Month in Review: January 2010

January was the month that Dungeon’s Master truly made its mark on the gaming map. On January 27, Wizards of the Coast featured us in their Spotlight Interview. If you haven’t read it, we encourage you to check it out. Since the interview we’ve had an unbelievable spike in our numbers. So for everyone who’s discovered Dungeon’s Master through the links from our interview, we hope you stick around and keep visiting. And to all of our readers, new and returning, we want to thank you for visiting Dungeon’s Master again and again. Without your support and your feedback we wouldn’t have reached this level of success.

Each month we run a month in review article. This gives readers a second chance to discover some hidden gem that they might have missed throughout the previous month. Normally we run the month is review on the 1st, but February 1 is the Dungeon’s Master 1-year anniversary and we already have something else in mind to mark the occasion.

Highlights

Convention Announcement

On February 19-20 we encourage gamers in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to check out the Spellstorm 2010 gaming convention. There will be plenty of Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) adventures for those of us who enjoy D&D, but there’s more than just D&D on the calendar. Check out the Spellstorm registration website for a complete event listings.

Skill Challenges

For the first months since Dungeon’s Master was launched we didn’t run any sample skill challenges (something we will remedy next month). However, we did run four articles to help make skill challenges more exciting for DMs and players.

• Skill Challenges and Rewarding XP – We present some alternate methods for rewarding XP during a skill challenge and we talk about the how to deal with a Challenge Breaker.
• Reusing Skills in Skill Challenges– Clamp down on players who try to copy everyone else during skill challenges. Here are some guidelines for DMs when it comes to rewarding multiple successes for using the same skill.
• The Skill Challenge Backdoor – Give your PCs an unexpected edge during skill challenges by providing a backdoor method for bonuses and checks.
• CSI: D&D – Sometimes finding the most important clues require more than just a Perception check.

For skill aides and sample skill challenges that you can drop right into your campaign, click on the Skill Challenges tab at the top of the page above the banner.

DM Resources

• Eight Rules That Will Make You A Better DM– Even the best DMs can benefit from these tips.
• The Monster Balancing Act – Sometimes you want to use a lot of weak monsters and sometimes you only want to use a few tough monsters. I share my experience as I discover it’s a difficult balance.
• A World Run By Monsters: How Daybreakers Inspired My Campaign – Picture a town just like any other. The townsfolk are good people who go about their daily lives as productive members of society. Now imagine that they’re all monsters.

Player Resources

• A Beginner’s Guide To Dungeons & Dragons (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3) – This three part series is a must-read if you’ve just discovered Dungeons & Dragons. These articles provide some basic tips beyond what you’ll find in the Player’s Handbook to help get you started.
• Addressing Your Weaknesses (Part 1 | Part 2) – How does an ability score of 8 (or lower) affect the way you role-play your PC? We provide some suggestions in this two part series about how to explain and possibly even overcome your low attributes.
• PHB3 First Look: Hybrid Characters – With only 6 weeks until the release of the PHB3, we continue our First Looks series by featuring hybrid characters.
• Getting The Most Out Of Rituals – Probably the most underused aspect of 4e D&D, we provide examples of how to make rituals more applicable to your game.
• Benefits to Adventuring in the City – If your campaign is set in the same city over a long period you may deserve some of these bonuses.

Eberron

• Secrets Of Eberron Revealed (Part 5)– We return with a new installment of this ongoing series. Learn about The Twelve and what they will do to keep the dragonmarked houses strong; and take a trip on the Mournland Express.
• Review: Son of Khyber– Read our review of the second book in the Thorn of Breland series from Eberron creator, Keith Baker.

A Look Ahead

February is a month of milestones for Dungeon’s Master. February 1 is our 1-year anniversary. A few days later we’ll publish our 300th post (try as we might, we just couldn’t get the two to fall on the same day). Beyond these milestones we’ve got another month of great articles planned. You can expect more on skill challenges as well as new sample skill challenges. We’ll bring you more Eberron articles including more Secrets of Eberron and a one-stop shop for Eberron resources. Expect pre and post coverage of  Spellstorm 2010, more book reviews and recommended reading, an updated Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) treasure bundle list, more about rituals and a new series on traps in 4e D&D. As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions so if there’s a topic you’d like us to cover send us an email or leave a comment. February already looks like a great month so be sure to visit Dungeon’s Master every day.

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