Tag: Dungeon’s Master

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Murder in Baldur’s Gate (Week 5)

murder-in-baldurs-gate-coverDuring the last session the PCs spent a few days investigating acts of vandalism throughout Baldur’s Gate including the theft of hands from numerous statues around the city. When the hands from the Beloved Ranger statue were stolen the PCs led the investigation to recover them. They eventually captured two young nobles and recovered the hands from the Ranger statue.

About two weeks had passed since the events of the last session. The PCs had already earned a good reputation as heroes after their role in the events that happened on Founder’s Day, but their part in the recovery of Minsk’s hands elevated their reputations even more.

This week at Harry T North in Toronto we ran two tables of D&D Next. One of our DMs couldn’t play this week and his group of six all agreed to just do a double session next week. Another DM ran a full table with his six regular players. I began with five players, but about 15 minutes into the session two more of our regulars showed up. So I ended up running a party of seven PCs: a Dwarf Fighter, Human Cleric, Half-Elf Paladin, Halfling Rogue, Elf Wizard, Human Monk and Elf Ranger.

We seem to have lost a few players over the past couple of weeks. I suspect that has something to do with everyone going back to school. I hope that as they get back into a regular routine we see them come back and possibly even bring a few friends to try our D&D. Most of my players read the weekly posts on this website and on the D&D forums so if they do return I know they’ll have a pretty good idea of what they’ve missed and we won’t have to spend a lot of time getting them caught up.

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Friday Favourites

Friday Favourite: Undead Make the Scariest Villains

On Friday we comb through our extensive archives to find an older article that we feel deserves another look. From January 12, 2011, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Undead Make the Scariest Villains.

Would you rather fight a beholder or a zombie? This is a much more complicated question than you might realize. Look at this through the eyes of your character and not through the eyes of a meta-gamer. In-character what is the scariest monster you can imagine? For me it’s undead more than any other.

Most monsters are, well, monstrous. They are clearly different than you and they must be destroyed. The beholder is an abomination. It’s scary, and a big party of what makes it scary is that it doesn’t conform to a physical shape you’re comfortable with. It’s a giant floating ball with eyestalks swirling about. Even if you’d never seen a beholder before and knew nothing about it, your initial instinct as an adventurer would be to attack and destroy something so awful.

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D&D Encounters D&D Next

D&D Encounters: Murder in Baldur’s Gate (Week 4)

murder-in-baldurs-gate-coverDuring the last session the PCs witnessed tensions grow in Baldur’s gate as sumptuary laws were implemented and the Watch and Flaming Fist officers began enforcing it. The PCs got caught up in a street brawl between Flaming Fist officers and a mob of angry Lower City residents. The Fist prevailed and the PCs escorted most of the troublemakers to Wyrm’s Rock for processing.

A few PCs split from the group and met with Rilsa Rael, a member of the Guild working out of Little Calimshan. She provided a different perspective of the recent events happening in Baldur’s Gate and suggested the PCs stop working for the Flaming Fist. She went on to ask them (again) to help her and the Guild do what was best for Baldur’s Gate.

This week at Harry T North in Toronto we had another large turnout. In addition to our many regulars we had 2 brand new players join in the fun. For the first time this season we actually had four DMs ready to run tables.

Since this season began I’ve run massive groups each week (9 players twice and 8 players once). In order to try and fix this problem and speed up our sessions we recruited a fourth DM. Players at the first two tables (6 each) were all punctual so they started on time. That left two DMs and 6 players. Normally I’d just group these folks together and run a table of 7, but we were still expecting as many as 6 more players so we waited.

After about 10 minutes we decided to begin with both DMs running tables of 3. After all, none of the players had called, texted, emailed or Tweeted that they’d be absent, and I didn’t want to start with a table of 7 and have it balloon up to 9 or more. Of course no more players showed up so I ended up running a small group of 3: Half-Elf Paladin, Dwarf Fighter and Human Cleric. You know if we’d started with 7 everyone else would have shown up. Oh well.

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DM Resources Friday Favourites

Friday Favourite: Time in D&D

On Friday we comb through our extensive archives to find an older article that we feel deserves another look. From April 7, 2010, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Time in D&D.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever created a level 1 PC, entered a dungeon, killed a bunch of monsters, gained a bunch of levels while still inside the dungeon and then realized that only a few weeks of actual in-game time passed when you emerge. I know I’m not the only one reading this that has his hand up.

Time in D&D is an aspect of the game I find is overlooked way too often. Tracking time in your game may not be that big a deal, but the longer you continue playing that same PC the more important time becomes.

So just how long does it take to go from level 1 to level 2? In 4e D&D it takes about 10-13 encounters or about four gaming sessions. But what I really want to know is how much time passes in-game between levels?

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D&D Encounters D&D Next

D&D Encounters: Murder in Baldur’s Gate (Week 3)

murder-in-baldurs-gate-coverThe PCs, working as agents of the Flaming Fist, closed down two gambling dens during last week’s adventure. During this week’s session they didn’t have any official duties so they took the opportunity to get to know the streets and landmarks of Baldur’s Gate a little better.

At Harry T North in Toronto we continue to see a fantastic turn out for D&D Encounters. We ran two tables, one with eight players and one with nine players. Our third DM knew he would be absent this week so he and his six players took the week off and plan to do a double session next week. Our fourth DM was unable to play this week so we proceeded with the massive tables.

My party was relatively unchanged from last week. Seven PCs returned, one player changed his character, and we had one brand new player. This is how the party shaped up in the end: two Elf Rangers, Human Cleric, Dwarf Fighter, two Human Monks, Half-Elf Paladin, Halfling Rogue, and Elf Mage.

Without any clear direction or orders this session, the PCs were free to do whatever they wanted. This seemed to throw the players off, but as the night progressed they got more into it. They decided to break into smaller groups as they each explored different areas of Baldur’s Gate.

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Player Resources

Back to School Tips for Gamers

Going to college was an opportunity for me, as a gaming and comic book nerd, to try and reinvent myself. I could be one of the cool kids if I wanted to be; after all no one knew me so I could try to pass myself off as anything I wanted. Good in theory, but I quickly realized that I’m a gamer and that I couldn’t change or hide that fact. Instead I took my first steps as a gaming ambassador. I shared my love of games – board games, card games and role-playing games – with all of the new people I met while I was away at school. The key was to ease people into it gaming and let them discover for themselves just how much fun gaming can be.

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DM Resources Friday Favourites

Friday Favourite: 5 Tips To Increase Role-Playing At Your Game Table

On Friday we comb through our extensive archives to find an older article that we feel deserves another look. From February 8, 2011, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: 5 Tips To Increase Role-Playing At Your Game Table.

Role-playing has featured prominently in several 4e blogs over the past few weeks. The topics and approaches to the subject have varied widely, from how to speed up combat to allow for more time to role-play to introducing new mechanics to encourage role-playing. Our own post on the 4th action is one of the later articles. The subject of role-playing in 4e has been of great debate since its release with many debating how much role-playing the edition allows.

Some have argued that skill challenges are the mechanic in 4e that facilitates role-playing. While skill challenges can certainly accomplish this task, to state that they are the only way to role-play in 4e is rather naive. I strongly believe that if your gaming group wants to role-play it will. I also believe that some players are more willing to embrace role-playing than others.

Role-playing can be an uncomfortable experience for some players. It requires taking on an alternate personality and sharing that with the rest of the game table. Included below are five tips that a DM can use to foster role-playing at the table.

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D&D Encounters D&D Next

D&D Encounters: Murder in Baldur’s Gate (Week 2)

murder-in-baldurs-gate-coverDuke Abdel Adrian is dead – killed in front of hundreds of witnesses while addressing the people of Baldur’s Gate on Founder’s Day. Fortunately a group of adventurers were on site and helped defeat the assassin before there was any other loss of life.

That’s how things began last week for the PCs. Following their spectacular heroics they were approached by three different people who wished to enlist their services while Baldur’s Gate tries to reestablish some sense of order in light of the Duke’s death. By night’s end they needed to decide which of the three offers seemed most appealing.

Last week at Harry T North in Toronto we had a lot of players and only 2 DMs. This week we were back up to 3 DMs but had even more players. The result was two tables of seven and one table of eight.

I ran the table of eight which included seven new players. None of them had ever played D&D Next, and three had never played any form of D&D. After letting them choose from the pre-generated characters, we ended up with the following PCs in the party: Half-Elf Paladin, Gnome Druid, Dwarf Fighter, Elf Mage, Human Monk, Halfling Rogue and two Elf Rangers.

I spent the first 30-40 minutes providing a recap of last week’s events and tried to offer an unbiased breakdown of what each of the three factions had revealed to the PCs during week 1. Eventually the PCs agreed to side with Marshal Ulder Ravengard of the Flaming Fist company. A few were leaning towards supporting Silvershiled, but they were eventually convinced to come on board.

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D&D Encounters D&D Next

D&D Encounters: Murder in Baldur’s Gate (Week 1)

murder-in-baldurs-gate-coverWe begin another season of D&D Encounters. Season 15 is called Murder in Baldur’s Gate and it’s part of Wizard of the Coast’s next big cross-over event, The Sundering. The Sundering will bring about changes that will transition the Forgotten Realms from 4e to D&D Next.

This past weekend Wizards encouraged FLGS that normally participate in D&D Encounters to run the Murder in Baldur’s Gate launch weekend adventure. This adventure is a prequel to this season of D&D Encounters. Fortunately I got a chance to play the launch weekend adventure at GenCon, as did a few others from my FLGS. However, my FLGS did not order the kits so players who were not at GenCon (which was most of them) didn’t play it. As it turned out, that was a good thing.

This season the weeks are divided into stages rather than sessions. The first stage is the Introductory Stage which we played this week. It begin by repeating the events of the lunch weekend, albeit it an abridged version, and then gave the PCs opportunities to meet with up to three significant NPCs. Anyone who played in the launch weekend and then showed up for D&D Encounters this week would have likely been bored having to do pretty much the same encounter twice.

This season the PCs will have a tremendous amount of freedom. The choices they make will have a direct impact on the story as it unfolds. There are no right or wrong choices, but the final outcome will be different depending on what choices each group makes along the way. For this reason we are going to try and have fixed tables this season keeping the same parties together whenever possible.

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Player Resources

In Anticipation of GenCon: 7 Reasons Why I’d Rather Be At GenCon

gencon-logo-01For those of you not lucky enough to be at GenCon 2013, I think you’ll find that Wimwick very accurately summed up his feelings of jealousy and longing in this post from our archives.

Originally published on August 5, 20011, Dungeon’s Master once again presents 7 Reasons Why I’d Rather Be At GenCon.

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