Tag: D&D

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Checks vs. Skill Challenges

“I know you guys write a lot about skill challenges at Dungeon’s Master. What I’m wondering is, what is the difference between a series of skill checks and a skill challenge? If I fail a skill check I’ve failed, but the skill challenge allows the party to make multiple mistakes and still succeed. It seems to me that the individual skill check is the tougher scenario, so why do we have skill challenges?”

An excellent question recently raised by one of our readers. I’ve played far too many scenarios where I’ve asked myself the questions “How does this skill check or skill challenge add value to the campaign? How is the story being advanced?” In short, things just seemed tacked on. I’ve also played too many adventures that had a series of skill checks required, but no skill challenge attached. It’s left me questioning the point of these skill checks? Could the eventual goal be reached another way?

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Editorial

A DM’s Debut: The Story of a First Time GenCon Judge

While Ameron and I were at GenCon we met a lot of other players and DMs. Some of these folks were very experienced and others were coming to D&D for the first time. One experienced DM judging at GenCon for the first time was Shawn O’Leary. We played at his table during our first crack at the D&D Convention Delve. After the adventure we shamelessly plugged our website and asked Shawn if he’d be interested in writing an article for Dungeon’s Master about being a first time DM at GenCon. Shawn was kind enough to take us up on our offer and today we’re happy to share Shawn’s experiences with you.

I’ve been a Dungeon Master for a long time. The first RPG I ran as the DM was D&D, of course. I can’t recall if I started with the blue box or the red box but D&D started it all for me. After that there was Gamma World and then various other role playing games published by TSR such as Marvel Super Heroes and Star Frontiers. But my favorite game, first and foremost, was and still is Dungeons & Dragons.

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Adventure Hooks DM Resources

Adventure Hooks: Welcome to the Sun & Moon Tavern (Part 1)

If you’re sitting in a tavern and a mysterious Wizard with grey robes and a pointy hat approaches and starts talking about a job offer don’t accept. You should ignore him and curse your DM. This is one of the most boring and overused ways to begin an adventure. Unless your DM is running his very first game, this should never be an acceptable adventure hook. In D&D, a tavern is a social place full of activity and interesting characters. Relying on this kind of boring stereotype is completely unacceptable.

While rummaging through an old stack of papers I stumbled across notes from an old campaign. As I looked them over a series of adventure hooks caught my attention. The notes were in my printing but I had no memory of writing them (probably because they were at least 15 years old). Although the ideas were from a previous edition of D&D many of the adventuring hooks still held a lot of promise. I realized that with just a little bit of editing these hooks would work in 4e D&D (and make a great blog post). After all, the last Adventuring Hooks article we ran was called The Town Meeting and that was over a year ago.

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Dark Sun Editorial

D&D Encounters Dark Sun (Week 11)

As Fury of the Wastewalker chapter 3 began the party was captured by savage Halflings. Among the captives were some new faces as players were encouraged to create their own PCs. How will these new adventurers work with the pre-generated characters? Let’s find out.

Our numbers held steady at nine. Not enough players to run two tables but more than enough for a normally balanced encounter. For the second week in a row, our DM agreed to run the encounter with a party of eight.

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Skill Challenges

Skill Challenges Without Skills

Skill challenges carry the narrative of the story forward in a manner that includes the players in the telling. Through participation in skill challenges players can work with the DM to craft the story. While the DM holds the power of the overall direction of the story by creating the challenge, players control the tiny details by how they react to the situation and what skills they use to overcome the obstacles presented. It’s a great collaborative system that ends up being a win-win.

Of course skill challenges have a drawback. Players often pigeonhole themselves into decisions based on what skills are presented on their character sheet. Worse, many players only fully consider those skills that they are trained in. All this leads to some very boring skill challenges where players decide what skill to use to complete the challenge, rather than deciding on an action that creates role playing opportunities.

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Player Resources

Creating A Character Around A Concept

Character concepts come from a myriad of sources. Sometimes we take an idea that is tried, tested and true. On other occasions we branch out and try new builds. Of course loading up Character Builder and looking for the optimal combination of class, race and feats can be a lot of fun and very satisfying.

For many character concepts we draw inspiration for a variety of sources. Whether this is fiction, personality quirks, or mastery of a weapon this single concept can lead to a deep and complex character.

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Editorial Player Resources

The 2010 D&D Open Championship

Last weekend at GenCon a new champion was crowned at the D&D Open Championship. Regretfully it was not us. We didn’t even make it to the finals, which was sorely disappointing. However, we still had a lot of fun playing and a lot of fun preparing for the competition. We like to think of this as a learning experience and want to share our findings with you.

This year’s Championship was an adventure called A Hole in the World. Five level 25 pre-generated PCs, were provided. Each team had to complete five encounters, each encounter with a 45-minute time limit. If you didn’t complete an encounter in 45 minutes you were eliminated. If the party decided to take an extended rest you were eliminated. It was designed to challenge the best and most experienced D&D players and it certainly did just that.

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Editorial

What Makes An Encounter Legendary?

Five hours. One Encounter. A near total party kill. Three characters only one strike away from death. One character dead.

The DM began the encounter by taunting us. “You’re the ninth party I’ve run this adventure for since GenCon started and so far none of them have survived past the first encounter.” He continued his challenge by saying “This is by far the most difficult encounter I have ever seen in any LFR adventure.”

That did it. The players were committed, hook, line and sinker. We were going to complete this encounter even if it killed us. And it almost did.

The events of that night beg the question, what makes an encounter legendary?

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DM Resources

The DM Is The Key

GenCon has come and gone. In its absence is the burning desire to play D&D 24/7. Since that isn’t a reality that is going to come into being any time soon, I want to look at the one element that every D&D session needs in order to progress. The DM is the key essential ingredient that all D&D games need. There may be plenty of players but without the DM they have nothing to do.

With this said, my thanks to all the DMs, not only the ones who ran sessions I attended at GenCon. You made the experience great. This isn’t to say each gaming experience was perfect or that each DM was perfect. For the record I am actively looking for blue lightning as I write this article.

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Dark Sun Editorial

D&D Encounters Dark Sun (Week 10)

GenCon is over and now it’s time to get back to our regularly scheduled D&D game. After a two week absence I was back at D&D Encounters on Wednesday night. With our numbers dwindling week after week I wasn’t sure if we’d need more than one table. While I was on the road to Indianapolis last week only six people managed to make it out for D&D Encounters Dark Sun week 9. I was ready to DM this week, but happy to jump into the role of player if there was only one table.

We waited an extra 15 minutes before starting, but in the end we had only nine people – not quite enough for two tables. The other DM decided to run a super encounter with an expanded party. So we got things in order and prepared to play with eight players. All of the pre-gens were represented as well as Yuka 2 and Phye 2 (which I played).

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