Tag: Player Resources

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Month in Review

Month in Review: July 2012

It was another strong month here at Dungeon’s Master. We covered a wide variety of topics including sex and drugs in D&D, Wheaton’s Law, social media, essential RPG books and of course D&D Encounters. If you missed any of our articles from July than now is the time to get caught up. We’ve provided links below to everything we posted in July along with a brief description of each.

Our readership increased in July thanks to a couple of controversial articles and some amazing Star Wars pre-gens for D&D Encounters. We want to thank everyone who visited our site last month, especially those of you who comment regularly. Your feedback lets us know if we’re doing a good job and the overwhelming majority of comments are usually quite positive. Please keep reading and please keep providing your comments and questions.

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Editorial Player Resources

Never Leave a Man Behind

Pop quiz: Your ally just took massive damage and fell unconscious, what do you do? If you’re the leader this is an easy one; use one of your healing powers and revive your fallen comrade. If you’re any other role your answer had better not be leave him for the leader. When a PC falls during combat it’s everyone’s responsibility to bring him back into the fight – not just the leader. Admittedly the leader is usually the one that can revive unconscious PCs easiest and fastest, but you’re part of a party, a team, and everyone should look out for one another. Don’t shrug your obligation to your teammates and let a dying ally make death save after death save while you keep fighting.

Now I know there will be times when it might make more sense for the striker to keep attacking or for the defender to just keep the bad guy locked down, especially if either of them has an incredibly low Heal check, but these should be the exceptions. Regardless of circumstance unconscious PCs should not be forgotten or ignored. Dismissing your dying ally is the same as leaving him behind.

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Editorial Player Resources

Don’t Be a Dick – 4 Tips for Following Wheaton’s Law

I’ve been gaming a long time and for the most part I’ve had very positive experiences. This is especially true when it comes to public-play gaming. The people who come out to my FLGS to play D&D Encounters, Lair Assault, LFR, D&D Game Day, Free RPG Day, or just a pick-up game are for the most part really good people. I’ve found this to be true when I’ve gone to conventions as well. Gamers in generally are pretty good people who enjoy the hobby and want to have fun.

However, every now and then you get a player that is the exception. In some cases they’re genuinely trying to be extra helpful and come off as the Gaming Jerk, and in other cases their inexperience and lack of gaming protocol leads them to step over the line. At the end of the day it’s important to follow Wheaton’s Law: Don’t be a dick! Obviously, no one comes to the gaming table planning to break Wheaton’s Law but it happens. Regrettably I’m seeing it happen more often so I felt it was time to help the newer players by sharing a few words of wisdom and providing four tips on how to avoid breaking Wheaton’s Law.

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D&D Encounters Player Resources

Star Wars Pre-Gens for D&D Encounters

Belgos, Brandis, Fargrim, Jarren, Keira, Valenae. If you’ve played D&D Encounters over the past year or so than you know these six heroes better than you know your own mother – well, maybe not that well, but they hold few surprises any more. Wizards of the Coast provided copies of these pre-gens with every season of D&D Encounters since March of the Phantom Brigade five seasons ago. This was an intentional and deliberate decision on their part to encourage players to create their own characters. However some players prefer to play the pre-gens and have been clamouring for more. Since Wizards isn’t providing new pre-gens it falls to us, the fans, to create our own new ones.

In our Pre-Generated Character Library we’ve collected all of the official pre-gens and posted many fan-made pre-gens to expand your options. Today we add nine new Star Wars themed pre-gens to the library. These are courtesy of Andrew Asplund and Tales from the Gamer Viceroy.

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Month in Review

Month in Review: June 2012

After a fantastic Canada Day long weekend we bring you the Month in Review for June (better late than never). Although June was one of the leanest months since we launched Dungeon’s Master we made up in quality what we lacked in quantity.

Our articles on minions, TPKs and Ameron’s D&D bucket list all generated discussion and got a lot of excellent comments. Our ongoing coverage of what some are calling the most deadly season of D&D Encounters since Dark Sun is also generating a lot of buzz. Throw in a D&D web comic and you get a pretty good idea of what we were up to in June.

We want to thank all of our readers for visiting Dungeon’s Master in June. We realize that a lot of people are play-testing D&D Next but we like to think that most of our articles are edition neutral and will still apply to your campaign regardless of what edition you play. So be sure to keep visiting and keep commenting.

If you missed any of the great articles from last month than this is your chance to get caught up.

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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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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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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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Editorial Player Resources

When the Plus (+) No Longer Matters

When an adventurer begins his career he’s always looking for magical treasure. Even in a magic-rich setting a +1 sword is a coveted item. As the character advances he will seek more items with even higher plusses. After all why stick with a +1 sword when you can have a +2 sword? But eventually the plus no longer matters. Believe it or not there comes a time when the player realizes that the plus isn’t the most important part of a magic item. Eventually an item’s power or ability is deemed more integral to the character than one more plus.

Our home campaign recently moved into the epic tier. During a recent adventure the heroes completed a major story arc and were rewarded with treasure suitable to their level as well as a level 30, +6 bow. Although two characters in the party use bows and both currently have +4 bows neither player was interested in the item. They were content to keep their level 17 and 18 weapons respectively than trade up for a level 30 magic item. These are players that are among the greediest I’ve ever played with (and I mean that as a compliment) yet they both felt that it severed their character better to keep their current +4 bows than trade up for a +6 replacement. In both cases it was because of the importance of the power their current weapons gave them.

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D&D Encounters Player Resources

Lair Assault: Attack of the Tyrantclaw – Round-up

The third Lair Assault has almost run its course and we finally got a chance to run a few sessions at my FLGS. I’m going to assume by now that anyone who is interested in Lair Assault has already played Attack of the Tyrantclaw. That being the case this article will contain a lot of spoilers so that I can speak to direct problems, issues, and tactics. Hopefully it will help DMs who plan to run this adventure again and it will inspire players who haven’t yet defeated the Orcs on Dinosaurs.

There was plenty of interest in playing this season but we had a lot of trouble arranging a time that worked for all of our regulars. By the time we finally got around to playing it was mid-April and the season was half over. But this actually turned out to be a good thing. As the DM for the first event I was able to search the internet for tips and tricks before I ran the first game and am I ever glad I did. Reading about some of the problems other tables experienced gave me time to review some of the rules and be ready to make the right call if similar situations occurred at my table.

Below are tips, tricks, and advice for players and DMs. We’ve also got recordings of three session of Lair Assault: Attack of the Tyrantclaw below for anyone who was unable to play this season themselves but wants to hear how much fun it was to fight Dinosaurs and try to survive. The first two sessions (which I ran as the DM) resulted in TPKs. The third session (in which I played) we won. Enjoy and good luck!

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