Categories
D&D Encounters

Recounting Encounters with Against the Cult of Chaos author Shawn Merwin

against-the-cult-of-chaos-coverToday Dungeon’s Master and 20ft Radius are proud to present a special episode of our podcast, Recounting Encounters. In this episode we talk to Shawn Merwin, one of the authors of this season’s adventure Against the Cult of Chaos.

Shawn is a freelance writer and game designer with a long list of impressive gaming credits to his name. His writing credits for Wizards of the Coast include Dungeon Delve, Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress, and Halls of Undermountain. He’s also been a very active member of the D&D public-play community having written for Living Greyhawk (LG) and Living Forgotten Realms (LFR). Most recently Shawn was one of the authors of the D&D Encounters season 11 adventure War of Everlasting Darkness and this season’s adventure Against the Cult of Chaos.

Continue reading “Recounting Encounters with Against the Cult of Chaos author Shawn Merwin”
Categories
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.

Continue reading “The Art of D&D (Part 3)”
Categories
D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Storm Over Neverwinter – Preview

storm-over-neverwinter-coverD&D Encounters season 13, the spring 2013 season, begins on April 10 with week 0. The adventure itself – Storm Over Neverwinter – runs 8 weeks from April 17-June 5.

This is an adventure for characters level 3-6. It says levels 4-6 on the cover, but the text inside clearly trumps that and expects new PCs to begin at level 3. This is a first for D&D Encounters. It may make things a bit tougher for brand new players to just jump in with a character above level 1, but those of us who have played since season 1 will certainly appreciate an adventure with a bit more teeth.

Continue reading “D&D Encounters: Storm Over Neverwinter – Preview”
Categories
D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Against the Cult of Chaos (Week 7)

against-the-cult-of-chaos-coverIn week 2 this party visited the Moat House and nearly got wiped out by the bandits. This week they finally decided it was time to return to the Moat House and investigate the strange happening going on in the dungeon level below the old fort.

I ran a party of five that included a Half-Orc Barbarian, Drow Cleric, Tiefling Ardent/Battle Mind (hybrid), an Elf Fighter (Slayer), and Drow Wizard. I’ve now got seven regular players rotating in and out of my group, but their respective schedules have kept at least one away for the past month. Next week I expect all of them to be there for the finale which should make things interesting.

Continue reading “D&D Encounters: Against the Cult of Chaos (Week 7)”
Actual Play Podcast at Harry T North (Week 7) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Actual Play Podcast at Silver Snail (Week 7) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Categories
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.

Continue reading “Dungeon’s Master joins the Blogging from A to Z Challenge”
Categories
Friday Favourites

Friday Favourite: 5 Reasons to Say No

On Friday we comb through our extensive archives to find an older article that we feel deserves another look. From July 19, 2011, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: 5 Reasons to Say No.

I believe that players should play the characters they want to play. I’m a total 4e, say yes convert. It took me awhile to come around but when I’m the DM I encourage creativity and I say yes… a lot. However, I’ve realized that as much as I want to always say yes, there are times when I probably should not. In a few of these cases it’s actually caused me more grief in the long run.

Players make choices during character creation and between levels during character improvement. Normally I’m very hands off as a DM and let the players do whatever they want as long as it’s legal. But it’s this absolute freedom of choice that often ends up causing the most problems. If I’d only stepped in earlier and said no, a lot of the problems I’ve experienced wouldn’t have been problems at all.

It’s taken me a while but I’ve learned the hard way that just because a choice is legal in character builder doesn’t mean that the DM has to automatically say yes to every choice that the players make. In fact the more I’ve thought about it the more I’ve realized that sometimes the DM should step in and say no; especially during character creation. Here are five examples.

Continue reading “Friday Favourite: 5 Reasons to Say No”
Categories
D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Against the Cult of Chaos (Week 6)

against-the-cult-of-chaos-coverLast week the party stormed the Temple of the Lawbringer and faced off against Bullywugs, Wights and Priestess Devi. After the fight the PCs took a short rest and that’s where we picked things up.

This week I ran a table of six. One of our regulars was absent but another player brought a friend. I’ve had a brand new player at my table every week since we started. The fact that they all keep coming back is a good sign. The party included a Drow Wizard, Tiefling Ardent/Battle Mind (hybrid), an Elf Fighter (Slayer), Half-Orc Barbarian, Ryltar the Drow Fighter (Slayer) pre-gen, and Syndrina the Drow Paladin (Cavalier) pre-gen.

As the PCs searched the basement of the temple they found a Drow in one of the cells. Since we already had two Drow in the party we said that they knew her. This made adding the new PC marginally plausible. In the other cells they found evidence that people were held here recently although no one was there now.

Continue reading “D&D Encounters: Against the Cult of Chaos (Week 6)”
Actual Play Podcast at Harry T North (Week 6) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Actual Play Podcast at Silver Snail (Week 6) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Categories
DM Resources Friday Favourites

Friday Favourite: Gaming in Silence

On Friday we comb through our extensive archives to find an older article that we feel deserves another look. From December 5, 2011, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Gaming in Silence.

Playing D&D is a social experience. It’s often as much about getting together with your friends as it is about killing monsters. But I’ve noticed that we spend a lot of time talking about stuff that isn’t even related to the game. This has really become a big problem in public-play games at my FLGS. I’ve noticed that over the past few sessions of D&D Encounters I’ve had to ask people (with alarming frequency) to stop talking when it’s not their turn and pay attention to what the other players are doing, and that got me thinking: what if you weren’t allowed to talk during an encounter or an entire gaming session? How would things change?

To begin this kind of gaming experiment, the DM must make it clear to the players right from the outset that anything they say, anything at all, even if it’s something that their characters obviously wouldn’t say, is going to count as an utterance by their PC. Absolutely everything the player says his character says. No exceptions. Silence is going to be the key to success. Excessive noise will either force the PCs to fight something they know they have no chance of defeating (hence all the sneaking around) or it will lead to a final confrontation that is a lot more difficult because the PCs kept talking. In either scenario, the stakes should be incredibly high.

Continue reading “Friday Favourite: Gaming in Silence”
Categories
D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Against the Cult of Chaos (Week 5)

against-the-cult-of-chaos-coverWe began this session in the cellar of the Golden Grain Inn. The PCs defeated Bertram, Derek, four goons and two Bullywugs last week. With the festivities still going full force upstairs they didn’t know how long they had before these guys were missed. They took a short rest, cleaned up evidence of the fight and moved the bodies into the secret passage. Hopefully this would buy them some time if anyone got curious and came to check on things.

This week we continued to draw in new players at our FLGS. Two of my friends visiting from out of town joined us as well as three brand new players and the return of a player who was absent for the past few sessions. Had we not had a few regulars absent we wouldn’t have had room to accommodate everyone at the three tables in the store. As it was I ran a table of seven PCs. The party included an Elf Fighter (Slayer), Pixie Wizard (Witch), Tiefling Ardent/Battle Mind (hybrid), Drow Wizard, Svirfneblin Seeker, Ryltar the Drow Fighter (Slayer) pre-gen and once again Fargrim the Dwarf Fighter (Slayer) pre-gen.

Continue reading “D&D Encounters: Against the Cult of Chaos (Week 5)”
Actual Play Podcast at Harry T North (Week 5) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Actual Play Podcast at Silver Snail (Week 5) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Categories
D&D Encounters

Lair Assault: Round-Up and Podcasts

lair-assault-logoThe Lair Assault program provides power gamers with the chance to prove once and for all who’s the best of the best. Wizards designed killer adventures that challenge the most experienced gamer. When the players at my FLGS heard that such a thing existed they demanded that we play these adventures as quickly as possible and as often as possible. Although we’ve suffered a lot of TPKs along the way it’s been a thrilling program that’s met with great success in the Greater Toronto Area gaming community.

Every time we played Lair Assault we recorded the session. Some of the players found it useful to go back and listen to the games to see what they could do differently the next time through to improve their chances of victory. Others just enjoyed listening to the party fumble their way around a killer encounter. Today we’re sharing these podcasts for your listening pleasure.

Continue reading “Lair Assault: Round-Up and Podcasts”