getting the demon in (and if time permits the scourging of the cult members from the city), or them running to the hills as the city crumbles. Either one should give you a memorable climax (not to mention a good cliffhanger between your second and third session, which will probably drive them mad but in a good way).
So all you really need is some suitable encounters you can throw at them to speed them up or slow them down as necessary. It would be good to go for tension here, have the sorcerer's journal mention the cult have something big planned in a couple of days so they know they're on a limit. Try roleplaying things you'd normally skip for the sake of narrative - maybe their local grocery store clerk is also a member of the cult so suddenly a trip for daily groceries becomes a life threatening situation. If you feel up to it you can even use this to throw them off; maybe the grocer is not a member of the cult but something about his smile today just didn't seem right. They'll be expecting anything mundane you ask them to roleplay through to have some kind of relevance to the plot, because if it didn't then you wouldn't focus on it. You can play with this by mixing up occasions when something does happen, and those when it doesn't. It'll help feed the tension and make it clear to the players they don't really know who they need to be careful of.
You'll then know at the end of the second session whether you need to go for a grand struggle or a dramatic flight, and can flesh the relevant one out between sessions. I think that's one mistake you're making with the plotting at the moment; if each session is two and a half hours long then all you need to worry about is having enough material for those two and a half hours. At the end of it you'll know better where the players are at and thus where you need to flesh out or focus on for the next session.
Again, how it ends is going to be up to you. Work out what will happen if they fight the cult off, and what will happen if they manage to run. If you have time you can roleplay through this conclusion, but if you run short of time you know how it ends so you can simply give them a brief synopsis of what befalls their characters. You can avoid rushing to an ending this way.

Something you might want to try is to set a real world clock to count down the five hours. When the players are told they have a time limit you produce the clock and say (out of character of course) "this is how long you have before the **** hits the fan, good luck". Yes it's slightly meta, but being able to see the time count down will add a sense of urgency for the players.

 

[fisheye]

What Arch said. The first and most common mistake made by newbie GMs is railroading. The instinct is almost unavoidable. You spend 5 hours making that wonderful story, and the PCs go off track in 5 seconds. So you either have to force them to conform, or lose all the time you spent making that elaborate narrative. Bad choices either way. Best plan is to just sketch the situation and react accordingly based on your NPC personalities. Basically, you need to have faith that your players are collaborators, not idiots trying to "play against the GM". Given that they're willing to sit down and do this in the first place instead of playing a computer game, you got good odds.

EDIT: in a sentence: "make environments, situations, places, people. Don't make a sequence of events."

 

[Moss]

Thanks guys, you're definitely right. Partly I'm just worried that I'd get caught off guard by a sudden decision or change in plans I hadn't prepared for and break the immersion by umming and arring for a minute trying to figure out what to do.

It's a much better idea to just start them out and let them figure everything out for themselves, I've got a fair few different scenes that can be easily adapted to different places/times/causes planned out (barfights, muggings, attempted hit and runs, trying to talk to recluses and mad men, interviews with overly hostile police, day to day shopping and chores, cooking dinner, some more horror themed stuff, etc), so I shouldn't be stuck without something interesting for the players to do if they decide to take the story somewhere else. For the most part though I think I should be okay to just free form it, the years of writing stories in my head on the hour and a bit bus ride too and from school have got to be worth something.

It'll be a pity though if they don't end up getting the attention of the big bad, one of the things I wanted to work in was it playing with their head, have them go about their daily business but have certain random strangers "looking at them funny", a guy down the street will appear to be staring at them, then disappear into an alley, when they stop for food a chef in the back of the diner seems to be stealing glances at them, that kind of thing. Basically the demon playing with their heads, trying to get them to do something stupid with some subtle fear and paranoia. There's so many ways you can do hallucinations and plays on the characters psychs, but it's not worth railroading them into it or throwing together an implausible excuse for them to come to it's attentions.

I probably won't get to use even half of the preplanned stuff, but that's okay, the players will probably put themselves in situations far more interesting than I can come up with.

Speaking of which, I need to draw up some floorplans of the Arcology as well as some good descriptions, if I'm not rail roading them into certain parts of the city then I'll need to be able to describe all the parts of it, and seeing as most of the characters live there I should at least give them a map as they should know where most places are. That and they'll need it to plan their escape from the city if it comes to that.

The main concern now though is that two or three days from the start of the game I've got five confirmed players, which is a fairly large group but not too many, problem is though that there's at least another four who may want to come. I could probably just split them into two separate groups, but I'm really not sure that'd work too well, so I might have to turn them away.

 

[QuailLover]

So a while ago I wrote a basic P&P rpg system...and my friend and I did a test run...

There wasn't any form of NPC tempelates or antyhing, and no set story. We created the story as we went along. It was fun...since I never was a GM before at that time, and he never played a Pen and Paper RPG before.

 

[fisheye]

The main concern now though is that two or three days from the start of the game I've got five confirmed players, which is a fairly large group but not too many, problem is though that there's at least another four who may want to come. I could probably just split them into two separate groups, but I'm really not sure that'd work too well, so I might have to turn them away.

LOL I thought you said this was going to be for a 6 hour mini-campaign. 9 players is not supportable in your situation unless you want it to turn into a mindless combat grind.

 

[Archonsod]

Thanks guys, you're definitely right. Partly I'm just worried that I'd get caught off guard by a sudden decision or change in plans I hadn't prepared for and break the immersion by umming and arring for a minute trying to figure out what to do.

Pro-tip - if you need time to think, throw something that forces the players or their characters to talk with each other. While they're busy arguing amongst themselves you can take a breather

I probably won't get to use even half of the preplanned stuff, but that's okay, the players will probably put themselves in situations far more interesting than I can come up with.

Save it for a rainy day. Or look at it and see how you could modify it to throw it in a different context. Like I said though you don't want to pre-plan too much, as long as you know your main movers and shakers you should be fine.

Speaking of which, I need to draw up some floorplans of the Arcology as well as some good descriptions, if I'm not rail roading them into certain parts of the city then I'll need to be able to describe all the parts of it, and seeing as most of the characters live there I should at least give them a map as they should know where most places are. That and they'll need it to plan their escape from the city if it comes to that.

What often works better for me is to flesh out some key locations fully and do the rest on the fly. You don't need to be able to describe everything, as long as you have a rough idea of what a given location would look like. You can always skip over actual maps and the like for the more generic locations, in fact half the time I just have a verbal description and won't bother with a floorplan unless it's required. It lets you get away with adding new bits and pieces if they suddenly become relevant to the game.

The main concern now though is that two or three days from the start of the game I've got five confirmed players, which is a fairly large group but not too many, problem is though that there's at least another four who may want to come. I could probably just split them into two separate groups, but I'm really not sure that'd work too well, so I might have to turn them away.

More players generally means more time to do anything, and since you have a time limit you might need to watch that. What you'd really need to do is split up the sessions however, so you have two entirely separate groups.
Another possibility which you might want to think about since this is your first time is to restrict the number of actual players and have the rest be your assistants. Basically, you give them several of the NPC's to play rather than doing it all yourself. It'll take some of the pressure off you, and as a bonus they'll provide a deeper characterisation of those NPC's than what you could do alone since they only have three or four to worry about rather than the entire supporting cast. If any of them are happy with being a GM it also gives you more freedom in terms of what you want to do, i.e. if the players decide to split up at any point you can send them into another room with your assistant to roleplay through what happens to them, while you handle the other players yourself.  You can even get some neat stuff going on, if say the players are arrested and interrogated by the police then you send each player to a different room (assuming you have the space) with one of your assistants (playing the interrogating officers) for that extra touch of authenticity.

 

[Devercia]

I always created a huge variety of fleshed out, but generic characters. That way you have a full hand of cards to play when you need to. You could do the same with events. This way, when you encounter thugs.

Thug A will be a glass cannon bully, Thug B is just making a show to save face, Thug C is is trying to impress his fellow thugs and is impetuous,Thug D is on his last thread with the gang and can't afford to fail, and Thug E is a debtor impressed into service so he doesn't get his legs broken. If you give them their own personalities, even if the players remain ignorant of them, they will flow together, and you won't need to remember what they would do, because you can just reason what they would do. Even if you don't have a thug encounter, you can just transpose it to other encounters: police, gamblers, merchants, the ones I mentioned could be any of these.

As Arch says, spontaneity and flexibility are very important.

 

[Moss]

That's a pretty good idea, I was going to write up some generic NPC's tonight, but I hadn't really considered doing anything more than stats and descriptions for the combat encounters, i.e. give the mob personality but don't bother with the members.

Thankfully I've got the numbers sorted now, I'll have five players, which should be manageable without having to split the group (although I'm sure that'll happen once or twice), pity though, because the helper idea sounded like it'd be a fun role.