Month: March 2012

Categories
Editorial

March Broken

The Iron Man streak comes to an end. Yesterday was the first time since Dungeon’s Master began that we missed a day. Until yesterday we’d published something every weekday since we began back in February 2009.

After more than three years I finally decided that it was time to take a short rest. Since September when Wimwick went back to school full time, I’ve written the lion’s share of our articles. Of the 147 articles we’ve posted since September 1, I’ve written 128 of them. With most of our articles clocking in around 1,000 words (usually more) that’s over 128,000 words in seven months. The average novel contains approximately 50,000 words. So following this logic I’ve written the equivalent of 2+ novels since September. This is of course on top of my day job and the time I spend playing D&D. Put into this context I’m amazed I haven’t collapsed from exhaustion before now.

Don’t worry, we’re not closing up shop (that’s just crazy talk!), we’re just taking a week off to rest. Despite the break, I will still provide the weekly write-up of D&D Encounters on Thursday. Next week we’ll be back to our regular daily publishing cycle. To all of our loyal readers I apologize for the unexpected break, but I think that you’ll agree I’ve earned a few days off. Thank you for your understanding and your dedication to Dungeon’s Master.

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Categories
Adventure Hooks Eberron

Secrets of Eberron Revealed (Part 14)

In this instalment of our ongoing Eberron series we reveal the secrets of the Magebred army that threatens Khorvaire from just within the Mournland, and we meet a Warforged Sentinel Marshal who knows secrets about House Cannith that they will kill to keep secret.

Today Dungeon’s Master welcomes guest poster Alton (a.k.a. Marc Talbot) author of the gaming blog 20ft Radius. Alton shares our passion for D&D as well as the Eberron setting. When he proposed writing an instalment of “The Secrets of Eberron Revealed” we were happy to let him make his contribution to this ongoing look at our favourite campaign setting. If you enjoyed this article, I encourage you to visit 20ft Radius and check out more or Alton’s work. – Ameron

Click on the Eberron tab above the Dungeon’s Master banner to find the previous installments in this ongoing series as well as many other great Eberron articles and resources.

Continue reading “Secrets of Eberron Revealed (Part 14)”
Categories
D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye (Week 2)

Last week the adventure began with the Merchant Council and Lady Bron of Iriaebor asking the PCs to travel to the village of Easting and investigate rumours of an outbreak of the Abyssal Plague. When the PCs arrived in Easting they discovered the rumours were true and those infected were already quarantined in a barn. When the PCs tried to enter the barn to assess the extent of the outbreak they were attacked by four people that had already transformed into demons.

They managed to defeat the demons and none of the heroes got infected in the process. During the battle in the barn a Dwarf emerged from the shadows and attacked the party before they knocked him unconscious. The village priest suggested brining the captured Dwarf back to the church where he could be questioned.

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Categories
DM Resources

Understanding Initiative and Surprise in D&D

D&D characters experience time very differently than we do in real life. Their world takes place in distinct 6-second rounds. How they can behave during these 6-second rounds is controlled by which part of the round the universe is currently in. As a player I have frequently witnessed the poor adjudication of Surprise Rounds, which is very understandable as the Surprise Round takes place in a weird moment in the already hard to fathom flow of D&D time. Beyond the problem of conceiving time in D&D, I think a deficit exists in the Surprise rules of the system, which takes Surprised to mean “has been successfully ambushed.” Due to this deficit, it is my opinion that DMs often intuitively but unknowingly house rule the Surprise Round rules to fit a variety a situations that the actual rules do not address.

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Categories
DM Resources

Tips For Making Encounters More Interesting

How many times has your party faced an encounter that was basically the heroes on one side, the monsters on the other side, and then the two forces bashing each other’s brains in until one side (usually team heroes) ends up destroying all of the opponents? I’d hazard a guess that most players see this kind of encounter most of the time. There’s nothing wrong with it, but if you play a lot of D&D this kind of setup gets really boring really fast.

Encounter design is one of those things that only gets better with practice. To help you get better at encounter design we’ve listed a few tips that we think all DMs will find useful. There are plenty of ways to make a regular encounter more interesting and more exciting. Little things that the DM can add or actions the DM can have the monsters take beyond just rushing the PC and try to kill them. Most of these tips will likely seem like common sense, but seeing them listed should remind DMs that using any or all of these tips can easily put an end to boring encounters once and for all.

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Categories
Editorial Top 10

Ameron Answers 20 Quick Rules Questions

Every DM runs their home game a little bit differently, so as new players join the ranks it’s important that any house rules or tweaks to the RAW (Rules As Written) are clearly spelled out. This becomes even more important when you jump between editions or are playing in a home-brew campaign. Brendan at Untimately put together a list of 20 rules questions feeling “that it would be useful to have a list rules that often change from campaign to campaign.” By answering these questions DMs ensure consistence and rule clarity at their tables.

Many of the other bloggers who have posted their responses play older editions of D&D or use a mish-mash of various editions. The Dungeon’s Master crew plays 4e, bet even so the answers to some of these questions are not as straight-forward or clear-cut as you might think. Everyone has at least a few house rules and we’re no exception. So today I’m answering Brendan’s 20 quick rules questions.

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Categories
Player Resources Top 10

8 Ways to Get Out of a Gaming Slump and Make Your Game More Exciting

It’s common for people in long-term relationships to talk about how the romance is gone. They remember how it used to be: the anticipation, the excitement, the thrill. But now things are just so-so. They go through the motions and wonder where it all went. They still love their partner and want stay with them, but they know the need a change. They look for ways to spice things up in an attempt to rekindle the lost romance.

A similar phenomenon can happen to gamers who play a lot of D&D (believe me, I know). You enjoy D&D and you’re not looking to play a different game, you just want to make each session a little bit more exciting. Sure you face new challenges and new monsters each time you play but so much of the gaming experience has become repetitive and routine. How do you bring back the romance and ignite the spark of excitement you once had when you first started playing D&D? We have 8 ways to get out of a gaming slump and make your game more exciting.

These suggestions are ways for individual players in a larger gaming group to make changes that will really only affect them. After all, it’s possible that the rest of the group is having a great time and wouldn’t change a thing if they could. These ideas can spice up your D&D experience without intruding or ruining anyone else’s good time.

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Categories
D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye (Week 1)

Welcome to the beginning of another season of D&D Encounters. This season (season 8 for those keeping score) is set once again in the Forgotten Realms. The adventure is called The Elder Elemental Eye and sees the return of the Abyssal Plague to D&D Encounters. If you haven’t already read our Elder Elemental Eye Preview I suggest you check it out.

This season I will again be running two sessions a week. However, I’ve decided to cover only one session in my weekly write-ups. As much as I enjoyed providing the often contrasting tactics I found that many of the articles ended up being really, really long. It also required a lot more work on my part. I’m still recording both sessions and will provide links to them each week.

The Party

Knowing we would have a lot of returning players again this season, I suggested that they get together and come up with some kind of shared theme or back-story to help unify the party and give them more details to latch on to when role-playing. They all ended up making Genasi characters. We’ll see how this choice affects the role-playing and the overall enjoyment of the adventure. I’m expecting great things.

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