Category: DM Resources

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DM Resources Editorial

What Does World of Warcraft Have To Do With Your D&D Campaign?

Change is coming to World of Warcraft with the announcement of the new expansion: Cataclysm. Whether you’re familiar with WoW or not change in fantasy games can be a good thing.

With the launch of 4e D&D, Wizards of the Coast brought change to the Forgotten Realms by advancing the timeline almost 100 years. This kind of change is pretty major and significant, but what about the smaller changes. I’m not talking about world breaking change. You don’t need to redefine the geography or have the PCs survive an apocalypse. I’m talking about smaller, subtler change to keep things interesting for the PCs.

When was the last time you brought change to your game?

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DM Resources Eberron

Secrets of Eberron Revealed (Part 2)

War and political intrigue aren’t the only things brewing in Eberron. With the war over, various different groups are looking to profit during the new found peace. Of course developments over the course of the war have led to new barriers and opportunities in the pursuit of wealth.

In our second segment of Secrets of Eberron Revealed we take a look at a plot hatched by House Orien and a gambling scheme developed by the Wayfinders Foundation. In Secrets of Eberron Revealed (part 1) we featured the House Sivis Repository and the House Tharashk Fields of Blood.

Discover more Secrets of Eberron Revealed in our latest installments of this ongoing series.

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenge: Honour the Dead

Adventuring is a high risk profession. Traversing harsh terrain, exploring the cavernous underdark and fighting dragons are just a few things that may lead to an adventurer’s untimely and unexpected death. In a game with magical healing and resurrection rituals, the truly powerful don’t remain dead for long. But there will come a time when someone’s death truly means that they are gone forever. Honouring the dead can be an important role-playing experience to the larger campaign.

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Adventure Hooks DM Resources

Monsters on the Menu

When was the last time you gave any thought to what your character eats? If your gaming group is anything like mine you don’t even track rations on your character sheet. A lot of players are content to let the little details remain little and not worrying about them. (It’s a good thing they have faithful servant to see to these things.) But in a fantasy RPGs like D&D, the world is full of strange and exotic creatures. So doesn’t it make sense that some of these beasts would eventually find there way into common cuisine?

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DM Resources

More Tips for Speeding Up Your Game

Combat in 4e D&D does take longer as PCs get tougher. But there are a lot of tips and tricks for Speeding Up Your Game. We’ve come up with a few new ideas on how to keep your game move quickly and smoothly.

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DM Resources Eberron Editorial Player Resources

Keith Baker Answers 13 Questions

keith-bakerKeith Baker, creator of Eberron, took time out of his busy schedule to answer 13 questions for us.

When we ran our early Eberron Campaign Guide review in July, it generated a lot of buzz and a lot of comments. I was thrilled to see that the book’s author, Mr. Baker himself, not only took the time to read our review but offered his 2 cents by leaving some comments of his own.

I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Baker in person a few times during this summer’s GenCon. He’s a very friendly and down-to-earth guy. I sat in on his free-for-all discussion about Eberron and it was well worth it. As you’d probably expect, he speaks of Eberron with remarkable enthusiasm. His insights into the draconic prophecy, resurrection in Eberron and undersea adventuring was awesome.

When Mr. Baker agreed to answer a few questions for us, the team at Dungeon’s Master tried to come up with something unique. We wanted to pose questions that Mr. Baker may not have been asked before or probably isn’t asked that often. We finally decided to just ask the questions that we, as gamers who play in Eberron every week, would find interesting. We hope that you find this Q&A as enlightening and enjoyable as we do.

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DM Resources Eberron

Secrets of Eberron Revealed (Part 1)

Eberron is a world awash in intrigue and danger. The Last War is over but many of its secrets linger on. Armies continue to skirmish and raid across the borders. Royal Courts are awash with deception. Dragonmarked Houses vie for continued economic and political power.

The Day of Mourning may have brought the open conflict to an end, but the silent cold war continues. As the war waged on discoveries were made and secrets were kept. The House Sivis Repository and the Blood Fields of House Tharashk are two closely guarded secrets that came out of the war.

Discover more Secrets of Eberron Revealed in our latest installments of this ongoing series.

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DM Resources Player Resources

Your Coin is No Good Here

“That’ll be two gold for the drinks and the meal,” says the waitress as she clears your plates and refills your mugs.
“Here you go, darling” says Braddoc the Fighter as he slides a few coins across the table. “This should take care of the bill along with a few extra for you.”
“Um, thanks,” she says as she eyes the coins awkwardly.
“What’s the problem?” ask Braddoc.
“You have to pay in real money. I can’t take these strange coins.”

Many aspects of D&D are simplified in order to make the game run smoothly. Currency squarely falls into this category. Currency in D&D is typically the same regardless of where you are in the campaign world and what you’re trying to buy. What 1 gp buys in your home town is generally what 1 gp buys in the next town. But if you’re looking to add a little bit of flavour to your next campaign why not treat money in D&D a little bit more like it’s handled in real life?

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DM Resources

Your AC Is What?!?

The evenings gaming session is going great. So far you’ve had some great role playing, a unique skill challenge and now you’re entering the first encounter of the evening. The defender charges into combat. The NPC’s turn comes up and you decide to attack the defender by using one of the NPC’s encounter powers. You roll the dice and call out the attack score. This is going to hit you think, only to have the defender calmly announce that you’ve missed his AC by a long shot.

What do you do when session after session you can never hit the defender or when one player min/maxs their character to the point of absurdity?

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenge: Back to School

There comes a time in every adventurer’s career when they need to do something that is beyond their skill-set. In most cases it’s probably something that they’ve never had any need to do before or never expect that they would have to do themselves. When this happens, the DM can simply say that you spend time training or he can make the training sessions a little bit more exciting and throw this skill challenge at you.

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