Author: Ameron (Derek Myers)

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DM Resources Player Resources

Benefits to Adventuring in the City

Most D&D adventures take place in the wild and untamed areas of the world. After all, that’s where the monsters live. If your objective is to destroy powerful monsters and loot their treasure hoard, then you can expect to travel to far off places. After all, how many ancient red dragons have you ever heard of that live comfortably in a two-story townhouse in the merchant’s district of your local town?

Urban settings in D&D tend to be the place the PCs go after the adventuring is done. It’s difficult to adventure in the city since fighting in the streets is generally frowned upon in most civilized urban areas. If you’re used to killing everything you fight, then having to pull punches and not execute the local authorities when they come to break up a bar brawl might be a reluctant change of pace for many players and their PCs. Who would ever want to play a long-term, city-based camping? That depends on what type of PC you’ve got.

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Editorial Player Resources

Addressing Your Weaknesses (Part 1)

When we make characters we often focus on their best ability score. We do whatever we can to get our key ability as high as possible right out of the gate. When we hit level 4 and level 8 we use that opportunity to push our best score even higher. But what about the scores on the other end of the scale? If you started with a 20 Strength it probably means that you’ve got an 8 in something else. How does that 8 affect your PC?

In previous editions of D&D the starting attributes were determined by dice and that meant the possibility for really low scores. Even less random methods of character creation like point-buy weren’t foolproof. Racial penalties to starting attributes still meant a chance of having a couple of really low starting ability scores. The revised point-buy system in 4e and the elimination of racial penalties means that you’re less likely to have any abilities lower than an 8, but even 8 is still just on the low side of average.

So what impact does a starting ability score of 8 have on your PC and how you play him? That may depend on how you explain your lowest score.

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Month in Review

Month in Review: December 2009

In December we were again thrilled to receive a couple of shout outs from Wizards of the Coast in their December News and Reviews. On December 1, they linked to our article on The Art of D&D and on December 11, they linked to our Holiday Shopping Skill Challenge. Thanks to these referrals from Wizards, Dungeon’s Master has seen a steady traffic increase throughout November and December as we welcome a lot of new readers. We’ve collected all of the articles we published throughout the previous month and present them in one place for your convenience. So if you’re new to Dungeon’s Master or you just happened to miss a couple of days while you were away over the holidays, here are the highlights from December.

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Editorial

Holiday Dungeon Contest Winner

The Dungeon’s Master team proudly announces Krangel’s Workshop submitted by Corwin Riddle as the winner of our Design a Holiday Dungeon Contents.

Corwin’s entry was clearly inspirited by the Christmas classic “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” by Dr. Seuss. A clever D&D interpretation of a cherished children’s story.

Thank you to everyone who submitted entries in our first contest. We had a lot of fun reviewing all of the entries and look forward to play testing a few of them in the near future.

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Editorial

Greatest Hits 2009: Should Players Suffer When PCs Die?

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2009. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

The was probably one of our most controversial articles. My intent was to discuss how you handle player death in 4e D&D. Do you do what’s best for the PCs, in-character, or do you do what’s best for the players, out-of-character. In the situation I describe below there was good reasons on both sides of this argument, but in the end we as players decided that we had to do what was best for the players out-of-game even though it was probably not what the PCs would do in-game.

I think part of what made this article so controversial was that the player death happened during an LFR (Living Forgotten Realms) game at my FLGS. The RPGA has very defined boundaries regarding what a DM can and cannot do. So in my article I might seem like I’m really giving the DM the gears, but that was certainly not my intent. I merely tried to point out that a creative party may come up with options that were unexpected by the author of the adventure or the DM. But in the end it comes down to the DM’s call.

I think most of the people who commented on the original article, including the DM from the actual table where all of this happened, agreed that if this situation happened at a home game it would be easier to show some latitude. But because it was an RGPA-sanctioned game the DM’s hands were pretty much tied.

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Editorial

Greatest Hits 2009: Psionics Suck!

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2009. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

It takes a big man to admit when he’s wrong, so this is me being a big man – I was wrong. When I wrote the original article Psionics Suck! I did so based on a lack of experience or knowledge of how psionics were to be used in 4e D&D. I (incorrectly) assumed that new classes relying on a psionic power source would be no more than poor imitations of arcane classes with a more mental focus. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Since running the original article and reading the abundance of comments from readers with very strong opinions, I’ve had a chance to see the Psion and the Monk in action. Although I haven’t played either class, or the Ardent (the latest psionic class), I must admit that they have intrigued me.

Wizards of the Coast took the psionic power source and made it unique. It doesn’t behave like the arcane or divine power sources at all. Looking back I’m not sure why I expected it would. The Psion’s Psionic Augmentation and the Monk’s Full Discipline both take the psionic power source and use it in a way that makes sense for those classes. It’s not just reading minds and moving objects without touching them, it’s full incorporation of psionic energy and channeling it to suit each class and role.

By making these classes available through DDI and Character Builder months before their release, Wizards has turned me completely around on psionics and I’m now a true believer who can’t wait for the PHB3.

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Editorial

Greatest Hits 2009: I’m Your Cleric, Not Your Bitch!

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2009. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

This was one of the very first articles I ever wrote for Dungeon’s Master. I found it amazing that one of the guys at my gaming table came up with such an interesting way to play his character (in this case, a leader). At first I was kind of upset that this player would be so selfish and not do his job. But the more I thought about it I realized that each player can play his own PC however he wants. If the rest of the party doesn’t like it, then that’s just too bad for them.

When I wrote this I’d only ever played a defender and striker. So even though I agreed with this player’s decision not to heal until a PC used his second wind, I didn’t truly appreciate his point of view until I played a leader. After that I was 100% on board with this attitude.

Too many players assume that the leader’s job it to heal them… and that’s all they’re supposed to do. It’s these players more than any others that I think need to adopt the second wind first behaviour. Until you can appreciate the leader as an equally important part of the adventuring party and not just your personal medic, taking this kind of extreme view to healing is the best way to make your point.

Comments on the original article came down on equally on both sides of this debate. I think in the end it comes down to how the you want to play your PC if you’re the leader and for everybody else it comes down to an issue of respect for the other role and classes in your party.

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Editorial

Greatest Hits 2009: D&D Lego

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2009. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

I’ll admit that the title is a bit of a tease since the article isn’t really about Lego at all. It’s actually about playing in a campaign that relies on a story and characters that everyone knows and loves, as many of the Lego inspired video games do.

The more I’ve thought about this approach to gaming the more I think it would be a lot of fun. The more popular and familiar the setting, story and personalities, the more interesting it would be to adapt it into a D&D adventure.

Of course, if following this kind of established story feels too much like railroading then I suggest you take a look at our article Playing a Recognizable Archetype. Sometimes it’s fun to just take familiar characters and then let the story unfold in a completely unexpected way.

Whether you choose to try either of these approaches to D&D or you just conform to the traditional way of building characters and campaigns, you should always strive to make your campaign exciting and your characters memorable – even if they were drawn from somebody else’s imagination.

As a side note, for those who might be interested, I’ve since completed both versions of Star Wars: Lego as well as Batman: Lego. And even thought I’m a huge Batman fan, I must admit that not knowing where the story was going and who I was likely to encounter (like I did in the Star Wars games) really made it feel like something was missing. I liked Batman: Lego but not nearly as much as I did Star Wars: Lego. Never underestimate the comfort of familiarity.

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Editorial

Merry Christmas

The Dungeon’s Master team wishes all of our readers a safe and happy holiday season.

When we launched our blog back in February we had no idea how long this little project was going to last. Yet here we are almost a year later and we’re still going strong. Thank you to all of our readers and to everyone who’s helped make Dungeon’s Master a success.

If you’re still looking for a great gift to give yourself or someone in your gaming group, we have a suggestion that’s in everyone’s price range. Give the gift of 4e D&D content directly into your inbox weekdays throughout 2010 by subscribing to the Dungeon’s Master RSS feed.

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Editorial

Greatest Hits 2009: Are All Gamers Fat?

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2009. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

Sterling may not post often at Dungeon’s Master, but when he does he certainly knows how to generate discussion and debate. In this article he looked at the type and quantity of snacks our gaming group consumed during a night of D&D. Although this particular night was atypical for our group (although not by much) it’s sadly the norm for many other groups out there. There’s a reason that the fat gamer stereotype exists.

Once a week our group gets together to play D&D, and while we play we eat some of the most unhealthy snacks available. Sure they taste great, but as six intelligent guys with over 30 years of university and college education between us you’d think we’d realize just how bad this decision really is. If we were teenagers with raging metabolisms we might be able to get away with this kind of weekly binging, but we’re all in our mid 30s and have careers that mostly involve sitting and typing for 8 or more hours a day.

Sterling is a pharmacist in real life and has extensive knowledge of the working of the human body. By using our group as a case-study it certainly opened our eyes and with any luck it hit home with a lot of our readers. We still eat junk when we play, but since running this article we have (tried to) cut back. Most of us have switched to diet soda and on occasion we actually have healthy snacks. I don’t think Sterling expected anyone to change radically after reading this article, but if it generated discussion and got gamers taking stock of their snacking situation then I think it did its job.

So as we stuff ourselves with Christmas turkey this holiday season, keep this article in mind as a cautionary tale. The occasional indulgence may not be so bad as long as it’s not your typical behaviour. If you eat a lot of junk during your weekly game, make sure that your diet the rest of the week is a little bit healthier.

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