We might not have published articles every day in March, but the days we hit were chalked full of great 4e D&D content. If you missed any of our articles over the past month then this is your chance to get caught up.
It finally happened; our Iron Man streak ended in March. For the first time since we launched Dungeon’s Master we took a few days off during the March break (see March Broken). However, even with a few days off our numbers continued to climb.
Strong articles that covered topics like how to keep players involved in the game when dice go cold, including a blind player at your table, methods for dividing treasure, a humorous look at what your weapons says about your character, and new pre-gens for D&D Encounters all contributed to another great month at Dungeon’s Master.
We want to thank everyone who visited our site over the past month and encourage you to continue reading. We invite you to comment on articles that you like, hate, or have questions about. And if there’s something you want us to write about send us an email or comment below and we’ll see what we can do to accommodate.
Highlights
DM Resources
- 8 Ways to Get Out of a Gaming Slump and Make Your Game More Exciting – Reignite the spark in your D&D game by following these 8 pointers; you’ll be glad you did.
- Ameron Answers 20 Quick Rules Questions – We joined numerous other gaming bloggers who wanted to document their take on a list rules that often change from campaign to campaign.
- How a Blind Player Improved Our Game – DMs should be descriptive enough that a blind player can follow the adventure without special assistance.
- The Oil of D&D – Residuum as a Natural Resource – Conflict for natural resources is commonplace in real life, but would it work in a fantasy campaign setting where magic itself was the resource being fought over?
- Tips For Making Encounters More Interesting – Every encounter should be different and exciting, and we share a few tips for DMs who might need some help in that department. You players will thank you.
- Understanding Initiative and Surprise in D&D – After seeing it done wrong too many time, Buxtehude shares his insight and personal methods for handling surprise the right way.
Player Resources
- Dividing Treasure – We share various methods for dividing treasure and minimizing conflict over who gets what loot.
- How To Solve the Cold Dice Problem – When the dice gods forsake players there are still plenty of ways for the player to be useful and productive.
- What Your Weapon Says About Your Character – If the clothes make the man think about what his weapon say about him.
D&D Encounters
We began D&D Encounters season 8, The Elder Elemental Eye in March. The PCs are hired to investigate an outbreak of the Abyssal Plague in Easting. Once there they discover that the plague was intentionally spread by cultists. By the end of week 5 they’d discovered the cultists’ hidden shrine and began a dangerous dungeon crawl to discover the source of the Abyssal Plague and possibly a cure.
Visit the Dungeon’s Master D&D Encounters Archive for all of our ongoing weekly coverage as well as other great D&D Encounters articles and resources.
- D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye (Week 1)
- D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye (Week 2)
- D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye (Week 3)
- D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye (Week 4)
- D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye (Week 5)
- D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye – Pre-Generated Characters
Eberron
The Eberron tab at the top of the page provides easy access to all of our Eberron resources.
- Secrets of Eberron Revealed (Part 14) – Our newest guest author, Alton from the blog 20ft Radius, contributes to our ongoing series revealing the Secrets of Eberron.
A Look Ahead
After taking a few days off in March I realized that the world won’t come to an end if we don’t produce new content every single day. That being said, in April we’ll likely drop down to four posts a week, rather than the usual five. If the creative juices are really flowing we might manage to squeeze in five articles some weeks, but our new benchmark will be four new 4e D&D articles every week.
In April we’re planning articles on using social skills, subterranean adventuring, wild west adventuring in D&D, field reports of the latest Lair Assault, some recommended reading, new adventure hooks and of course weekly field reports from D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye. We may even manage to sneak in a funny article or two to mark April Fool’s Day. April should be a great month so be sure to visit every day.
Looking for instant updates? Subscribe to the Dungeon’s Master feed!
One reply on “Month in Review: March 2012”
I appreciate all the articles you guys post over here and I check out the blog daily (from my phone, which precludes me from commenting as often as I’d like). I’ve been taking my son (age 16) to play D&D Encounters since last August and we’ve been having a blast with a fun bunch of players. We’ve all had some epic moments that make for fun recollection, but there is a small problem. My son wants to roleplay more, yet the structure of the pre-written Encounters is very limiting (plus, he is less than a year experienced with D&D). I’ve tried to incorporate various advice from your columns and it has helped a lot. Every time we start a new campaign, however, my son’s ideas for his PC start crumbling away and he never gets to play it how he envisioned. Then, he spends the rest of the adventure trying to get his PC killed or acting out in some other way (as I mentioned, age 16 … UGH). Adding personalization, creativity and roleplaying to Encounters must certainly be a challenge for more players than just us, so I was hoping you might do a column providing your advice in this matter. I know these columns must take a lot of time to prepare every week, so please know that your readers (speaking for myself) appreciate all your work.