Tag: RPG Blog Carnival

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Editorial Player Resources

What’s In Your Backpack? A Healthy Dose of Reality

When it comes to fantasy role-playing there are a lot of things you have to just accept in order for the game to function. Magic exists. Dragons exist. Elves exist. I have no problems with any of these things. They may be fantastic but they’re familiar and acceptable. But when it comes to the amount of gear a typical adventurer can carry in his backpack many players believe that anything goes. This is not a fantasy that I’m willing to accept. There needs to be some common sense applied some of the time to D&D and for me the buck stops with your backpack.

The way I see it there are two real issues when it comes to the reality of your backpack: 1) How much can it hold, and 2) How easily you can grab something out of that backpack in the heat of combat. I have had way too many players push the boundaries of what is actually possible in both cases that I’ve had to introduce a house rule when it comes to equipment the first thing that goes into any character’s backpack is a healthy does of reality.

This month Game Knight Reviews wants to know “What’s in *your* backpack?” as part of the August RPG Blog Carnival. I expect we’ll see a lot of posts where people list off their favourite must-have items. Here at Dungeon’s Master we’ve decided to approach the discussion from a slightly different angle.

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Editorial

RPG Blog Carnival: Things to Love and Things to Hate About Healing Surges

This month’s RPG Blog Carnival is being hosted by Nevermeet Press. The topic is Things to Love, Things to Hate.

The Cleric has always been my favourite class in D&D. I’m not a spiritual person in real life but there’s something I’ve always found appealing when it comes to playing divine characters. I think a big part of it is knowing that my character has to very power of life and death in his hands. With just a thought he can call forth his deity’s power and heal wounds. Having this power, a power until 4e that was limited to divine character, is like having insurance that the rest of the characters don’t. No matter how bad things get I know that I can use my class powers to heal wounds and stay on my feet. This is not to say that I’m a selfish Cleric, but if I go down no one else gets healed which certainly makes a compelling argument for serving my own needs first.

In my opinion, the most significant improvements to the Cleric class in 4e was making the ability to heal a minor action, thereby allowing the Cleric to still participate in combat. Until 4e Clerics often did nothing but heal the wounded while all the other classes did amazing things. Not so with 4e. The combination of the healing surge mechanic and Healing Word as a minor action made Clerics a lot more powerful because they could be a lot more involved. This is a big reason why I still find Clerics among the best classes in 4e D&D. It’s also the reason that I choose healing surges as the focus for this article, my contribution to this month’s RPG Blog Carnival.

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DM Resources

RPG Blog Carnival: Toronto’s Underground PATH is a Fantastic Location

Everyday as I venture to work in downtown Toronto I make use of the PATH. The PATH is Toronto’s underground labyrinth of shops and corridors connecting office buildings, shopping centers and public transit together. In the summer it provides escape from the sunny surface streets and in the winter it is a much warmer alternative than walking through snow. Wandering the PATH is the closest I’ll ever come to exploring a real dungeon and it’s a great example of a fantastic location that can inspire any DM.

This month Keith Davies – In My Campaign hosts the RPG Blog Carnival. January’s topic is Fantastic Locations. In the Dungeons Master contribution to the blog carnival we’ll begin by taking you through the PATH before emerging to street level and exploring how to transform a regular location into something fantastic for your next campaign.

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Adventure Hooks DM Resources

7 Adventure Hooks for Making the Loot Part of the Plot: RPG Blog Carnival

This month’s RPG Blog Carnival hosted by Campaign Mastery is “Making the Loot Part of the Plot.” As they describe in their overview article, this topic can be applied broadly to a lot of games in a lot of ways.

It’s been my experience that most D&D games revolve around items and loot. They may not always be at the heart of the adventure, but they are usually a significant part of the plot. If you’re looking for a way to kick-start your next campaign may we suggest you use one of the adventure hooks provided below. All of them involve making the loot part of the plot in one way or anther.

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Editorial

June RPG Blog Carnival Round Up

The June RPG Blog Carnival has concluded and the Dungeon’s Master team would like to thank all the participants. This month we asked you to create a memorable character inspired from real life. The participating posts were all very engaging and creative. While reading each of them I found myself thinking, now why didn’t I think of that?

I hope you enjoyed this month’s carnival and the submissions that it brought. Be sure to read each submission and surprise your table with a character inspired from real life.

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DM Resources

RPG Blog Carnival: Eldrick Tont – Defender of the Tiger Woods

Today Dungeon’s Master presents our contribution to this month’s RPG Blog Carnival: Memorable Characters Inspired From Real Life. The real life person, upon which my memorable character was inspired, is golf icon Tiger Woods.

Encounter Setup

The PCs seek the fabled Green Jacket. This enchanted cloth armor is awarded to the most deserving champion annually each spring. Combatants must travel to the Tiger Woods and defeat the reigning champion, Eldrick Tont. Tont accepts all challengers and is ruthless in defense of a prize he believes he rightly deserves.

The competition always takes place in the same clearing deep within the Tiger Woods. The terrain changes during each new encounter. Some areas are only covered in fine grass, while other areas have more dense foliage preventing movement and even line of sight. Some areas are completely devoid of plants, creating sandy traps and hazards. Pools of varying sizes and depths are also common obstacles that combatants must face.

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DM Resources

RPG Blog Carnival Reminder

There are only a few days left to participate in June’s RPG Blog Carnival: Memorable Characters Inspired From Real Life. The Dungeon’s Master team wants you to look to reality for gaming inspiration. Create a memorable character (hero or villain) based on a real life person and provide guidelines for how this character might be used in an RPG.

The character you create should have a clear connection to the real-life person from which they were inspired. The person can be someone from the past or present, dead or alive, hero or villain. Be creative.

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DM Resources

RPG Blog Carnival: Memorable Characters Inspired From Real Life

  • Truth is stranger than fiction.
  • I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t see it with my own eyes.
  • You can’t make this stuff up.

No matter how creative and imaginative we think we are nothing trumps real life. This is why so many popular TV shows feature stories that are ripped from the headlines. This is also a big reason that we’ve seen an explosion of reality TV in the past decade. People want stories inspired by or based on people and events that really happened.

For June’s RPG Blog Carnival, the Dungeon’s Master team wants you to look to reality for gaming inspiration. We’re asking you to create a memorable character (hero or villain) based on a real life person and provide guidelines for how this character might be used in an RPG. Just because we’re a 4e D&D site doesn’t mean that your memorable characters needs to fit within the confines of D&D (although we wouldn’t be opposed to that idea).

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Editorial

RPG Blog Carnival: Negotiating For Souls

Who truly determines whether a soul can return to the realm of the living – the ritualist who just performed the Raise Dead ritual, the gods themselves or the soul of the recently departed?

Yesterday as part of the RPG Blog Carnival hosted by Campaign Mastery we took a look at what it means to Cast the Raise Dead Ritual. Today I wanted to follow up on that post and examine the inner workings and role playing possibilities that are available when this ritual is cast. Some of these idea’s were inspired by the excellent comments in yesterdays article.

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