Carebears Anonymous, an update
Posted inDungeon Master's Musings

Carebears Anonymous, an update

Hello, my name is Jerry and I’m a carebear Dungeonmaster. I’m here to inform you all briefly of an encounter I ran this weekend that actually managed to incap two of my players (nearly killing one). Some of you may have read my previous article about being a little too easygoing on my players, and what I should do to combat it. Well I designed a rough encounter and ran it this weekend and let me just tell you that the pit of my stomach fell a bit as I heard “wow I’m dying, my character is gonna die”. I knew I’d finally managed to make them sweat in an encounter to the point of incapacitation and possible death, but I felt horrible about it!

Now I must admit, for a party of 5 level 4 characters (and a level 3 NPC who’s an amateur at best) an XP budget of 1300 is kinda high, but hey that was the point

The 4th edition hot button
Posted inDungeons and Dragons (D&D) The Hobby

The 4th edition hot button

I was introduced to D&D by a friend early in high school who at the time played 2nd Edition AD&D (this book still adorns my shelves as we speak) and I wasn’t really sure what the hell was going on at first. Sit at a table and pretend to be someone else? Do I dress up and change my voice? I heard about all these crazy adventures that had taken place, powerful magic items and all the cool stuff they did and in my mind all I could think was “Awesome, but I wonder what all this looks like” and in my minds eye it was some sort of elaborate video game/VR simulation. I found myself daydreaming about these scenarios I’d been told about, or overheard them talking about “So I took the oil from my lantern and poured it all over the dungeon floor and lit it ablaze with my torch just as the orcs burst through the door and Andy’s character got clobbered” wow, what the hell were these guys doing after school and why hadn’t I gotten in on it sooner?

Fleshing out your campaign world
Posted inDungeon Master's Musings

Fleshing out your campaign world

So over the years I’ve always arbitrarily planned out my campaigns, starting with a central idea/location and spiraling outward. The DM’s guides have always suggested to do so and it’s always been the easiest way to just (for lack of better words) pull stuff out of your ass to create a game world. I realize some of the best campaign worlds may have been taken from thin air with little to no planning, however I’ve always envied a fully realized idea. Having everything done from the get-go can really put your head in the game when it comes to planning motivations and dripping your storyline with vivid places and NPC’s. Looking at some of the maps of Faerûn can make your jaw drop, so in an attempts at fully realizing something I took my current campaign world and sat down and took some time to spiral it outward in leaps and bounds.

Behold! D&D Easter Fun!
Posted inEvents & Holidays

Behold! D&D Easter Fun!

So being that my wife is an Atheist and I'm Agnostic you'd think we probably starve our children of the wonders of traditions such as Easter and Christmas, well you…
Digital Dungeonmaster: the lack of tactility.
Posted inDungeon Master's Musings

Digital Dungeonmaster: the lack of tactility.

Recently I posted about going 3D with papercraft dungeons and dungeon tiles, another thing I’ve been playing around with lately is the idea of eliminating mini’s and maps and such and just trying to emulate my own Microsoft Surface setup without spending $15k. So last night I ran a session completely off of Masterplan, a very robust and feature filled app that you can grab for free. I hooked my 22″ widescreen up as a secondary display for the players, I know this is no “surface” like the fancy table, but I’ve yet to give this a whirl using a projector to put the images down onto a table (more on that next week).

I crafted a semi elaborate encounter prepared for them, complete with traps and multiple floors as well as dynamic line of sight as their markers moved around the ‘board’. The combat/initiative tracker is very very intuitive and makes short work of a lot of arduous DM record keeping. You can even display video-game style health bars under each PC and Monster that shows their hitpoints – transitioning from green to red as HP is lost. You can even ‘roll’ monsters saving throws for ongoing effects right there in the DM controls. I was prepared for the new apex of my tabletop experience, the holy grail of homebrew nerd-dom but I found myself feeling empty and superficial like I’d stolen the soul of  ‘friendly game at the kitchen table’ right outta’ D&D.

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”