Change how you DM every once in a while.

Last sunday night i only had two of my players, everyone else was enjoying the summer and who can blame them. So i decided to do something new, i ran a viligente style game set in waterdeep. We played in my back yard, had printer problems and started late. It turned out to be quite fun, the two of them got four fights in, and had a nice roleplaying scenario for the first hour and a half.

At one point the players went to go meet a local fence to try and get some information on a new gang. They managed to get through the private warehouse to the back where i had the fence playing a game of dice. I assumed that the players would try and get some information from him then leave, to my surprise the players each sat down and joined in.

I needed a game, and fast. Luickily i've been toying with a game of dice that i wanted to try.

Dice Game: Pick Pocket

Bet: each round is 1 gold peice, if there are no winners the pot stays in to get bigger. ties are usualy split, but the tieing parties can chose to double up and roll again just against eachother.

Dealer: Dealer can be any one, but can only

be one person. This person rolls a 20 sided die.

Players: Everyone playing, even the dealer can roll. Each player rolls three six sided dice.

Goal: The goal of the game is to come as close as possible to the number on the 20 sided die without going over. You can match, but you just can't go over.

If the roll is a 1, then everyone has to toss another gold peice in the pot. If the roll is a 2, then everyone has to toss two gold peices in the pot.

I rolled for 5 NPC's and we must have played this for a solid 15 minutes, im sure it would have gone on longer but i wanted to advance the story a bit. The pot grew pretty fast in this game and the players walked away with some extra coin.

The second thing i learned when running the game came shortly after. This lesson is know when to shut the %$#& up. This tip is great for players and DM's alike. If your in sales then you already know this tip, its about using silence as a controling force in a conversation.

The player asked me a question, and i had begun to answer before he rolled his dice. This is fine beacuse roleplaying should move the game along without any rolls to begein with. But if i just waited a few seconds longer he would have rolled the dice, and i could have then chosen to either give him the same information, less information or more information.

The reason this is important is beacuse it gives the player a sence of acomplishment, and that his skills actualy translate into some sort of in game success. The other thing i learned is a charisma based character in waterdeep with the waterdeep background has a diplomacy check of kissenger himself.

The third thing i learned of the night is roll with the punches. I've always tried to promote this but felt it hard with more players. At one point the Avenger climbed down a sewer pipe just as his sunrod gave out, so he went to go get his other sun rod while hanging in the air on the rope, and rolled badly so he droped it. Not a big problem The other player who was still on the top level lowered a sunrod down on a secondary rope so they could see the small room. The avenger started looking around for his missing sunrod only to find a level 2 Otyug.

The ranger who is 35 feet up and can only see 4 squares of this room needed to get down fast. He asked if he could slap some slime on his legs and arms and get down the rope with one movement and no falling damage. Isaid sure sh ow me an athletics roll to stop the damage. Instead of rolling 2d10 for falling damage, i rolled 1d6 beacuse he rolled so good. Lucky him only taking 1 point of damage.

The cool part isn't the taking of the little damage, its allowing the player to pull off such a cool move. This minor encounter will be remembered for quite some time beacuse of everything invovled in it.

The last thing i learned is about playing outside works in small groups. The chairs sat low, we needed to get a lantern at one point but we had fun. It was a nice relaxed setting were we sat back and actuly roleplayed. I felt the enviroment encouraged the roleplaying, its was completly diffrent than being cramped up in the basement for the whole night. Playing outside i feel works in a scenario where you can just forget the dice for a while and play. Thats what d&d is about is playing, forget the editions, forget the books and just play.

The one thing i would like to suggest to spice up your game is change the rules and go with the flow. Don't just change things about the game itself, but change your enviroment.

Well thats it for me for today, until next time keep your dice on the table