Religious Beliefs by Culture in My Homebrew Setting

When I was first starting to seriously write on this site several years ago, I realized that a lot of the material I'd made for games could supply important illustrations of the kind of worldbuilding I talk about here. One of the first of my homebrew experiments to appear here was my guide to my variant of gods in D&D. In brief, the idea is that any significant event in the existence of a god causes a variation of them but defined by that event. In the guide, I explained what each deity and all of their iterations actually do. 

But like everything we do, it seems incomplete after we've grown and learned more about our craft. Now when I read that list, I think, "This is interesting, sure--but how does it affect the world? Is this something that just exists without affecting anything?" But a good GM is resourceful--it's possible to salvage almost anything with enough creativity. So today, we're going to look at the specific religious beliefs of the cultural groups in my homebrew D&D setting and how those beliefs impact day-to-day life. Let's get started. 

Daltoners: 

Beliefs: The vast majority of Daltoners believe in a version of Pelor the sun god which is unique to them. While other interpretations of Pelor depict him as kindly and paternal, helping support healing and growth for all. Daltoners, on the other hand, imagine Pelor as a ravenous, consuming figure who demands sacrifice or will refuse to rise again. These beliefs (collected in the Dalton Church of Pelor) are the binding force in Daltoner society--the Dalton Church of Pelor's rules are many and inviolable for its followers. Even their sayings invoke Pelor more often than not. [Note: This version of Pelor does not exist.]

There is a technical rule in Daltoner Pelor worship that Pelor can be one's only god, but because worship of Pelor is essentially mandatory, many Daltoners (especially younger generations) treat Pelor as a given and pick another to be their chosen god. The most popular include Fharlanghn--specifically his iteration Redrin, who supports Daltoner imperialism--as well as Hextor, whose political beliefs align with most Daltoners. Kord commands a good number of followers among Daltoners worship both Kord and the iteration Khorda, both for their immense strength and power. And a not negligible amount of Daltoner worship Nerull, the god of death--this is especially true of sailors, as Nerull's domain is the sea. 

Impact on Society: Daltoners tend to worship gods with demands. This is reflective of a broader belief that powerful beings are unwilling to help with getting something in return, itself a reflection of the power structure of Daltoner society. As a result, a great deal of work to please gods is performed--committed Daltoner worshippers of the Dalton Church of Pelor perform animal sacrifices daily, and less orthodox Daltoners still give large amounts of their resources to supporting their temples. And finally, because there is a belief that punishment is heavy and surely waiting, Daltoners tend to ignore immoral behavior as something that will be dealt with later by the appropriate authorities--this means that to most outsiders, Daltoner society looks chaotic and a complete free-for-all. 

Faninites: 

Beliefs: Faninites tend to have fairly diverse religious beliefs. Their introduction to the continent of Evanoch meant an introduction to the gods of the land, and many Faninites have enjoyed discovering the different powers that be. Perhaps the most dominant faith is following Fharlanghn--Faninites are still considered by many as newcomers to the continent, and the remembrance of travelling to arrive here (and having a safe journey despite the treacherous seas) remains an important origin story for Faninites. 

Other faiths are popular as well--Faninites culturally tend to goodness, community, and perseverance with an emphasis on nature, and this expresses itself through their most favored deities. In terms of nature, more reserved Faninites opt for Obad-Hai, the neutral god of nature; more outward Faninites tend to choose Ehlonna, the goddess of protection of the woodlands and nature in general. Both faiths allow Faninites to be close to nature as their ancestors have been, and Faninite clerics of these deities are known as some of the most devoted. More good- and healing-oriented Faninites choose Pelor, whose universal appeal as a kind-hearted healer makes him a stalwart for those who wish to help; especially devout Faninites choose Heironeous, whose strict code of good can be a challenge to the faint of heart. 

Impact on Society: Because so many Faninites are driven by positive values and deities who favor good, their societies tend to be very supportive and connected. It is observed in Evanoch that Faninite neighbors are often as close as Faninite parents and children are--this does, however, make for a community that is intimidating for outsiders, though this isn't to say that Faninites are unwelcoming to newcomers. It's simply a function of the intimidating nature of the close-knit communities they build. Outside of Faninite society, Faninites are generally perceived as being helpful, and it is not uncommon for a traveler in need to look for a Faninite for help. 

Dwarves:

Beliefs: Essentially every dwarf worships Moradin as a source of life and direct protector. Many dwarves (particularly hammer-wielding warriors and smiths) devote themselves to the iteration Moradon, but most of the population treats Moradin as a combination religious figure/cultural leader at the center of their lives. At the same time, dwarven religion not only approves of but encourages the worship of as many deities as the individual cares to. Most dwarves worship between two and four deities in addition to Moradin--culturally speaking, learning the other deities a dwarf worships is considered meaningfully getting to know them. 

In terms of other deities, selections can be diverse. It is said by some dwarves that choosing a strange or esoteric god is fashionable, but most dwarves agree that such a choice is a serious commitment and not a matter of style. Dwarves tend to simple and clear-cut ideas and practical solutions, and their deities tend to embody that. Some dwarves worship Kord, often the iteration Korrin, who bested Moradin in a wrestling match, because strength is a respected trait in dwarven society. Good-inclined dwarves worship Pelor or Heironeous to aid them in their fights to do good. And dwarves tend to appreciate the practical and no-nonsense approach of St. Cuthbert--despite the deity being a human, dwarves get along well with his directness. 

Impact on Society: One common thread between the deities commonly chosen by dwarves is that they are gods of duty. Each of these deities demands a strict code of behavior. It's worth noting, though, that living within all five of these deities' codes would not be impossible. Thus, an explanation emerges for the popularity of these gods from a practical perspective--these are the deities one could worship without conflicts. Practically speaking, because duty is so important, it is a commonly accepted excuse for a dwarf to explain that a religious task is involved--dwarves understand the demands of faith, and so they tend to be forgiving about such things. 

Orcs: 

Beliefs: Orcs' relationship with religion is very complicated, and outsiders tend to misunderstand it. Traditionally, orcs do not worship deities directly--instead, they strive to be spiritually close to nature while serving their clans, which often choose specific plants and animals to act as totem figures to connect to nature. When orcish society began to include newcomers and departures to larger society, a transformation in religion took place. The orcs discovered that the elves had been warring with them for millennia over religious conflicts that the orcs did not know about. Eager to learn about how religion impacted their interactions with other groups, orcs began to learn (and internalize) the outer world's religious ideas. 

When orcs discovered the gods as the rest of Evanoch knew them, many latched onto the official god of the orcs, Gruumsh. His eternal fight with Corellon Larethian, the god of the elves, struck a chord with many orcs, and his emphasis on protecting the orcish homeland resonated as well. But many orcs disapproved of Gruumsh's evil leanings and adopted gods with values closer to orcish clan values. This meant the popularity of both Kord (whose raw strength inspired many orcs and reminded them of clan hierarchy) and Pelor (whose ability to turn strength into good and healing was both spiritually and tactically valuable). Still, some orcs lacked contextual history and fell prey to more dangerous gods without cultural warnings in place. Many orcish warriors fueled their battle prowess with pacts with Erythnul, the god of slaughter, which earned orcs their early reputation as bloodthirsty. And others still gravitated towards Wee Jas, the dark goddess of magic and death--the practice among Wee Jas followers of connecting with otherworldly forces is very similar to the nature communing of orcs, and the common practice makes many orcs feel at home. 

Impact on Society: Orcish society scarcely looks the same as it did before religion arrived. Factions have begun to arise around religious lines, which has weakened the power of clans. This in turn has led to the creation of organized religion as a function of class in a way similar to the Daltoners' and dwarves' forms of religion. Further, the choice of an orc's deity has become something of a social symbol as well. Some orcs choose a deity based on which faction they want to join, which has led many churches and factions to demand regular religious attendance for several months before allowing an orc to join. There is a notable presence in the orcish world, particularly on the home island of Grob, of orcs who refuse to join the world of organized religion and try to keep the tradition of nature communing alive. 

Elves: 

Beliefs: Elves are unique among the groups in Evanoch in that they do not believe in having a primary chosen deity. Rather, elves believe that when the domain of a specific deity becomes involved in the elf's life, it is time to call upon that deity. No specific bond needs to be formed--it is simply a transactional act of service to that deity. Elves tend to keep personal altars in their homes, and these serve as the service site for all deities; at the same time, especially big requests of the gods usually result in an elf going to the specific temple of that deity. Elves consider it inappropriate to wear any religious symbol at any time unless the wearer is a religious official. 

Though elves invoke any god they feel appropriate, there are a handful who are the most commonly addressed. Corellon Larethian, god of the elves, is an important figure--when an elf is making a general request that does not fall under a specific deity, they will usually attribute it to Corellon Larethian as a protector of elves. Elves are very attached to the nature around them, and elven communities have traditionally relied on the health of that nature--to that end, Obad-Hai and Ehlonna are both invoked as ways to tend to and protect nature. Because elves see gods as masters of domains and not masters to be served, they also have less trepidation about invoking the more dangerous of the gods. Curious elves often ask Vecna, god of secrets, for information; elves seeking information on the dead and on magic appeal to Wee Jas. 

Impact on Society: Since elves don't have chosen deities, their interactions with the various gods are far more casual than other groups. Where some groups like Daltoners and dwarves are fanatical about showing respect to deities, elves speak plainly in prayer and treat gods as common people. This has led other groups to regard elves as haughty and selfish. And since this impression has become popular, and because interacting with dangerous deities is socially frowned-upon, elves tend to keep their religious work totally private whenever possible. This in turn has led many outsiders to speculate the elves are hiding something in terms of religion, further driving the elves to privacy. 

Half-elves:

Beliefs: From their elven parents, half-elves inherited a sense that all gods are available for worship; from their Faninite parents, half-elves learned to lean on their faith as a way to serve the community. As a result, half-elves tend to invoke gods based on what they can do to help their community. This means that half-elves have reinvented the way public shrines work--rather than being a communal but ultimately private spot, half-elven shrines are places to partake in shared worship as appropriate, something of a compromise between the private worship of elves and the mandatory public worship of Daltoners and dwarves. These shrines have designated spaces for public and private worship, and they are becoming popular across Evanoch in all manner of communities. 

Both elves and Faninites revere nature, so it's natural that half-elves would follow the god of nature, Obad-Hai. Half-elven followers of Obad-Hai are known for their efforts to keep Evanoch's nature healthy and in balance. But just as balance is in the domain of life, it is also the domain of death. Many half-elves have developed religious relationships with Nerull as a force that balances life and is a natural part of the cycle of life. As constant travelers and explorers, half-elves often pray to Fharlanghn, who grants safe passage and happy travels. And because half-elves are among the best creatives in the land, they also invoke the gods who represent artistic endeavors--visual artists call upon Corellon Larethian, and performers and writers work with Olidammara

Impact on Society: Half-elves are generally the most dominant social force on the continent of Evanoch--their clothing and music, for instance, are the most popular and inclusive around. Because of the popularity of half-elven innovation, their religious practices have also begun to catch on. Around Evanoch, public shrines have popped up; more and more people are adding situational prayers to other deities on top of their devotion to another main god; and the popularity of Fharlanghn and Olidammara have skyrocketed. All of these forces have loosened the boundaries between cultural approaches to religion, which has in turn led to a large-scale reworking of public faith communities to be more approachable and accepting of difference. This has meant a major boom of religious faith and activity in recent years. 

Gnomes: 

Beliefs: Gnomish faith practices are not centrally defined as standardized practices--rather, these descriptions represent an average of what gnomes tend to do. That said, most gnomes tend to pick two deities with one in a position of superiority to the other (some choose three in a similarly hierarchical system). The primary deity is the default go-to for matters of faith, and the secondary deity is considered a boost to the first when necessary (or a boost to the first two, if three). Gnomes are known for creating elaborate homes for their pets; they similar create elaborate altars which are hidden in plain sight in the home. For instance, a gnome might have a painting of a holy symbol of a deity next to a lamp whose frame is shaped as the secondary deity's holy symbol. 

Garl Glittergold is a common deity among gnomes--as the god of gnomes, and a particularly active one, Glittergold is a powerful deity to have on one's side. Glittergold, and particularly the iteration Loremin, a patron god of inventors, is the most commonly chosen deity among gnomes. Gnomes also appreciate practical goodness (their economic system is designed to eliminate income disparity and create public works, for instance), so gods like Pelor and St. Cuthbert, both of whom stand for common sense goodness and helping one's fellow gnome, are highly popular. And because gnomes are so often fixated on discovering hidden knowledge, they are known to pursue that knowledge via the gods--the hopeful and cautious approach Boccob, the detached god of magic and knowledge, and the desperate go to Vecna, the treacherous god of secrets. 

Impact on Society: When a gnome chooses deities, the choice is considered to be fairly unchangeable. Switching deities is seen as ruthless and sneaky, and the social toll of this is heavy. As a result, gnomes retain their gods unless in an absolute emergency and seek public religious officials in other deities' domains. This has led to a massive market for religious experts in less-common religions. In many of the bigger gnomish settlements, marketplaces have a special place set aside for itinerant priests and clerics who can administer to the masses. Many outsiders to the practice view this is commodifying religion and entirely inappropriate, but gnomes are quick to point out that everyone benefits from the practice. Some outsiders have adopted the traveling religious official business model outside of gnomish society, particularly with Daltoners and orcs. 

Halflings: 

Beliefs: Halflings have the least structured relationships with their deities of any of the groups in Evanoch. Halflings acknowledge that the gods have direct effects on their lives and the world around them, but they generally believe that the gods are too inscrutable to fully understand or bargain with. As a result, halflings tend to pray or invoke a god only when things are fairly desperate and there are no other practical options. This leads other groups to look at halflings as opportunistic and devoid of real faith, though the reality is more that the halflings simply respect the gods as being fully outside of their understanding to meddle with supernatural forces. 

When halflings do get involved with deities, they tend to do so for specific purposes. Yondalla, goddess of the halflings and the mother symbol of the pantheon, is a common deity for halflings to invoke when a general problem presents itself. Yondalla is commonly called upon for good luck, family happiness, and childrearing help, among other more general concerns. When halflings travel, they ask for help from Fharlanghn, notably the iteration Eramsin, who protects honest travelers and grants them excellent journeys. Halflings traditionally come from a dense rainforest system in the center of Evanoch, and they often invoke the gods Obad-Hai and Ehlonna to alternately preserve or protect the environment. Finally, halflings are not powerful beings, and their survival in dangerous situations often comes down to agility--for this reason, halflings who want safety often appeal to Olidammara for quick reflexes. 

Impact on Society: Halflings' detached relationship from deities seems to be no less powerful than other groups', which has led many observers to acknowledge that direct devotion does not necessarily mean much to the gods. As a result, a number of more open-minded Evanines have decided to embrace the halfling focus on practical reality. At the same time, halflings are essentially the only followers of Yondalla (aside from parents' prayers for serenity), which means that there are only a few true devotees of her faith. Due to this, seeing a cleric of Yondalla is especially rare, and it has become something of a sign of good luck to witness one of these clerics. Finally, halflings who assimilate into common society tend to obscure their religious beliefs by pretending to be more religiously committed than they are--"I worship Pelor" has become a common way for halflings to dismiss a conversation about religion. 

There you have it--a guide to the religious beliefs of each group in my homebrew setting. I was pleased to find that each of the nineteen deities had a place in one group or another's beliefs, which means I have a much clearer picture of how religious practice actually breaks down in my world. As always, exploring these ideas in detail has helped me to better understand my world as well as given me lots of jumping-off points for adding fun details in-game. Remember, literally any detail you worldbuild could be the cool detail that inspires your players to connect to the world or the cool detail that inspires you to create something incredible for your players. It all comes down to doing the work beforehand so that you can just be creative in the moment. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: a dark time loop adventure one-shot, profiles on the major cities in my homebrew setting, and funeral rites and views on death in my homebrew setting. Until next time, happy gaming!

How to Know What Class To Play for D&D Beginners

As I've recently mentioned, I spend a lot of time GMing for kids. Everyone experiences games differently, but essentially all kids are petrified by the notion of picking a class for their first character. Picking any one of them means missing out on all the others, so it's a big choice. It's also a big choice because, whether a player knows it or not (be they child or adult), the choice of a class can define a lot about the experience of playing--maybe more than everything but the GM's style. And picking a class for beginning adult players can be tricky. All the same consequences still apply, and having fun or not could decide whether they continue playing. So to help make picking a class easier, I've created a guide to choosing the best one for you, stripped of all the technical talk, focusing on what your experience will be like. Read on to learn which class is best for you. [This guide focuses on the 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons, specifically the base 12 classes in the Players Handbook.]

One way to choose is based on difficulty. It's true that some classes are harder to play than others, and there's good sense to playing a character whose challenge level to play matches what you want. A pure spellcaster like the Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard takes a more developed understanding of the game to pull off and enjoy than most beginning players are capable of to start. On the other hand, a Fighter can be a much easier introduction to the world of D&D's combat, vital statistics, and game rules without additional systems to learn. In the ratings below, I will rank each class on a scale from 1 to 5 where 1 is easy to pick up for beginners and 5 is a more veteran challenge. 

Another way you might choose is based on what kinds of actions you'd like to be able to take. After all, playing a stealthy rogue and playing a rowdy barbarian are pretty different experiences. To that end, I've provided a short paragraph about the kinds of exciting actions that the class is capable of. These observations will be drawn from a combination of my own experiences playing these classes and my consideration of players playing those classes in games I have DMed. 

You might also be interested in knowing what specifically you'll need to learn in order to be effective with the class. If your character's survival being based on your understanding of how to manipulate rules makes you uncomfortable, there's a whole list of classes (spellcasters in general, clerics in particular, and rogues) that you'll want to avoid since mastering the rules is a core part of these classes. In order to express what types of things you'll need to learn, I'll provide a list of the types of ideas you'll need to learn. 

And finally, you may want to know what role the character will fill in the party. Now, it's worth noting before going any further than any class can have any personality, so if you're worried about roleplaying, make your choice on type of action primarily--class doesn't dictate personality. But if you know you prefer to be a support character or want to be one to serve the character idea, you have options (cleric and bard, most notably). There's a role for everybody, but it's important that you enjoy filling yours. I'll provide a brief analysis of the roles you can easily step into with each class. 

So, based on these four categories of information, I hope to help you find the best class to start with. Let's begin. 

Barbarian 

Difficulty: 1

Actions: Barbarians are best known for their ability to enter Rage, a state in which they are more likely to strike in combat and do more damage, also gaining hit points. Barbarians are a standby for combat-oriented players; this class gets the most health of all classes and can reliably deal among highest damage in melee. Every single special ability granted to barbarians revolves around being more effective in combat, including bonuses to initiative (how quickly your character acts in combat), extra attacks, and resisting damage. 

What to Learn: Tactics. As a barbarian, your greatest strength is combat; you can either be good at it or truly great at it. Without tactics, you'll do well, but with careful attention paid to maximizing your strengths, you'll destroy everything your DM throws at you. This also means getting familiar with the rules that govern your abilities. 

Role: Barbarians are usually tanks--hard to kill and good at killing. It would be possible to develop a barbarian into some other role, but the task would ultimately ignore that this class is meant to be a combat machine and little else. 

Bard

Difficulty: 5

Actions: Bards have a wide variety of abilities. They are capable of magic, have immense bonuses to skills, and are able to help allies succeed. In simple terms, bards are built for support, but are kind of a mixture of all the classes in the game--they're capable of combat, magic, and skills. Bards are not necessarily masters of as many things as they are strong in, so thinking on one's feet is usually another part of what bards need to do, especially since they usually function as the leader of the party. 

What to Learn: Everything. Because bards can do magic, combat, and skills, they need to learn the rules behind each of those skills. But knowledge of rules and mechanics won't be enough--you'll also need to learn to be a good support player and use your spells and class abilities in a way that actually helps your fellow players.  

Role: As with their abilities, bards can be anything. Charismatic and clever bards lead parties and entertain crowds. Tactical bards turns the tides of battles with buffs and healing. Sagely bards become expert spellcasters. You can be anyone as a bard. 

Cleric

Difficulty: 5

Actions: Clerics are the only class in the game given the full suite of healing abilities. Other classes (bards, druids, and paladins) are capable of healing spells, but clerics are specifically made to do so. This means every party could use a cleric, though they're not easy to play. Aside from healing, clerics can also fight undead, cast a huge array of spells, and specialize in an approach to magic that grants special abilities and extra spells (a domain). At the same time, clerics are equipped to be effective in combat. 

What to Learn: Magic rules to start. The cleric's skill as a melee combatant are relatively straightforward (tactics help here), but they're mostly important as a healer and support character, so being very familiar with which spells do what and when is very important. Knowing about the other player characters in your party is also important so you can better support them. 

Role: Clerics are great as a healer and support unit, but since their spell list is pretty broad, they're capable of quite a lot. It's worth noting that a cleric alone can be formidable, but a cleric with someone dangerous is greater than the sum of the parts, so be ready to work as a team. 

Druid

Difficulty: 4

Actions: Druids get several exciting abilities. The most famous is the ability to turn into an animal (Wild Shape), but they can also choose specific "circle" to belong to, meaning a specific region held dear by the druid. These circles are similar to cleric domains, granting special spells and extra abilities. Druids are able to cast magic, and they have fairly diverse spells, making them capable of quite a lot if they're creative about it. 

What to Learn: Mostly magic. Druids are largely defined by their spellcasting abilities--they are not bad at melee fighting, but their strength is in their magic. Once you've learned magic, the only major complication is in the Wild Shape rules--it can be tricky to keep track of which abilities you have in which form during a tense moment. 

Role: Druids are fairly powerful spellcasters whose magic tends to disrupt combat and swing things toward the party. This means that they're direct presences in combat, but standing outside of the fray. Druids are also good guides since they can navigate nature so well. 

Fighter

Difficulty: 1

Actions: Fighters' abilities, like barbarians, are almost entirely focused on combat. With the exception of the Eldritch Knight archetype, the abilities are all focused on making more attacks, doing more damage, and surviving attacks. The Eldritch Knight adds spellcasting to the fighter, but only in the form of protection and damage spells, so the effect is ultimately the same. Notably, the fighter gets to choose a fighting style which grants bonuses based on specific tactics in combat. 

What to Learn: Tactics. Most fighters tend to fight on the front lines, hoping for high rolls against enemies, so knowing how and when to move around the battlefield is a vital way to make the most of your abilities. 

Role: Fighters are invaluable as tanks. Since players tend to make fighters with the intention of focusing on combat, I've never seen a fighter used for some other role. In the hands of a sufficiently-committed roleplayer, I'm sure you could see a fighter party leader, but mostly fighters are fighters. 

Monk 

Difficulty: 2

Actions: Monks are martial arts experts on the surface. 5E has done a pretty satisfying job of coming up with special martial arts combat rules for monks (including different schools of martial arts), and most players who came for ninja-ing around leave happy. Monks also have a variety of very special abilities that help them transcend the laws of reality, which is very fun. But on top of this, monks have a great many special abilities that depend on selection of a monastic tradition, and they range from combat approaches to stealth applications to magic mastery. 

What to Learn: Kind of a lot, surprisingly. You need to learn the base game like anyone else, but the monk rules replace basically all of those rules (but learning them first wouldn't work because there'd be no foundation to start from). I mentioned lots of special abilities--if you don't use those abilities and use them well, you end up being just a watered-down fighter. So get used to the rules and the special monk variants. 

Role: Monks are a strange class in this way. On one hand, monks can be incredibly strong in combat. On the other, they can fill a lot of the same roles that rogues do (stealth expert, specialized attacks). And monks can even be leaders given their wisdom--it just depends on how you play it. 

Paladin

Difficulty: 3

Actions: Paladins are basically a halfway point between clerics and fighters (basically). You get plenty of strength in combat, plus some magic and a dose of healing. Most of the special abilities of paladins revolve around improving their abilities in combat, and the special oaths that paladins take let you decide between justice, nature, and vengeance as inspirations for more abilities. In essence, a paladin is a fighting character with the ability to add some support. 

What to Learn: Like with the cleric, paladins demand that their players learn to operate tactically in combat as well as the basics of spellcasting. Fortunately, the rest of the paladin's abilities function much like the fighter's, so simply focusing on tactics and magic will allow you to do well with a paladin. 

Role: Paladins are interesting in terms of role--they can act as tanks, as minor healers, and as party leaders (especially since their magic is fueled by charisma). It really comes down to what the party needs and how you want to play your paladin. 

Ranger

Difficulty: 3

Actions: Rangers are specialized combat classes as a foundation--they get special fighting styles, combat bonuses like extra attacks, and strength against a chosen type of enemy. At the same time, they get access to a range of spells and extra abilities that grant nature-based boosts and magic. They get the paladin's same abbreviated access to spells (level 5 maximum as opposed to a sorcerer/warlock/wizard's level 9 maximum), most of which are useful in the wilderness or in combat. 

What to Learn: I'll say that like all combat classes, tactics are useful here, and that like all classes with magic, learning the magic rules is useful. I'll add, though, that rangers are perhaps the easiest classes with magic to pick up. The shortened spell list and relatively straightforward spells are less intimidating than other lists, and the combat abilities are comparable to the fighter list. This could be a good first spellcasting class for a beginner. 

Role: Rangers can be a few different things easily: they can be tanks or strikers depending on the build. Some rangers can be stealthy, and others are practically barbarians. A ranger can be almost anyone so long as there's a place to be filled. 

Rogue

Difficulty: 2

Actions: Rogues have probably the most diverse and customizable foundation in the game. They're given formidable combat skills (sneak attack, uncanny dodge), broad subclasses (or "roguish archetypes" such as stealth, combat, and magic), and a load of powerful abilities that apply in many situations (evasion, cunning action). I've seen and played rogues who were assassins, con artists, thieves, and mages. For beginners without a clear sense of what you want your character to be, the rogue can present so many options as to be overwhelming, but the rogue can also be a great way to make an interesting non-combat character who can still hold their own.

What to Learn: Basic tactics will help you figure out how to use sneak attack correctly. Beyond that, you basically just need to keep your many abilities straight. Rogues have lots of abilities that only happen in certain conditions, and remembering all those details is probably the hardest part of playing a rogue. 

Role: Rogues can be, more than any other class, any role at all. A rogue can be an aloof and arrogant tagalong, the charismatic heart of the group, a brilliant expert, or the hilarious goofball--and all at once. The customizability of the class means it's open to your imagination. 

Sorcerer/Warlock/Wizard

Difficulty: 5

Actions: Let's clarify something: I'm placing these three classes together, but they are not identical, and they have different specifics when it comes to abilities. I am placing them together because, from the perspective of a first-time player, they are basically the same enough that we can talk generally about them. Now, these classes are entirely about spellcasting. That means that you have no combat abilities and few skills to back you up--your spells have to speak completely for you. So not only do you need to juggle dozens of spells, but you need to be fluent with using them, or you'll end up without remaining magic and be in trouble. If you're getting started with a magic-centric class, feel free to check out my guide to learning the rules of magic.

What to Learn: The magic rules. This will, in turn, lead you to need to learn most of the rules of the game. Any given spell might reference two or three rules, so knowing the rules and how they fit together really helps with understanding spells. I'd also recommend paying attention in-game to how fights unfold so that you can use that information to your advantage when casting magic. 

Role: Here's where things get especially hard to summarize. Wizards are fueled by their intelligence, so they often work differently in-game than the charisma-driven sorcerers and warlocks. Further, these two latter classes have different sources of magic, further characterizing them: sorcerers are inherently magic from their very blood, while warlocks have made a bargain with an elder god to obtain their powers. You can imagine that details like these might affect your game if story is concerned. In broad generality, though, spellcasters operate as strikers, doing considerable damage and turning the tides of battles. They can also be party leaders, especially the more charismatic of the bunch. 

That's the overview. Hopefully you have an idea of what class you'd like to play. If you have questions or just can't decide, I highly recommend talking it over with your DM. They can help you understand your choices in the context of the campaign you're playing, and they might steer you towards something that serves the game well. What matters most is that you have a sense of what you're getting into--D&D can be a lot, and going on with your best foot forward can help you find your fun. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: religious beliefs by cultural group in my homebrew setting, a dark time-loop adventure in an original system, and profiles on the major cities in my homebrew setting. Until next time, happy gaming!

Lessons from GMing for Children

I've mentioned elsewhere on this site that I'm a teacher and that I run the Dungeons & Dragons Club at school. Additionally, my school offers a program where the last week of school is a made into a variety of projects--mine has always been to play Dungeons & Dragons. It's a cool way to reach the students on a different level as well as to get a lot of solid gaming time in--the project week added up to 20 hours of game time in one week! And with all of this experience, I can tell you confidently that kids play in ways that are both similar to and different from the ways we learn to play it as adults. I'll consider both as I reflect on the lessons I've learned as a GM who's running a game for children. 

It's worth noting before we get started that there's a general timeline that most kids go through with tabletop games. Before 10, most kids like a whimsical story-based game--the imagination is more accessible than the rules for most kids, so this is where the emphasis is placed. Between 10 and 15 or so, the rules become more accessible, and the excitement of combat becomes more the emphasis. After 15, kids tend to start developing personal styles, placing emphasis on whatever elements of the game appeal most to them. I've generally played with kids at the middle school age, so they've wanted mostly combat. Which leads me to my first lesson:

Moreso with kids than adults, you need to compromise. Now, I've written elsewhere that there are things you shouldn't compromise on, your personal style as a GM most of all. But deliberately not giving child players of a tabletop game what they want has a different has a different impact: they haven't developed a complete sense of what the game(s) is (are), so you're their entire introduction to tabletop games, so a bad introduction could turn them off the game(s) altogether. And that's a heavy weight to carry, I'll admit, but that doesn't change the situation. When I play with kids who have never played before, I ask more questions than normal about what they want and expect. "On a scale from one to ten, how much fighting do you want? On the same scale, how much story? How much goofing around? What kinds of enemies do you want to fight? What kind of treasure do you want to discover? Do you want to be powerful heroes who can solve any problem, or heroes going up against things that challenge you?" All of these questions can help you tailor the game to what they want, and knowing that the game can be changed to fit their interests will carry them far in the tabletop world. 

One lesson I have especially struggled with has been adjusting my expectations and patience for rules-related misunderstandings. Veteran players and GMs know that having a beginning player at the table can slow things down; oftentimes with kids, everyone is a beginning player. That means that the slowdown is exacerbated by a factor of as many players as there are. Reading this, you might be thinking, "They're kids! Of course they don't know every rule." And I agree. What I'm talking about, though, is different. Playing an entire combat-heavy adventure and still not knowing how to roll an attack at the end is the kind of thing that happens often with kids and much less often with adults. But the flipside is very nice: playing tabletop games with kids makes me more patient with my beginning adult players, and I actually end up feeling grateful for my adult players. On this note, most kids are pretty curious by nature--when they don't understand a rule, it's a good idea to entirely explain the rule as well as all related rules. Being especially clear about how the many rules of games are connected is important so that a child can really grasp why things are the way they are, and grasping that is a step towards being a regular tabletop game player. 

One surprising lesson I seem to keep learning is that while many details about GMing change when you're playing a tabletop game with children, but the complexity of the story doesn't have to change. A specific example from the recent week-long D&D stint at school: I offered three base stories for my players--a combat-heavy dungeon crawl fighting magically-changing monsters, a story-heavy quest to enlist gods to help end a blight on the greatest forest, and a mixed story about breaking out of prison. To my dismay (but not surprise), the story-heavy campaign was not selected by anyone. But it ended up that one small group wanted the prison break concept more than the forest blight concept but still wanted a story-heavy game. And as we together developed a story out of the prison break concept, I noticed that I would veer away from complicated ideas like having people locked up for silly charges or corrupt guards working with prisoners--but when I'd include some tiny detail in that direction (like the guards' sadistic glee at making them fight animals in the cell as a punishment), they'd light up. Getting really into colorful details about the prison and the people in it was what ended up making the campaign more fun and memorable. And I was playing with 7th graders! They surprised me by enjoying a more mature approach to the story, and while they also littered their campaign with absolute silliness, the darkness also played an important role in their enjoyment of the campaign. 

Speaking of silliness, expect to lean into it. I have played tabletop games with about a hundred different kids in my career as a GM, and I've yet to find one who doesn't enjoy using tabletop games' ability to generate silliness. It's not just that kids want to be silly--it's specifically that tabletop games allow us to use our imagination, and one of the easiest and most fun ways to use our imaginations is to be silly. An example might help illustrate what I mean: I ran three campaigns in five-minute shifts for a week, and all three campaigns tried to do the same exact thing--tame an animal they were meant to fight. Now, in real life, if a bear came lumbering up to you in the wild and starting biting your arm, your first thought would likely not be, "I want it to be my friend." But the open possibilities of tabletop games meant that the characters could roll a Handle Animal check (we were playing D&D 5E) to befriend the animals they were fighting (bears, mountain lions, and hyenas, depending on the campaign), and while I could have said, "The DC for a hostile creature is so high that none of you could ever meet it," I could also have said, "Alright, roll for Handle Animal . . . you just barely rolled high enough. He's your friend now." And I went with the second option in literally every case. It's way more fun for a kid playing D&D to charm a creature and have a pet than it is to vanquish a nameless beast in combat. It's silly, but silly is what we're going for. And that translates to most campaigns--you can get a lot out of a bit of silliness. 

I've written before about the importance of fudging rolls, and this is especially true of playing with kids. Let's address this with an example of something that went wrong with my week of GMing for kids: in one of the dungeon crawl campaigns, I wasn't tracking player HP very closely, and an attack an enemy creature made perma-killed one of the kid's characters. He was distraught. He had fought for days only to die in the final battle, and his friends weren't being very supportive. If I had been paying better attention, I would have fudged the numbers on the damage and kept him in the fight. But it was too late. I thought quickly and took action. I had another enemy unleash vicious attacks on two other low-health player characters, perma-killing them both (one through a roll I fudged upwards to hit and do enough damage). With other characters down, the first kid whose character died wasn't alone. Then, I initiated phase two: the boss, a wizard with a time control amulet, reversed time to the beginning of the fight, looking for a "fair challenge." The party got another chance to fight more strategically, and when they overcame the wizard, there was no sense that they had accomplished anything less by needing another try. They were just excited to succeed. And I think that came out right in the end, but only because I was willing to massively fudge an entire encounter to keep people happy. 

This leads me to my final point: fun matters. I've written before about how fun is the most important thing in a tabletop game, and this is especially true of playing with kids. As someone who unabashedly calls roleplaying the height of tabletop gaming, I often aspire to impress my players with subtle characterization, interesting details, and complicated plots. But a child won't congratulate you on your careful portrayal of an NPC, nor will they remark about the moral ambiguity of your writing. That's the kind of thing that only comes from like-minded adults. What a child will appreciate--and what basically any player will appreciate is something that's fun. I've written ten one-shots based on movies (the first being Cats, which I'm going to discuss). The Cats one-shot is structured around two basic ideas: the players must use their wits and their cats' skills to pass through five houses, each guarded by another cat, and those cats sing songs I wrote for the one-shot when they appear. The house cat puzzles are silly and open-ended, and the songs are ridiculous and meant to get the players to laugh at/with the GM. Running it was probably the most pure fun I've ever GMed. There was no room for roleplaying--not of any serious kind, anyway. It was just pure chaos and silliness. And my players from that one-shot still talk about it; even with adults, fun is the only guaranteed way to reach everyone at the table. 

One last note: when you GM for other adults, you are not quite one of them (you are the GM, after all), but you're still a part of the group. When you GM for kids, on the other hand, you are simply not one of them at all. When I play tabletop games with friends, I sense that I am part of the group but filling an important role to help give my players a good game session. But with kids, you are 100% filling that GM role, and you won't be part of the group. This is important to know going in. I recommend thinking about how your role is to provide a good time in a service-like role before going into playing with kids. (This may in part be due to the fact that the kids see me as a teacher, which makes me very different from a peer, but I think it's generally true.) In any case, remembering that you as GM are going to be on the outside will help you to reach them and still understand your role in the game. 

There you have it--a reflection on GMing for children and the ways these thoughts can help you with your game. Here's something to reflect on: many of us start tabletop games at sensitive ages. I was sixteen when I started with D&D. I had a kind, patient, and funny DM who nurtured me as a player, and I know I wouldn't be the GM I am today without him. He knew every lesson on this list, at least unconsciously, and it made me a passionate player and GM. Wouldn't you like to know that you did the same for someone else (or many someone elses)?

That's all for now. Coming soon: how to know what class to play, religious beliefs by cultural group in my homebrew setting, and a dark time-loop adventure in an original system. Until next time, happy gaming!

Home Décor in My Homebrew Setting

My mom is obsessed with decorating her home. It's something I can only understand to a point--I like having a space I think is enjoyable, but creating a style is something that's over my head. But the truth is, the way a space is decorated makes a big difference. You could describe the same small house in a game with vastly different results depending on the decoration. Sure, humanoid bones everywhere sends a message, but so do piles of books, meticulously-hung paintings, and preserved pieces of nature. That's why--to overcome my lack of creativity with home décor--I've decided to profile the different decorating styles of the groups in my homebrew setting. This will allow me to give unique descriptions of places like homes and businesses with an easy reference point. 

That is, after all, the goal of worldbuilding. You can have thousands of pages of notes about your setting, but until you introduce that information to the game, it's kind of an "if a tree falls in the forest with no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?" situation. (On the other hand, dumping this information isn't fun for players, so you're searching for a happy balance.) The goal of worldbuilding is to have the information available when you need it. Looking back, I can see where my descriptions of homes and businesses have basically boiled down to "fancy" and "not very fancy." That doesn't feel good. So this material will give me a fairly complete image of these places, and I'm able to improvise specific details to further characterize them as I see fit. That's why there are over 30 profiles on details of my homebrew setting on this site--I want broad access to information I can use to subtly add to the story without coming up with everything on the spot. This is a lesson I discussed recently in my reflection on 15 years of GM notebooks: I know that what I need as a GM is jumping off points, something to get my imagination going while still avoiding the exhaustion of overworking my brain. So I work hard to give myself the supplemental information I can, and it has certainly paid off. So let's get started. 

Daltoners - These humans tend to decorate their spaces with what might be called "heavy" décor. They utilize dark colors, generally dark browns, dark greys, and black. This applies to essentially all decorations: cloth furniture, curtains, and even wooden furniture, which is stained deep, dark tones. Because of the darkness of the palette, most Daltoner homes are very well-lit with dark metal lanterns and sometimes torches--despite this, the spaces still look dark, and non-Daltoners find their homes and businesses to be very overwhelming and stifling. Daltoners tend to prefer the softer lantern and torch light to natural light, and thick curtains are extremely popular as measures to restrict sunlight and add softness to the room. The one major exception to the "heavy" theme in Daltoner décor is in tapestries--Daltoner tapestries tend to include brighter colors like red, yellow, and blue, and having more than one in a room is considered tacky. 

Along class lines, Daltoners tend to decorate similarly, but the quality of decorations increases with wealth. It is common for Daltoners to display a collection of baubles in homes and businesses, usually things associated with either social status, religious piety, or ruthlessness. A sample Daltoner home might include the official crest of the homeowner, a token from a religious elder, and treasure from a rival who was crushed. The class effect determines details about these types of examples: a poorer Daltoner might have the crest of a social organization they are a part of, while a richer Daltoner would have a prestigious governmental crest; the poorer Daltoner's religious token might be a fine holy symbol, whereas the richer Daltoner might have a valuable relic of their deity; the poorer Daltoner's treasure could be the empty coinpurse of a social foe, where the richer Daltoner might have the family jewels of their business foe. A person can determine the wealth of a homeowner by how fine the quality of a Daltoner's décor--poorer Daltoners have threadbare curtains and rickety furniture, and richer Daltoners have lush fabrics and solid furniture. 

One special feature of Daltoner homes is the expansion of the typical garden into a larger and more decorative feature called the yard. Daltoners cultivate the land surrounding their home, and while the other groups do so in order to create sustainable gardens to feed themselves, Daltoners grow decorative plants such as grasses, shrubs, and sometimes flowers. Like the interior of their homes, Daltoners stick with less vibrant colors, so the flowers tend to be white. They strive for a cultivated look, pruning their plants to create structured appearances. Further, Daltoners often build flat structures extending from their houses, which are called porches or decks. These spaces are meant to be a liminal space between the private of the home and the public of the street. The lawn has yet to catch on with other groups, but the porch has begun to increase in popularity, especially among half-elves and dwarves. 

Faninites - Faninites primarily desire in decorating to bring the beauty of nature home. As a result, they tend to decorate in earth tones--green, brown, and grey--with a special emphasis on blue, the color of the sky and sea. Faninites emphasize the natural light of the sun and tend to build with large windows, which light up the natural colors of their homes and businesses. Faninites sometimes harvest plants from nature and create temporary displays of their finds, hanging them on walls or placing them in vases. Tapestries are an important part of Faninite decorating. Generally speaking, there are two schools of thought on tapestries: some believe that the beauty of the tapestry matters most, and they buy their tapestries from expert craftspeople; others believe that the effort of a homemade tapestry is more important, and they make their own regardless of talent. As a result, Faninite homes feature a good deal of tapestries, with some homes preferring professional work and others featuring originals. Faninite tapestries are known for impressionistic portrayals of nature. 

There is very little variation in class among Faninites since their society emphasizes caring for everyone within the community, but the small range of wealth among their communities expresses itself with the addition of the "home tree," a live tree planted within the foundation of the house. This tree is tended for years, and the house is slowly altered around the growing tree with cuts around the floorboards and ceiling. A home tree is difficult to tend, and it is expensive to constantly alter one's house, so only the wealthy have the time and money to manage it. However, the home tree is considered perhaps the ultimate status symbol in Faninite society, as it connects the home directly to nature. The variety of home tree has a significance: the birch tree symbolizes strength with others, the oak represents strength alone, and the yew tree stands for resilience. 

One special feature of Faninite homes is that the garden is tended far differently than in other cultures. Where other groups tend gardens as cultivated land, Faninites don't use organization because they feel it is closer to nature to have scattered plants. The refusal to tame nature makes it difficult to perceive where property lines are, which is not considered a problem in Faninite society since community is emphasized over personal property. The result of all of this is that Faninite homes tend to be surrounded by edible plants which appear to be wild, but which were in fact planted by the homeowner. In some Faninite communities, homes are placed far back from any nearby roads, and the dense forest of seemingly-untamed plants gives the appearance that there are no homes at all. This phenomenon has led travelers in Faninite communities to coin the term "food forest," which communicates the idea that there is more to the situation than is obviously apparent. 

Dwarves - Where the humans of Evanoch tend to use fabrics and natural woods in their decorating, dwarves are more inclined to use metals in their décor. Metal furniture, with and without cushions, have been a popular staple in dwarven decorating for centuries. It is considered good decorating sense to use matching metals throughout a home or business, and it is also considered proper to use the same color scheme throughout an entire building. Dwarves tend to decorate in greys, browns, dark reds, and dark blues, and typically the place is decorated by pairing two shades. Metal decorations are common, namely forged family crests and ornamental weaponry and armor. Dwarven tapestries are falling out of style, but traditional homes still typically display grand battle scenes in bas relief sculptures and castings. 

Class differences are immediately apparent in dwarven homes. The amount of metal decorations is one sure sign of wealth--the most well-off dwarves typically have as much metal as possible, while the lower classes tend to have more stone items. Some people joke that the shinier a dwarven room is, the more wealthy the owner. Another detail revealing wealth is the type of metal. There is a hierarchy in dwarven culture: the poorest dwarves tend to have reinforced aluminum decorations; the next dwarves up use iron; the upper-middle class of dwarves uses steel; and the wealthiest of dwarves use copper, the metal held most precious in dwarven culture. Thus, metals can indicate a dwarf's class quite easily: a home with a few aluminum decorations and a home with dozens of copper decorations would both tell the visitor about the homeowner. 

One special feature of dwarven decoration is special space created by the shape of dwarven homes. Below is an image of a dwarven home from above. 

Note the area above the entry way--the green space between kitchen/living room and private quarters. 

This space, called by dwarves the rittert, or welcome step, is decorated in a variety of ways. Some dwarves leave it entirely undecorated, meaning instead to emphasize the house itself. Others place large carvings or castings in the space, usually paying homage to the gods, the dwarven leadership, or family ancestors. Still others place statues of significant people, and some pay personal guards to stand in the space imposingly. A small group have taken to transplanting mosses and lichens onto sculptures, creating the appearance of a living figure that can survive in the underground environment of dwarven homes. Currently, the most popular trend among dwarves is to the use the rittert to provide steps down into a more buried home or business, and some older homes have even taken to expanding their homes to include a lower level and adding the staircase. 

Orcs - The trend in orcish decoration is to use hides and skins. It is expected that all elements of an animal be used when killed, and because ordinary hunting and trapping supplies more than enough hides to cover practical needs, many hides are used in decoration. In the last few hundred years, this has evolved into rather elaborate methods of use. Plenty of orcish homes still employ hides as wall coverings (some orcs completely covering their walls with hides), but an increasing amount use them as covering for other decorations. Taxidermy, an orcish development, has become a popular way to preserve the hunted animals in a more natural form. Hides are also used to border tapestries like frames, and these tapestries tend to depict animals (a revered source of sustenance) and scenes of battle (typically against rival clans or the elves). 

Class is a complicated issue in orcish society--there are no distinct social classes, though social roles do carry social weight. As a result, most orcs hold equal places in the economy, which largely exists to facilitate trades and bartering. The social roles do afford different privileges in terms of decoration. One notable example is in the display of religious relics. For ordinary orcs, the display of religious tokens is considered highly inappropriate--that is specifically for the gorshen, or holy room, which is entirely private to a homeowner and their family. However, the wise woman of a clan is not only entitled but expected to display a variety of impressive holy relics in the public space of her home, which serves as a public area for orcs to seek wisdom. Similarly, military leaders in orcish society are allowed and even encouraged to display a grisly symbol of their status: the preserved bodies of slain enemies. The development of taxidermy almost immediately led to the practice of preserving fallen foes; Ragnars, or war chiefs, sometimes keep as many as five preserved bodies in the entryway of their homes. 

One special feature of orcish homes is the way they are built: orcish homes are the only structures in Evanoch which typically have more than one story. An average orcish home has two levels, and some buildings can stretch even higher in densely-populated areas. To decorate the outsides of their tall homes, orcs paint murals on the outer walls of their homes and businesses. These murals vary widely, but typical themes include camouflage for the surrounding area, symbols of clan and rank, and animals that the owner identifies with (leopards and crocodiles are common, as are watersnakes and ibises). Colors in orcish murals are bright and vibrant (unless camouflage is the intention), featuring brilliant warm colors and lush cool colors. Orcish mural painters have become one of the more respected professions as this tradition has been established. 

Elves - Elven decoration tends to focus on the way the home incorporates nature. Some elves choose to live in homes cut into living trees, and this is considered the height of this theme. Other expressions of it are more common, such as growing a variety of plants inside the home in pots as well as decorating the home with fresh flowers. Elves prize bright colors, and flowers and tapestries are used to provide these colorful tones. Flowers are cultivated in gardens to add pinks, purples, and yellows to homes, while tapestries include light blues, light greens, reds, and oranges in their elaborate and abstract depictions of nature. All cloths are made from lightweight materials, and these too come in bright and vibrant colors--there is a special emphasis on thinking of fabric on furniture and in homes in general as the clothing of the house, and these are cleaned often. 

Class separates elven homes along class lines fairly cleanly. There are three general echelons of home decorating among elves: the poor, the middle class, and the wealthy. The poor tend to decorate in cheaply available materials, leading to rougher fabrics in less vibrant of colors--these homes look similar to Faninite homes in their simplicity and focus on nature. The middle class tends to aspire to the upper class, but without the quality of craftspersonship, so there is a good deal of living plants growing, but the finer tapestries are still too expensive, so that element is not quite up to wealthy standards. The wealthy usually represent their class through their homes and dress, and at home, this means a variety of living plants (especially flowers) and only the finest tapestries in the brightest colors. It is worth noting that in recent years, the Faninite home tree has become popular among middle class elves, who can aspire to a wealthy standard connection to nature without the resources of the upper class. 

One special feature of elven homes is that the property around them is as segmented as the home. Elves tend to divide their property into three sections, which match the three sections of the house itself. One section is a food garden, another is a flower and herb garden, and the last is the outdoor communal space. The gardens are fairly standard, but the outdoor communal space can change quite dramatically between the homeowner. Some elves use the space as a sort of patio and host garden parties; others create outdoor art studios (painting is a popular pastime among elves); still others place a telescope and use the space for stargazing. An emerging trend even has elves digging out and filling in small ponds and maintaining fish in the resulting pools--this is a new tradition that honors the climate of the elves on their home on the Lathien Islands, where pools with fish exist everywhere. 

Half-Elves - Most of the time, half-elves follow a combination of what their elven and Faninite forebears follow; some of the time, though, they forge a new path that becomes the new standard for Evanoch. In this case, half-elves have created a form of decoration that is increasingly becoming the standard for the continent. Half-elven decoration features an adherence to nature that so many of the cultures strives for, but with modern departures from style that make it their own. The thing that defines half-elven décor is that it adds an almost cartoonish twist to tradition. Where most Evanine homes feature a limited palette of colors, half-elven décor demands the use of many colors at once. Additionally, this style includes borrowed elements of other cultural inspirations--the most notable is the use of leather to decorate. Half-elven homes and businesses place strips of leather around and near featured pieces like tapestries (the most dreamlike in the land) and preserved plants (typically colorful or metaphorically resonant ones), which is both natural and humanoid-made at once. New homes across Evanoch use this style as a universally-appreciated one. 

Class divisions have emerged as the half-elven style has become popular, but not as a result of the designs of the half-elves. One of the striking elements of half-elven decoration is that it is simple and cheaply-made for the most part, so essentially anyone can afford to decorate with it. However, as the style has caught on, artists have created more refined versions of the style to differentiate it across class. A few such developments are worth mentioning. Middle class people who use the half-elven style sometimes elevate their décor by including metal embellishments to the leather pieces, which tends to evoke the dwarven style. Wealthier folks using the half-elven style frequently employ colorful paint to cover a home, a nod to the orcish style. And the very wealthiest have taken to displaying a new style of tapestry which blends most of the dominant art styles--these pieces are meant to show the broad cultural taste of the owner. Only a few artists use this style, so their pieces are in high demand. 

One special feature of half-elven homes which has not caught on as a wide phenomenon but which is common in half-elven homes is the use of moving walls. Half-elven architecture relies on relatively little space, so to maximize that space, half-elven builders have taken to building moving walls which can twist and turn to change a space. One of the more popular implementations of this is in transforming the public space--tradition demands a public space, but the architecture leaves little room for this. The public space can have one mode in which it serves as an entertainment space and reception area, but with the movement of a few walls, that public space can become a large study and library. Similar structures allow the private quarters, which are typically quite small in a half-elven home, to transform to go from closets and storage to a private studio or workspace. Construction methods for this practice have come down in price considerably, but most non-half-elves regard the moving walls as more trouble than they are worth. 

Gnomes - The gnomish style of decoration involves a great deal of invented devices meant to simplify everyday life. Typical devices include the page holder, meant to keep one's place in a book without touching it; the air refresher, meant to circulate air in a space; and the slate, which can be marked with chalk and erased (unlike typical pen and paper). These devices are typically given a very industrial look meant to evoke the technology's modern nature. Gnomish decorating also uses this industrial look. Like dwarven decorating, gnomish decorating uses metals (usually alloys) to accent or create spaces. Additionally, glass is a standby in gnomish decorating. Uses include the elaborate fish tanks gnomes are known for, skylights, and glass figurines. Gnomes create synthetic fabrics in specially dyed colors, giving them a colorful decoration style similar to elven homes and businesses. 

Class divisions are complicated in gnomish society: generally, the gnomish economic model means that no gnomes are truly poor, and yet the upper echelons of gnomish society are marked by especially wealthy individuals. As a result, any given gnomish building will have a budget for decorating in an elaborate and individual way, but wealthier gnomes set themselves apart with markedly finer decorations. An average gnomish home decorates each of the six typical rooms of a gnomish dwelling in distinct ways: the entryway is reserved for the brightest of colors and most impressive of artistic displays; the living space tends to be decorated with calming colors and plush furniture; the kitchen usually bears light colors with depictions of nature and agriculture; the laboratory bears the most industrial decoration of any space, especially metal plating according to recent trends; the study is decorated in earthy tones and wooden furniture; the private quarters tend to vary widely, but most include favorite colors and matched furniture styles along with tapestries of personal significance. Wealthier gnomes add more elaborate decorations, often with the inclusion of status symbols and working inventions. 

One special feature of gnomish decorating is the use of mechanized figures and creatures which are meant to serve the homeowner. This is a distinction from pets--gnomes take pets in large numbers and care for them almost like children, while mechanical servants are viewed as entirely separate. While a gnome would never call upon a pet to serve them, a mechanical servant is quite accepted in gnomish society. Oftentimes, these inventions take the form of humanoids, canine/feline animals, and spiders. These servants are named by the gnome who created or adopted them, usually with a fanciful or ridiculous name such as Bimblebronze or Hackiterat. Further, most all mechanical servants are provided with tailored clothing. One popular trend among contemporary gnomes is to have a humanoid servant which is dressed in only the finest clothing--fashioning the servants as finely-dressed butlers and maids is quite common. It is considered exceptionally poor etiquette for one of these servants to malfunction in front of company, and a reliable mechanical servant is considered a status symbol in and of itself. 

Halflings - Halfling decorations are hard to generalize about--a major cultural force for halflings is a stark individualism, and so more effort is made by halflings to depart from cultural norms than to adhere to them. Nevertheless, there are a few customs which can be found in a good amount of halfling homes and businesses. For starters, halflings live in a thick rainforest, and the ingredients for the most colorful dyes come from halfling territory. Halflings decorate utilizing both natural inspiration (tapestries with scenes of nature as well as mostly wooden furniture and building materials) and the vibrant colors available in the rainforest (mostly via dyed fabrics and eye-catching feathers, hides, and plants). Also notable among halflings is the use of baked clay decorations ranging from sculptures (rarely painted) to practical tools (such as water vessels and pots for plants, also rarely painted). Halfling homes and businesses tend to use a similar combination of styles as half-elves, but where half-elven customs have become standard, halfling customs are generally considered idiosyncratic and strange. 

Class lines have only one major effect on the decoration of halfling homes and businesses: the size of the building. Because halflings are so small, they require relatively little space; because halfling homes and businesses are dug into the ground and have no surface structures, the time and effort to burrowing often makes a smaller home or business a wiser choice. But truly wealthy halflings who disregard the halfling value of avoiding waste in all things expand their homes to larger sizes. Some of these expanded homes add extra rooms, most often a workshop or studio and occasionally a study or office; most simply make the standard layout for a halfling home more spacious. Since the size of a halfling's home is obscured on ground level, there is a certain cultural phenomenon wherein wealthy halflings don't mention the size of their underground dwellings, living visitors to instead discover the extent of their wealth as they enter the home or business. There has been something of a backlash against expanded halfling homes, and there is new popularity among homes that are even smaller than normal; these homes carry a social prestige of thrift and conservation. 

One special feature among halfling decorators is the garden, which does not surround the home, but rather exists on top of it. It is common for a halfling to devote most if not all of their property above ground to sizable gardens. Generally, these gardens are cultivated versions of traditional rainforest plants, most popularly root vegetables which can satisfy the common vegetarian diet of the halflings. Adding to the uniqueness of the halfling garden, the fact that it lies perhaps a foot or maybe only inches above the ceiling of the home complicates care for the garden and the home alike. The most common solution to this problem is to install a wire mesh along the ceiling, preventing roots from entering the home; at the same time, a section of the mesh is made to be removable, and homeowners feed natural fertilizers up into the soil via the ceiling. Because the garden are essentially the only public part of homes and businesses, it is used to characterize a building. Some opt for purely functional food gardens; others mix in colorful flowers; still others create cozy spaces with benches and decorations for a more casual use of the space. It is commonly said that one can learn more about a halfling from inspecting their garden than from speaking with them. 

There you have it: a description of each group in my homebrew setting's takes on home decoration. I look forward to describing buildings even more now--before, I had the architecture to describe the outward appearance of places, but now I can describe the interior with confidence and detail easily. As I always say, working on details in your homebrew setting will always open doors for you--you just need to do the work to get there. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: , lessons from GMing for children, how to know what class to play, and religious beliefs by cultural group in my homebrew setting. Until next time, happy gaming!

Why Philosophical Conundrums Make Great Stories

We as GMs and DMs are always on the hunt for that perfect story idea, that shocking twist, that ideal NPC to provide the game we want. You can find or engineer those things--I've addressed campaign ideas twice before as well as how to make lovable allies and interesting villains (plus a list of villains to use). Other things feel more elusive. How do you ensure your players will engage with the story? How do you give them room to roleplay and define the story? How do you push them to play based on ideas rather than strategy? Fortunately, I have a way to accomplish all three of these things: philosophical conundrums. A good philosophical conundrum makes the players use their brains, which means trying to think as their characters. As I'll describe below, that's one of the most rewarding things we can introduce as GMs. 

What exactly is a philosophical conundrum? In essence, it's an issue of some sort that's difficult to resolve (conundrum) due to the philosophical implications of the issue itself. A classic example of this idea is called the Ship of Theseus. The story goes that the Ship of Theseus goes off to sea, and over years of damage from battle and the elements, many parts of the ship have been replaced. In fact, the whole ship has been replaced at one point or another. The question is, is it still the Ship of Theseus? Do the changes make it something new, or is it just revision of a constant whole? This philosophical conundrum is more an intellectual exercise than what we want as GMs--we want something practical that requires action--but it illustrates the concept. What we really want is some issue that enters moral territory. 

In order to really engage the players, we want an issue that is complicated and messy. This will get a direct and real reaction from the players, for one, and for two, it makes your story more engaging by having a connection to the player's own values. The standard construction for this type of story is that someone is doing something, and that something is both really good in outcomes for some people and really bad in outcomes for other people. By way of more concrete example, new settlers in an in-game territory have helped improve the lives of the people already living there, but this new relationship is threatening the culture of the people already living there. Some will argue that the livelihood of everyone is the most important issue, and others will argue that the culture is too important to lose. As the players move through this story, you can continue to layer in details that further complicate the scenario. In the end, you'll have a complex moral issue that the players will have to resolve. (And they'll love it.)

I promised that philosophical conundrums give us our best chance at three important things: engagement with the story, providing space and inspiration for roleplaying, and making them think inside of the game. Let's address how using examples of campaigns I've run that have included philosophical conundrums and how it's gone. 

About two years ago, I ran a mystery campaign for a group of friends I've been playing with for years. You can read summary and analysis of the whole campaign, but in brief, the party was tasked with solving a murder; in their pursuit, they were required to gather clues and witness testimony to discover the killer. As they worked, they discovered that the richest person in town, a known philanthropist, was somehow involved. I'll leave the rest for you to read if you choose, but the philanthropist detail was a big complication for the party. They encountered the philanthropist several times in the story and always had a difficult-to-articulate dislike of her, but it was only when she was implicated in the crime that that feeling entered the storyline. The idea of going after the benefactor of the city complicated the situation, and it caused them to pursue multiple other angles before going after her. 

This is to say that the players were more engaged with the story than just solving a mystery would have prompted. Before I introduced the philanthropist to the story, it was a fairly procedural investigation; adding her shook things up and made the party take note of the larger city around them. But when she was implicated, the philosophical issue entered the fray. Now, their investigation would impact the entire city. It ratcheted up the tension, and it resulted in a series of serious discussions about what to do which hadn't happened earlier in the campaign. I spoke about this campaign with a friend who played in it recently, and he told me that his favorite part of the campaign was [spoiler redacted], which entirely relied on the reveal that the philanthropist was involved in the murder. It really was the moment that placed the campaign on the final stretch, and I'm really glad I could pull them in with this simple philosophical conundrum. 

Why does this work? Well, I think of it this way: there are practically limitless ways to play tabletop RPGs, all of which engage the brain of a player differently. A combat scene makes the player think strategically and according to structured rules. A puzzle scene requires logical thinking and caution. A roleplaying scene involves abstract thinking and imagination. Good battles and puzzles engage those ordered thoughts, but for roleplaying, a good story asks the players to take a personal stake in the action. It's not "we have to win this battle to keep playing the campaign"--it's "we have to win this battle because hundreds of people will suffer if we fail." Having played in both kinds of situations before, I can tell you it feels completely different to be totally engaged with the story. And philosophical conundrums make us engage deeply because they bring us further into the story and world. 

Much more than two years ago, I ran one of the first D&D podcasts ever. Our show, called Listen Check, was a showcase for roleplaying. With an audio only medium, relying on roleplaying seemed a logical choice, which was nice because it was already what we wanted to do. The first quest they encountered in our three-year campaign was a conundrum: the orcish god Gruumsh wanted the party to help him get revenge on the descendants of people who had slaughtered orcs in the past. This presented a philosophical conundrum in that not righting the wrong was morally upsetting, but carrying out Gruumsh's wrath on people who didn't commit the crime. Further, Gruumsh was demanding the deaths of the governor and sheriff of town, and this only complicated things. The party was always in support of turning against Gruumsh, but they often wavered--frequently, they would discuss alternatives and revisit old conversations rather than commit to one position completely. And because they were always debating this issue, there was a great opportunity for roleplaying. 

An opportunity for roleplaying really depends on your campaign, but if you're focusing on roleplaying, it's priceless. And the truth is that the most reliable source of material for roleplaying is a discussion of what all the players are going through together. And beyond that, what they're going through together is the story of the campaign. So if there's some complicated issue at the heart of that campaign, there's essentially endless opportunities to roleplay. In the campaign I'm in now as a player, our DM has us acting as diplomats to the hostile elven government, fighting for peace. Just about every time we have downtime as a group, our complicated main quest comes up. I often wonder in character how my quiet con artist (who used to pose as a diplomat) ended up part of a royal diplomatic party. It's a rich source of roleplaying for all of us, and it's only apparent when the GM makes room for it. A good philosophical conundrum can do that for you. 

Why does this work? Well, I think of it this way: most of us don't create literally multiple novels of backstory for our characters, so we need some reference point to respond to. And having something to respond to means that the GM or another player needs to give input. Most of what a player says is more roleplaying responding to other players roleplaying, but GM input can go beyond that moment. GMs know that typically, any sufficiently interesting detail will be discussed, but this is usually for only a moment or two. A philosophical conundrum gets greater distance because the details you add to complicate the conundrum change it enough to inspire new discussion. I remember that on Listen Check, revealing that an arch-villain they players fought in the middle of the campaign was actually a possessed but sweet-hearted and helpful NPC from a campaign I'd run with mostly the same group of players. This detail--the NPC's backstory being cherished--made fighting him harder, and the players were even inspired to try to save the character after defeating him. That kind of roleplaying doesn't happen when you're just fighting goblins. 

The last element to consider is making the players think inside the game, which philosophical conundrums accomplish perfectly. To provide an example, the first real campaign I ran (ever more years ago now) involved an ill-conceived story about the party infiltrating the city guard and assassinating all the important governmental officials. The party abandoned it almost immediately, turning on the questgiver, who revealed themself to be an avowed anarchist member of the royal family, seeking to destroy her family's kingdom. The conundrum was that the kingdom was doing a generally good job (no civil unrest), but the anarchist had stories about terrible corruption. The result was the most dramatic response to a philosophical conundrum I have ever seen: the party split in half. Half of them sought to topple the kingdom, and the other half strove to defend it. The campaign ended in a climactic battle, a draw. We ended the campaign with a fractured party, and everyone couldn't have been happier. 

The thing that went completely right with this situation was that the players did something really special: they thought inside the game. It would have been easy to say, "We don't want a party split--let's just agree to defend the kingdom" and go on with the mission. But they decidedly didn't do that. They thought as their characters, and it transformed my bad writing into a really exciting story. Watching the players work against each other in front of each other became one of the thrills of that campaign. Seeing how different situations arose and unfolded was exhilarating. It was all a product of how the conundrum made the players think. Once they were thinking as their characters, it became suddenly possible to give them further and further prompts to define the story. In one climactic moment, the head of the anarchists assassinated the king, and the defenders brought in a cleric to revive the king, leading to a series of complicated rulings on my part that led to the final battle. This again shows the great value of a conundrum--the players weren't just fighting to win the conflict against the other players; they were fighting to do what they believed was right. 

Why does this work? I think of it this way: it's a sink-or-swim roleplaying prompt. At the end of the day, roleplaying really just comes down to thinking as your character. And a philosophical conundrum demands one of three responses: you simply don't know how to respond, so you guess (sinking); you consider the conundrum from your own perspective as a human being in reality (sinking that looks like swimming); or you think about what your character would think (swimming). The good news is, almost nobody completely sinks. Answering for yourself instead of your character is unfortunate but can't be helped--you can't make someone roleplay. But you can give them an incentive to. And a philosophical conundrum is a great incentive. I'll tell you now that I have GMed for dozens and dozens of people with no interest in or history of roleplaying, but if you offer them a philosophical conundrum, I'd say 90% of people will immediately catch on. I've GMed for large groups of sixth graders before, and even most of them get the prompt. A philosophical conundrum makes you use your brain; encountering a conundrum as your character makes you feel inclined to use their brain. 

So there you have it: a variety of ways to think about conundrums and their role in your games. As a bit of a post-script, I want to mention a tabletop game that I've created (but not published yet) that uses time travel. (You can play a short time loop adventure I wrote here in the meantime.) The larger game basically uses a mechanic that changes the rest of the timelines you can visit based on your actions. And as players make changes, and as intentional and unintentional side effects pile up, it inherently creates philosophical conundrums for the players to deal with. As you can see, I'm very passionate about these conundrums, and I hope that experimenting with them in your games shows you why. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: home décor by culture in my homebrew setting, lessons from GMing for children, and how to know what class to play. Until next time, happy gaming!