From the category archives:

Editorial

The Challenge Of Writing Skill Challenges

September 3, 2010

While attending GenCon this year I had a eureka moment. Or to be more precise, the sky parted, a brilliant ray of light shone down, I turned to Ameron and said, “We’re already doing that!” This was in response to almost every hand in the room going up in the air when Bill Slavicsek asked [...]

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D&D Encounters Dark Sun (Week 13)

September 2, 2010

This week I was back behind the DM’s screen. We had a full party of six, three players using the pre-generated characters – Barcan, Phye and Castri – while the other three players brought their own PCs – the familiar archer Ranger (who died last week), the Human Warlord and a new Thri-kreen Fighter. D&D [...]

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D&D Encounters Dark Sun (Week 12)

August 26, 2010

Last week ended with the PCs fleeing from the cannibalistic Halfings. Depending on how you fared they were either in hot pursuit or would be as soon as they discovered that the PCs killed all of the guards during the escape. So we literally hit the ground running this week. The DM set the stage [...]

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A DM’s Debut: The Story of a First Time GenCon Judge

August 23, 2010

While Ameron and I were at GenCon we met a lot of other players and DMs. Some of these folks were very experienced and others were coming to D&D for the first time. One experienced DM judging at GenCon for the first time was Shawn O’Leary. We played at his table during our first crack at the [...]

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D&D Encounters Dark Sun (Week 11)

August 19, 2010

As Fury of the Wastewalker chapter 3 began the party was captured by savage Halflings. Among the captives were some new faces as players were encouraged to create their own PCs. How will these new adventurers work with the pre-generated characters? Let’s find out. Our numbers held steady at nine. Not enough players to run [...]

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The 2010 D&D Open Championship

August 16, 2010

Last weekend at GenCon a new champion was crowned at the D&D Open Championship. Regretfully it was not us. We didn’t even make it to the finals, which was sorely disappointing. However, we still had a lot of fun playing and a lot of fun preparing for the competition. We like to think of this [...]

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What Makes An Encounter Legendary?

August 13, 2010

Five hours. One Encounter. A near total party kill. Three characters only one strike away from death. One character dead. The DM began the encounter by taunting us. “You’re the ninth party I’ve run this adventure for since GenCon started and so far none of them have survived past the first encounter.” He continued his challenge by saying [...]

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D&D Encounters Dark Sun (Week 10)

August 12, 2010

GenCon is over and now it’s time to get back to our regularly scheduled D&D game. After a two week absence I was back at D&D Encounters on Wednesday night. With our numbers dwindling week after week I wasn’t sure if we’d need more than one table. While I was on the road to Indianapolis [...]

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GenCon: D&D Adventure Builder’s Workshop

August 11, 2010

Every good DM enjoys dreaming up new campaigns, adventures and encounters. With this in mind I descended upon GenCon with the intent of attending the D&D Adventure Builder’s Workshop. I wanted to hear how the pros built encounters, how they designed their traps and what inspired their campaigns. I must say I wasn’t disappointed and [...]

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GenCon: D&D Convention Delve – Lair of the Dread Witch

August 6, 2010

After a lot of meticulous planning about what to do and which games to play at GenCon we made an accidental discovery that changed everything. Originally we registered for a few LFR games, the D&D Championship and the D&D Classic. We intentionally left some time open to take in a couple of seminars and to [...]

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