Author: Wimwick (Neil Ellis)

Categories
DM Resources

Adventure Builder Workshop: The Villain

Every adventure has a purpose and more often than not that purpose is stopping the villain from completing their malevolent agenda. The central villain of an adventure is perhaps one of the most important design decisions a DM makes. If the appropriate time and effort is put into designing the villain, the rest of the adventure will form around him, creating memories you and your players will remember for years. However, if you don’t take the appropriate time to craft your villain you may find your adventure sessions shallow and lacking a clear sense of purpose.

What was the Fellowship without the evil of Sauron and the One Ring? Sherlock Holmes has Professor Moriarty as a nemesis and Batman has the Joker. All of these villains provided the requisite motivation to keep the hero working towards the success of his quest or mission.

This is part one of a series based on the Adventure Builder Workshop held at GenCon this year. Part one will focus on the villain, what you will receive in this series is a breakdown of the seminar that was led by Rodney Thompson from Wizards of the Coast. Earlier in August I posted a high level review of the Adventure Builder Workshop, what this series will do is go into much greater detail about the individual sections.

Continue reading “Adventure Builder Workshop: The Villain”
Categories
Editorial Skill Challenges

The Challenge Of Writing Skill Challenges

While attending GenCon this year I had a eureka moment. Or to be more precise, the sky parted, a brilliant ray of light shone down, I turned to Ameron and said, “We’re already doing that!” This was in response to almost every hand in the room going up in the air when Bill Slavicsek asked if people wanted more skill challenges during the Dungeons & Dragons preview seminar.

At Dungeon’s Master we love skill challenges. We enjoy writing them, dreaming them up and talking about them. Our archive has over 30 skill challenges and many related articles for the community to use and adapt for their own campaigns.

The challenge that comes with writing a skill challenge for a general audience is how do we make it specific enough to be important, yet general enough that anyone can adapt it and use it? It’s a conundrum.

Continue reading “The Challenge Of Writing Skill Challenges”
Categories
Humour

Achievement Rewards Are Coming To D&D

Breaking news! As you already know Player Rewards are being eliminated from organized D&D game play at the end of 2010. The big question is what’s replacing it? Today we have the answer. A reliable source (who has asked to remain anonymous) provided the Dungeon’s Master team with some specific details. Today we’re sharing everything we have and asking you to weigh in with you thoughts on these upcoming changes.

Achievements are on the horizon for 4e Dungeons & Dragons. The new achievement system is officially launching in January 2011. One of the lead developers of the achievement system had this to say about it.

“The new achievement system is going to shine; we can’t wait to reveal it to our fans. Giving players tangible goals to achieve while playing D&D, aside from killing orcs and ruining the well laid plans of DMs, achievements are going to enhance and change the way the game is played forever! I just wish I could say more, but I’ve already said too much!”

Continue reading “Achievement Rewards Are Coming To D&D”

Categories
DM Resources Skill Challenges

How Difficult Is It To Sneak Past A City Guard?

Assigning difficulty checks (DCs) for skill challenges can be a frustrating experience. Some checks have set DCs that are provided for the DM. Examples of this are traps and locks that have a predetermined level of difficulty. A skill check that doesn’t have such an obvious DC is Stealth for sneaking past a guard. Why is this check less obvious? Because it’s opposed by the guards passive Perception. The tougher the guard, the higher his Perception.

Continue reading “How Difficult Is It To Sneak Past A City Guard?”
Categories
DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Checks vs. Skill Challenges

“I know you guys write a lot about skill challenges at Dungeon’s Master. What I’m wondering is, what is the difference between a series of skill checks and a skill challenge? If I fail a skill check I’ve failed, but the skill challenge allows the party to make multiple mistakes and still succeed. It seems to me that the individual skill check is the tougher scenario, so why do we have skill challenges?”

An excellent question recently raised by one of our readers. I’ve played far too many scenarios where I’ve asked myself the questions “How does this skill check or skill challenge add value to the campaign? How is the story being advanced?” In short, things just seemed tacked on. I’ve also played too many adventures that had a series of skill checks required, but no skill challenge attached. It’s left me questioning the point of these skill checks? Could the eventual goal be reached another way?

Continue reading “Skill Checks vs. Skill Challenges”
Categories
Editorial

A DM’s Debut: The Story of a First Time GenCon Judge

While Ameron and I were at GenCon we met a lot of other players and DMs. Some of these folks were very experienced and others were coming to D&D for the first time. One experienced DM judging at GenCon for the first time was Shawn O’Leary. We played at his table during our first crack at the D&D Convention Delve. After the adventure we shamelessly plugged our website and asked Shawn if he’d be interested in writing an article for Dungeon’s Master about being a first time DM at GenCon. Shawn was kind enough to take us up on our offer and today we’re happy to share Shawn’s experiences with you.

I’ve been a Dungeon Master for a long time. The first RPG I ran as the DM was D&D, of course. I can’t recall if I started with the blue box or the red box but D&D started it all for me. After that there was Gamma World and then various other role playing games published by TSR such as Marvel Super Heroes and Star Frontiers. But my favorite game, first and foremost, was and still is Dungeons & Dragons.

Continue reading “A DM’s Debut: The Story of a First Time GenCon Judge”
Categories
Skill Challenges

Skill Challenges Without Skills

Skill challenges carry the narrative of the story forward in a manner that includes the players in the telling. Through participation in skill challenges players can work with the DM to craft the story. While the DM holds the power of the overall direction of the story by creating the challenge, players control the tiny details by how they react to the situation and what skills they use to overcome the obstacles presented. It’s a great collaborative system that ends up being a win-win.

Of course skill challenges have a drawback. Players often pigeonhole themselves into decisions based on what skills are presented on their character sheet. Worse, many players only fully consider those skills that they are trained in. All this leads to some very boring skill challenges where players decide what skill to use to complete the challenge, rather than deciding on an action that creates role playing opportunities.

Continue reading “Skill Challenges Without Skills”
Categories
Player Resources

Creating A Character Around A Concept

Character concepts come from a myriad of sources. Sometimes we take an idea that is tried, tested and true. On other occasions we branch out and try new builds. Of course loading up Character Builder and looking for the optimal combination of class, race and feats can be a lot of fun and very satisfying.

For many character concepts we draw inspiration for a variety of sources. Whether this is fiction, personality quirks, or mastery of a weapon this single concept can lead to a deep and complex character.

Continue reading “Creating A Character Around A Concept”
Categories
Editorial

What Makes An Encounter Legendary?

Five hours. One Encounter. A near total party kill. Three characters only one strike away from death. One character dead.

The DM began the encounter by taunting us. “You’re the ninth party I’ve run this adventure for since GenCon started and so far none of them have survived past the first encounter.” He continued his challenge by saying “This is by far the most difficult encounter I have ever seen in any LFR adventure.”

That did it. The players were committed, hook, line and sinker. We were going to complete this encounter even if it killed us. And it almost did.

The events of that night beg the question, what makes an encounter legendary?

Continue reading “What Makes An Encounter Legendary?”
Categories
DM Resources

The DM Is The Key

GenCon has come and gone. In its absence is the burning desire to play D&D 24/7. Since that isn’t a reality that is going to come into being any time soon, I want to look at the one element that every D&D session needs in order to progress. The DM is the key essential ingredient that all D&D games need. There may be plenty of players but without the DM they have nothing to do.

With this said, my thanks to all the DMs, not only the ones who ran sessions I attended at GenCon. You made the experience great. This isn’t to say each gaming experience was perfect or that each DM was perfect. For the record I am actively looking for blue lightning as I write this article.

Continue reading “The DM Is The Key”