In the last article we dealt with the Next Steps in campaign design, today we’ll discuss various campaign settings, historical periods, novels and talk about the themes that exist within the fantasy genre. This is my favourite part of design as it’s where you get to really dream about the different possibilities. Make sure you have your notebook handy and any of the Resources that you’ve collected to help you along the way. You’re bound to have more than a few flash insights at moments that you aren’t actively working on your campaign world and you’ll want to jot them down for future use.
Tag: Dungeon’s Master
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Avoiding Death (Part 2)
In Avoiding Death, Part 1 we covered these five recommendations for how to avoid needless character death.
- Don’t chase monsters
- Know you character
- Check for traps every time
- Take a short break
- Pay attention
Now we’re going to add five more ideas to the list. Most of these tips rely on you keeping your cool and not doing anything stupid. Sometimes that can be harder than you think.
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Is A Blog Right For Your Game?
The advent of technology has had a large impact on the RPG community. I can still remember several years ago pulling my laptop out for my regular Sunday night game. I explained I’d found a new mapping program I wanted to use for the game. That was the beginning of Maptools for my group and we haven’t looked back.
It seems everyone is getting in on the digital action. Even Wizards of the Coast has jumped on the digital initiative with DDI. It simply the next step in gaming.
Yesterday on At Will Gamefiend wrote about Branching in skill challenges. This is a way to add to the complexity of skill challenges to make them fresh and interesting. At the end of his article he mentioned Nesting as the next in the series.
The skill challenge below entitled Information Gamble is one we’ve been working on for some time. It incorporates some of what Gamefiend mentions about branching and so its release today ties in nicely with the discussion about skill challenges. The sub-challenge contained within the main challenge may also be what Gamefiend refers to as Nesting. I’m looking forward to his next article as I feel that there is a lot of room for skill challenges to grow and evolve.
Information Gamble
The PCs are attempting to learn some information from an NPC. During the conversation they learn the NPC has a weakness for gambling.
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Campaign Design: Resources
Ethan the rogue worked patiently on the lock. Never before had he experienced a lock of this complexity. Adjusting his thieves tools slightly he disabled one of the magical wards. With sweat dripped from his brow he was aware of Braddoc standing over his shoulder ready to break the door down with brute force. “Back off Braddoc” the rogue said, “if this wizard has half the treasure we’ve been told of we can’t risk you setting off an explosion!” With that said Ethan made a few final adjustments and click. Turning the door handle Ethan opened the door of the chamber. Inside stacked on shelves were the wizard’s tomes, countless millennia of knowledge.
Before you begin the quest of designing your own campaign world it would be wise to equip yourself with the appropriate resources. Just as your Fighter wouldn’t go into battle without his armour and trusty sword, neither should you wade into the task of campaign design without an arsenal of tools to assist you.
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Avoiding Death (Part 1)
I think it’s fair to say that everyone who plays D&D has experienced character death at some point. Hopefully your character has gone down swinging or sacrificed himself in such a way that people will be telling and retelling the story for years to come. But in reality I think we all know that more often than not character death is the result of someone (often the character himself) doing something stupid.
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Campaign Design: An Introduction
Welcome to the Dungeon’s Master series on Campaign Design. This series will be available on a weekly basis to help new and experienced Dungeon Masters to design their own Campaign Settings. Throughout this series we’ll look at the various challenges and complexities associated with creating your campaign world.
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Welcome to Dungeon’s Master
Welcome, we’re glad you made it. Dungeon’s Master is the newest blog on all things related to 4e Dungeons & Dragons. We want you to have as much fun as possible when you play D&D, and we’re going to offer resources dedicated to assisting DMs and players accomplish this goal.
Who are we?
The team here at Dungeon’s Master has been playing D&D together for over 20 years. During that time we’ve often engaged in heated discussions about the game and shared ideas on how to improve it. We realized that if we’ve got questions about D&D that other gamers probably have similar questions. So we’ve decided to take our discussions, opinions and ideas public and share them with you. We hope that you find our ideas helpful and that you’ll share some of your own with us and the community at large.
Content
What exactly can you expect from Dungeon’s Master?
- Skill Challenges. There is no denying that Wizards of the Coast dropped the ball regarding skill challenges. We’re picking that ball up and running with it. We’ve got skill challenges like you’ve never seen them before. You’ll hear more on skill challenges from Ameron tomorrow.
- Campaign Design. We’ve putting together a series on campaign design where you’ll find tips for anyone creating their own game world. It’s designed to help everyone from the beginner to the most experienced DM.
- Original Modules. Every 4 to 6 weeks we’ll be bringing you a new original module create by the team at Dungeon’s Master. The campaign design series will tie in and reference the modules that we release.
- Class Enhancements. Why wait for the PHB2 or Arcane Powers? Why limit yourself to Martial Powers? We’ll be bringing forward new ideas relating to all the classes.
- Humour. Every now and then we’ll throw in something funny. I’ve never met a gamer that doesn’t like to laugh. Laugh along with us as we share our experiences, mistakes and blunders.
- Editorial Commentary. We’ll share our opinions on the state of the game. You’ll be privy to our thoughts, opinions and ideas regarding the state of D&D today. You may not always agree with what we have to say, and we welcome your feedback.
Updates
We will be publishing a lot of new original content. In fact we’re going to bring you new content every single day for the next month. I know we picked the shortest month of the year to launch, but 28 days of great content is nothing to laugh at. It’s a virtual dragon’s horde of new ideas.
We hope you enjoy the content we’ll be bringing you and that you’ll share in the journey with us.
The Dungeon’s Master team,
Ameron, Suddry and Wimwick.
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Module: The Magistrate’s Daughter
The team at Dungeon’s Master is proud to release their first module, The Magistrate’s Daughter. This module is designed for first level PCs and starts an adventure path that will see the PCs through to level 30.
The module is in zip format, the contents of the zip are the module pdf and 6 maps. The maps are differentiated as DM and non-DM maps. The DM maps show NPC placement. The maps can be re-printed for your use.
We look forward to releasing future modules and would enjoy your feedback.
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Launching Soon
Dungeon’s Master will be launching on Feb 1, 2009.
When we launch you will have access to a variety of Dungeons & Dragons tools and resources for both DMs and Players.
At launch we will be providing articles on Skill Challenges, World Crafting, and Class Diversification. Additionally, it’s our intention to provide a new original module every 4 – 6 weeks. Toss in product reviews and other articles relevant to the state of the game and you’ll quickly realize that Dungeon’s Master is a premier D&D destination.
Please bookmark the site and return back on Feb 1, 2009. Also subscribe to the RSS feed.