RPT Newsletter #626 | Making Undead Cool Again

[Stephan Hornick]

Making Undead Cool Again
By JohnnFour | Published October 6, 2014.

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #626

Brief Word From Johnn​

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How to Find Players Updated (Filling the Empty Chair)​

After battles with tarrasques and two ages of man have passed, I've updated Filling the Empty Chair.
My guide on the best sites to find players, and the best tips to find local gamers and groups, was updated Thursday.
If you registered for updates, you should have received the new edition in your inbox automatically.
If you didn't get the update, let me know (just hit reply to this email now).
Updates include:

• Reformatted for easier on-screen reading (especially on mobile devices
• New player registry site links added
• Broken links updated or removed

Can't Find a Player or a Game?​

If you are looking for gamers and don't have my How to Find Players guide, grab the 2014/2015 edition. I've got it on sale this week to celebrate the new update.
It shows you where the best Players Wanted ads are online, and where you can post your own.
And as mentioned above, in part two of the guide I show you 28 ways to find people in your neighborhood who game.
Get the How to Find Players guide here »

Johnn's Campaign: Assault on Orc Valley​

Sometimes the dice tell the story of the session. Lady luck gives us a happy ending. Or not. Here's how Friday's game went down.

It's dark out, and the PCs are still celebrating their victory over the local gang of thugs at the inn, despite the ringleader getting away.

The wizard uses mage hand to impress the locals and harass the help. The fighter woos a farmer's daughter. The rogue entertains the crowd with rowdy songs.

A dirty, smelly dwarf saddles up to the bar and orders a drink (a new PC). He gets hammered fast. When a card game breaks out with the gambling addicted fighter and the two locals he cleaned out the other night, the dwarf sits in.

Then a stranger saunters in and seats himself beside the mage. As they talk he notices the mage hand. He asks the mage to give him a signal if the dwarf has a good hand at the card table, then he joins the game.

Thanks to a little arcane assistance, the stranger does ok. Then the game escalates into a tense hand with a lot of coin being pushed into the centre of the table. It comes down to the fighter, the stranger, and a card shark local. If the local wins, the fighter has to plough the farmer's field. Cards are revealed, and...the stranger claims victory. Everyone at the table gets suspicious, but there's no evidence of cheating.

The stranger takes his winnings and leaves the table with the girl the fighter was flirting with earlier. Everyone drinks more.

The next morning, the party splits up. Some are too hung over and refuse the call to adventure. The paladin and monk meet with the Townmaster to prepare for elections.

The mangy dwarf, fighter, and mage decide to investigate the orc bandits they heard were menacing the road up near Wyvern Tor. As the three travel along the Triboar Trail, they spot the wispy smoke of a roadside campfire up ahead. Then they hear the chilling sounds of torture.

The group rushes forward and discovers four hobgoblins holding a goblin over a fire, demanding to know where Cragmaw Castle - the goblin HQ - is located.

It's the party's first encounter with these tough, soldier-like creatures. Though only the druid is harmed, he nearly dies. A hobgoblin is taken prisoner.

The goblin is rescued only to be interrogated again, this time by his so-called saviors. He tells the PCs the castle is to the south.

Reviving and conversing with the hobgob prisoner reveals King Grol and the Spider operate out of the castle, as well. The party makes peace with the hobgob, who offers to join their cause against Glasstaff, the goblin king, and the mysterious Black Spider.

The party agrees. But when the hobgob is released, he immediately attacks. Despite overwhelming odds, the hobgoblin follows his training and honour-bound ways. He dies.

But all the fighting draws the attention of a nearby owlbear, which crashes into the PCs and starts beaking and clawing flesh.

The druid turns into a bear, and it's Mothra vs. Godzilla for several tense seconds as both creatures stand on their hind legs and pound away at each other.

It turns out the dwarf is a strong addition to the party, for he's victorious, and the PCs grab what loot they can from the hobgoblin camp and continue down the road, but not before killing the goblin.

Two days later Wyvern Tor breaks the horizon. The tall mountain is flanked by two others, giving the appearance of wings. The PCs encounter an orc bandit group and dispatch the ugly, brutish creatures. They track the orcs back to a valley, where an orc village stretches out. A large ogre sits in the middle of the village, growling orders, while orcs whip goblin slaves to work harder in the fields and gardens.

The party wonders if these odds are too much even for bears and mage hands to overcome. They decide to try a divide-and-conquer approach. They crawl close to the village and let loose their arrows, hitting the ogre leader twice with amazing shots.

The orcs charge, a group of almost a dozen hot on the retreating heroes' heels.

The druid wields his nature magic to help the party hide while the orcs run by. Then the PCs strike from behind in ambush.

The fight is intense. 11 against three. 3.5 if you count the druid-bear.

The fighter goes down. He gets healed and bounces up again. Then the druid goes down. Then the mage. It's just the fighter left, and there's three orcs.

The foes exchange mighty blows. An orc falls. Then another. It's just the fighter, who has only three health left, and a tall orc warrior, unharmed and enraged.

The orc hits! But the wily fighter summons all his willpower and somehow survives and even gets a second wind just in time for his counter attack.

With 10 fallen orcs, the fighter knows the only way he can kill this creature is to hit it with everything he's got. Maximum damage is the only result that will save the party.

The fighter swings.

And hits!

We all wait to see the damage....and it's box cars! Maximum damage. The only roll that would kill the orc in one blow.

Everyone cheers.

Lady luck blew on those dice that night.

We wrap the session up there. The PCs scout the village again after resting and find it deserted. With some careful tracking, they find the creatures holed up in a cave at the base of Wyvern Tor. They'll need more help to defeat the entrenched foes.

I like it when players take chances. You often get great, memorable stories that way. Like this time, when only one roll could save a TPK, and the group got it. Hopefully my dice are lucky next time.

We play again in a couple weeks. It should be interesting to see how the cave assault goes. I'm off the plot now, with an unscheduled stop with these orcs. The ogre leader is still alive, as are his best warriors. This cave is a holy site to the tribe. The shaman lives there. It was only out of desperation they dared retreat here with their families against the evil people from the human town. There's a surprise waiting in that cave for the PCs. And it'll surprise the orcs too....

 

[Stephan Hornick]

Making Undead Cool Again​

Johnn Four

This month's RPG Blog Carnival is "Things That Go Bump in the Night", and is hosted by Of Dice and Dragons.

Undead are boring. We've gamed them so much they're predictable and common. But for the fantasy city campaign I'm planning, I'm adding undead. Lots of undead. And I have a plan to make them cool, interesting, and scary again.

Here's my plan.

Give Them Leaders With a Mission​

The first thing I'm doing is hitting up my bucket list. As I mentioned issues ago, I have a wishlist of cool gaming moments, elements, and products I want to GM before I roll my last die.

I keep this wishlist in a small Field Notes square grid notebook. If an idea hits me away from home, I'll add it to Evernote, and then transcribe it into the notebook. I've just started this practice. Before, I had only had a blog post and some notes spread around in different books. Now I have just one simple notebook. And hopefully I fill it with new ideas fast. One can never have enough inspiration.

So in my wishlist are a bunch of monsters I want to run in upcoming campaigns. I scratched tarrasque off last campaign. That bad boy co-destroyed Riddleport in the grand finale. I've got many more critters on my list to go.

And I'm taking a half dozen or so for my new game and making them undead. These creatures will be the leaders of different undead factions operating within the city. While each amazing monster chases its own agenda, they also pursue a terrible common objective. This gives me my bucket list, campaign plot, and city design elements all on a delicious zombie platter.

The tip I'd like to pass on to you is to revitalize your undead by combining them with other creatures and monster types to surprise your players. A platoon of githyanki ghasts dive-bombing in on flying zombie dolphins might just catch the PCs unawares.

Give your undead a driving urge or motive, too. Switch up the classic situation where they are just lying around for centuries waiting to animate or escape. Instead, have them animate and escape pre-campaign. Then give them some form of leadership and a purpose for the PCs to tangle with during the campaign.

Maybe the mummy storm giant wants revenge. The lich beholder wants to resume his foul arcane experiments. And the death knight black dragon has some lands to re-conquer.

Give undead in your game a role greater than XP salad and a side of ribs. Make them smart and organized. And have them pursue an evil plan with the intense focus only an angry alien mind can muster.

Give Them Society​

Skeletons keep whacking until they're a pile of bones again. Zombies shuffle along until their legs get cut out from under them. Ghouls and ghasts just attack until fed. Where's the roleplaying? The intrigue? The plot?

For this campaign, I'm giving the horde some culture. I might even teach the yoghurt heads some manners. I'm using my 3 Line Culture technique to create several factions with interesting identities and roleplaying opportunities.

I'll give each faction a monstrous undead leader, who will influence their faction's:

• Goals
• Membership makeup
• Action style

With culture and aims designed, I'll give the undead intra-horde conflicts on three different levels:

• Species vs. species (e.g., dogs hate cats, vampires hate _____)
• Leader vs. leader (territory and resource disputes, strategy disputes, and rival vendettas and hatred – a terrific fruit punch of strife!)
• The horde's common goal and what tribe or faction wins the big prize first

Last, and perhaps the best way to make undead interesting again in this campaign, is they can all think and talk. Even the skeletons will become NPCs. And the party can interact, roleplay, scheme, and conflict with them all as they see fit.

Give Them Unexpected Mechanics​

If sentience and personality aren't enough to surprise and entertain players, I have two more game mechanics I'm going to layer on.

Infection​

Undead are contagious. That should terrify even priests and paladins, because there's going to be at least three different kinds of infection:

• Bite me. A good solid bite should make walking dead out of at least a couple party members.
• You'll make a great dad. Riffing off the recent Alien article, some undead will lay their eggs into PCs. A red dot means you're going to be a parent!
• Geiger counter. Speaking of Aliens and the late artist H.R. Giger who inspired them, some undead will emit radiation that erodes your life force until you are one of them.

The infection mechanics I think will not only change the tone of the campaign to one of fear and horror, but it will transform the setting and nature of gameplay.

First, I'll create an infection meter. It will climb as the campaign winds on and the undead spread, making the area ever more dangerous to trespass. Just having infectious undead means they become a dynamic campaign factor, a measurable tension, and a looming doom.

Second, the PCs will have to rethink their hack'n'slash approach. It's one thing to grind toe-to-toe with skellies and then take their loot, but it's another when that fight means you wake up the next morning with no skin and a rattle when you walk.

Evolution​

The second mechanic has the undead evolving rapidly over time. It's another tension meter pulling at the players to act smart and fast.

Lower undead transform into higher undead. Skeletons and zombies become ghouls and ghasts that become ghosts and reapers. Did you ever play the board game Titan, where monsters travel the board and evolve? That's the type of thing I'm thinking of.

And here's where I need your help. I'm struggling to figure out an elegant mechanic for this evolution. Is it time based? Or based on kills?

Or maybe it's a terrifying family tree based on infections and spawning more. A multi-level mummification pyramid scheme.

If this was your campaign, how would you have the undead become tougher and more powerful and evolve while the PCs try to survive? Hit reply and let me know.

Wrapping Up​

Modify your undead in your next campaign to catch your players off-guard. Give the creatures cultures, personalities, and new mechanics. Nothing says you can't change things up and make your campaign special this way. Remember, flying zombie dolphins are NPCs too.

 

[Stephan Hornick]

Show, Don't Tell​

Raldog

Thank you for the link to "How To Be A Better Player". I've be GMing a group of guys who only liked hack n slash. Absolutely no role playing whatsoever on their part, only on mine. A couple of guys actually said role playing was "kinda weird", but was okay because it was different. I had, and still have, no response to that.

I had gotten to where I didn't really plan our games anymore since all they wanted to do was to fight. I've been playing for 30 years, so I know how to provide fun things to do, but if the party doesn't want to do them, doesn't take the bait, or worse yet, completely ignores the bait, what can I do? I've hated hack n slash forever and here I was doing it.

Anyway, one of the main role-playing haters was tired of my once-a-month game, so he decided he was going to try running his own game, which he promised would be more often than mine. I didn't have a problem with that.

• Step 1: The new GM has never allowed an evil PC in the game. Ever. He's been playing 25+ years, so it took quite a bit of convincing on my part, but he eventually allowed me to roll up a neutral evil sorcerer. I instructed him that I would never turn on my fellow PC's. That's not how you have fun!
• Step 2: The first time we sat down, and he began role-playing as GM, 30 seconds into the session I did the same exact thing he has always done to me. "Naw!! Don't care! Nope! I don't care what he says. I'm Not Role-Playing." Everybody else at the table laughed because they remembered him doing those things, only he didn't. He actually denied he had said such things. That went on for about 30-45 seconds, then I showed them fools how role-playing was done. Including him.
• Step 3: Right off the bat we were employed by a casino owner who had us try to collect from some people who owned him money, which we did, but boy were they tough. Almost too tough. While we were fighting the bad guys I made it a point to role play my attacks and trash talk.
  
  On our way back to the casino I began telling the party the casino owner set us up. He was trying to kill us by having us go against people who weren't playing. Well, we weren't going to play that either!
  
  We confronted the casino owner by threatening him and telling him if this was going to be amateur hour then he'd need to double our pay, and pay us up front. The GM and I role played that entire conversation, which took about 5 minutes. The rest of the party just watched in awe, and were grateful for the money.
• Step 4: Our next mission took us to the docks, where we promptly got into a fight with some folks who didn't think they owed the casino anything. The last enemy standing was kicking our butts. We weren't taking him down. Only one other enemy was alive, but he was on the ground and bleeding out. When it became my turn I grabbed the last enemy's attention by yelling at him, and when he looked my way, I punched my dagger through his dying friend's head. Then I told the enemy to lay down his weapon, which he did. My group still did nothing but watch.
• Step 5: We tied up the last guy, and after questioning him, I sliced open his face, and instructed him to tell others there is a new group handling collections for the casino.
• Step 6: We instituted a no weapon policy in the casino, which everyone minded except for a couple of members of the City Watch. We role-played the "Don't wear your weapon in here ever again" conversation, which was pretty tense, but they got the message. We spoke to their boss, and we instructed him that if any of his men wore their weapons into the casino ever again there's going to be problems. Official business or not. That conversation took about 10 minutes, and one other player actually joined in.
• Step 7: One night, immediately after closing, some thugs attacked us by kicking open the doors, and breaking through the windows. While the fight was going on, during my turn I was yelling about how much those doors and windows were going to cost, and that they were going to repay us with their blood. We won the fight, and cut off the head of the boss thug. One of the other party members suggested we load the dead bodies onto a wagon, and leave it in front of the compound the thugs were associated with. Finally the group was learning how to role play.

During my games there is a LOT of conversation about all kinds of stuff which has nothing to do with the game. There was so much action that they weren't playing video games on their laptops, (because the fights are fun), but now that they're learning how to role play maybe that trend will end. We'll see.

We haven't played my game yet, but so far, three of the players want to change their alignments from good to evil, including Mr. I'm Not Roleplaying. They now know how to make D&D fun, but unfortunately, I couldn't properly voice how that should be done. I could only show them. The website you've shared explains more succinctly than I ever could. I have passed the link onto my group.

I love your blog, but the thing I love most is your game summations. I love reading those. Thanks Johnn. No matter what, you've made my game better in more ways than you can possibly imagine.

 

[Stephan Hornick]

From Dominic Amann

Hmmm. I just read about a third of the new Monster Manual, and it has some excellent campaign ideas in its details.

Of all creatures, even the plant creatures are interesting. A whole line of them are said to be connected to an ancient vampire who was killed by wooden stake, that then grew into a tree that was nurtured in the shadow realm. The seeds from this tree form the creatures. This contains all the elements you describe for a unique undead campaign.


From Christina Freeman

The seed is actually from the 3e adventure path. The tree was called the Gulthias Tree, and was found in the lower level of the Sunless Citadel. You then meet the vampire, Gulthias, much later in the Heart of Nightfang Spire.

I am loving how these little snippets are making their way into the core rulebooks. This is real fan service, for easter egg hunters like myself.

By the way, you can find the two mentioned adventures, and the rest of the adventure path, over at http://www.dndclassics.com

 

[Stephan Hornick]

From Andrew Y.

As a method of evolving the undead, I like the idea of infection and spawning. I don’t know exactly what you had in mind, but here a few ideas.

1) Infection evolution. More powerful undead can infect lesser undead. As in, a vampire can turn a zombie into a vampire thrall with a bite, or mind control, or whatever. And slimy tentacle ghouls can lay their slimy eggs inside a vampire and turn it into a clutch of baby slimy tentacle ghouls. Of course, zombies (now that they’re intelligent enough to act as NPCs) don’t want to be vampire thralls, and vampires don’t want to be slimy tentacle ghouls nests/breakfast buffets.

2) Spawning evolution. Undead grow in power as they spread their curse/disease. A vampire with one thrall is little better than a zombie, but a vampire with one hundred thralls is a match for a soul-sucker shade. But any vampire thrall that gets its own vampire thralls gains that power for itself, it doesn’t all funnel to the original sire. And intelligent undead will be just as jealous and wrathful as mortals, so they won’t just pool all of their resources under a single figure, at least, not on purpose…

3) Source evolution. What if your undead were being driven, not just by a handful of powerful leaders, but by a natural (or unnatural) phenomenon? So, the undead evolve with time, but not necessarily with age, as dragons do. A zombie spawned on Day 1 will have x power. On Day 5, that zombie will have x+4 power (or 5x power, whatever the pace is), but a zombie spawned on Day 5 will also have x+4 (or 5x) power, even though it is freshly spawned and not yet “finely aged,” because all of the undead are evolving based on the growing power of the phenomenon-source.

4) Ritual evolution. The undead are static beings, in spite of their seemingly dynamic existence (being formerly dead and all). In order to evolve, they must individually undergo long, strenuous rituals that rip their rotting flesh to engorge their stiffened muscles, burst their decaying blood vessels as pure magical energy courses through them, or remodel their very skeleton as spines and spikes grow from spurs along their spines and arms.

I hope these help inspire you to come up with a brilliant evolution mechanic of your own. I love this setting idea, and I hope you post again once you’ve decided on an evolution mechanic and fleshed out your undead factions.

 

[Stephan Hornick]

Manolo, the saber tooth devil

well, I loved the ideas you gave to me with this article, And i am sure to implement them on my next session, it kinda suited the way i was heading anyway,

In any case, a good way to make the undead more powerful along the way…. well there are these creatures called “Arcbond” on the Magic the gathering. They are more constructs than creatures actually. Anyway, when one of then dies, the parts that make him can be transfered to the others on the field. If you are planning to create leader, why not use necromants to heal the dead as the priests heal the living, and by this i mean, undead would take down targets to absorb what make them powerfull… wings, extralimbs, that stuff, even more muscle,

That could be an interesting thing also in case they are continuously decaying, so they would need more and more parts to endure time. ^_^

P.s. sorry the crappy english, not my native language

 

[Stephan Hornick]

From krys

So much cool info & ideas here! I’ve just started introducing undead into my Kalan’Dria’n campaign and the players have just started noticing their appearance. I love the idea of toxic or evolving undead as well as widespread intelligence. For my undead, they regenerate (the higher ones, vampires, ghouls and so forth) while the party fights them. Additionally, skeletal archers have started using what are called Bone Arrows that grow doing 1 point of damage to the player from the next turn onwards if they don’t quickly remove them (which hurts!). The arrows can be safely dissolved by using holy water. I’m thinking this new batch of undead have arrived here because of a crashed Voyd-Nek spelljammer ship from a growing threat from beyond which the party hasn’t quite figured out yet…

 

[Stephan Hornick]

From Marten

I have be using the evolving aspect of undead for 15 or so years.
I base on the ability of some creatures to drain of the soul of the living. After a certain amount of gain this essence they can evolve to a higher form or in some cases a new creture.
I am compiling a tomb of the undead to compile all this info into a book to sale.

 

[Stephan Hornick]

Please see many more comments here:
RPT Newsletter #629 | How to Make Undead Scary

 

[Stephan Hornick]

I added a quick little poll.

 

[Gedece]

I was watching a Sly flourish video and after his show he usually answers Patreon questions. One was about undead, and he made a genial approach. Pick any monster that leaves a corpse when dead, take it's stat block, some of it's skills, and apply undead invulnerabilities on it. Now you have a very different kind of undead.

 

[sheaeugene]

Making Undead Cool Again​

Johnn Four

This month's RPG Blog Carnival is "Things That Go Bump in the Night", and is hosted by Of Dice and Dragons.

Undead are boring. We've gamed them so much they're predictable and common. But for the fantasy city campaign I'm planning, I'm adding undead. Lots of undead. And I have a plan to make them cool, interesting, and scary again.

...

Give Them Society​

Skeletons keep whacking until they're a pile of bones again. Zombies shuffle along until their legs get cut out from under them. Ghouls and ghasts just attack until fed. Where's the roleplaying? The intrigue? The plot?

​

Non-sentient undead are sort of just ammo in the archers quiver... It is the Archer you need to concern yourself with, not the arrow. This is one reason why I like to rule that killing the necromancer who raised the bones... will also drop the bones.

 

[Stephan Hornick]

I would rather turn this around. In your metaphor, if the undead are the non-sentient arrows, I would not so much focus on the killing, but focus on the Targets themselves: How does it make them feel? What horrors arise when they shoot arrow after arrow at the undead realizing that for every arrow they shoot at them, for every bit of exhaustion they expend by whacking at them, two more of those undead arise, and they slowly see their resources dwindle…