Author: Ameron (Derek Myers)

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D&D Encounters

Recounting Encounters with Storm Over Neverwinter author Erik Scott de Bie

storm-over-neverwinter-coverToday Dungeon’s Master and 20ft Radius are proud to present a special episode of our podcast, Recounting Encounters. In this episode we talk to Erik Scott de Bie, author of this season’s adventure Storm Over Neverwinter.

Erik is a professional writer and game designer. Storm Over Neverwinter is Erik’s third contribution to the D&D Encounters program having written the adventures Halaster’s Lost Apprentice (season 1) and The Lost Crown of Neverwinter (season 6). He was also one of the main contributing authors for the Neverwinter Campaign Guide.

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Recounting Encounters: An Interview with Erik Scott de Bie Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Storm Over Neverwinter (Week 5)

storm-over-neverwinter-coverChapter 2 began after the party took an extended rest. The storm continued raging over Neverwinter, but the rain and wind slowed considerably. The heroes took advantage of the break in the storm to take care of some personal business before heading to Helm’s Hold where they were going to meet Elden Vargas.

The party decided to split up. The Cleric and Deva Wizard went to visit Lady Sala Nidris and her son Zan, the Rogue went to the Beached Leviathan, the Shade Wizard stayed at Midnight’s Mask, and the Hexblade ventured off on his own to take care of a personal matter tied into his back story.

For the second week in a row we had more players than we could handle at the Silver Snail in Toronto. Due to limited space we can only run a maximum of three tables each week. All three were full this week – two tables of six and one of seven. A couple of our regulars decided not to expand the tables of six to tables of seven and instead took a week off. My table had six including a Human Warlock Hexblade, Wilden Cleric, Deva Wizard, Shade Wizard, Halfling Rogue and a Pixie Bard (Skald). So five of six from last week.

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Actual Play Podcast at Harry T North (Season 13 Week 5) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Actual Play Podcast at Silver Snail (Season 13 Week 5) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
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Editorial Humour

The Big Bang Theory D&D Episode – A Gamer’s Perspective

tbbt-02The Big Bang Theory (TBBT) has made nerds cool by thrusting them into the main stream. The show has shone a spotlight on many nerd hobbies people used to make fun of and made them cool, or at least less nerdy. In this week’s episode “The Love Spell Potential” they guys played Dungeons & Dragons with their girlfriends. This wasn’t the first time the characters in TBBT played D&D but it was the first time they played for the entire episode. Although there were a few cheap shots taken at D&D and the people who play the game, the show did a pretty good job of bringing the game into the public eye.

As a hard core D&D nerd and vocal member of the gaming community I feel it is my responsibility to comment on this episode of TBBT. There was a lot of things right with this show and a few things wrong. Gamers and non-gamers alike can learn a few things about D&D from what they saw in this episode. Let’s review the highlights.

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DM Resources Friday Favourites

Friday Favourite: D&D Math – Adding the Numbers

On Friday we comb through our extensive archives to find an older article that we feel deserves another look. From June 20, 2011, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: D&D Math – Adding the Numbers.

Player – I rolled a 15, plus 7. Do I hit his AC?

DM – What’s the total?

Player – Um, hold on. 15… (Counts under breath) 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. (At full volume again) 22! Does that hit?

DM – Yes it does. His AC is 14.

I’ve been playing a lot of public-play D&D over the past year; mostly D&D Encounters but also a fair amount of LFR. This is of course in addition to my regular weekly game. Playing in all of these games allows me to see how other people play and lets me learn from the experience. It also highlights problem areas in my game and in the game of the other players and DMs.

One disturbing trend that I’m seeing more and more is players that don’t (or possibly even can’t) do the math. They roll a d20, call out the result and then give me their modifiers and ask if they hit. In many cases the roll is high enough to beat the monster’s defences, so I know they hit even without the modifier added in; however, I always ask for the total before confirming a hit or miss. And it’s not only happening with attack rolls. It’ happens with damage rolls too.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Storm Over Neverwinter (Week 4)

storm-over-neverwinter-coverThis week’s encounter was the culmination of events during a stormy night in Neverwinter. The previous three sessions had the PCs running around the streets of Neverwinter during the worst storm in the city’s history. They battled Ashmadai Cultists, stopped a kidnapping, and last week battled literal devils at the Beached Leviathan tavern.

When we left the heroes at the end of the last session they heard the sounds of horns blasting throughout the city. The City Watch were signaling a call to arms as something big was happening in Neverwinter.

The PCs overheard a messenger tell nearby soldiers that the town was erupting into madness. People clearly not of their right mind were fighting and looting. Throw in some more Cultists to stir the pot and things were getting crazy in the streets.

This week we had a great turnout at Silver Snail in Toronto. We had three DMs and 20 players. Unfortunately there isn’t room to set up a fourth table or we could have easily split off and formed another group. Seeing the field already incredibly crowded a couple of the regulars who had other commitments opted to pass on the game leaving three tables of 6.

My table had a Wilden Cleric, Halfling Wizard, Human Warlock Hexblade [Harper theme], Drow Wizard, Deva Wizard, and Halfling Rogue [Dead Rat Deserter theme]. With three controllers I knew the combat this week was going to be challenging. I had no idea just how much so until we were in the thick of it.

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Actual Play Podcast at Silver Snail (Season 13 Week 4) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
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DM Resources

Friday Favourite: Reputation

On Friday we comb through our extensive archives to find an older article that we feel deserves another look. Today’s Friday Favourite is a special case. When we were still a fledgling site we did some guest posts for other gaming blogs. The first was an article on Reputation for The Core Mechanic. Unfortunately the site is now defunct and our article is no longer available. Until now. From April 6, 2009, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Reputation (Part 1).

Reputation is everything in D&D. Even level 1 characters have a reputation. It may only be a reputation for being eager to prove themselves, but it’s enough to get them noticed. What the PCs do today will have a direct impact on the opportunities afforded them tomorrow. Every adventure will add to their reputation and will impact how NPCs view them. It’s up to the DM to use reputation to enhance the overall game.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Storm Over Neverwinter (Week 3)

storm-over-neverwinter-coverLast week the PCs rescued the kidnapped son of Lady Nadris. This week they continue their search for “The Tormentor,” the man in the devil mask who is apparently behind the rash of kidnappings in Neverwinter, including the one the PCs foiled last week. To sweeten the pot, Lord Neverember has offered a 10,000 gp reward for anyone who captures the person or persons responsible for the kidnappings.

This week’s recap follows the group at Harry T North in Toronto. We’ve had just enough people to run two solid tables for months, but the addition of two brand new players pushed us to 13 this week. With only two DMs ready to run the session we ended up with a table of six and another with seven. I played with the larger group and helped the two newbies.

The party consisted of a Tiefling Ardent, Human Assassin, Tiefling Warlock, Wilden Wizard, Goliath Monk (my character), and the two new players used the pre-gens Eboncross the Shade Wizard and Gardain the Dwarf Fighter.

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Actual Play Podcast at Harry T North (Season 13 Week 3) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Actual Play Podcast at Silver Snail (Season 13 Week 3) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
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Month in Review

Quarterly Review: Q1 2013

At the end of every month since we started Dungeon’s Master we provided a Month in Review recap of everything we ran that month. When we were running new articles every day the Month in Review was need to ensure that our loyal readers didn’t miss any of the great stuff we were providing. However, over the past year we’ve published fewer articles each month and the Month in Review posts were a bit sparse. When the blog reached its fourth birthday we decided to make a change and stop running the Month in Review. Instead we decided from that point forward we’d do a Quarterly Review. Our first quarter of 2013 ran from February 1 – April 30.

Today we collect all the articles we ran over the past three months, group them by category, and share the links with you. It’s exactly like the way we used to do the Month in Review.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who visited Dungeon’s Master over the past three months. It’s your loyalty and your comments that keep us going. We welcome your feedback and encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments, by email, or on Twitter.

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Editorial

The Blogging from A to Z Challenge – Dungeon’s Master Round-up

The 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge is over and we made it! We managed to get an article out every day in April (excluding Sundays) that began with a different letter of the alphabet. It was a lot of work (more than I expected), but in the end we did it.

Now that it’s over I wanted to provide a list of all the articles in one place. We managed to produce a lot of great articles in April and I wouldn’t want any of our readers to miss out. Below I’ve provided links to all 26 articles listed alphabetically from A to Z.

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DM Resources

Zombies: Breathing Life into an Overused Undead

a-to-z-letters-z

First it was Vampires. Then it was werewolves. Now the popular media seems obsessed with zombies. Where the Vampires and Werewolves got the Twilight treatment and were essentially emasculated by removing the fear factor, zombies for the most part have stayed true to their traditional monstrous selves that everyone’s come to know and expect.

Zombies are everywhere. AMC’s Walking Dead is one of the most popular shows on TV, and the comic that it’s based on is still going strong after 100 issues. It seems that there are more and more zombie novels on the shelves these days than ever before, and there have never been as many big-budget Hollywood movies featuring the undead menace as there are this year.

We’ve practically reached a point where zombies have become a cliché. They’re overused and dare I say it, are starting to bore us. After all, how many different ways can you tell a story that involves a zombie apocalypse? Well, that depends on how imaginative you are. The key to telling an interesting zombie story, or in the case of gamers, running an interesting zombie-themed camping, is to use an angle that we haven’t seen before or at least hasn’t been used to death.

Throughout April Dungeon’s Master is participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. The challenge is to write a new article ever day in April, excluding Sundays. That’s 26 articles over the course of the month. To make things even more interesting the title of each article will begin with a different letter of the alphabet. In our final article of the A to Z challenge “Z” is for Zombies.

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