Tag: Dungeons and Dragons

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Editorial

Ameron’s D&D Bucket List

Last week John Arcadian over at Gnome Stew posted the article Bucket Lists For Players and Characters. The article encourages players to create a bucket lists for their character in order to help define their motivation. This in turn can help the DM come up with cool and interesting adventures that will really excite the players around the gaming table. He also suggests that players themselves should have gaming-related bucket lists as well for pretty much the same reason. This is a fantastic idea and one that I’m jealous I didn’t think of myself.

Although I didn’t think of this idea I’m still going to run with it (after giving credit where credit is due). Today I’m going to share my bucket list. These are all the things that I’ve always wanted to do as a player under the D&D umbrella. My list doesn’t have anything specific to one character or another (because that would be boring for readers who don’t know my specific characters). Instead these are general things that could be accomplished by just about any character.

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Adventures

When PCs Fight Each Other – Fourthcore Team Deathmatch

Have you ever looked around the gaming table and tried to imagine what it would be like to have your character face off against the other characters rather than more monsters? I’ll admit that I do it all the time. I don’t necessarily think that I’d do very well one-on-one unless a number of random factors fell my way (winning initiative, having cover or higher ground, facing off against an opponent whose attacks deal damage of the same type as my best resistance, etc.), but as I look to the other PCs in my party I’ve often thought that as a team we could take any other team of PCs. Fourthcore Team Deathmatch turns this random musing into reality. It’s a forum where we can finally and definitively find out whose best at D&D and crown a winner.

I discovered Fourthcore Team Deathmatch by accident when I was registering for events for this summer’s GenCon. The description sounded exciting and after a quick visit to their website to get more details I was sold.

The Fourthcore Team Deathmatch (FTDM) is a contest of skill, wits, and luck. FTDM is about winning D&D. Small teams of dungeoneers are pitted against each other in a no-holds-barred frenzy of carnage in a team-based, player-vs-player competition.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Web of the Spider Queen (Week 4)

After the heroes defeated the Drow Totemist, her Archer companions and the Skeletons from last week they took a hard-earned short rest to tend to their wounds and catch their breath. Without warning a flash of light filled the room and two figures appeared from out of nowhere.

The PCs recognized one of them as Khara Sulwood (whom they’d met at the Old Skull Inn a few hours earlier). The other figure, a male Elf, turned to Khara and upon seeing her discomfort after materializing said smugly, “Never teleported before?”

Khara took a deep breath before replying “No. Elminster could have at least warned us he was going to do that.” She looked around and upon recognizing the PCs said, “Wait. I recognize you. You were at the inn. Are you the other one following Elminster’s call?”

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DM Resources

Be a Good DM: Show Me, Don’t Tell Me

“Show me, don’t tell me.” It’s some of the best advice I ever received when I was taking creative writing courses. This is a way of letting the reader draw their own conclusion about what’s happening rather than the storyteller hitting them over the head with blunt and direct descriptive terms. It’s good advice for writers and it’s good advice for DMs.

The best DMs I’ve played with are masters of “show me, don’t tell me” even if they don’t realize that they’re doing it. The key is in the details. When you’re trying to convey emotion don’t just say “The man was sad,” describe the character and the body language and let the players draw their own determination of the NPC’s mood. “Although most people think the man at the next table is passed out, you can just make out the sounds of soft whimpering and sniffing as tears no doubt rolled down his hidden face.”

Describing the scene in this way requires a lot of little details. It takes longer to write and longer to read. You need to decided when it’s worth slowing things down to add these details and when it’s better to just tell it like it is. There’s no hard and fast rule, it’s something that comes with practice and experience.

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Player Resources

Taking a TPK Like a Man

It doesn’t happen often, but when it happens it really sucks – a Total Party Kill or TPK. In 4e it’s incredibly hard for DMs to kill just one character in a party. I’ve seen plenty of PCs fall unconscious but usually the leader has them back in action before they even need to make a death save or an adjacent ally makes a Heal check and triggers their second wind. Worse case scenario they stay down until the encounter is over and then they get the benefits of a short rest. Before you know it they’re on their feet and ready to face more monsters. The only way to guarantee that characters die is for the DM to wipe out everyone with a TPK. After all, if no one’s left to face the remaining monsters once the last guy falls unconscious it stands to reason that those same monsters will take necessary steps to ensure you don’t get back up… ever.

Because the TPK is (or should be) a rarity in D&D it’s understandable that many players are not really sure what do to when they see the writing on the wall. I realized this when we were face-to-face with an inevitable TPK just this week during D&D Encounters. Players can react very different to this situation so I felt it was a good idea to document so ground rules and suggested behaviours that all players should be mindful of when their PC falls unconscious, or worse yet, is just one of the dominos falling in the impending TPK.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Web of the Spider Queen (Week 3)

After taking a pretty severe beating from the Drow last week, the party took a short rest to lick their wounds. Once they were healed up they quickly searched the Twisted Tower for any signs of the Pendent of Ashaba. All evidence suggested that the Drow came, stole the item, and then left through the cellar door with it. The PCs immediately began their pursuit.

Our numbers at my FLGS continue to hold steady at 14; two DMs with six players are each table. My group was back down to the original six. The party was badly wounded after last week’s ugliness and most were dangerously low on healing surges. Here’s the party breakdown along with their current number of healing surges.

  • Drow Wizard (Bladesinger) [3/8]
  • Drow Rogue #1 [4/7 ]
  • Drow Fighter [12/14]
  • Drow Druid [6/9]
  • Drow Rogue #2 [4/6]
  • Drow Cleric [4/9]
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DM Resources

Staying Alive: 8 Ways to Keep Wounded PCs in the Game

One of my biggest issues with D&D is the five-minute work day. This is when PCs expend all their best powers and burn through their healing surges so quickly that they’re useless unless they take an extended rest. The game is designed for PCs to have four or more encounters before they should need to take an extended rest but I suspect that many DMs rarely push through more than four encounters before calling it a day. However, there will be times when this just isn’t possible – either because it doesn’t make sense given how the story is progressing or the printed adventure doesn’t allow it. In these cases the DM may need to get creative to keep the PCs alive until the end of the day.

Assuming the PCs can still take short rests then output isn’t usually a big deal if the party continues on past four encounters. Sure they may not have those awesome daily powers at their disposal into the fifth encounter but they will have all their cool encounter powers. It’s healing surges that usually become the biggest problem.

Strikers generally have the fewest surges to begin with, and unless the player has a reasonable Constitution score or the Durability feat they’ll run out of surges quickly. What makes the problem worse is that as soon as monsters (intelligent monsters anyway) see a striker mowing through their ranks they’ll target the biggest threat (the striker). Unless you’ve got advantageous tactics or a decent defender at your side, strikers end up taking damage every fight.

So what’s a DM to do when this kind of thing happens? How do you keep a wounded party in the game and convince the players to push those PCs forward? It may just be a game, but players get emotionally attached to their PCs quickly and no one wants to enter a combat encounter knowing that their PC is likely to die. It’s a delicate situation that requires some careful manipulation. The key is not to do so in such a way that it insults the players or belittles the game mechanic. Players want to do well but they don’t want the DM to just give them an easy, unearned victory. It’s a real balancing act and here are 8 suggested ways to pull it off.

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Month in Review

Month in Review: May 2012

May was a busy month at Dungeon’s Master. Despite our reduced publishing schedule we still showed great numbers and continue seeing upward trends. Running previews of the new D&D Encounters and Lair Assault certainly helped.

As the Dungeon’s Master home game moved into epic tier, so to does the focus of many of our articles. With the inevitable launch of D&D Next in the not-too-distant-future many of us are trying to get some epic play in before we shift to the new edition. With very few other blogs writing about playing in the epic tier we are becoming the place to visit for high level inspiration. Please let us know if there are any aspects of epic adventuring that you’d like us to focus on.

A lot of the gaming blogs are writing about D&D Next. Although we are participating in the play-testing we have decided to keep our comments and feedback on the new D&D to a minimum for now. We developed our core audience by being the place to go for 4e materials online. We intend to keep that audience happy by focusing on 4e and proving fresh new material for ongoing 4e campaigns. Many of our articles are edition-neutral and can easily be applied to whatever version of D&D you’re playing, including D&D Next, so if you’re fully engrossed in D&D Next we’re confident that you’ll still find many or our articles helpful. However, in the short-term we are staying true to our roots and focusing the majority of our effort on writing about 4e.

We’d like to thank everyone for visiting Dungeon’s Master in May. We saw a lot of new people commenting last month and we hope they continue to share their thoughts and feedback. We value your opinion and want to hear what you have to say. Remember that you can always email us (our email addresses are on the about page) if you have any questions or have an idea for an article.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Web of the Spider Queen (Week 2)

In the streets of Shadowdale Drow warriors still fought the locals. The party just finished securing the Old Skull Inn and searching the bodies of the fallen Drow. The Bladesinger then felt a magical energy flash through his body and a voice speak to him alone. “This is Elminster, and I’m somewhat busy with these Drow. They no doubt want the Pendant of Ashaba. Go retrieve it from the Twisted Tower.”

This week we ran two tables at my FLGS. My table had seven players while the other had six. I’m usually reluctant to run tables with more than six players because the encounter tends to take a lot longer, but our extra player was the friend of a regular visiting from out of town so I was ok with it. The party consisted of the following PCs.

  • Drow Fighter
  • Drow Paladin
  • Drow Rogue #1
  • Drow Rogue #2
  • Drow Druid
  • Drow Wizard (Bladesinger)
  • Drow Cleric

In order to encourage good role-playing and teamwork I let the table know that I decided to award magical treasure a little bit differently than they were used to. Rather than roll randomly for an item and the have the party fight and argue over it I would choose an outstanding player for the night and they could choose any one item of the list that was suitable for their character. If more than one player had a good night I’d have all eligible players roll off. This was my subtle way of letting the players know that if they couldn’t behave they wouldn’t get magic items. I wish I’d have thought of this idea years ago because everyone relay brought their A-game this week.

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Player Resources

Playing Drow Part 2 – Know Where You Came From

One of the toughest parts of role-playing a non-human character is to give that PC a distinct cultural identity. We often play ever character of every race as if they were born and raised in the Human world. For many races this isn’t a big deal because their societies will parallel Humans’ in many ways. However, Drow are very different from Humans and this should be reflected in the way they are played.

Although your character is an individual and you have the freedom to play him as you see fit, it’s important to consider his upbringing and how that has shaped his personality and attitudes. He might have forsaken his heritage to become an adventurer, but if he was raised in Drow society there are a lot of little details that you should keep in mind when running him. Use these differences to make your Drow stand out from the Elves and Humans in the party.

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