February 1st marked our third anniversary here at Dungeon’s Master. It certainly doesn’t seem like three years have passed to us, but when we look through our archives there’s no denying the abundance of articles (this article is number 866). Wimwick shared some of our stats in the State Of The Dungeon – Year 3 and from everyone here at Dungeon’s Master we again thank you, the readers, for making all of this possible. It’s because of your support and comments that we keep on doing what we’re doing and providing 4e D&D articles every weekday.
After three years we decided it was finally time to reveal The New Dungeon’s Master Banner. Thanks to Winston Lew for designing something so awesome. I think it breathes new life into our site and adds an additional level of professionalism that our previous banner lacked.
February was a big month for public play as we completed another D&D Encounters season. With that came our report card followed by a preview of the new season the begins tonight. We also shared a first look at the new Lair Assault.
In addition to additional public play resources we also provided new adventure hooks, a contribution to the RPG Blog Carnival, a new skill challenge (with tongue firmly planted in cheek) and an interesting look at the Super Bowl with a D&D spin. If you missed any of the great articles from the past month this is your opportunity to get caught up.
Thanks to everyone who continues to visit Dungeon’s Master regularly. If you haven’t commented before please do, we want to hear from you. If you’re not a subscriber, then we have to ask: what are you waiting for? Subscribe today. We make it easy by providing a subscribe link at the bottom of every article (866 and counting).
Highlights
DM Resources
- 8 Adventure Hooks: The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time – Most hooks are designed to entice PCs to follow a certain path to adventure, but every once in a while they might find themselves in the thick of things before they really know what’s going on.
- Adventure Hooks Inspired by The Simpsons (Part 1) – Do you love The Simpsons? Then why not mine the 500+ episodes for adventure ideas? We start you off with hooks from some of the earliest episodes.
- Individuality vs. Group Dynamics – Most players know that they should never split the party, but those same players forget that sometimes there is good reason to do so.
- Running A Game With New Players – These tips are good for all DMs, especially those running D&D Encounters or other introductory adventures.
- Somewhere Between Living and Dying – Being down for the count and rolling death saves sucks! We’ve created a new condition called Gravely Wounded that keeps dying PC in the game… somewhat.
- Would Giants Beat Patriots in D&D? – Making Sports Teams More Suitable for D&D – We look at an interesting way to combine the love of professional sports with D&D by creating our own league whose teams are the literal embodiment of their nickname.
RPG Blog Carnival
This month’s RPG Blog Carnival was hosted by Nevermeet Press and the topic was Things to Love, Things to Hate.
- RPG Blog Carnival: Things to Love and Things to Hate About Healing Surges – Love ’em or hate ’em healing surges are a fundamental part of 4e and certainly changed the way we play D&D.
Player Resources
- Give Your Character Personality – Personality goes a long way. Take the time to make your character more than numbers. We’ve even provided links to random personality traits for your convenience.
D&D Encounters & Lair Assault
The heroes continued their assault of Soryth’s fortress in an attempt to rescue Juliana and defeat the evil Hag once and for all in the final week leading up to the thrilling conclusion of D&D Encounters: Beyond the Crystal Cave. Once the season was finished we provided our usual report card highlighting the good and the bad from the entire season.
- D&D Encounters: Beyond the Crystal Cave (Week 11)
- D&D Encounters: Beyond the Crystal Cave (Week 12)
- D&D Encounters: Beyond the Crystal Cave (Week 13)
- D&D Encounters: Beyond the Crystal Cave – Report Card
Be sure to visit the D&D Encounters Archive, a repository of all our D&D Encounters articles including the weekly recaps and the pre-generated characters.
- D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye – Preview – Starting today a new band of heroes begin a new quest in the Forgotten Realms. Be sure to check out the preview before sitting at the table tonight.
- D&D Encounters – 4 Tips for Players – Although most players have likely made new characters already, we share a few tips and suggestions that we think everyone will benefit from during character creation.
- D&D Encounters: DM Compensation – As a long-time veteran of the D&D Encounters program I felt it was time to discus a delicate subject – DM compensation. If you haven’t already weighed in, please leave us your thoughts in the comments.
- It’s Here! – Lair Assault: Attack of the Tyrantclaw – It’s time for another season of Lair Assault. This time you fight Orcs on Dinosaurs. Need I say more?
Skill Challenge
The Skill Challenges tab at the top of the page provides easy access to all of our skill aides and skill challenges.
- The Valentine’s Day Skill Challenge – Even gamers are look for love on Valentine’s Day. In this humourous, real-life skill challenge we offer ways to help you succeed by putting things into familiar 4e D&D skill challenge mechanics. Good luck!
A Look Ahead
March is a mystery. For the first time in a long time we have nothing concrete planned for the month to come. We will of course continue to report on D&D Encounters and Lair Assault (Talon of Umberlee and Attack of the Tyrantclaw). It’s safe to say there will also be a few new adventure hooks and maybe even a book review, but the rest of the roster is empty. So I put it to you, the readers, to tell us what you’d like to see on Dungeon’s Master throughout the next month. What topics or resources do you want to read about? In any event we’ll still continue to produce new 4e D&D articles every weekday so be sure to visit Dungeon’s Master throughout March to see what we come up with next.
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3 replies on “Month in Review: February 2012”
Good Morning,
First, I want to say congrats on your fantastic success – I’ve been reading these articles for at least a year and half now, and have enjoyed every one.
As an idea for content, could you guys write a bit more on maps? How you come up with them, what you use to design and/or display them, whether you even use custom maps and your reasons one way or the other. I tend to really enjoy coming up with fantastic maps for places I want my players to visit, and I like to hear how other people do it.
Keep up the fantastic work.
Thanks for being great and congrats on 3 years! I’ve only been playing for about 6 months (DMing for 5 cause I just had to play more often) and your site has been a great resource for me. I love comparing your encounters games to the one I play in, and have enjoyed the endless amount of new and archived articles about just about anything.
That said, an article, or articles on maps would be really great.
@Kuster I’m sure the DungeonsMaster team would not mind “competing on all fronts” in the DnD blogosphere, but in the mean time, the “Architect DM” segment over at http://www.critical-hits.com talks a lot about scene, map, and world building.