Category: Humour

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Humour Skill Challenges

The Valentine’s Day Skill Challenge

Today is Valentine’s Day so we decided to take a light-hearted look at the day most associate with love. All the members of the Dungeons’ Master team are happily married or in a long-term relationship, so we felt that we should do our part to help those looking for love. However, we are by no means experts on the subject so please take the advice provided below with the good humour in which it is indented.

It’s unfortunate that many envision the gamer stereotype as a lonely guy who’s awkward around girls. Although there are certainly a few gamers out there that fall into this category, in my experience many gamers are not really that much different that the rest of the non-gaming masses. Everyone is looking for someone and hopes to avoid painful rejection along the way. With that in mind we’ve put together some tips in the form of a skill challenge. By framing this advice in a familiar wrapper we hope that it will make it easier for all those gamers looking for love on Valentine’s Day.

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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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Humour Top 10

Ameron Answers 23 Questions

The latest trend sweeping the D&D Blogosphere is to answer the GM Questionnaire. It was posted on Wednesday by Zak S at the website Playing D&D With Porn Stars. He’s asking people to post their answers in the comments section of his website or to post them on your own blog and share the link. Today I’ve decided to join in the fun and share my answers to Zak’s 23 Questions. I encourage you to answer the questions yourself and either leave the responses in the comment below or visit Playing D&D With Porn Stars and post your answers there.

Please note that the Playing D&D With Porn Stars website does contain some material that may not be suitable for all readers. There’s also a good chance that if you try to visit this website from a work or school computer that it will be forbidden (at least it was for me).

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Humour Top 10

Greatest Hits 2011: 7 Appalling Things I Witnessed at the Gaming Table

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 2011. 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.

No matter where you play D&D – at conventions like GenCon, at your FLGS or even at home – there are certain expectations regarding behaviour that all players are expected to follow. We take for granted that most of these things fall into the “common sense” category and assume everyone understands what’s expected of them. However, experience has taught me differently.

I’ve learned the hard way that when people participate in public-play D&D they tend to do things they’d never do during a home game. It’s as if they believe that public-play games give them a free pass with regards to a lot of very obvious objectionable acts. After seeing many of these violations in full force at GenCon this summer I had to write down some of the most egregious and appalling ones. My hope was (and still is) that gamers will read this list, realize they’re guilty of doing some of these things, and make a point of never doing them again.

During D&D Encounters over the past year I’ve witnessed a lot of these things with unfortunate regularity. As the DM I try to “correct” some of these poor practices, but it’s tough, especially because I don’t know a lot of these people very well. And I don’t think that it should always fall to the DM to be the bad guy.

I think that we all need to share the responsibility for letting other gamers know when they violate the social contract. Whenever any of us spots the things on this list happening we should do our part and inform the violator of the inappropriate actions they’ve undertaken. By working together we can make public-play D&D better and eliminate the 7 appalling things I witnessed at GenCon.

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Humour

Dungeon’s Master Presents: Christmas with the Gamer (Encore)

With Christmas less than two weeks away I felt it was a good time to dust off this holiday-themed article from the Dungeon’s Master archive and give it an encore performance. First published last December, this D&D holiday-themed tale was inspired in part by real events that happened in my household over the holidays. Merry Christmas.

Originally published on December 15, 2010, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Christmas With the Gamer.

I’d rather be playing D&D. But it’s Christmas and my family is coming over for a big holiday dinner. So I’m forced to settle for the banality known as real life for the next few hours.

I lumber downstairs from my bedroom, making no effort to be stealthy. Anyone in the living room or kitchen with a half-way decent passive perception knows I’m on my way. As a triggered action when I reach the bottom of the staircase my mother, the controller, starts giving me orders. I have to clean the basement, playfully called the dungeon, before company arrives.

As I pass by the living room I notice my father watching football. My dad is the epitome of the Warlord class. He’s a generous leader who constantly gives up his actions to let other act in his place. Whether that action is taking out the trash, cleaning the basement, or mowing the lawn, he’s always been very generous and giving. He’s just that kind of guy. Even when my mother asks him to do something he takes advantage of his class features to give up his action and let someone else do twice as much on their turn.

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Humour Skill Challenges

The Holiday Shopping Skill Challenge (Encore)

Today is Black Friday in the U.S. and while those of us in Canada and the other countries around the world suffer through another day of work, our American brethren get to experience this shopping extravaganza. To mark the occasion we decide to do something a little bit different. While looking through our extensive archive I came across this gem and thought it was a good time to run it again. Enjoy.

Originally published on December 11, 2009, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: The Holiday Shopping Skill Challenge.

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Humour

Ameron’s Game Room

We vowed that we’d never write a post that was simply “Let me tell you about my character.” However, I never made such a promise when it came to our gaming space. So let me tell you about my game room. Better yet, let me show you. As we approach out 800th article here at Dungeon’s Master I thought it would be a worth-while exercise to let the readers see where we play and where the blog comes together.

Since moving into my house seven years ago I’ve hosted the weekly D&D game. Our gaming group is very tight, some of use knowing each other for over 30 years now, and a lot happens over that time. As we grew up and got on with our lives we moved away from the community in which we grew up and started families of our own. We play at my house because it’s the most centrally located. One guy drives in an hour from the East and another an hour from the West.

We used to play at the dining room table but my wife put an end to that a long time ago. Now I have a dedicated game room (or as my wife calls it “The Nerd Room”). I have worked hard to put my own stamp on it and make it a place that I enjoy spending time. I’ve also done my part to make it suitable for a gaming group with seven people.

Below are photos of my game room. Take a look and let me know what you think. After you see my set up let me know just how big a nerd you think I really am.

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DM Resources Humour

Embracing the Silly Aspects of Fantasy Gaming

Sometimes we focus so much on the serious aspects of D&D that we forget the importance of the humorous and ludicrous. This is a fantasy game in which magic is commonplace. So with that kind of framework doesn’t it seem right that there should be some outrageously silly things that are just accepted as a part of the fantastic world?

That’s not to say that things shouldn’t make sense. There needs to be some explanation for the unbelievable and the unexpected within the established framework, but the players don’t always have to take it so seriously. By throwing in a few humorous things every once and a while the players come to realize that just because they think something seems bizarre and out of place doesn’t mean that their characters feel the same way.

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Humour

Confessions of a D&D Camp Counselor: Year II – Best Bits

Well D&D camp is over for another year. Looking back it seems to me that the best way to share stories from D&D camp without a lot of superfluous context is to use the “Hey, do you remember when…?” approach. So for the final time this year I would like to share some of the best bits of fun, excitement and hilarity that happened this summer at D&D camp.

Video Games!

Obviously the kids come to camp to have fun first and foremost. Playing and learning the game of D&D is the secondary objective. A lot of the rules can be adjusted to suit the situation at hand if it’s going to make thing more fun. Each week as new kids come to camp we assess their level of play and do our very best to accommodate people so that everyone has a good time. Many of the issues that arise are because some kids just want to play even though they don’t know or don’t want to know the actual rules of “how D&D is supposed to be played.”

That being said, every year we get kids at camp who have never played D&D before and don’t seem to have any interest in it as such. Instead when their parents said “You’re going to camp, pick one!” they picked the camp that sounded most like video games. Well at camp this year we had quite a few Mine Craft kids and it made for some pretty strange in-game interactions.

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Humour

More Confessions of a D&D Camp Counselor: Year II

This year at Dungeons & Dragons Camp we took a new approach to running the games. All the DMs agreed to set their campaigns in the same setting. By doing this we hoped to create a common experience that all of the kids could share in. In retrospect, I have to admit that I was extremely naive, or at the very least idealistic.

Burn Baby Burn!

What I envisioned was a common campaign setting generating stories of how each party solved the same problems in their own way. The kids certainly overcame problems but not in the way I imagined. Where I’d thought they’d meet and interact with common NPCs they instead opted to kill them over and over again, week after week.

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