From the category archives:

DM Resources

Effective Use Of Weather

March 16, 2010

I was cleaning out my dice bag the other day when I came across an old gem, the weather die. It’s been years since I’ve seen it, and probably over a decade since I’ve used it in a game. These days the only random element to the game I enjoy are when the PCs take [...]

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Skill Challenge: Lie To Me

March 15, 2010

Training in Insight does not make you a human lie detector. Too often in D&D a PC rolls Insight and on a successful check knows immediately if a person is lying. This shouldn’t always be the case. Sometimes you need to work at it. If you’ve never met this person before how do you know [...]

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Novel Adventures: Games with Predefined Endings

March 12, 2010

In February’s issue of Dungeon (#173), Craig A. Campbell has created a three-encounter delve called Haruuc’s Tomb: A Novel Adventure based on events from Don Bassingthwaite’s fantastic Eberron novel, Word of Traitors. As a big fan of Eberron and a huge fan of this book I was very concerned about how this adventure would turn [...]

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6 D&D Convention Tips for DMs

February 23, 2010

Yesterday we shared 6 D&D Convention Tips for Players; today it’s the DMs turn. After running a few Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) adventures at the Spellstorm gaming convention this past weekend in Toronto, I’ve put together a list of things to keep in mind when you’re the DM. These tips are applicable to any D&D [...]

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Skill Challenge: Olympic Games

February 18, 2010

The Dungeon’s Master team has used the basics of the skill challenge to create a unique form of athletic competition. Each skill check is scored as the PCs vie for top spot. PCs can compete against each other or against the world’s greatest NPC athletes. This is more than just opposing Athletics checks.
Since this is [...]

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2010 Olympic Mascots

February 17, 2010

The 2010 Winter Olympics began on Friday. The mascots for the Vancouver games are cute, cuddly and culturally significant. At least that’s what most people see when they look at Sumi, Quatchi and Miga. I, on the other hand, see three creatures that I want to include in my next D&D adventure.
Using the information provided [...]

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Skill Challenges On The Fly

February 11, 2010

What happens when your PCs make a choice that takes your adventure 180 degrees away from where you intended? Or when those same PCs kill the NPC who will provide the information they require to move onto the next step? Or when the PCs just aren’t picking up on the very obvious, to your mind, [...]

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Skill Challenge: Tavern Treachery

February 10, 2010

It’s well known that the PCs bring vast amounts of wealth back to town after a weekend plundering the local ruins. However, the citizens of a local town are tired of catering to the needs of spoiled, holier-than-thou adventurers. The town isn’t getting rich from the adventurers and no monsters ever attack. Add on the [...]

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LFR Magic Item Treasure Bundle List (Part 2)

February 8, 2010

A few months ago we provided you with a Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) magic item treasure bundle list. The original list included a complete inventory of magic items available from 78 different LFR adventures. As promised, we’ve updated the list and added loot from 23 more LFR adventures. This includes 8 paragon adventures for PCs [...]

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Traps & Hazards: The Open Portal

February 2, 2010

During the coming weeks we’ll be looking at traps and hazards in 4e D&D. I’m not going to waste time taking about pit traps or exploding doors, there’s plenty of that stuff in the DMG. What I’m going to focus on are traps and hazards that are much more elaborate and interesting.
These are things that [...]

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