Tag: 4e

D&D Encounters: Legacy of the Crystal Shard (Week 8.)

Post author By Ameron (Derek Myers)
Post date January 16, 2014
11 Comments on D&D Encounters: Legacy of the Crystal Shard (Week 8.)

After a three week break we finally returned to Icewind Dale to pick up where we left off before Christmas. When we last played the party overwhelmed Hammerstone, knocking him unconscious despite his guards’ best effort to overtake the heroes. But before the PCs could revel in their victory Zombies entered the Halls of Black Ice and attacked indiscriminately. The PCs grabbed the unconscious Hammerstone and fled down an unknown passage, deeper into the Dwarven mines.

This week at Harry T North in Toronto we were back in business. My table had all five players for the first time since the launch weekend. The other three DMs all had full or near-full attendance at their tables too. My party, which is running 4e and is currently level 4, consisted of a Dragonborn Cavalier, Tiefling Paladin, Revenant (Eladrin) Assassin, Halfling Rogue and Gnoll Barbarian. I’ve been using Hengar as an NPC to round out the party during the past few weeks, so technically he was still around but I didn’t use him this week.

Actual Play Podcast at Harry T North (Season 16 Week 8) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags 4e, D&D, D&D Encounters, D&D Encounters: Legacy of the Crystal Shard, D&D Next, DnD Next, DnDNext, Dungeon's Master, Dungeons and Dragons, Legacy of the Crystal Shard

Friday Favourites Player Resources

Friday Favourite: Playing a Recognizable Archetype

Post author By Ameron (Derek Myers)
Post date January 10, 2014

On Friday we comb through our extensive archives to find an older article that we feel deserves another look. From November 30, 2009, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Playing a Recognizable Archetype.

“What would the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise look like if they were D&D characters?” I’ve asked myself this question numerous times over the last few weeks as I’ve watched old episodes of Start Trek: The Next Generation. It’s an interesting exercise, and it got me thinking about what it would take to play these archetypes in an ongoing camping.

Over the years I have participated in games that borrowed famous characters from familiar stories. It was an interesting way to create new characters and the games were a lot of fun.

Tags 4e, D&D, D&D Next, DnD Next, DnDNext, Dungeon's Master, Dungeons and Dragons, Friday Favourite, Playing a Recognizable Archetype, ST: TNG, Star Trek

D&D Encounters D&D Next

D&D Encounters: Legacy of the Crystal Shard (Week 7)

Post author By Ameron (Derek Myers)
Post date January 9, 2014
5 Comments on D&D Encounters: Legacy of the Crystal Shard (Week 7)

The games we should have played during week 5 and week 6 were canceled due to Christmas and New Years. The plan was to pick things up this week and try to get back on track. Unfortunately four of my five players were unable to play this week due to extended vacations, bad weather, and illness. So for the third week in a row I did not run my usual table.

However, two of the other three DMs did have a chance to get their games back on track this week. I grabbed a pre-gen and joined one of the D&D Next tables. The choices this party made so far this season took them on a very different path than my group. This party had spent a lot of time in Bryn Shander with a short detour to the Dwarven Valley and the bandit’s cave hideout. This week they were back in Bryn Shander in looking for the missing Speaker.

The party already had the following PCs: Tiefling Rogue, Dragonborn Ranger, Halfling (Kender) Rogue, Human Cleric, and Human Monk. The character I got was a Half-Orc Barbarian.

Tags 4e, D&D, D&D Encounters, D&D Encounters: Legacy of the Crystal Shard, D&D Next, DnD Next, DnDNext, Dungeon's Master, Dungeons and Dragons, Legacy of the Crystal Shard

DM Resources

What Would It Take For You To Give Up Your Favourite Magic Item?

Post author By Ameron (Derek Myers)
Post date January 6, 2014
5 Comments on What Would It Take For You To Give Up Your Favourite Magic Item?

If your DM asked you to either have their PC give up his favourite magic item or cut off his own leg I’m betting it would be a really tough choice. And I think most players would rather the PC lose the leg than their magic item. That’s how important magic items are to most players.

When a PC acquires a new magic item it often become a significant part of that character. Many of us define our PCs by the items they possess, especially the really cool or powerful items.

Magic items are often seen as a sort of status symbol at the gaming table. If your character has magic armor, a magic cloak, a magic weapon or two, and numerous other miscellaneous baubles in his inventory he’s going to be deemed “better” than other PCs in the party who have fewer items with lower plusses. It’s not usually talked about but it happens.

With everyone clamouring for more items the DM’s natural instinct is to award magic items every time the PCs complete a quest or defeat a really difficult encounter. That’s just how D&D works – you kill monsters and take their stuff. And if they don’t have anything useful you sell what they had and buy something you can actually use. The result is a party with a ridiculous amount of magic items in their combined inventory, especially at higher levels. Welcome to the world of Monty Haul gaming.

So what’s a DM to do when he realizes that the party has too much stuff? The simplest solution is to take it away. However, this is not going to go over well with the players. After all, they didn’t do anything wrong. In fact they did everything right. They killed the toughest monsters and rightly earned all of their best stuff. Just because the DM was too generous doesn’t mean the players should suffer. So what other options are there?

Tags 4e, D&D, D&D Next, DM Resources, DnD Next, DnDNext, Dungeon's Master, Dungeons and Dragons, Magic Items

DM Resources

Greatest Hits 2013: Zombies: Breathing Life into an Overused Undead

Post author By Ameron (Derek Myers)
Post date December 31, 2013

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 2013. 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.

This article was the final entry of our A to Z Blogger Challenge in April and it’s the final entry of our 2013 Greatest Hits. Nothing says “The End” like Zombies.

Zombies are still some of the most popular creatures in pop culture and mass media entertainment. The Walking Dead – both the TV show on AMC and the comic book – are still going strong and generating huge dollars. The Zombie obsession phenomenon seems to be as difficult to kill as actual Zombies.

In D&D Zombies are good monsters to throw at unsuspecting PCs regardless of their level. Zombies can be level 1 minions or epic level marauders. The beauty of Zombies is that they’re such a straight forward archetype. The problem is that they get repetitive and boring, hence the purpose of the original article.

Since writing this article I’ve tried to come up with new ways to make Zombies fresh and original and I’ve struggled. There seems to be only so much you can do with them before they stop being Zombies and start being something else. So if you find that you’ve hit that rut in your game my advice is to focus on making them scary. Don’t worry so much about the mechanics; try to make an impression on the players.

In a recent 4e game I used a bunch of Zombie minions. They fell easily enough with a single hit. However, on the Zombie’s next turn a roll of 16-20 on a d20 meant the Zombie got back up. This is a standard 4e mechanic. My tweak was to forego the first roll and have ALL the Zombies get back up the first time. They then rolled the 16-20 to see if they’d get up a second time.

The players, most of whom had faced Zombies before, were not expecting this and it made the encounter a lot scarier. Where they’d originally been content to fight, they were now seriously contemplating if they should run. A simple adjustment made a huge impact on the encounter. So if you want to use Zombies in your game and you feel they’ve become tiresome, try making small adjustments to increase the fear factor.

From April 30, 2013, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Zombies: Breathing Life into an Overused Undead.

Tags 4e, D&D, D&D Next, DM Resources, DnD Next, DnDNext, Dungeon's Master, Dungeons and Dragons, Greatest Hits 2013, walking dead, zombie, zombies

Editorial Humour

Greatest Hits 2013: The Big Bang Theory D&D Episode – A Gamer’s Perspective

Post author By Ameron (Derek Myers)
Post date December 30, 2013

So what do nerds do for fun? The Big Bang Theory has done a pretty good job of showing the guys indulging in all sorts of nerdy hobbies from video games, to sci-fi movie marathons, to cosplay, to board gamers, to Dungeons & Dragons. The hobbies may get the occasional cheap laugh because of the mainstream audience’s unfamiliarity with them, but for the most part they’re all shown in a fairly positive light.

The Big Bang Theory has been good for nerd hobbies and nerds in general. The show is one of the most popular on TV right now and it’s exposing the masses to all sorts of things they’d never herd of or seen before.

It’s no secret in my office that I’m a huge nerd, and my co-workers will often ask me about things they see on episodes of The Big Bang Theory. I haven’t been able to get any of my colleagues to game with me yet, but the curiosity factor is encouraging. They see the characters on TV having fun doing something they’ve never heard of and think that perhaps they’d have fun if they tried it.

I’m particularly encouraged when I see The Big Bang Theory cast playing D&D. When they play on the show their games tend to focus on a good mixture of exploration, solving puzzles, and general role-playing. They don’t seem to engage in combat or even roll dice that often but honestly that would be boring to show on TV so I understand why we don’t see that very often.

In my opinion, the most important aspect of the D&D games we’ve seen on The Big Bang Theory is that they’re always having fun. This is the best endorsement the game can get and I’m glad we keep seeing the gang play D&D in prime time. If this episode’s popularity was any indication then I expect we’ll see them playing more D&D in upcoming episodes.

From May 10, 2013, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: The Big Bang Theory D&D Episode – A Gamer’s Perspective.

Tags 4e, D&D, D&D Next, DnD Next, DnDNext, Dungeon's Master, Dungeons and Dragons, Greatest Hits 2013, TBBT, The Big Bang Theory

Player Resources

Greatest Hits 2013: Your Character’s Psychological Profile

Post author By Ameron (Derek Myers)
Post date December 29, 2013
1 Comment on Greatest Hits 2013: Your Character’s Psychological Profile

Some would argue that personality is not something you can stat out on a character sheet; each character’s personality derives from the player running that character. I’d agree, but I’d also add that if you can quantify certain elements of a character personality that may help some players develop a unique personality for each character they play.

In D&D the only real measuring stick for personality seems to be alignment. Yet so few players and DM care about playing to a PCs alignment that it becomes an irrelevant statistic and is often left blank (in my experience).

In the article I talk about how most of my characters end up having a personality that’s an awful lot like mine. It’s easy to make new characters, but it’s a lot more difficult to create new personalities with each. If you participate in public play you might have a whole stable of character by the end of just one year. When 4e first came out I had at last a dozen LFR character and three or four PCs for my various home campaigns. Mechanically each was a different race and class, but as I played them the majority of these PCs behaved, acted and spoke just like me.

Creating a psychological profile for a character can give players that quantifiable measure they need to “get into character.” Knowing how cruel or loyal or selfish your PC is compared to other PCs can really help you develop a frame of reference by which to play your character.

From February 6, 2013, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Your Character’s Psychological Profile.

Tags 4e, D&D, D&D Next, DnD Next, DnDNext, Dungeon's Master, Dungeons and Dragons, Greatest Hits 2013, Player Resources, Psychological Profile

Editorial Player Resources

Greatest Hits 2013: Stereotypical Gamers – Debunking the Myths

Post author By Ameron (Derek Myers)
Post date December 28, 2013
1 Comment on Greatest Hits 2013: Stereotypical Gamers – Debunking the Myths

Not too long ago I read the fantastic book Of Dice and Men by David M. Ewalt. It’s the story of Dungeons & Dragons and the people who play it. Ewalt explores D&D from the game’s origins through its rise to cultural prominence, and its ripple effect on popular culture today. This book is great for gamers and non-gamers who are curious about D&D and RPGs.

Originally I was going to dedicate an entire post to reviewing this book, but I realized that singing its praises in the new intro to the Stereotypes article was a better way to go. In the book Ewalt gets back into gaming after a lengthy hiatus. He has a lot of preconceptions about the gaming community and holds many of the stereotypes we discus in the article below to be true. The book does a great job of providing a fair look at gamers and role-playing games as a whole and by the end Ewalt has debunked many of the myths.

As a hardcore gamer I found this book especially enlightening. I had no idea of how D&D came into being nor did I realize how influential it was in the creation of just about every other RPG that followed it. I easily identified with Ewalt as he explored D&D through the ages, seeing myself in many of his experiences. If you haven’t read Of Dice and Men, do yourself a favour and pick up a copy. No serious gamers should be without their own copy. In my opinion this book is as vital to your RPG shelf as the PHB and DMG.

Order Of Dice and Men on Amazon.com.

From April 22, 2013, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Stereotypical Gamers – Debunking the Myths.

Tags 4e, D&D, D&D Next, DnD Next, DnDNext, Dungeon's Master, Dungeons and Dragons, gamer stereotypes, Greatest Hits 2013, Of Dice and Men, Player Resources

Player Resources

Greatest Hits 2013: Back to School Tips for Gamers

Post author By Ameron (Derek Myers)
Post date December 27, 2013

When I wrote this article I put a back to school spin on it. But rereading it I realize that the advice contained within is applicable pretty much year round. If you’re a gaming nerd or just a gaming enthusiast you should do your part to share your love of games with others.

The challenge I’ve found when trying to get new people into gaming is where to start. Most people hear “board games” and think of Monopoly or Scrabble. This is a reasonable response based on their limited gaming frame of reference, and it presents you with a great opportunity to show them just how far board games have come in the years since those classics were invented.

When I talk games with the uninitiated I usually begin by asking them what kind of games they enjoy. If they say they don’t know I present them with some of the gateway games that I love. Games like Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan and Forbidden Island. These games are relatively simple and easy to learn. But even explaining what these games are like can scare away a new gamer. I’ve found that to really get someone hooked you need to sit them down and play with them.

When bringing new gamers into the fold simplicity is key. Cooperative games are also very helpful as they encourage cooperation rather than an adversarial approach. Games like Catan and Forbidden Island don’t use a traditional game board which often blows people away as you begin setting things up. Today’s board games are sophisticated, inventive, and usually a lot of fun. These aren’t your parents’ games, but your parents may still enjoy them.

Just remember that your enthusiasm will be encouraging and contagious when you teach games to new people. However, keep the first few games light hearted and simple. Don’t necessarily introduce all the optional advance rules. Purposely make a bad move or two if they’ll demonstrate an important mechanic. Don’t throw the game, but make sure the new players are getting it, having fun, and have a chance of success.

If you got new games for Christmas and you’re going back to school next week, become a gaming ambassador this semester. Find new people with whom you can share the great hobby of board games. And if they’re really keen, then start to talk to them about RPGs and things a little bit more advanced than Monopoly.

From September 3, 2013, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Back to School Tips for Gamers.

Tags 4e, Back to School, board games, D&D, D&D Next, DnD Next, DnDNext, Dungeon's Master, Dungeons and Dragons, Greatest Hits 2013

Player Resources

Greatest Hits 2013: 6 Ws of Character Creation

Post author By Wimwick (Neil Ellis)
Post date December 26, 2013
3 Comments on Greatest Hits 2013: 6 Ws of Character Creation

It was a welcome treat to have Wimwick contribute a few articles in April when we were doing the A to Z Blogging Challenge. This article for the letter “W” really came at the right time. As more and more people participated in the D&D Next play testing we saw a lot of new characters during public play. If we were lucky, players took 2 or 3 of the Ws into account when making characters. But it was rare that they ever took all 6 into account.

Regardless of what edition you’re playing or even what RPG you’re playing, this article provides players with great points for developing a really interesting a well rounded character. By defining your PC as more than a race & class you’re bound to have even more fun playing him.

Wimwick’s suggestion to add the extra W for weapon was an especially good point. A Lot of players pick the weapon that does the most damage and don’t take “coolness” into account. They forget that the kind of weapon you wield says as much about your character as the other 5 Ws.

After you answer the 6 Ws, be sure to incorporate those details into the game as you play. These are the things that make your character unique so be sure to share those details. Make the character memorable for the entire table and not just for you. Encourage other players to put the same kind of thought into their own PCs, and if they need help getting started you can point them back to this article.

From April 26, 2013, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: 6 Ws of Character Creation.

Tags 4e, D&D, D&D Next, DnD Next, DnDNext, Dungeon's Master, Dungeons and Dragons, Greatest Hits 2013, Player Resources