Author: Wimwick (Neil Ellis)

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Dark Sun Editorial

In Anticipation Of Dark Sun

Dark Sun is coming later this year. In anticipation of the release of the next 4e campaign setting I’ve been doing my homework about the campaign setting. I never played Dark Sun when it was originally released, nor did I even purchase the box set. Though the setting looked interesting I never made the decision to get myself a copy. As a result I’ve apprehended Ameron’s copy and have been doing some reading.

Athas always appeared as a very savage, destructive and hard land. This is what the artwork has led me to believe, reading other people’s thoughts on the setting and of course reading through the source books themselves.

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Technology

Technology Is A Double Edged Sword

For the past five years the group at Dungeon’s Master have used MapTools as the primary means for displaying our combat encounters. To say that MapTools has changed the way we play the game would be an understatement. In a previous post, Desktop Killed The Tabletop Game, I wrote about how software like MapTools has the ability to change the way the entire hobby is played and I still believe that to be true. I believe that a blend of software and hardware, such as what the Surface Scapes project is doing, will also revolutionize the way we play our hobby. Perhaps not in its current form, but certainly we are seeing the beginnings of how technology can be applied to Dungeon & Dragons and bring our minis and maps to life.

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DM Resources Humour

118 Tavern Names

How many campaigns have you played where the DM started the campaign by stating “The party is in a tavern and an old man walks up to you with a job offer.”

Now my normal response is “What’s the name of the tavern?”

To which most DMs respond it doesn’t matter.

The problem is it does. Call me a stickler, but I like names for locations and I really like tavern names. They are amongst the most interesting locations in D&D to name and the very name can mean any number of things. A good tavern name adds atmosphere to the game and can become a place of fond memories for the players.

On the way home today I passed a van advertising a local restaurant, The Mermaid and the Oyster. My immediate thought was that I need to have a pint there.

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DM Resources

Hey, Isn’t That My Character: Using Retired PCs As NPCs

A good NPC can make a campaign. A bad one, well bad NPCs are usually forgotten fairly quickly. With this in mind it’s in a DMs best interest to ensure that his key NPCs have detailed stories to accompany them. By providing these NPCs with quirks, strengths and weaknesses it provides the PC with more reason to interact and develop a relationship. This in turn makes it easier for the DM to move the story along, twining the PCs concerns with those of the NPC. Of course this takes a lot of work and as the PCs progress new NPCs are required, with new stories and reason to motivate the PCs.

April’s RPG Blog Carnival focus on NPCs. One way to build a very effective NPC is to use a PC that has for one reason or another retired.

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DM Resources

How To Introduce A New PC

It happens in almost every game, a PC dies and now you have to figure out how to introduce the new character. Or a new player joins your group and you struggle to explain why they should join the party? There are a many ways to go about answering these questions. From the serious role-playing that this type of event triggers, to the inane and superficial. How you approach this aspect of death and dying in Dungeons & Dragons will come down to the play style of your own group. Different approaches to the game will result in different introductions for new PC.

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DM Resources Top 10

5 Ways To Include Rituals In Your Skill Challenge Design

Rituals are an underutilized aspect of 4e Dungeons & Dragons. One way to increase the way rituals are used in your campaign is to incorporate them into your skill challenge design. By providing opportunities for your PCs to use their abilities you increase their engagement in the campaign. They feel that they are more involved in what is occurring and are committed to seeing things through. Using rituals in your skill challenges does require a little bit of extra work, but is well worth the reward.

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Player Resources

Born To Be Wilden

Our exploration of races in 4e continues with the Wilden. The Wilden are one of the new races found in the Players Handbook 3. As a race born of the primal fury of nature, the Wilden are the ultimate defender of nature. Similar to the Shardmind, which we looked at last week, the Wilden are awakened from nature itself. A new race they are a blank slate with no preconceptions or history. With only a primal desire to defend nature in all its forms, the Wilden is a powerful and intriguing new race.

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Player Resources

Have You Retrained Today?

One of the great aspects of 4e is it officially recognized retraining. Finally, we had a formal rule for the process of substituting a power or a feat. In previous versions this aspect of the game was either forbidden or house ruled. Now, the concept itself isn’t a big stretch. The idea of swapping this power for that one isn’t new. What is new is the recognition of the game creator to enable this as an official rule.

I’m well aware that many other gaming systems have had such rules for a long time, but D&D has not. Now, you might be wondering what’s the big deal. If I’m not happy with my character I’ll simply change it or speak with my DM about the problem. Fair enough and in most instances a change is able to be made. What happens if you only play RPGA games though and you don’t have a real mechanism to make the changes you desire because a new source book has been released?

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Player Resources

Character Creation: The Importance Of Planning Ahead

If you’re anything like me you spend a substantial amount of time planning your PC’s advancement ahead of time. You debate about feats, powers and item selection. You wonder what each new source book may bring. Will a new paragon path open up a better role-playing opportunity for you? Will a new feat allow you to further optimize your PC in combat? While you may ponder these questions, you realize that in planning ahead you need to work with what you have and make adjustments as new source books are released. Of course if you aren’t like me, then by the time you realize the shortcomings of your PC it’s far too late to do anything about it.

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Player Resources

The Shardmind

With the release of the PHB3 we have four new player character races to add to our available choices. Today I want to consider the Shardmind, beings of raw psionic energy barely contained in a body of gleaming crystalline shards.The Shardmind is built for the purpose of supporting the new psionic power source classes. Of course the Shardmind is also capable of doing much more than this as the player can select how they’d like their ability scores distributed. I’m of mixed minds about the Shardmind, part of me wants to love this race, another part isn’t too sure.

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