Category: Editorial

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Editorial

Karma in Gaming

a-to-z-letters-kKarma, the idea that what goes around comes around. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Live by the sword, die by the sword. The notion that what I do now will have some consequence on what happens to me at a later date. The power of Karma is a big part of the gaming experience. Call it luck or coincidence, in my mind it’s Karma at work.

Throughout April Dungeon’s Master is participating in 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 of each article will begin with a different letter of the alphabet. In today’s article the “K” is for Karma.

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Editorial Player Resources

The Justice League of America (JLA) as D&D Characters

a-to-z-letters-jI’ve started playing D&D when I was 13; I started reading and collecting comics when I was 10. Any time I can combine my two nerdly passions it makes me very happy. When I was younger I played the Marvel Super Heroes RPG a lot (even more than D&D). I tried the DC Heroes RPG as a kid but liked it a lot less than Marvel, although the recent version from Green Ronin Publishing is a lot better. Even though I still read comics I no longer play any of the comic-centric RPGs. D&D is my game. So I’ve often thought about how to incorporate comic book superheroes into D&D. It’s not something that has an obvious or easy answer. The characters work in the context of their setting for a reason.

For starters, normal D&D character advance they get more powerful. Comic book superheroes generally don’t change or advance. Their powers generally remain the same. Still, porting comic book characters into D&D is worth a try. What would Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman be like as D&D characters? What races and classes would seem most appropriate? There’s no right answer, but it is likely to generate some debate and discussion.

justice-league-team-01I’ve decided to start this exercise by focusing in detail on the three most popular DC heroes (arguable the most popular comic book characters of all time): Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. From there we take a quicker look at numerous other supporting but no less important members of the Justice League.

I’ll share my thoughts and ideas on how I see these iconic heroes re-imagined as D&D character and then I encourage you to leave your comments below. I’m not going to actually create or stat out any of them. I think the discussion is a more fruitful exercise.

Throughout April Dungeon’s Master is participating in 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 of each article will begin with a different letter of the alphabet. The “J” in today’s post is for Justice League as I combine my two favoutire hobbies into one article. As a huge comic book nerd I’ve been wanting to do this kind of article for a long time.

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Editorial Player Resources

Giving & Tithing in D&D

a-to-z-letters-gMost PCs are rich. I mean crazy rich. Seriously, compare the material wealth of even a level 2 PC to most regular people in any D&D game, the numbers are silly. As the PCs go on more adventures and find more treasure, that PC’s net worth grows exponentially. It doesn’t take long before the heroes have more money than they know what to do with. By the time they reach paragon tier it’s unlikely that they’ll ever be able to spend the riches they’ve earned along the way.

Knowing that PCs earn such tremendous wealth so quickly I’m curious how many players have their PCs give any of their treasure to charity? How much is given to support the local good causes (e.g., homeless shelter, orphanage, down on their luck veterans of war, etc.)? For divine character like Paladins and Clerics, how much of their earnings are tithed to the church? I’m willing to be that for most players the answer is a big fat zero!

Throughout April Dungeon’s Master is participating in 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 of each article will begin with a different letter of the alphabet. I wasn’t sure if I wanted the “G” in today’s article to be for Greed or Giving. In the end I decided that an article on Giving was a better way to go as it sends a more positive message.

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Editorial

Dungeon’s Master – What’s in a Name?

a-to-z-letters-dWhen I meet other gamers I introduce myself as Derek, but in the next breath I quickly add that I write as Ameron on Dungeon’s Master.com. After four years of blogging a lot of gamers immediately recognize the blog’s name even if they don’t recognize mine.

Name recognition is one of the most important parts of having a successful website. Your potential audience has the search engine at their finger tips and when they type in those key words they’ll get many options to choose from. If they don’t recognize the name of your website they’re less likely to click on your link. That is assuming that your website even comes up on the first page.

When we first thought of starting a gaming blog we wanted to make sure that all of our hard work was going to pay off. We wanted people to read our stuff and we wanted them to keep coming back for more. We felt that the quality of our articles would help us build a solid and loyal readership (which it did), but the trick was getting people to visit in the first place.

Throughout April Dungeon’s Master is participating in 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 of each article will begin with a different letter of the alphabet. Today’s the “D” is for Dungeon’s Master as we share the process behind how we came up with our blog’s name.

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DM Resources Editorial

Cat Lord

a-to-z-letters-cI remember it vividly. I was flipping through the AD&D Monster Manual II (still the only AD&D hardcover rule book I don’t own) and there he was on page 22 – the Cat Lord. Something about this creature grabbed my attention and my imagination in a way that few other monsters ever have. I think it was a combination of the name “Cat Lord” and the accompanying picture (by Harry Quinn) depicting a feline humanoid. This monster was majestic in a way that only a powerful hunting cat could be; yet he also exuded a sense of cool sophistication that has always stuck with me. It’s hard to put my finger on an exact reason, but something jumped off the page and into my imagination that has always led me to believe that the Cat Lord is one of the most interesting creatures in Dungeons & Dragons.

Throughout April Dungeon’s Master is participating in 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 of each article will begin with a different letter of the alphabet. Today’s “C” topic is the Cat Lord, one of my all-time favourite D&D characters/monsters.

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Editorial

Board Games

a-to-z-letters-bIn the last year my home gaming group has played less D&D and more board games. At first it was just something to do when we didn’t have full attendance, but now we alternate every week between board games and role-playing games. When you’re playing board games that frequently you need some variety; after all you can only play so many games of Monopoly and Risk before you need to broaden your board game repertoire.

Over the past year or two my board game collection has increased from about a dozen classic games to over 50 games counting the new additions. I’ve also tried numerous games at my FLGS, gaming conventions, and some of the other guys in my gaming group have brought over their favourites. I’d say I’ve probably played close to a hundred different board games in the past year or so. It’s become such a big part of my social life that I’ve even got my wife and my parents to try new games.

Throughout April Dungeon’s Master is participating in 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 of each article will begin with a different letter of the alphabet. In today’s article we shift from D&D to Board Games, our “B” topic for day two.

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Editorial

The Art of D&D (Part 3)

a-to-z-letters-aRole-playing games like D&D are the theater of the mind. The characters and events are only as real as the participants imagine them. For new players this can be overwhelming. After all, in a fantasy setting there are going to be a lot of things that your character should be familiar with but you, as an inexperienced player, have never heard of. This includes everything from exotic weapons to strange monsters. This is why the D&D books have always been rich with art.

The covers of most D&D books depict scenes where heroes battle monsters in some lavish and clearly fantastic setting. This draws you in and gets you to pick the book up (an important first step), but the interior art plays a very important role as well. It’s the interior art that’s going to fill in those blanks we’re talking about. In the original AD&D hard cover rule books the interior art did an amazing job of unlocking the imagination and guiding new players towards the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

Throughout April Dungeon’s Master is participating in 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 of each article will begin with a different letter of the alphabet. In today’s article we return to a popular subject and one we’ve written on before: The Art of D&D, our “A” topic to kick off the month.

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Editorial

Dungeon’s Master joins the Blogging from A to Z Challenge

When we first launched Dungeon’s Master we posted new content every single day for the first month. After that we decided to just post on weekdays. For over three years we posted new content every single weekday. For the last year I’ve been slipping. I’ve tried to post content at least twice a week but even that’s been a struggle some weeks. In April things will change.

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Editorial

State of the Dungeon – Year 4

Today marks the fourth anniversary since we launch Dungeon’s Master. Four years. That’s a long time. When we began the blog it was just a way for us to share some of our ideas with the gaming community. We had no idea if people would be interested in reading what we had to say and we had no idea if we were going to be able to stick with it. Well here we are four years later and we’re still going strong.

Dungeon’s Master has always been dedicated to 4e Dungeons & Dragons. Although we focus our efforts on addressing 4e issues, we realize that there are a lot of gamers who play other editions of D&D. With the D&D Next play-testing in full swing and the official launch just over a year away we don’t know what direction we’ll take down the road. For now we’ll keep writing articles that appeal to 4e players but as our regular readers realize we’re trying to keep the topics broad enough that they also apply to older or newer editions alike.

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Editorial

2,000,000 Page Views

Although Christmas was last week, I received a wonderful present this morning. When I logged into the blog I saw that Dungeon’s Master hit 2 million page views. It took us 31 months to reach our first million page views; it took only 17 more to reach our second million.

We’re approaching our fourth anniversary on February 1, and I honestly never thought that we’d ever have this kind of readership. You hope that people will find your website, read what you have to say, and enjoy it enough to come back again to see what you have to say next. If you’re really lucky they tell their friends and your readership continues to grow. We’ve been very fortunate because this is exactly what’s happened.

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