Tag: Player Resources

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Editorial Player Resources Technology

Character Builder: Is It REALLY That Bad?

Last week I reflected on my initial reaction of the new web based version of Character Builder. Overall, I was not impressed and if you’d like the details feel free to read the post entitled Character Builder: Working As Intended. However, what I did not do was review the new version. My reaction and major complaint is that the new version just has too many bugs and the release should have been delayed. This does not mean that it doesn’t have any good features.

Today we look at the Legacy and Silverlight version of Character Builder. We’ll compare the two as I build a new level one character. The point here isn’t to point out problems with one or the other but to look at the differences in the process and determine if the Silverlight version is actually a step forward, bugs aside, from the Legacy version.

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Player Resources

27 Questions To Ask Your New Character

The character creation process is one of the most important steps at the beginning of any campaign. The choices you make will echo over the course of many levels. Making a truly memorable character requires you to make a lot of important choices. From race, class and attribute distribution all decisions will factor into the overall enjoyment of playing this character.

While the numbers and powers that describe your character are of great importance they are not the most important factors in the design process. The key to creating an engaging character is developing a back-story full of life and intrigue. This process isn’t easy and often takes more time than selecting powers and equipment.

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Player Resources

16 Feats Worth Selecting

I love building new characters. It doesn’t matter what level, I enjoy the challenge of creating interesting builds. Matching feats and powers to create powerful characters that can withstand anything thrown at them. I enjoy taking those characters and dreaming up a background story for them. Imbuing the raw numbers with life.

Recently I was messing about with Character Builder. My goal was to build as tough a Fighter as I possibly could. I decided on human for my race and I was going to build this character at level 30.

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Player Resources

D&D Encounters Season 3 Characters

D&D Encounters season 3 begins today. Using new rules from the D&D Essentials line, the season 3 adventure is a re-imagining of the D&D classic, Keep on the Borderlands. The adventure is broken into five chapters, each one running four weeks (yes, that’s a total of 20 weeks for those of you doing the math).

Players are encouraged to create their own characters using the new D&D Essentials rules found in the recently released Red Box. Wizards of the Coast hinted that Character Builder would be updated with the Essentials materials in time for everyone to make suitable PCs for D&D Encounters season 3. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. So unless you’ve picked up the Red Box and are happy making a character without character builder, then for at least the first week you’ll have to use one of the six pre-generated characters provided.

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Editorial Player Resources

7 Reasons I Love Living Forgotten Realms

On Wednesday you had the opportunity to read Buxtehude’s list of 7 Reasons I Hate Living Forgotten Realms (LFR). Today I present the other side of that argument. I happen to love LFR. I like the modular nature of the games. Knowing that every week it’s a totally self-contained adventure gives me the freedom to play when I can and not sweat it too much when I can’t. There’s certainly enough variety to keep everyone interested, whether LFR is your only D&D outlet or it’s just another game on your D&D dance card.

I deliberately did not weigh in on any of the discussion generated from Wednesday’s article. Instead I wanted to wait until I had my chance to run this article. So for everyone who was hurt or offended by Wednesday’s post or for those who can’t imagine how I can support LFR in any way, shape or form, here are 7 Reasons I Love Living Forgotten Realms.

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Editorial Player Resources

7 Reasons I Hate Living Forgotten Realms

Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) is a series of organized game-play sanctioned by the RPGA. The “Living” in Living Forgotten Realms represents a framework for D&D games that allows players all over the world to participate in adventures using the same guidelines. Some people love LFR and others hate it. I happen to fall about as far into the hate it camp as you can get. Today I’m going to share 7 reasons I dislike LFR so much. But don’t worry, for those of you who enjoy LFR, Ameron will be providing the flip-side of this discussion on Friday when he provides 7 reasons that he loves LFR.

I originally wanted to call this article “Why I Hate Living Forgotten Realms: A Terrible Culture of Play” but I thought that might be too inflammatory. I also though it might lead some readers to believe that I’m suggesting everyone abandon LFR, which is absolutely not the case. This article is based on my personal experiences with LFR. It’s “Why I Hate LFR” and not “Why You Should Hate LFR” so keep that in mind when you leave your comments.

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Player Resources

Character Creation Tips – D&D The Next Generation

Think of the most memorable characters that have made appearances at your gaming table over the years. Don’t let this trip down memory lane be restricted to just the characters you played. Think about all of the PCs that have made an impact to your D&D experience. Now assume that many years have past – enough that these characters have settled down and raised families. What is the next generation of heroes like?

I find that creating characters is one of the most exciting parts of D&D. However, creating a character from scratch presents the player with a lot of options. So many that the task can be overwhelming unless you have a good idea of what you want this character to be like before you open character builder. Once you have that initial idea or concept the rest of the process becomes a lot easier.

The next time you and your gaming group decide it’s time to build new characters why not create the next generation of D&D heroes? Think of all the characters that have graced your gaming table over the years. Now imagine what their children are like? You know the parents, how have they influenced and shaped who their kids became?

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Book Reviews

Open Game Table 2

Last week I received my copy of Open Game Table 2 in the mail. For those of you not familiar with this publication it’s a collection of great articles from around the blogsphere that highlight the best in gaming. There is a lot of D&D stuff in here but it’s not exclusive to D&D.

From Blog to Book

Creating OGT2 was a collaborative and interactive process. The articles selected for inclusion in OGT2 were done so after after a long and arduous vetting process. Anyone and everyone was invited to submit the URL of their favourite online gaming article for consideration in the OGT2. There were 376 submissions.

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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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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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