Tag: DM tools

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Adventure Builder Workshop: The Story

Story is the driving force behind any good movie. The movie can be loaded with action, special effects and an all star cast, but without a good story it falls flat. The same is true of your D&D campaign. You can craft the most intricate combat encounters, reward your players with the best treasure, but without a great story to tie it all together expect that your players may soon become bored and tired with the campaign.

This is the third instalment of the Adventure Builder’s Workshop that was held at GenCon this past August. The previous entries include information on the villain and creating locations.

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Adventure Builder Workshop: Location

Movies and television are great for portraying fantastic locations. I can still recall the sense of wonder I first felt when I saw the Argonath while watching The Fellowship of the Ring. With equal wonder I recall the first time I saw Naboo and the massive waterfall that cascaded away from the city. These two scenes fill me with wonder and a sense of adventure. Of course movies and television have the advantage of being primarily visual mediums. As a DM we use words more than visuals, this doesn’t mean we are limited in what locations we portray to our players. We are merely limited by our imaginations.

This is the second in a series that focuses on the Adventure Builder Workshop held at GenCon this past August. The first in the series focused on the villain, today we turn our attention to locations.

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Adventure Builder Workshop: The Villain

Every adventure has a purpose and more often than not that purpose is stopping the villain from completing their malevolent agenda. The central villain of an adventure is perhaps one of the most important design decisions a DM makes. If the appropriate time and effort is put into designing the villain, the rest of the adventure will form around him, creating memories you and your players will remember for years. However, if you don’t take the appropriate time to craft your villain you may find your adventure sessions shallow and lacking a clear sense of purpose.

What was the Fellowship without the evil of Sauron and the One Ring? Sherlock Holmes has Professor Moriarty as a nemesis and Batman has the Joker. All of these villains provided the requisite motivation to keep the hero working towards the success of his quest or mission.

This is part one of a series based on the Adventure Builder Workshop held at GenCon this year. Part one will focus on the villain, what you will receive in this series is a breakdown of the seminar that was led by Rodney Thompson from Wizards of the Coast. Earlier in August I posted a high level review of the Adventure Builder Workshop, what this series will do is go into much greater detail about the individual sections.

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Editorial Skill Challenges

The Challenge Of Writing Skill Challenges

While attending GenCon this year I had a eureka moment. Or to be more precise, the sky parted, a brilliant ray of light shone down, I turned to Ameron and said, “We’re already doing that!” This was in response to almost every hand in the room going up in the air when Bill Slavicsek asked if people wanted more skill challenges during the Dungeons & Dragons preview seminar.

At Dungeon’s Master we love skill challenges. We enjoy writing them, dreaming them up and talking about them. Our archive has over 30 skill challenges and many related articles for the community to use and adapt for their own campaigns.

The challenge that comes with writing a skill challenge for a general audience is how do we make it specific enough to be important, yet general enough that anyone can adapt it and use it? It’s a conundrum.

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

How Difficult Is It To Sneak Past A City Guard?

Assigning difficulty checks (DCs) for skill challenges can be a frustrating experience. Some checks have set DCs that are provided for the DM. Examples of this are traps and locks that have a predetermined level of difficulty. A skill check that doesn’t have such an obvious DC is Stealth for sneaking past a guard. Why is this check less obvious? Because it’s opposed by the guards passive Perception. The tougher the guard, the higher his Perception.

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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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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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Editorial

GenCon: D&D Adventure Builder’s Workshop

Every good DM enjoys dreaming up new campaigns, adventures and encounters. With this in mind I descended upon GenCon with the intent of attending the D&D Adventure Builder’s Workshop. I wanted to hear how the pros built encounters, how they designed their traps and what inspired their campaigns. I must say I wasn’t disappointed and while I didn’t get exactly what I was looking for, what I did get was that much better.

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DM Resources

The Problem With Assisting

Cruven – I use Arcana to investigate the origins of the portal in order to learn how we might vanquish the elder evil that has attacked the realm.

DM – Will anyone assist Cruven? The DC to assist is 17.

Dox – 29. I assist.

Jacinth – 25. I assist.

Luk – 17. I assist.

Josey – 18. I assist

Cruven – Ok, with four assists that’s +8 to my roll. My base is a 17, so I’m rolling on a 25. Here goes…

DM – Don’t bother. The DC is only 23 so with the assists you can’t fail this check.

How often has this happened at your gaming table? Assisting is a great way to help a PC out with a check that they might not make on their own. It’s a potentially game breaking mechanic if a PC is already highly proficient at a given skill. As the DM, how do you prevent reckless assist roles?

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DM Resources Player Resources

Embracing The Total Party Kill

It’s not something we like to think about, the death of the party, the end of the campaign. On occasion it is the right thing to do. Earlier this week we discussed Avoiding The Total Party Kill. This task falls jointly on the shoulders of the DM and the players. Embracing The Total Party Kill, falls on the players and is a decision that only they can make.

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