Posted inUpdates
A Quick Update
I do apologize for my lack of posts lately, with school ending and a lot of things in my life wrapping up, summer hitting, and new projects at home and…
Posted inKids
Teaching my 3 year old D&D
Ive "played D&D" with my son on many occasions - we sit down with minis, dice and some dungeon tiles. He rolls his very own set of dice with no purpose other than the noise they make and then I tell him awesome things happen. He uses his imagination, and the bad guys lose so everyone wins. However this weeks many twitter posts regarding the Heroes of Hesiod kids module got me motivated.
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
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?
Posted inReviews
Product Review: Hammerfast
Hammerfast isn’t your everyday adventure module, in fact it’s not really an adventure at all if you wanna’ get technical. Think of Hammerfast not as a blank canvas for your campaign world, but one that’s been penciled in lightly for you to alter as much as you want. It’s a great backdrop for setting up an entire campaign or at least a major city. The contents state it is optimized for taking players ideally through levels 1-10, however I think a little ingenuity could push it a bit further than that.
Without giving away the back story from the book verbatim I’ll just say that the city itself has a lot of history, to say the least. Ghosts walk the streets alongside the living and no one thinks anything of it, some of them even hold places in society – acting as teachers instructing those in a craft they excelled in during life like blacksmithing perhaps. There are some tensions between those devoted to Moradin and Gruumsh who basically hold dominion over the cities and it’s ghostly inhabitants. There is a lot of room for tension and treachery in a city like this, which is great for your campaign world and creating player intrigue.
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.