Confessions of a Care Bear
Posted inDungeon Master's Musings

Confessions of a Care Bear

So ever since I’ve picked back up D&D 4th edition, I’ve been trying to heed the “leave them bruised and broken, but still alive” philosophy, however apparently not broken enough. It’s been about 5 months now since our campaign has started, due to scheduling and other elements my players are only level 4 now and I’m starting to see the errors of my ways when it comes to fudging one too many dice rolls. My players are outright shocked if a monster or trap deals them too much damage, fail a skill challenge or drop to zero hit points – well that’s just unheard of! I always try and make sure my players are having a good time and honestly I don’t want to kill them off, so I always make sure that doesn’t happen. After explaining my style to a good friend (and boss) who is relatively new to D&D aptly termed this “Carebear DM’ing”

Going 3D
Posted inDungeon Master's Musings

Going 3D

Of course D&D is a three dimensional world, many campaigns include even more facets and planes of existence  as well, however at the table a lot of that depth disappears when using minis on top of a map/graph/board or whatever 2 dimensional surface most of us use. While it may be as vivid and engrossing as an imax movie in your own imagination, some players may not have such creativity in them. No matter your level of imagination, I think we can all agree that seeing a 3 dimensional representation of your environment can be pretty damn cool. Along with the aesthetics it forces us to think in 3D when it comes to blasts and bursts as well as range and many other mechanics become more interesting.

DM burnout remedies, what’s yours?
Posted inDungeon Master's Musings

DM burnout remedies, what’s yours?

Recently I’ve found myself going through a bit of a DM drought, I have a ton of great ideas and little motivation to map them out. This is perhaps some classic burnout as I’m the only DM for our ongoing weekend campaign as well as a small mostly modular “game night” campaign with co-workers and friends during the weekdays. I’m currently working with one of my players on remedying this.