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Adventure Hooks DM Resources

5 Adventure Hooks: Happy Birthday

Today is my birthday. Sunday is Wimwick’s birthday. So it seemed appropriate to write an article that was in some way birthday related. The solution: birthday-themed adventure hooks. Each of the hooks provided below are tied to someone’s birthday.

As a DM I find that I’m always trying to come up with a good reason for why something happens at a particular time in the adventure. Tying it to someone’s birthday is as good a reason as any.

I’ve tried tying key events in my campaign to a PC’s birthday but I usually experience two major roadblocks. 1) We don’t track time accurately (or at all) in most games. 2) Very few players ever bother to specify when their PC was born. In the end we just say that a PCs birthday falls when it’s important to the story or whenever the player wants it to happen.

In campaigns where tracking the passage of time (and by default birthdays and other milestones) was important we used to say that every PC you play has your birthday. However, in our group there are five Virgos so all the PCs ended up having their birthday within two weeks of each other. In the end we just let the power of plot drive PCs birthdays and that’s worked pretty well over the years.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Council of Spiders (Week 2)

As the party proceeded through the old mine shaft rocks fell from the ceiling behind them sealing the passage. Svirfneblin rushed our of side passages ready to attack the party – it was an ambush! “The Goblin’s warning was true!” shouted one of the Deep Gnomes. “They’ll give us no mercy, so show none to them!”

This week we jump right into the action. No talking, not role-playing, just straight-up fighting. And it was going to be a tough fight. We had nine players and two DMs this week at my FLGS. I ran the table of four. These are the same PCs from last season and I’m modifying the adventure to make it suitable for level 4-6. The PCs are all Drow and those in attendance were playing the Rogue (#2), Druid, Cleric (Priestess) and Wizard (Bladesinger). All of these PCs have the Bregan D’aerthe Spy theme.

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Editorial

I’m Getting Published in Dungeon Magazine

I’ve always said that writing for this blog is a lobour of love. It is its own reward. While that is indeed true, in the back of my mind I’ve always secretly hoped that it would give me the experience and exposure needed to write for Wizards of the Coast. Well, that dream is becoming a reality in September as Wizards will be publishing two of my submissions.

Way back in April 2011 Wizards reached out to a wide field of up-and-coming writers asking if they’d be interested in contributing to Dragon Magazine or Dungeon Magazine. Many of these would-be authors, myself included, had no professional writing experience aside from what we posted on our gaming blogs. Needless to say I jumped at the chance to contribute to the D&D cannon.

The Table of Contents for Dungeon #206 (September 2012) is now live on the Wizards of the Coast website. I don’t know when in September my articles will be live, but when they are I’ll let everyone know.

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Month in Review

Month in Review: August 2012

Here at Dungeon’s Master August was all about public play, community and conventions. It was a really busy month for gamer, as many of us made the annual pilgrimage to Indianapolis to game our brains out. In preparation for the con, we re-ran a few relevant articles from our archives to get you stoked. Happening simultaneously in August was the finale of D&D Encounters season 9 and the launch of season 10. Throw in the RPG Blog Carnival and you’ve got a pretty good picture of August at Dungeon’s Master. If you missed any of the coverage this is a great time to get caught up.

Every month I extend a huge thank you to our readers. It was extremely rewarding to actually meet a lot you at GenCon and say thanks in person for visiting Dungeon’s Master. One of our readers actually refereed to me as a celebrity, which I must admit went straight to my head. Our goal has always been to provide articles that people enjoy reading and that help make their game better, any name recognition I’ve earned along the way is just a nice fringe benefit.

Thanks to everyone who visited Dungeon’s Master in August. Please keep leaving your thoughts and feedback in the comments. If you have questions for us, or are interested in writing as a guest author, please email me directly or send me a Tweet.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Council of Spiders (Week 1)

This week marked the beginning of season 10 of the D&D Encounters program. This is the second of three Drow-themed adventures. This adventure is set in and around the Drow city of Menzoberranzan. Players are strongly encouraged to platy Drow PCs this season. They can play a handful of other races, but anyone playing non-Drow is assumed to be a Drow slave. At my FLGS everyone played Drow to make things easier.

One of the biggest complaints from the D&D Encounters regulars is that every season they have to create new characters and start from level 1 again. To address this we decided to run this season as level 4-6 and let the players kept the same characters they used last season. As all the PCs were Drow and all had the Bregan D’aerthe Spy theme this worked out nicely. The other DM at my FLGS realized that we might still get new players so he decided to run things business as usual from level 1. As most of the PCs at his table last season were not playing Drow PCs, this made a lot of sense.

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Editorial Player Resources

What’s In Your Backpack? A Healthy Dose of Reality

When it comes to fantasy role-playing there are a lot of things you have to just accept in order for the game to function. Magic exists. Dragons exist. Elves exist. I have no problems with any of these things. They may be fantastic but they’re familiar and acceptable. But when it comes to the amount of gear a typical adventurer can carry in his backpack many players believe that anything goes. This is not a fantasy that I’m willing to accept. There needs to be some common sense applied some of the time to D&D and for me the buck stops with your backpack.

The way I see it there are two real issues when it comes to the reality of your backpack: 1) How much can it hold, and 2) How easily you can grab something out of that backpack in the heat of combat. I have had way too many players push the boundaries of what is actually possible in both cases that I’ve had to introduce a house rule when it comes to equipment the first thing that goes into any character’s backpack is a healthy does of reality.

This month Game Knight Reviews wants to know “What’s in *your* backpack?” as part of the August RPG Blog Carnival. I expect we’ll see a lot of posts where people list off their favourite must-have items. Here at Dungeon’s Master we’ve decided to approach the discussion from a slightly different angle.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Web of the Spider Queen – Report Card

Another season of D&D Encounters is over, and as are wanton to do we’re going to judge the season that was. We’ll look at what worked, what didn’t and what might have been done differently. If you DMed or played in any of this season’s encounters we want to know what you think too. Be sure to provide your comments below, whether you agree or disagree with our assessment.

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Player Resources

GenCon 2012: Fourthcore Team Deathmatch Champions

Just when we thought GenCon couldn’t get any better it was time to play in the Fourthcore Team Deathmatch (FTDM). In the car on the way to GenCon, Marc and I agreed that FTDM was the event we were most looking forward to playing. Although we wanted to win and were apparently the favourite team heading in to this years’ tournament, we really just wanted to have a good time and enjoy the experience. We got that and then some.

I’ll start with the big news – we won the Fourthcore Team Deathmatch! That’s right, after all the hype and all the trash talk we finished first. Team Moose Hockey Maple Syrup Eh, or as we were called at the table, Team Canada, emerged victorious. The guys over at the Fourthcore Team Deathmatch website will be providing a blow-by-blow of the event so I’ll just hit the highlights here.

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Player Resources

GenCon 2012: The Year I Won D&D

Calling GenCon the best four days in gaming is an understatement. There’s a really good chance that this year’s GenCon was my best four days in gaming ever. For four days everything went right. This was my fifth straight GenCon and without a doubt it was my best so far.

Socializing

One of the most important parts of any convention is the people. You can play D&D at home, but you go to a con to meet other gamers. For me a big part of it is meeting other bloggers and touching base with some of the folks from Wizards of the Coast.

This year I managed to spend some time hanging out with a lot of my fellow bloggers. I played D&D with some of them, and I played board games with others. I had some good conversations about gaming and life in general with some, and I had drinks with a few others. Some I regretfully only got to say a quick hello to, and many more that I wasn’t able to meet in person at all (maybe next year).

Most of the bloggers and WotC staff were extremely active on Twitter throughout GenCon so even though I didn’t see everyone I certainly knew where they were and what they were doing.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Web of the Spider Queen (Week 13)

After rescuing Khara Sulwood from the Drow Slave pits the heroes managed to find their way back to the catacombs beneath Shadowdale, both halves of the Pendant of Ashaba in their possession. As they passed through the cellar and began climbing the stairs to the Tower of Ashaba, Valan Jaelre blocked their path. Flanked by two massive Driders, Valan demanded the PCs return the Pendent and surrender. Needless to say they were having none of that.

This was the final week for season 9 of D&D Encounters. We finished with eight players and two DMs so we managed to run two tables for the finale. The party at my table was made up of four regulars who were all with the party from the very beginning (none of these players missed a single session). Accompanied by Khara Sulwood, the party that faced the final encounter consisted of the following PCs:

  • Drow Rogue #1
  • Drow Rogue #2
  • Drow Druid
  • Drow Cleric

Before the PCs or Valan and his cronies could act, the Druid received a magical sending from Elminster. “Where have you been? Is the pendant reclaimed and its magic still intact? Shadowdale’s wards must be restored, and we are running out of time!” The Druid responded mentally that the party had the pendent but it was broken and that they had problems of their own right now.

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