Category: Editorial

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Editorial

How Many Classes Are Too Many?

Player’s Handbook 2 hits shelves today and in it are eight new core classes. Eight more! In my opinion, that’s too many. I don’t have the PHB2 yet – I wasn’t one of the lucky bloggers to get an advance copy. And you know what? I’m not sure if I’m going to buy it since the character builder will be updated with all the new classes, races, feats and powers at the end of the month anyway. But I have read the tidbits already released through the Dungeons & Dragons Insider and the abundance of new classes infuriates me.

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DM Resources Editorial Player Resources

Playing Characters With Low Ability Scores

I’ve met a lot of gamers who love to min/max, especially during character creation. They’re willing to sacrifice abilities, powers and skills that they don’t think they’ll ever use in order to make the ones they expect to use all the time that much better. The most common trade off is low mental scores (Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma) for high physical scores (Strength, Constitution and Dexterity). If you’re objective is to play the big, dumb Fighter then this is the way to go. But how do the low scores in your bottom three abilities affect your ability to role play the character?

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Editorial Humour

Confessions of a Gamer

Are you proud to be a gamer? Or do you hide the fact that once a week you play Dungeons & Dragons? I’m 34 years old, I’m a gamer and I’m proud to admit it.

I’ve been playing RPGs since I was 10, so 24 years now. And during that time I’ve met many different types of gamers. Most, like me, are proud to be gamers. Others are what I like to call “in the closet gamers.” They loved to play D&D, but would die a slow and painful social death if anyone outside of our immediate gaming group learned this terrible secret.

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DM Resources Editorial

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?

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Editorial

Welcome to Dungeon’s Master

Welcome, we’re glad you made it. Dungeon’s Master is the newest blog on all things related to 4e Dungeons & Dragons. We want you to have as much fun as possible when you play D&D, and we’re going to offer resources dedicated to assisting DMs and players accomplish this goal.

Who are we?

The team here at Dungeon’s Master has been playing D&D together for over 20 years. During that time we’ve often engaged in heated discussions about the game and shared ideas on how to improve it. We realized that if we’ve got questions about D&D that other gamers probably have similar questions. So we’ve decided to take our discussions, opinions and ideas public and share them with you. We hope that you find our ideas helpful and that you’ll share some of your own with us and the community at large.

Content

What exactly can you expect from Dungeon’s Master?

  • Skill Challenges. There is no denying that Wizards of the Coast dropped the ball regarding skill challenges. We’re picking that ball up and running with it. We’ve got skill challenges like you’ve never seen them before. You’ll hear more on skill challenges from Ameron tomorrow.
  • Campaign Design. We’ve putting together a series on campaign design where you’ll find tips for anyone creating their own game world. It’s designed to help everyone from the beginner to the most experienced DM.
  • Original Modules. Every 4 to 6 weeks we’ll be bringing you a new original module create by the team at Dungeon’s Master. The campaign design series will tie in and reference the modules that we release.
  • Class Enhancements. Why wait for the PHB2 or Arcane Powers? Why limit yourself to Martial Powers? We’ll be bringing forward new ideas relating to all the classes.
  • Humour. Every now and then we’ll throw in something funny. I’ve never met a gamer that doesn’t like to laugh. Laugh along with us as we share our experiences, mistakes and blunders.
  • Editorial Commentary. We’ll share our opinions on the state of the game. You’ll be privy to our thoughts, opinions and ideas regarding the state of D&D today. You may not always agree with what we have to say, and we welcome your feedback.

Updates

We will be publishing a lot of new original content. In fact we’re going to bring you new content every single day for the next month. I know we picked the shortest month of the year to launch, but 28 days of great content is nothing to laugh at. It’s a virtual dragon’s horde of new ideas.

We hope you enjoy the content we’ll be bringing you and that you’ll share in the journey with us.

The Dungeon’s Master team,
Ameron, Suddry and Wimwick.

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Editorial

Launching Soon

Dungeon’s Master will be launching on Feb 1, 2009.

When we launch you will have access to a variety of Dungeons & Dragons tools and resources for both DMs and Players.

At launch we will be providing articles on Skill Challenges, World Crafting, and Class Diversification. Additionally, it’s our intention to provide a new original module every 4 – 6 weeks. Toss in product reviews and other articles relevant to the state of the game and you’ll quickly realize that Dungeon’s Master is a premier D&D destination.

Please bookmark the site and return back on Feb 1, 2009. Also subscribe to the RSS feed.