Category: DM Resources

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Tips For Making Encounters More Interesting

How many times has your party faced an encounter that was basically the heroes on one side, the monsters on the other side, and then the two forces bashing each other’s brains in until one side (usually team heroes) ends up destroying all of the opponents? I’d hazard a guess that most players see this kind of encounter most of the time. There’s nothing wrong with it, but if you play a lot of D&D this kind of setup gets really boring really fast.

Encounter design is one of those things that only gets better with practice. To help you get better at encounter design we’ve listed a few tips that we think all DMs will find useful. There are plenty of ways to make a regular encounter more interesting and more exciting. Little things that the DM can add or actions the DM can have the monsters take beyond just rushing the PC and try to kill them. Most of these tips will likely seem like common sense, but seeing them listed should remind DMs that using any or all of these tips can easily put an end to boring encounters once and for all.

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DM Resources Player Resources

Somewhere Between Living and Dying

Normally there’s no real grey area when it comes to the distinction between living and dying in D&D. If you’ve got 1 or more hit points you’re living. If your hit points are between 0 and your negative bloodied value you’re dying. As long as you’re living then you can act on your turn whether you’ve got 1 hit point or 100 hit points. But when you reach 0 hit points or lower you fall down and start bleeding out.

In some cases taking excessive damage may kill you, dead-dead outright, but most of the time you’ve got a fighting chance of waking up. If you’ve got a leader in the party or an ally with a decent score in Heal, then you’ll likely be back in the action by the time your next turn comes around. Most of the time falling unconscious isn’t even a big concern. After all, the way that 4e is designed makes it practically impossible for PCs to die.

However, there will be those rare occasions when the leader can’t help you and the other PCs are in so much trouble that they can’t take the actions necessary to use their Heal skill on you. These are the rounds when all you can do is roll that death save and hope that you get a 20. Being in this situation sucks! What’s even worse is if you spend multiple rounds in a row making death saves and not getting that elusive 20. I’ve played in a few games where the rest of the PCs can’t or won’t help their wounded comrade and that player does nothing but make death save on their turn. This is not fun.

After this happened in a recent encounter where a player was sidelined for over an hour we decided to introduce a new house rule that would minimize this kind of player exclusion from happening again. The proposal was to create a new state somewhere between living and dying.

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DM Resources Humour

Would Giants Beat Patriots in D&D? – Making Sports Teams More Suitable for D&D

This weekend the Giants beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI (46). As one of the only people in North America that doesn’t follow pro-football I had no idea who was favoured to win this game, nor did I care. However, in the weeks leading up to the game I kept hearing people talk about the Giants vs. the Patriots. In my mind I kept thinking “If this was D&D, the Giants would crush the Patriots (assuming they were Human Patriots).” And that got me thinking, what would this type of confrontation be like in D&D if the members of each teams were the literal embodiment of their team name?

I’m not suggesting that it would be a team of Storm Giants playing football against a group of radical Patriots; I’m suggesting we actually take the sports out of it and just turn it into a straight up D&D-style fight. In this kind of confrontation you’d see a lot more support for teams with mean, vicious and powerful names. In a fight to the death I’d rather cheer for Titans, Giants or Bears over Ravens, Eagles or Dolphins.

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DM Resources

Running A Game With New Players

Over the past couple seasons of D&D Encounters I’ve had the opportunity to play with a lot of new players. Many of these players (usually the younger ones) were completely new to D&D or any RPG for that matter. While some of the DMs have found it frustrating to run tables with so many inexperienced players, I’ve found it to be quite rewarding.

During this time I’ve come up some guidelines for running games with new players. Although I put these together to help me manage tables of newbies, many of these points are still good to keep in mind when running any table, no matter how much experience your players have.

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DM Resources

It’s All About Who You Know

In Dungeons & Dragons, as in real life, there are two things that help people succeed where others fail: what you’ve done and who you know. In D&D we already make a big deal about “what you’ve done” and we call it XP, but there never seems to be much emphasis or importance placed on “who you know.”

Who you know can be interpreted in a few different ways, but when I think of this idea I think of all the people you can call on or a favour. This favour might be something as simple as a piece of local gossip or as significant as borrowing the King’s royal scepter. The point is that who you know is an important part of character development. During a PCs adventuring career he will meet many people and I’ll bet that many of them would be willing to help him down the road if the circumstances are right.

However so few players bother to track these potential allies and fewer still ever make an effort to call upon them when they need something. It’s impossible for an adventurer to do everything himself, that’s why he’s part of an adventuring party. But even his four or five closest buddies won’t always have what he needs. This is where contact can become exceptionally useful.

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DM Resources

RPG Blog Carnival: Toronto’s Underground PATH is a Fantastic Location

Everyday as I venture to work in downtown Toronto I make use of the PATH. The PATH is Toronto’s underground labyrinth of shops and corridors connecting office buildings, shopping centers and public transit together. In the summer it provides escape from the sunny surface streets and in the winter it is a much warmer alternative than walking through snow. Wandering the PATH is the closest I’ll ever come to exploring a real dungeon and it’s a great example of a fantastic location that can inspire any DM.

This month Keith Davies – In My Campaign hosts the RPG Blog Carnival. January’s topic is Fantastic Locations. In the Dungeons Master contribution to the blog carnival we’ll begin by taking you through the PATH before emerging to street level and exploring how to transform a regular location into something fantastic for your next campaign.

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DM Resources Player Resources

Do You Have The Right Tools (or PCs) For The Job?

I’ve played in a lot of games where things could have been a lot easier if we’d only had a Cleric in the party. Or an archer. Or someone trained in Thievery. Or a controller. The point is that some obstacles are going to be easier if you have the right tools for the job. This is also true when it comes to PCs. The right mix of classes and races in any given party will provide you with a competitive edge that will make many tasks easier.

Many DMs design adventures knowing what tools, skills and abilities the PCs have and create challenges that their unique skill sets will be adequately suited to overcome. However, there are often just as many times where the DM simply needs to throw certain monsters or other obstacles at the PCs and if they don’t have the right tools for the job then things are going to be a lot more difficult. This is especially true of you are playing form a printed adventure like those found in Dungeon magazine. The key to overcoming this issue is to try to ensure that the party is made up of the PCs most suited for the job in front of them; a task that’s easier said than done.

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DM Resources Player Resources

Fixed Maximum Hit Points for PCs

What if you never got more hit points that what you began with at level 1? Think about it. As 4e is set up now most PCs begin with around 20 hit points. This is enough to take a couple of hits but you are by no means invulnerable. As you get more XP and level up you start to improve and one thing that comes with each level bump is more hit points. But lately I’ve been wondering how things would change if your maximum hit points were fixed. How would this change D&D?

In previous editions of D&D PCs could begin with as few as 1 hit point. Some PCs were extremely fragile and a single hit from anything could, and often did, kill them. Knowing that PCs were this vulnerable forced players to play smarter. If your PC was likely to die from a single hit you didn’t run blindly into a group of monsters, even if they were only Kobolds or Goblins. Tactics were important because they often made the difference between living and dying.

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DM Resources Editorial

Dungeon Master – The Little Guy in Red Robes

Remember the old D&D Cartoon from the 80s? Six kids are magically transported into the world of Dungeons & Dragons where they fight the forces of evil while trying to find a way home. (See the cartoon intro below). In the cartoon the Dungeons Master was an actual character. He would appear at the beginning of each episode and provide the heroes with a quest; in much the same way the DM does during an actual game of D&D. The DM served as the guide for the characters in the show and the viewers at home. He’d also step in from time to time and give the characters advice or help them out of a really tight jam.

In 4e D&D the DM is not one NPC, rather the DM takes on the roles of every NPC. But wouldn’t it make things easier if Dungeon Master actually was an NPC in your game?

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DM Resources Eberron

Secrets of Eberron Revealed (Part 13)

The lightning rail changed the way people and good were transported across the Five Nations. It’s become such an important and integral means of cheap and reliable transportation across Khorvaire that it would be hard to image life without it.

House Orien takes great steps to ensure that the trains run on time. They work with House Cannith engineers to keep the mechanics and magic in check, and they employ House Deneith Marshals to maintain order onboard the vehicles. All aspects of running the lighting rail happen so efficiently that most people forget all the work that goes into keeping the train running on time – and that’s just the way House Orien wants it.

The last thing House Orien wants is negative publicity. Although the lightning rail is one of the safest means of travel there are occasional problems. However, when issues arise they are dealt with quickly and quietly.

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