Author: Ameron (Derek Myers)

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DM Resources

Why Are We Doing This?

In the past couple of weeks character motivation has become a big issue in my home game and at D&D Encounters. Despite an engaging and interesting story, the players found themselves asking why their characters would actually do the task the DM set before them. What’s lacking was an immediate motivation.

The way I see it, characters in D&D have two different kinds of motivation – big picture motivation and immediate motivation.

Big picture motivation will answer questions like why is this party of misfits adventuring together. It’s usually a much broader and more generalized motive. Examples of the big picture motivation include things like “We’re together to fight our common enemy, the Red Dragon that’s ravaging the countryside,” or “We’re on a quest to find the lost sceptre because he who possesses it will become king.” As long as the PCs know and understand the big picture motivation then things generally run smoothly and no one wonders why a Drow, Dragonborn, Halfling, Eladrin and Minotaur are in the same adventuring party. They have a common goal or a common big picture motivation.

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Editorial

Dungeon’s Master Wants You!

Do you play 4e D&D? Do you have strong opinions about the game? Do you have ideas about D&D that you’ve always wanted to share with other gamers but lacked an outlet for doing so? Well then this is your big chance. The Dungeon’s Master team is looking for contributors.

If you’ve got good ideas and some writing ability we want to hear from you. It doesn’t matter if you consider yourself a writer or if you’ve ever been published, what we’re looking for are good ideas from people with something to say.

We’re not just looking for new talent. This is a great opportunity for anyone who writes their own gaming blog to do a guest post on Dungeon’s Master. By contributing to our blog you’ll get a chance to plug your own (and we’re ok with that).

If you think you’ve got what it takes to write for Dungeon’s Master please send me an email (ameron at dungeonsmaster dot com). We’re looking for articles on pretty much any D&D 4e topic. Articles should be between 1,000-1,500 words. Regrettably the only compensation we can offer is bragging rights and a by-line. But you never know where that may lead. After all, writing for Dungeon’s Master is what got us a foot in the door with Wizards of the Coast.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Lost Crown of Neverwinter (Week 6)

This was without a doubt the worst week I’ve ever had at D&D Encounters. The problem had absolutely nothing to do with the players and everything to do with the encounter. I suspect that I’m not alone with my criticism of this week’s encounter. Let me explain what happened and why I felt that things went so very, very wrong.

I run D&D Encounters at two FLGS in my area. The game played on Wednesday night is the one I usually write about. However, when I can’t make the Wednesday night game I recount the session I played on Monday night with my other group. This week’s field report will follow the Monday night crew. For anyone following this season’s podcasts, don’t worry we still recorded the adventure. However, you won’t recognize any of the voices but mine.

On Monday night we usually have enough people to run two tables; however our second DM was unable to play this week which meant I ended up running one massive table. We started with seven players. Not great but definitely manageable. Within 10 minutes two more players showed up so we ended up running a table of nine. But believe it or not the overflowing game table had nothing to do with the overall problems we faced this week.

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DM Resources Player Resources

The Honor System

What do mafia hit men, Wild West gunslingers, Japanese samurai and the Knights of the Round Table have in common? They all work under a code of honor. Despite the danger, brutality and violent nature of their jobs, each of these examples has a strict code that helps them define what actions they are willing (and not willing) to do to get the job done.

Aside from alignment, most PCs don’t have any strict code that dictates their actions; although in previous editions of D&D the Paladin did have this restriction. Now it comes down to the player running the character. The only honor your character has is that which you instil in him. Honor, however, is certainly subjective. Two players who play their PC with an honor code are likely to have some differing opinions on what is allowed and what is not.

A common aspect in the code of honor is that women, children and innocent bystanders are usually exempt from any part of an ongoing conflict. If you’ve got a beef with a local merchant you won’t kidnap or harm his family as leverage. His business might be fair game, but his son or grandfather is not to be harmed. Assassins generally have a similar code; remember Leon’s motto in the movie the Professional: “No women, no kids.”

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D&D Encounters DM Resources

8 Things I Learned at D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters began in March 2010. Since then, I’ve ventured down to my FLGS every Wednesday night after work to play D&D. I started in season 1 as just a player. Through seasons 2-3 I still played but I was ready to jump in and DM if needed. When season 4 began I decided to become the primary DM. Now, five weeks into season 6, I’m still the DM and still have a blast every week at D&D Encounters.

Before D&D Encounter started up I had experience with public play D&D but it was limited to LFR and D&D Game Days. Both presented excellent opportunities to play D&D but these were very different experiences than what I see weekly at D&D Encounters. D&D Encounters is designed as a gateway for new players to try out D&D for the first time. However, it also serves as a pick-up game that many experienced players can fall back on if they don’t have a regular game of their own. This leads to a variety of players with ranging levels of D&D and even gaming experience.

Over the past year and a half I’ve seen a lot of stuff while participating in D&D Encounters – some of it good, some of it bad. I’d like to think that in the end everything I’ve absorbed has made me a more savvy DM and that I’ve developed a pretty good idea of exactly what needs to be done to keep the adventure great every single week.

Today I’m going to share a few of the things I’ve learned during my run at D&D Encounters. Many of the points in my list are common sense things that most DMs are likely already doing. However, for the newer DMs out there a list like this can be a good reminder of the kind of things to keep in mind when running your weekly game.

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DM Resources

Naked Combat

When was the last time you participated in an encounter without your weapons or armor? I’m not talking about characters like Monks that are designed for unarmed combat; I’m talking about characters like Paladins, Rangers, Wizards and Warlords that find themselves in situations where they have to fight monsters without the gear that they normally have equipped on their character sheet. It doesn’t happen very often.

Since we became dependent upon character builder and started printing out character sheets rather than writing them out by hand, any scenario that requires numbers to change becomes a lot more difficult to run on the fly than it ever was in previous editions of D&D. But that shouldn’t mean that such encounters are eliminated from the game all together. There are a ways to make combat without equipment work, and today we present four options.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Lost Crown of Neverwinter (Week 5)

After wrapping up the battle with the bandits at the Wall last week the PCs had a brief interaction with a Half-Elf NPC named Seldra who directed them to the House of a Thousand Faces in the Blacklake district if they wanted to find out more about the Lost Heir. We picked things up this week with the heroes walking the few miles from the Wall to the Winged Wyvern bridge where they intended to cross over into the Blacklake District.

We had enough players to run two full tables of six at my FLGS. Some of our regulars showed up, but not all of them. There were six new faces this week which is always nice. With school beginning I suspect that attendance will be sporadic for a few weeks while everyone settles back into a normal routine. My table consisted of an Eladrin Warlock, Dragonborn Warden, Deva Necromancer, Kalashtar Psion, Drow Ranger (Belgos the pre-gen) and Eladrin Cleric (Valenae the pre-gen).

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Editorial

1,000,000 Page Views

Today is my birthday. My day went from good to great when I realized that Dungeon’s Master hit the 1 million page view milestone around lunch time. Talk about icing on the cake. This is the kind of unexpected birthday present that made this day even better.

When Wimwck and I began this blog we didn’t know how things would turn out. We had high hopes and plenty of ambition. We read the other blogs that were big at the time (most of which are now defunct) and thought we had something to add to the online gaming community. So on February 1, 2009, we launched Dungeon’s Master.

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Adventure Hooks DM Resources

Even a Regular Item Can Become an Adventure Hook

Sometimes the most interesting and memorable part of a D&D adventure is the stuff that happens between the structured encounters. These are often instances when the players do something unexpected and the DM is forced to fly by the seat of his pants. If the DM pulls it off successfully the result can be a scenario that is talked about for a long time. If only there was a way to scrip this kind of strange happenstance?

Spontaneity cannot be scripted by its very nature; however there are ways to still get the effect you’re looking for by giving the PCs a nudge in the right direction. And you don’t have to look any further than their equipment list. When it comes to inventory on a character sheet, most players are really only concerned with magical items and money. The other regular stuff is usually added to the list as an afterthought. So why not have so fun with the regular stuff.

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DM Resources Player Resources

What are the Best Feats? The Results Are In!

Two months ago we began this rollercoaster ride by asking the simple question “What are the best feats in 4e D&D?”. Today we end the speculation and share the results that you helped us collect. We are ready to announce the findings and provide our commentary on the results.

The poll is now closed. We had 353 people cast 1151 votes. Although this is clearly just a small sampling of gamers, I think we can safely say that the trending we saw was indicative of many, if not most gamers.

Let’s begin with the results. For the past month our active poll asked our readers to choose the top four feats from a list of 10 provided. Here are the results.

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