At one point in Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the heroes encounter a black dragon, and, under the influence of its fear aura, scatter like the comically low-level PCs that they are. Some of them make for a mysterious temple, in which they may face even more sinister threats.

Except they don’t. It turns out to be a Good temple filled with plot-advancing blessings. But there was an opportunity there to really put the screws to the players.

A dragon (or another monster, or a magical effect) that causes fear can be used to herd players in a direction that they really don’t want to go. Imagine if the heroes had peeked into the temple, and seen eldritch creepiness and wrongness of all sorts. As they try to leave, the dragon pops up. Characters who fail their saving throws are under movement constraints: their movement must take them farther from the dragon, if there is such a path available. Characters who pass their saving throw might still think it’s a good idea to move away from the dragon.

Movement away from the dragon inexorably draws the PCs closer to the entrance of the evil temple.

The really frustrating thing here is that the DM doesn’t move the PCs into the temple; they go themselves. Their options are limited to standing to face the dragon and entering the temple under their own power.

Here’s another fear-based DM trick inspired by the dragons of Dragons of Autumn Twilight:

So terrible, so agonized was the scream that Tanis dug his fingernails into his palms to keep from adding his own voice to that horrible wail and revealing himself to the dragon.

The PCs are hiding in the dark from a monster. (Maybe this is one of these encounters that is a little too tough to face head-on.) The monster has a fear-based attack that imposes penalties on the PCs: maybe attack penalties, maybe movement penalties.

The monster has another attack, used for locating cowering prey. It can attack the minds of anyone within a certain radius and make them scream in terror. It uses the scream to home in on its victim.

Here’s an odd note: in the original game module, we find this text: “The dragon wears a ring of darkness which projects up to a radius of 100′.” ON WHAT?

At one point in Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Sturm, wounded and weak, sees a white stag leading him into the forest. No one else can see the stag. This is worthy of imitation in a D&D game.

For one thing, the divine stag hunt is a great literature trope, and every D&D player should get to be a part of it at some point. Second, a lot can be done with the idea of a path that’s only visible to some people. My blogofholding buddy Rory’s campaign world has a desert that can only be crossed with a madman as your guide. I like the fact that, as with Sturm, only a damaged guide can see the path.

What about this for a dungeon: an invisible, branching path across a chasm: only characters who are at half hit points or less (bloodied in 4e) can see the path. Other characters must follow in the footsteps of their wounded allies, or risk falling into the chasm.

Sure, if people are willing to smack themselves with swords, everyone can bloody themselves and pick their way ably along the path. But when they reach the inevitable combat halfway along the bridge, it will be inconvenient to have everyone starting at half hit points. (Maybe the combatants are also invisible except to bloodied PCs?)

PCs might walk by such a path many times and never know it until they happen to get damaged by a dangerous encounter or hazard. Or they may have heard rumors that the Bloody Path only appears for those close to death, and may purposely seek it.

A path or guide might appear only to PCs suffering from other effects besides bloodied. Blind is an obvious one. Immobilized or paralyzed could be interesting. Sleepwalking could be fun.

I read a Dragonlance novel when I was a wee lad, and I didn’t think much of it (putting me on the other side of the gender divide, I guess). My memory is that Tanis spent a lot of time standing on battlements brooding about his half-elven nature, the kender was irritating, and Sturm was a big dull dud. Now, I loved knights acting on punctilious points of honor, so Sturm should have been right up my alley, but I couldn’t like him. Maybe it was the moustaches.

(Dragonlance experts: Did Tanis ever actually stand brooding on battlements? I have a very specific memory of battlements.)

Raistlin I liked, up to a point — and that point was True Neutral. I was a sanctimonious child and couldn’t really get into an evil antihero.

Recently I decided to reread Dragons of Autumn Twilight. I’m finding that I like it more now than I did as a kid. There are some things done well, and the writing isn’t as bad as I remember (or I’ve read a lot more bad writing in the meantime). As a novel, it’s decent. As D&D adventure material, though, it’s inspiring. Not surprising, since the first book is, I understand, basically a novelization of an adventure module.

Even if you’re not using the Dragonlance campaign setting, there are some pretty good DM tricks in Dragons of Autumn Twilight – just remember to file off the serial numbers. Chances are, at least one of your players read these books as kids.

I’ll probably write a couple of posts about Dragonlance tricks for non-Dragonlance campaigns. Here’s one:

goblin whistles

What are those sounds?” Goldmoon asked the knight as he came up to her.

“Goblin search parties,” Sturm answered. “Those whistles keep them in contact when they’re separated. They’re moving into the woods now.”

This is cool, and a little spooky. A DM could add some atmospheric dread, I think, by using whistles to indicate that the PCs are being hunted. It could either be used, with frightening effect, as the signature of a pack of some horrifying hunting monsters, or used, as here, to spice up the lowly goblin. It’d be best used repeatedly: you’ll get some tension out of the first escape scene punctuated by whistles, but a session or two later, when the PCs think they’re safe, and they hear that whistle again: that’s your payoff.

This trick would work best with a DM who could actually whistle. “You hear a whistle” doesn’t have the same effect.