Rules for the Table

Saturday: The party has successfully infiltrated Lord North’s costume banquet. Lucan, the druid, has found a secret trapdoor leading into the secret basement and has led the party into the waiting clutches of three barbarian swordsmen who unleash their fury upon the party.

Ree Singga, a monk who is the champion of the common people, has unleashed a series of punches, neck strikes, and raking blows worthy of a big-budget superhero flick. In the wake of him blinding and murdering one swordsman I turn to Eric, the Cleric (I literally just got that he had done that now as I write this …) and see that he is busy on his smartphone playing 2048.

I don’t allow electronics at my gaming table.

When I’m not writing these articles or slaving over graph paper and a thesaurus (how many words are there for golden?), I’m a teacher. I don’t need to go into that anymore. Just understand that I have to deal with some of the worst human beings the planet has ever produced: teenagers. Teenagers that are glued to their smartphones, mp3 players, and tablets every moment I try to enlighten them about Constitutional Amendments.

I don’t have a problem with technology. Even now I’m typing this on a Dell laptop while I listen to music streamed through the internet that allows me to, at any moment, look up the exact name for a light, fast two-masted sailing ship (it’s a Brig) and the name of each individual sail on said ship (tops, royals, t’gallants, mains, etc). I use eReaders and if I could have a smartphone I probably would (data plans suck).

But at my table I don’t allow anyone but myself to have electronics. My players print out their character sheets and write with pencil. They roll dice on a wet-erase board I have hand-drawn maps upon and we each have minis we are attached to. In the past 2 weeks I’ve actually bought 5 new minis because I could. Actually I could probably use some more …

I have tricks for keeping players interested in the game. Encouraging roleplaying, giving them benefits if they are ready to take their action immediately, using NPC’s to provide needed hints or clues when they’re stuck on a puzzle or can’t figure out what to do next. Creating a mental toolbox like that is very important.

But the rules of your table, the House Rules as they are sometimes known, can have the greatest impact on how well your game is run. I shall share my House Rules now:

• No electronics unless it’s an emergency. You can take a call and step away but if you are texting or playing a dumb game I’m gonna skip you. When you ask why there’s a big spider eating you and you never got to take an action against it, I’m going to laugh. Oh how I shall laugh and explain that your Elf was staring deeply into a crystal or was distracted by a bumblebee.
• Describing your attack will always get you a bonus. Ree Singga told me exactly how he wanted to scrape his poisoned gloves over the neck of Roren the Swordsman. In fact he demonstrated it by standing up and raking his hands across either side of my neck. Did he get an auto-crit? No. But the poison on his gloves auto-succeeded.
• One-away. I stole this rule from Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade fame. I stole it and I’m proud. Simply put, if one of my players rolls to hit and is 1 away from the creatures AC then I give them the opportunity to recover the attack and land it through roleplay. The party’s wizard, a Gnome Stage Magician named Zak, missed his Ray of Frost by 1 but because he aimed it low between everyone else’s legs the bolt ricocheted up into the face of Roren the Swordsman (he didn’t have a good day).
• Advantage and Disadvantage. I learned about this from the new Dungeons and Dragons Next playtest. If you have advantage you get to roll 2d20’s and take the better. If you have disadvantage you have to roll 2d20’s and take the worse. It’s a remarkably simple and it doesn’t always mean the difference between success and failure but it’s the easiest method I have found of giving a player a benefit or a penalty. Dress up in a glamorous outfit for the costume ball? Advantage on Charisma to seduce the Lord’s son. Blinded by poison gloves? Disadvantage on your attack rolls.
• Cool things must happen. I am more likely to give a player an automatic success or advantage or even just a +5 if their action is likely to lead to something incredibly awesome happening. I don’t punish players for being boring but I certainly reward players for wanting to climb onto dragons, trick villains with illusions, or make an incredible pun while executing a nemesis.

Make sure your players know your rules and if they don’t like them then open a dialogue. Tabletop gaming is a cooperative form of storytelling and gameplay that promotes incredible adventures and even better laughs. If a player isn’t happy because of one of your rules, find out why.

What’s my one rule? No electronics at my gaming table.