It’s that time of year again; time for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. The challenge is to write a new article ever day in April, excluding Sundays. That’s 26 articles over the course of the month. To make things even more interesting the title or theme of each article will begin with a different letter of the alphabet. So on April 1 the article will begins with A, on April 2 it will begin with B, and so on all the way to the Z article on April 30.
Category: DM Resources
On Friday we comb through our extensive archives to find an older article that we feel deserves another look. From February 19, 2009, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Adjudicating and House Rules.
DM – The bugbear sneaks up behind Ethan the Rogue and strangles him with a garrote. You’re immobilized until you make a successful escape check.
Nenia – I attack the Bugbear with a Magic Missile and use my Orb of Unlucky Exchanges to switch the immobilized condition from Ethan to the Bugbear.
DM – Wait a minute, you mean the garrote magically goes from around Ethan’s neck to around the Bugbear’s own neck? That doesn’t seem right.
Nenia – That’s right and if the Bugbear wants to free himself he needs to make an escape check.
DM – Against himself?! That definitely doesn’t sound right.
What happens when a situation comes up and you as the DM don’t know what to do? Generally it’s one of two things: 1) you know there’s a rule that will solve the dilemma but you can’t find it, or 2) the situation is so unprecedented that you never thought of how to handle it. As the DM, what do you do?
On Friday we comb through our extensive archives to find an older article that we feel deserves another look. From February 3, 2012, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: 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.
On Friday we comb through our extensive archives to find an older article that we feel deserves another look. From March 7, 2011, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Summoning and Banishment.
Generally when a character uses a summoning or banishing power there is no real though about how the power works. A creature is either summoned from a distant plane of existence to do your bidding or a dangerous foe is removed from combat for a short period of time. However, since most powers that summon or banish are arcane or psionic in nature, there is certainly room for customization that can make for some very interesting role-playing.
Without changing the mechanics of how summoning or banishing powers actually work, the players and DM still have a tremendous about of flexibility when it comes to describing how these powers function within the game itself. Think of it as flavour text, but don’t stop there.
Consider for a minute the consequences and repercussions of summoning a creature to fight your battles or to banishing an incredibly deadly foe to some distant plane, even if it’s only for a very brief time period. A little imagination can add a lot of flavour to your game the next time a character uses one of these powers.
On Friday we comb through our extensive archives to find an older article that we feel deserves another look. From December 3, 2010, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Really Hard Skill Checks.
Have you ever needed to roll over 20 to succeed at a skill check? If you’re a combat-heavy PC then the answer is probably yes, but what if you’re a well rounded PC with decent attributes? Does your DM ever make a DC so difficult that it’s practically impossible to succeed? With very few exceptions most DMs won’t present DCs that are out of the reach of the average PC. My question is why not? I know I do when I’m the DM.
There’s been a lot of discussion about the actual numbers when it comes to skill checks and DC. We already covered this issue last week in Bauxtehude’s articles Exploring Skill Checks and the New DCs part 1 and part 2. The point I want to discuss today is whether or not DCs should ever be out of reach to all but the very best and most highly trained characters?
Too many players focus too much on combat and forget just how important the skills are to the game and to their character. Players need to realize that feats and powers that provide bonuses to skills are just as vital to victory as the feat that gives bonuses to attacks and damage or powers that deal multiple weapon damage.
By presenting circumstances where incredibly high DCs rear their ugly head, the DM reminds players that they shouldn’t expect an easy victory all the time. These reminders need to be nailed home for out of combat encounters even more than for combat encounters.
If your DM asked you to either have their PC give up his favourite magic item or cut off his own leg I’m betting it would be a really tough choice. And I think most players would rather the PC lose the leg than their magic item. That’s how important magic items are to most players.
When a PC acquires a new magic item it often become a significant part of that character. Many of us define our PCs by the items they possess, especially the really cool or powerful items.
Magic items are often seen as a sort of status symbol at the gaming table. If your character has magic armor, a magic cloak, a magic weapon or two, and numerous other miscellaneous baubles in his inventory he’s going to be deemed “better” than other PCs in the party who have fewer items with lower plusses. It’s not usually talked about but it happens.
With everyone clamouring for more items the DM’s natural instinct is to award magic items every time the PCs complete a quest or defeat a really difficult encounter. That’s just how D&D works – you kill monsters and take their stuff. And if they don’t have anything useful you sell what they had and buy something you can actually use. The result is a party with a ridiculous amount of magic items in their combined inventory, especially at higher levels. Welcome to the world of Monty Haul gaming.
So what’s a DM to do when he realizes that the party has too much stuff? The simplest solution is to take it away. However, this is not going to go over well with the players. After all, they didn’t do anything wrong. In fact they did everything right. They killed the toughest monsters and rightly earned all of their best stuff. Just because the DM was too generous doesn’t mean the players should suffer. So what other options are there?
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 2013. 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 article was the final entry of our A to Z Blogger Challenge in April and it’s the final entry of our 2013 Greatest Hits. Nothing says “The End” like Zombies.
Zombies are still some of the most popular creatures in pop culture and mass media entertainment. The Walking Dead – both the TV show on AMC and the comic book – are still going strong and generating huge dollars. The Zombie obsession phenomenon seems to be as difficult to kill as actual Zombies.
In D&D Zombies are good monsters to throw at unsuspecting PCs regardless of their level. Zombies can be level 1 minions or epic level marauders. The beauty of Zombies is that they’re such a straight forward archetype. The problem is that they get repetitive and boring, hence the purpose of the original article.
Since writing this article I’ve tried to come up with new ways to make Zombies fresh and original and I’ve struggled. There seems to be only so much you can do with them before they stop being Zombies and start being something else. So if you find that you’ve hit that rut in your game my advice is to focus on making them scary. Don’t worry so much about the mechanics; try to make an impression on the players.
In a recent 4e game I used a bunch of Zombie minions. They fell easily enough with a single hit. However, on the Zombie’s next turn a roll of 16-20 on a d20 meant the Zombie got back up. This is a standard 4e mechanic. My tweak was to forego the first roll and have ALL the Zombies get back up the first time. They then rolled the 16-20 to see if they’d get up a second time.
The players, most of whom had faced Zombies before, were not expecting this and it made the encounter a lot scarier. Where they’d originally been content to fight, they were now seriously contemplating if they should run. A simple adjustment made a huge impact on the encounter. So if you want to use Zombies in your game and you feel they’ve become tiresome, try making small adjustments to increase the fear factor.
From April 30, 2013, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Zombies: Breathing Life into an Overused Undead.
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 2013. 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 could be argued that the question “Should the DM use a screen?” is becoming less relevant in today’s digital world. At my home game the last two DMs kept all of their notes – including maps, monsters, and the module itself – exclusively on their digital devices. DMs don’t have to decide if they’ll use a screen or not, they now have to decide if they’re using a digital device or not. And if the answer is yes the original question is moot.
Using a digital device gives the DM all the secrecy of a screen without erecting a physical barrier between him and the players. The notes and references on the DM’s side of the screen are unnecessary as the DM can search for anything he doesn’t know off the top of his head with a few keystrokes.
Players who were once inspired by the fantastic artwork on the players’ side of the screen may now see dozens of images of monsters, NPCs, and locations in one session as the DM calls them up on his tablet. And with each new game the images will keep changing, unlike a static screen that eventually gets tiresome to look at.
If a DM with a digital device decides to use a digital dice roller he’ll eliminate any need for a screen at all. None of the DMs I play with use a digital dice roller; we all still roll the polyhedral dice on the table. Since we’re all roll in the open DMs this isn’t an issue.
As more DMs and players embrace emerging technologies and use them as part of their table top gaming experiences some of the gaming traditions and conventions will disappear, like the debate on whether or not to use a screen. But as long as people still play RPGs at the table there will be some who keep it old school. Use the screen or not, it’s up to you. Just be sure your decision makes sense for you and your group.
From June 19, 2013, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Should the DM Use a Screen?
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 2013. 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.
All of the points I included in the original article deal with unidentified potions and the random things that may happen when a PC drinks one.
In tip 3. Mundane Identification I commented that I try to keep certain aspects of potions consistent so that players can learn what details will help them indentify new potions. This doesn’t mean that every healing potion should be blue and bubbly, but if that’s how you choose to describe them in your campaign world, try to keep it consistent. Regrettably I couldn’t find my master list from back in the day, but it’s easy enough to create your own. When PCs find potions be sure to describe the concoction by color, consistency, smell, and even taste.
Some generous DMs may allow a PC to take a very small sip to try and identify a potion. It won’t instill the potions effects upon the PC but it may reveal a familiar taste that will help them identify it. Of course if it’s poison then the PC will be subjected to the harmful effects. I used to do this but I found that I ended up including way more poison in the loot than seemed appropriate.
I’m going to take this opportunity to add one more tip for making potions fun again: 7. Mixing Potions. Sometimes PC will acquire potions that they can’t identify or just don’t feel are very useful. In 4e potions scale by tier so a paragon level party may find they have little use for some of the heroic tier potions. Clever players may decide to mix multiple potions together hoping that it will either create a new, better potions or just cause something fun and interesting to happen. I like this idea a lot and on the few occasions when this has happened I’ve rewarded the player’s ingenuity and imagination. Let the rule of cool guide your hand.
From July 2, 2013, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: 6 Tips for Making Potions Fun Again.
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 2013. 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.
Obviously there have been some changes to D&D Next since I wrote this article back in July. As was pointed out in the comments of the original article, there are healing powers at higher levels that do allow the Cleric to provide healing from a distance. But this article is more than a critique on a few powers in a beta version of D&D Next.
The reason I chose to include this article in the Greatest Hits this year was because I think players going from older editions of D&D (including 4e) to D&D Next need to realize that healing magic is special. In D&D Next it’s not as plentiful or commonplace as it was in 4e. Fewer classes can heal wounded PCs and there’s no Second Wind or other mechanic that allows everyone to just heal them self. The lesson here is that tactics must change as the rules change.
Too many players believe that they should run headlong into combat and throw consequences to the wind. They’ve played other version of D&D where the healer will swoop in, heal them, and keep them on their feet. Since that’s less likely to happen in D&D Next while the battle’s still raging on, using smart tactics is more important than ever before.
Players need to be more keenly aware of how many hit points their character has and how likely they are to lose them given each round the circumstances. In D&D Next there are fewer hit points per character per level (than 4e, anyway) which makes every fight life threatening. So as long as healing require an up close and personal interaction with a Cleric PCs should stay near the healer or make sure he can get to them easily.
From July 24, 2013, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Making Healing Easier in D&D Next.