In February we celebrated our second anniversary. For the specifics on how we’re doing be sure to check out the State Of The Dungeon – Year 2. As we move into our third great year here at Dungeon’s Master we continue bringing you exciting 4e D&D articles every day.
Our weekly coverage of D&D Encounters continues as we see the program move from season three to season four. In February we provided more articles for DMs and players, with a special focus on role-playing. We also revisited Eberron in February, and looking at skill challenges we came up with a way to make them even more exciting. If you missed any of our great articles from February this is your chance to get caught up.
We’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the readers who visited us throughout February. By visiting Dungeon’s Master every day, and leaving your feedback in the comments section, you’ve let us know that we’re doing a good job. Thank you.
Highlights
Role-Playing
This month we took a special look at the role-playing side of D&D. Although we encourage more role-playing in many of our articles, during February we took a harder look at ways to actively encourage more role-playing at the gaming table.
- 5 Tips To Increase Role-Playing At Your Game Table – Want to encourage more role-playing, here are five tips to help make things easier.
- The 4th Action: Standard, Move, Minor… Role-Playing – If you add role-playing to the actions taken during combat will the players be more likely to embrace it?
- You Broke What? – Describing Your Character’s Injuries – After breaking my arm, I explored ways to role-play broken limbs in D&D.
DM Resources
- Adventure Hook: The Mercenary Company – Whether you need a way to get you adventure started or you’re just looking for a small side trek, an adventuring company offers many easy adventure hooks easily worked into any campaign.
- Blurring the Line Between Encounters – When the heroes decide to forgo resting after combat can they carry forward ongoing powers?
- The Groundhog Day Effect in 4e D&D – Experience is the best teacher. Using the Groundhog Day Effect DMs can run their players through the same encounters again and see just how much they learned the first time around.
- How To Use Traps To Make Combat More Intense – A good trap can be more exciting and more deadly than a monster when used in just the right way.
- M.I.A. – The Tarrasque – What ever happened to this monsterous creature of legend?
- My Love Affair With Minions – Wimwick shares the reasons for his love of minions.
D&D Encounters
In February we saw the conclusion of D&D Encounters: Keep on the Borderlands. The 20-week campaign finished with a thrilling conclusion. No sooner was season three finished than season four began. D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade began with very positive feedback from players and DMs alike. 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: Keep on the Borderlands (Week 20)
- D&D Encounters: Keep on the Borderlands – Report Card
- D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 1)
- D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 2)
- D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 3)
Skill Challenges
The Skill Challenges tab at the top of the page provides easy access to all of our skill aides and skill challenges.
- Solving the Skill Challenge Problem – Ensuring Everyone Contributes – Sometimes a skill challenge is so brief that some players don’t get to contribute in a meaningful way. We’ve come up with a way to make even the simplest skill challenges more exciting and more inclusive.
Player Resources
- Six Items Every Adventurer Should Have – Although magical weapons and armor are staples for almost every adventurer, never overlook the small stuff.
- Giving Hollywood Stars D&D Levels – Have you ever wondered what it means to be level 3, 8, 17, or 25? Compare your character’s level to these famous entertainers to get an idea of what it means to be certain levels.
Eberron
The Eberron tab at the top of the page provides easy access to all of our Eberron resources.
- The Living Spells of Eberron – The Mournland is full of strange creatures, none more varied or deadly than living spells. We provide new living spells based on 4e powers for heroic, paragon and epic tier.
A Look Ahead
March promises to be another great month here at Dungeon’s Master. In just a couple of week’s well hit our 600th post and to mark the occasion we’ll be taking a special look at constructs. During March we’ll also be taking a detailed look at encounter design. Wizards of the Coast officially launches The Abyssal Plague in March with Don Bassingthwaite’s latest novel, The Temple of Yellow Skulls. We’ll provide coverage including a book review and the impact of The Abyssal Plague throughout the various campaign settings (and even D&D Encounters). We’ll also bring you more of our usual staples including D&D Encounters recaps, skill challenges, traps & hazards, recommended reading and more Secrets of Eberron. March is going to be great so be sure to visit Dungeon’s Master every day for your complete 4e D&D fix.
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3 replies on “Month in Review: February 2011”
I’ve been meaning to tell you guys– when I started regularly reading gaming blogs last summer, I was trying to keep up with 8-10 different sites… AND work my way through the best of their old posts… which was a lot of reading! Now that I’m trying to contribute to the blog community myself, I find that I only MAKE time for blogs that fit into TWO categories:
1) They have great content
2) They use Commentluv (http://comluv.com/)
I still visit blogs that don’t use Commentluv, but not nearly as frequently as the ones that do. Thanks for sharing the love!
I too stumble upon your site last summer, though I was looking for information on the then upcoming Dark Sun books, my favorite setting since it was introduced in 2E. At first, I only came back to keep up with your Dark Sun coverage, but I began reading articles you published in between and, well, it’s not quite been a year yet but yours is the *ONLY* D&D related site that I visit on a regular basis (3-5 times a week).
Why do I keep coming back? I like that a lot of your articles ask the reader to think and ponder, rather than just presenting information and tacking on a Like/Dislike attitude. I like that you explore the boundaries of the 4E system (the edition I greatly dislike) and are not afraid to turn something on it’s ear. I like that your contributors present opposing views and therefore keep your site out of both the “rabid fan-boy” and the “unnecessarily hostile haters” camps. And I like that each article ends in a series of questions designed to encourage active discussion on each and every topic.
Keep up the great work and you’ll keep me as reader. And thank you for an entertaining (almost) year!
Z
@Sunyaku
We remember when we were getting started how important it was to network and get our names out there. Adding the commentluv is such an easy thing for us to do and we know that the commenters appreciate it (especially if they have a blog of their own). Thanks for being a regular visitor and thanks for commenting as often as you do. It’s certainly appreciated.
@Z
We’re glad that you decided to keep coming back again and again. We realized that if we had any hope of sustaining the site beyond those first few months we needed to set ourselves apart. Focusing on 4e was a good first step. But as you mentioned pushing the boundaries was a close second.
We didn’t want to seem like a bunch of preachy know-it-alls. We’re the first to admit that although we play a lot and have plenty of experience we’re not the definitive experts in D&D. We present out thoughts and arguments and ask the reader to weigh in. Often people do agree with us, but certainly not all the time. Our goal at the end of the day is to keep people interested in D&D and do what we can to make the gaming experience better for everyone. By creating a forum for some lively discussion and debate we feel that we’re helping to accomplish that.