by Katherine Griebe

Created on: January 20, 2010

Player interaction:

1) Don't let the PCs use domination magic on one another and don't let any characters permanently change the psyche of other PCs (ie: a certain spell in the BoVD). This is really no fun for the player that it is happening to, particularly if he really likes his character.

2) Players should not make fun of each others characters. Discourage this from happening if it comes up (politely but firmly). If it gets too out of hand you can always impose more serious consequences (ie: XP penalties) but try not to be too overbearing or you will just make things awkward and even more uncomfortable for everyone. Try to persuade the teaser to stop rather than forcing him outright, if possible.

3) You may wish to forbid PCs from actually harming/killing one another, but if you chose to do this do be aware that you may well damage the roleplaying aspect of the game in your endeavor to keep the peace.

4) Don't tolerate or be party to any out-of-game arguments at the table. If things are tense, take a break from the game and have the involved players work out their differences. Don't resume play until things have calmed down. If you do, the whole game will just get tense/awkward and no one will have any fun.

Designing an adventure:

1) Utilize stereotypes but have deviations (ie: a den of trolls that is actually peaceful should be abnormal, but it could happen). Be careful not to overuse anomalies (ie: all dark elves are suddenly CG rebels against their people - it kind of defeats the purpose and makes them not-so-interesting to interact with).

2) In treasure, provide interesting and useful magic items that players might not otherwise think of purchasing

3) Examine the strengths and weaknesses of the PCs. Design adventures according to their capacities, creating challenges without over-doing it.

4) If time is a crunch, add some tough monsters (just make sure that they are interesting ones) for PCs to fight and cities for them to go shopping for new equipment (provided that they have the funds to do so).

5) Don't incorporate things that your players aren't comfortable with (ie: be careful with things like sex (consensual, rape, pedophilia, bestiality, etc.), death (torture, murder, etc.), politics (avoid political statements, moral-opinion comments (ie: abortion, death penalty, etc.)), and so forth). When uncertain, talk to them (individually) about it before-hand or bring it up to the group and then pass around a comment/vote box to get anonymous input. This

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