The Path Of The Dungeon/Game Master

Been a while, I've had this one brewing for 4+ years! In any case, here's the text with minimal editing. I do encourage you all to look into all sorts of ttrpgs when you decide you want to give it a wing, but D&D 5e remains a safe starting point if you've no experience!

Sudden bouts of inspiration are the best. Since I don't have all my equipment with me, I might as well write something that doesn't require any. Let's dive into how to become a Dungeon/Game Master. I'm going to throw in tidbits of text from the next adventure I'm currently designing, to show you what type of work a Dungeon Master needs to do.

Dungeon Master?

If you've ever heard of D&D (Dungeons and Dragons), you probably heard of Dungeon Masters as well. Most tabletop role playing games have a similar role to be fulfilled by one designated player, who gets to act as the storyteller for the game. They dictate what situations and characters the other players meet along their journeys, write encounters/villains/quests/anything else that needs writing, and have a keen knowledge of how the game works (or at least have read a ton of books). They enforce rules, compromise on gray areas, and provide examples to the players when they're unsure of what they can do. The Dungeon Master is pivotal to a game of D&D, and without one, there's no game to play.

This text is aimed at those who already have some experience with tabletop rpgs, and are looking into becoming a Game Master themselves (lesson one: a Game Master [GM] is the umbrella term, a Dungeon Master [DM] pertains to just D&D). That being said, there's no harm in reading along if this topic is new to you, as I also try to give general information on good and bad storytelling, pacing, and reading your audience/players.

My GM experience is mostly limited to D&D, so I'll use terms from that game in this text. Most of the things that apply to D&D also apply to other games, and the current edition is very beginner-friendly to players and DMs alike. So, if you've never run a tabletop game before, D&D is the perfect toe dip.

Educated Guesswork

The very first thing to set you along is, you guessed it, reading. Like all D&D players, the Player's Handbook - or PHB, is the first thing you need to read. As the Dungeon Master, you have to have basic knowledge ironclad in your brain if you don't want to interrupt the game every few minutes to check on some rule or ability from the books. Races, classes, backgrounds, equipment, and spells are the backbone of the game, and you should definitely read everything in at least those segments a couple of times through.

This doesn't necessarily mean you have to be able to recall every wording of every ability and spell perfectly. Instead, what I like to do is refresh my memory when the game calls for it (sometimes even pre-emptively). This simply means that if you're running a game where there's a Gnome Warlock with the Pact of the Tome, a Half-Elf Life Domain Cleric, a Tiefling Assassin Rogue, and a Human Great Weapon Fighter, you look up all their abilities, choices, and spells beforehand, and are then ready for when the players eventually ask something about their characters' capabilities.
Knowing what your party can do is also a great tool to keep your players in check, sometimes people wish for something to be true so badly they misread entries and can end up unintentionally cheating. Retconning mistakes like these halfway through a campaign is a pain, so by having the knowledge you mitigate the misplays.

The next two books for new DMs are the Monster Manual and the Dungeon Master's Guide. The former contains all the basic monsters and other creatures you want to throw at your party. The latter has tools for all sorts of things, like random encounter tables, traveling and downtime activities, creating new monsters, adding in optional rules like insanity and permanent injuries, and world-building. While you don't need the DMG to run the game, I still recommend at least looking at the table of contents at a game store or at a friend's place and reading up on anything that catches your eye. I use all three core books extensively, and they've all helped me run better games.

Trial By Fireball

The next step I recommend you take on your way to becoming a Dungeon Master is designing an adventure. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, or anything that drags on for multiple sessions - just a quick, easy to pick up block of content that you could play through in one go. My next adventure has new players coming in, so I did exactly this to showcase them what D&D is like. Here's an excerpt:

All of you have been aboard The Flamboyant - a transport ship - for the past two weeks or so. Last night was stormy, and waking up you find that the sails have been shredded to ribbons. Your captain, a boisterous and rotund man, is cursing the sea profoundly in three different languages.
The horizon looks empty except for one volcanic, overgrown island. Looking closely, you can just about see that it has a small dock and a few houses on its shoreline. From behind you, the captain hands a spyglass to one of you, and points to the largest building. It has a large, black flag with North Elf insignia on the roof.

"Aye, it be a haven for all Northerner bootlickers, or ones acting as such. Let's just hope they still get supplies."

Your captain turns back to yell directions at the crew. From the aft, you hear the bosun repeat them slightly drunkenly. At the very least you'll get a brief break from all the vomit-breathed belching and bellowing.

Notice how I have everything the players need to know about the situation in a simple, piecemeal introduction. They have a problem they need to solve - getting the sails fixed. They have a place next to them where to start looking for answers and solutions. And most importantly, they're in this together. Tying your party to a task or activity that benefits everyone is a good way to start a campaign, as you don't need to run different storylines and keep track of where everyone is relative to each other.
A common goal also forces interaction between your players from the get go, and can act as a catalyst to some amazing roleplay.

~Vel

Working With Colours (Can Be a Pain)

Hi again!

This time I want to talk about colour (which I still spell like this because color just looks wrong to me). Most pieces of art rely on how colours work together. When starting an art project, choosing the predominant colour or colours is one of the first things to do. I like to call this a colour scheme (although you could just as easily call it a 'palette'). Some artists dread colour schemes, others rely on them. It can be a good tool if you use it right, but it can also stress you out if you dwell on it too much.

When I started painting miniatures, I used colours pretty randomly, mismatching themes and ideas willy-nilly. This was actually a really good thing to start out with, because it forced me down the path of analysing and seeing first-hand which colours worked together and which ones didn't. So, the easiest first step to take when designing a colour scheme is to jot down the colours you want to use on a piece of paper or a palette, and see how they work with each other. If you don't like it, change things around until you do. There's nothing more frustrating than painting something and realising you should have used different tones and/or colours when it's already finished. Preparation is key.

Another really handy tool to use is a colour wheel. You've probably seen tons of them (I know I have). If you're not up to making one yourself with your paints, you can easily find one online. Personally, I find this one the most useful, as it has a few options you can toy around with. I'll leave an example from that website into each segment.

And, well, might as well put a disclaimer in here. I am not a schooled artist. I don't have a great understanding of colour theory, just all the little things I've picked up along the way. The most important advice is to have fun while you experiment! Listen to your favourite music, take pictures of your work, take a break every once in a while.

Monochrome Melancholy

Example

While not in itself a full-on colour scheme, monochromatic pieces of art deserve a mention. You basically limit yourself to just one colour, and use light/dark contrast to complete the piece. Using a monochromatic palette is very impactful, and creates a washed-out, dreary look to almost everything. Painting in monochrome is a fun experiment and a good exercise. You can also use monochrome as the basis for highlighting a specific element in your piece of art (think along the lines of Sin City)

Opposites Attract

Example

One of the easiest colour schemes to use is just take any colour, and seeing what its opposite (/complementary) is on the colour wheel. For example let's say you want to paint a jungle with loads of different greens all over, and you want the background sky to contrast all the greenery. You look at the colour wheel, see that green and red are opposites, and paint the sky with reddish tones, and add a bunch of vibrant red flowers in the foliage to "pop". Good job!

You can also see this in play with movies. The most obvious opposite contrast that we see in movies these days is blue and orange. A night scene around a bonfire with closeups of characters' faces is almost a trope at this point, with one side of the face in dark, blue tones, and the other side blasted with fiery oranges and yellows from a fire/lantern/headlight or anything else orange-ish. Take note of this choice of contrasting colours when walking past the movie aisle in your local supermarket, most of the movies' covers use this clever contrast trick to draw your eye in.

Adjacent Affiliates

Example

Adjacent colours work together as well. Think of a painting of a glacier, or a photo taken underwater in a lagoon. When the overall light situation is tinted towards a specific colour, adjacency is your friend. A fantasy painting of a volcanic magma temple uses almost exclusively reds, oranges, and yellows as the colour scheme. Adjacency brings consistence when you want to drive a certain mood throughout the whole piece you're doing. It can also be used together with other methods of choosing a colour scheme.

For example, let's say you want to paint David and Goliath and make the two characters really stand out. You decide that David should be predominantly blue, and that the Goliath should be orange, as they are opposite on the colour wheel and you get a real sense of adversaries from that dynamic. Great! Then you start thinking that if David wears nothing but blue, and Goliath just has an orange loincloth, you haven't really gotten your point of two drastically different characters across. The solution? Adjacency!

So you take David and give him a blue and green tunic, a turquoise headband and a slightly purple, yet still blue sling. Now you've created a rich and dynamic character while maintaining the "cold" colour theme. Then you give the Goliath an orange loincloth with red stripes and a yellow sun motif, a golden wristband, splatter some blood/mud all over his club and legs, and top it all off with a bright-red nose, creating a formidable yet consistent adversary for David to combat.

Thinking Like a Triad

Example

Let's get a bit more advanced. Triads are colour schemes that implement three main colours. One of them acts as the most prominent one, while the other two are equal complementary elements to that original colour of choice. Sounds difficult, right? Well, that link I shared at the start is really handy with triads. Simply look at the different options above the colour wheel, and choose the one with three dots distributed equally on a circle. You can alter the distance of the two complementary colours (in degrees, the default angle is 30° from each other), as well as change the specific hue from the center of the colour wheel. 

Triads can dictate the entire colour palette you're using, or act just as a guideline to see which colours work best with the ones you've already chosen. A triad colour scheme is a solid foundation for anything, and is especially useful when you want to tie a bunch of different characters together thematically (like a sports team or a unit of soldiers).

Neon Tetrad

Example

Tetrads work a lot like triads, but they consist of two pairs of complementary colours. A tetrad is just as useful as a triad, just a bit beefier. I find this choice of colour scheme most useful when you want to design something chaotic and striking, like a poisonous worm or a busy shantytown.

Concluding banter

Wow, that got a bit technical at points, hope I didn't confuse you! The one thing you should keep in mind when picking out colours for your work is to have fun with it! If you get too worried about exact tones, hues, and colours, you might not finish your work (happens to me regularly, if it's not perfect from start to finish, it's scrapped). I would add in some more examples of good and bad colour schemes here at the end, but alas, I don't have any of my equipment with me, and I'm writing this at a friend's place. Very likely that I'll come back to this later on and edit in some pics :)

Hope you enjoyed this small intro to colour theory, and hopefully you learned something new! I've had a half-year hiatus (if you even noticed!), but that's mostly because I don't have my desk set up, and most of my supplies are in boxes in a storage closet. But that's going to change sometime soonish (fingers crossed!), I just came in here to see how things were going, and noticed that I've had this piece of writing unfinished for quite a while.

Catch you later (oh, and a pleasant Midsummer to all, I'm always baffled when the Sun just doesn't set for days. A good time to go out and see the world awash in light and colour),

~Vel

An Introduction To Insanity: A D&D Campaign Appetiser

As I mentioned in my first post, I also dabble with creative writing every now and then (and yes, I do realise that writing a blog is also creative writing, however I consider writing my own thoughts and opinions very distant from creating a story).
This particular piece is from a D&D campaign I'm currently devising and polishing, and is meant to be an introduction to the campaign setting for your players. It is a bit lengthy, but you don't have to tell this as a story to your party. You could just as well start playing after the first two paragraphs, using the rest of the story as information you give to your players. Let's get on with the text.

Echoes of The Crystal Mesa

Your caravan has been traversing this desert for what feels like weeks at this point. Endless sands stretch out to all directions. Your destination -- the Crystal Mesa -- is nowhere to be seen. The steady pace of the caravan combined with the motionless terrain creates an illusion of stasis. The only proof of progress are the tracks left behind you.

You hear a signaling horn from the front of the caravan. After looking at the horizon for a while, you spot something: birds, in their hundreds, circling around in the distance. The caravan hastens its pace ever so slightly, eager to reach its destination.

A small glimmer, not unlike the very first rays of sunlight catches your eyes dead ahead. The glimmer starts to magnify in strength with every passing moment, until it seems to outshine the very sun itself. Then you realise that it has a distinct geometrical shape -- a fine-cut crystal, more massive than any you've ever seen. The reflections from its multiple facets dance across the desert sands as far away as you can distinguish.

Soon after, you see a cupola rise from below it. The crystal seems to be suspended above it without any support, and slowly spins clockwise. On either side of the cupola tiny towers begin to come to vision, and after those, the city walls. In a matter of moments the full glory of the Crystal Mesa is in your sight. The city has a three-tier structure to it, and you recall hearing that each tier has its own rules, and that newcomers and merchants aren't allowed past the first tier.

Thinking that you've seen everything, you fumble back into the safety of your cooled cart away from the unbearable heat of the sun. Just as you're about to close the thick cloth canopy, you hear gasps and murmuring from the neighbouring carts. Turning around, you almost lose your footing - the city has risen above the ground, and the birds confirm your eyes that this is no mirage or illusion.

You hear one of the cart drivers clear his throat, before explaining: "Calm down, 's just a way to keep the city safe. Wouldn't be called the Crystal Mesa if there weren't a mesa that the city's built on, don'tcha think?" The driver chuckles at his own witty remark, and goes on to explain that the city runs water along the polished sides of the mesa to ward off predators, monsters, and bandits. The water reflects the surrounding desert sands and clear skies, creating an uncanny effect from afar.

After hearing this, you spot an emerald green line on the ground, three times the length of the city. The running water creates perfect conditions for vegetation to flourish, even in the middle of the desert.

As you close in towards the unseen mesa, a portion of the waters is shut down to reveal a hidden gate, large enough for all kinds of beasts of burden and their cargo to pass through. The gate is adorned with the city's crest, an eagle with three snake-heads and three tails. Behind the gate you see a ramp that extends upwards at a slight angle. The ramp must run for miles inside the mesa before emerging from the top.

Three guards in ceremonial armor, wielding lavishly detailed halberds stop the caravan. You cannot hear the conversation, but you suspect they want to examine the cargo manifests and list of passengers before letting you in. One of the guards starts walking aside the snaking line of carts, holding a small purple crystal in his free hand. He holds the crystal above his head, and moves it slowly across each cart's canopy. After inspecting all carts, the guard throws the crystal up in the air, and it shatters with a loud bang. This signals the two remaining guards to allow passage, and the caravan starts its slow ascension inside the mesa.

As you move out of the scorching sun's gaze your eyes find it difficult to adjust to the dark at first. The air inside the mesa is cool and refreshing compared to the constant heat you endured during your journey. After a while, you start seeing little dancing lights on the tunnel walls. Tiny crystals shine in every imaginable colour, seemingly luminescent on their own. Everything around you is awash with ever-changing light, creating a surreal atmosphere.

Along the way you notice a few smaller tunnels on both sides of the one you're climbing. You imagine the history this city must have, how the founders discovered precious stones, so abundant that carting them out to the nearest city outside the desert before cutting and polishing them would have been all but impossible. Some of the tunnels veer off into total dark, others sheen a promise of discovery and light. Oddly enough, some of the tunnels have been sealed off completely, or reinforced with gates and guards.

The air starts to warm up again as you notice the sun's unending stare searing the tunnel floor ahead of you. Everything beyond is a blur of white, but you do hear the sounds of a bustling city full of commotion and commerce from the surface.

Adjusting to full daylight after almost complete darkness is a greater struggle than the opposite, and you gasp in awe as your sight finally allows to perceive again. The city gates, adorned with the city crest along with runes, motifs, and carvings depicting the history of the mesa loom over each side of the caravan, and are all you can focus on for a good while.

Once your mind comprehends the complex and monolithic gates, the first view inside the city bemuses you for a second time. Towering walls stretch out beyond the gate, with parapets and walkways on top (you notice several halberds moving along rhythmically), and arrow-slit tunnels overseeing the street-level business.

Six guards stand stoic watch over the carts' passage. Three on each side, two wielding halberds as usual. The third guards instead have a heavy chain in their hands, and a strange glowing staff on their backs. Attached to the chains are rust monsters, vicious chitin-covered insects easily the size of a full-grown wolf that crave and feast on everything made of metal. Oddly enough, they are docile despite all the metal around them, and seem only interested in gauging the carts' contents from afar.

The full view of the first level of the city -- the merchant district -- opens in front of you. Stretching to each side and bending inward are two wide streets. The inside of the outer wall is full of housing, mostly businesses and outposts, but quite a few residential buildings as well.

The other side of the street is full of stalls, tents, and huts of various vendors and salesmen. Beyond them, an identical street to this one, only curved slightly more can be seen. The wall behind that street is a mash of mismatched houses similar to the walls next to you. Straight ahead, you see the entrance to the next level of the city. Heavily guarded (you suspect by more than men and rust monsters), the gate is firmly shut. A smaller doorway, large enough for anyone seeking passage to go through has been built at the bottom of the left gate door.

And busy as it can be, you behold the first level's action. A true cornucopia of sights, smells, and sounds: a splash of jade-green ironclad mercenaries escorting a lavender-and-golden retinue of diplomats; a wave of perfumes from a nearby stall, mixed with fresh fish from the next one; languages of all origins, and laughter and shouting, the universal ones.

Suddenly your caravan comes to a halt. You have a arrived at your destination. After a final stretch and a thorough check that nothing has gone amiss, you step onto the streets of the Crystal Mesa for the first time. The caravan leader, a strange and stretched-looking fellow, thanks you for your assistance during the trip, and hands a small pouch filled with coins to you. You suspect he's got plenty of work delivering his goods to more than one merchant along the district. He parts with a nonsensical poem, almost like a riddle:

"Three tiers above a teardrop, thirty skulls on a mountain, if the down goes up does the up have to go down?"

When you shout back at him, he turns with a puzzled look on his face, shrugs, and continues on his way.

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There you have it! My first actually constructed piece of writing that's sort of finished. Well, this one is finished, but I think this story requires a piece by piece approach, or you'd have to wait for years until you could read it. I'm not too sure about using the "you" perspective in the future, what do you think? How about the story itself? Too done already? Can't wait for more? Let me know.

Thanks for reading along,
~Vel

Tutorial 1: How to Build a Lightbox Out of Materials You Already Have, And Why

What's a lightbox?

A lightbox is used to diffuse bright light and to give your pictures that little extra 'oomph'. It works best with small objects, but you could theoretically build the lightbox as big as you want. It's essentially a poor-mans photo studio. I'll give you some pictures to compare the results at the end of the tutorial.

The reason I chose this as the first tutorial is because I realised I needed to build a new lightbox to take better-quality pictures in (the last one got misplaced as trash when I moved apartments). I apologise for the lackluster quality of photos, I've got to work with what I have, and at the moment it's just my cell's camera which is sub-par at best.

What do I need?

- a cardboard box
- a pen or pencil
- a cutting instrument
- tape
- white or colored paper
- white toilet paper, tissue paper or wax paper.

1.

Find a cardboard box of any size. You'll need to be able to fit the things you want to shoot with the lightbox inside of it. For my purposes, I chose this box:

2.

Turn the box around and decide which face you want to take your photos from. This is your front. I decided to face the box like in the previous photo to accommodate larger objects inside the box.

Start marking the front, top, and sides of the box with a pen or pencil. Draw straight lines around the edges of each face, leaving around 1-2cm (or around half an inch) of space on each side.

Like so. These will be your guidelines for what to cut out.

3.

Cut along the lines. I usually cut and tape up one face of the box before moving to the next one to make the structure as sturdy as possible.

Always make sure you're using the right tools for the right job! Here I decided to use an X-acto blade as it's very sharp and a bit more maneuverable than a pair of scissors or a kitchen knife. For this project, anything you can cut straight with will get the job done.

4.

Taping up. When you've cut one side along the lines, tape everything down to place. Here I'm starting with the top of the box, taping up the longer sides first. I'm using duct tape for extra strength, but any tape you have will do.

I'm mainly doing this because I find the box sturdier and easier to use without any sharp cardboard edges showing.

When I'm done with the longer sides, I cut out four little slices from the leftover scraps of cardboard.

These are used to further strengthen the lightbox. You'll want to place these in each of the top four corners, like this:

After this is done, I move on to the sides and front of the box, carefully cutting and then taping up each side as I go.

You should end up with something like this:

5.

Now that the main structure is done, you'll need to add a background. I taped two white pieces of paper (size A4) together to illustrate how to add your background of choice. For inspiration, think about common photo backgrounds. Some look like rocks, others look like a jumble of muted colours, others are just plain gray or even black. The idea is that your background should not be there to attract attention.

Notice that I taped the background on a curve. This is intentional, as it creates the illusion of depth, as opposed to a background where you can clearly see a corner or "the floor".

6.

Diffusing light. Without this final step, your lightbox is just a taped up 3d frame. I added toilet paper as the diffuser, but that's just the cheapest option. You could use wax paper for slightly better results. The important thing is to try out which kind of diffusers work best for you. 

The way lightboxes work best is if you have a strong light placed on the top and sides of the it (all the sides with the diffusers in place). I only have one desktop lamp at the moment so I can't show this to you in its full glory, but even with one light it works better than having nothing at all!

And there you have it! Your very own DIY close-to-zero-budget lightbox! Now what does it do?

Some pictures, taken with a really poor cell camera

 The first two photos were taken inside the lightbox, the last two without it. Without the lightbox, you'll most likely run into problems with overexposure and flat colours. Here's a few more pics taken with the lightbox:

That's the end of this tutorial. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them. Now get out there and start creating!

Thanks for your time,
~Vel