Tips and tricks for a new campaign, please!

[Sajber]

Hey!

So, I'm about to start my first, very own, campaign with a group of friends. I'm looking for tips on good things that I should have in mind when I do this. It'll be core rules, nothing fancy, and the players are either newbs or oblivious to the Wish economy and other exploits.

Also, I wonder if there are artificial dices, meaning, random number generators for computers (for each dice) that I can get somewhere... Also, NPC-generators, and similar tools? Anything is appreciated!

Thanks in advance!
- Erik

[MrWaeseL]

Allow just the core books and nothing else. If a player has a certain character in mind, sit down with him and design a class for it together.

[CalibronXXX]

Virtual Dice

Also, make sure you use some of the advice from Races of War, such as the fact that a Fighter is not a newbie character, give them Barbarians, Rogues, and maybe Sorcerers if someone's willing to read and understand all of the first level spells.

Baby steps is the key here for someone new to the game and not willing to spend hours and hours absorbing the PHB.

And finally give them hints when it comes to character creation and tactics and try not to let bad habits form that would be detrimental in a more advanced game.

[Manxome]

That virtual dice tool appears to be in need of some documentation...

Depending on how it actually works and how fanatical you or your players are about randomness, you may prefer to use Random.org, which generates random numbers from atmospheric noise rather than using a pseudo-random generator.

[Leress]

Here are some generators for making NPCs quickly
http://www.aarg.net/~minam/npc2.cgi

[Sma]

Keep your adventures short. Until you get a better feel for it, you'll probably want to err on the side of too short and too obvious, looking up rules and roleplaying the noncombat parts of the game use up a lot of time.

[tzor]

Random number story: When I was working for the Mupti-Player Games Netowk, they needed someone to program a dice generator for the chat room, and the person used a simple function based on the Unix Random function. (It wasn't me.) This wasn't a life or death piece of code and I doubt there was significant testing on it. So one day I'm in the chat room, feeling bored and tried a whole lot of dice, say 8d4

Result: 8d4: 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4 = 20

Huh? Now the starting number wasn't always 1 of course but evey attempt resulted in a progression by one each die until it overflowed to 1. The d2 was similiar

Result 8d2: 1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2 = 12

Yes Random number generators are generally random - some are better than others - but the simple ones weren't designed to be always "random" after the application of various truncation or modulation functions.

As a result of this, I was given the assignment to change the code to use a more complex random number function.

[technomancer]

Usually random number generators generate a static string of numbers, but if you 'seed' it first (usually with the system clock), then you get a virtually random string of numbers. I'm guessing he just used the unix function incorrectly.

[Manxome]

[tzor]

1189187071[/unixtime]]I'm guessing he just used the unix function incorrectly.

He used it correctly, he just assumed that it was a really random function. Well it is sort of a random function, but apparently the lower order bits of the random integer really weren't random.

All quotes taken from 23.7 UNIX Pseudo-Random Functions.

The original UNIX random number generator, rand( ), is not a very good random number generator. It uses a 32-bit seed and maintains a 32-bit internal state. The output of the function is also 32 bits in length, making it a simple matter to determine the function's internal state by examining the output. As a result, rand( ) is not very random. Furthermore, the low-order bits of some implementations are not random at all, but flip back and forth between 0 and 1 according to a regular pattern.

Taking a mod(rand(),2) is going to expose the last bit, and a mod(rand(),4) is going to expose the last two bits of the ineger, which apparently weren't random at all. There was no general documentation saying *WARNING DO NOT RELY ON THE LOWEST BITS BEING RANDOM*.

My solution was to replace the rand() function with the random() function which according to the documenation was a better random function. Apparently I choose wisely.

The function random( ) is a more sophisticated random number generator which uses nonlinear feedback and an internal table that is 124 bytes (992 bits) long. The function returns random values that are 32 bits in length. All of the bits generated by random( ) are usable.

The random( ) function is adequate for simulations and games, but should not be used for security related applications such as picking cryptographic keys or simulating one- time pads.

[Sajber]

Great, now I got some good stuff to play around with, AND I know more about randomness! Is there any program or such that allows me to store NPCs, monsters, etc conviniently without having to have 20 papers around me at all times?

[CalibronXXX]

1189191734[/unixtime]]Great, now I got some good stuff to play around with, AND I know more about randomness! Is there any program or such that allows me to store NPCs, monsters, etc conviniently without having to have 20 papers around me at all times?

Huh? You mean like a manila folder or an electronic word processor? I honestly do not understand your request here.

[Jacob_Orlove]

3-ring binder sounds like your best bet.

[the_taken]

1189203650[/unixtime]]3-ring binder sounds like your best bet.

I used to commit most monsters to memory. It worked for chickens and orcs. But when spells and weird shit happened, I had to keep written notes and sticky notes as bookmarks. 3-ring binders and lined paper for the custom jobs.