Welcome to Adventure Seeds, a semi-regular column that will help ‘plant’ ideas. We’re going to start off with the old standby, pirates. (And yes, we’ll be doing a column on ninjas later, just to be fair) Whether in the old school X1 The Isle of Dread, Green Ronin’s Freeport setting, or Paizo’s Skull & Shackles…
You’ve spent hours pouring over charts, grids, drawings, stories, and reference guides and finally you have it: a tale worth playing. So you call up your closest friends and your local pizza joint, and you all gather to play this game. It’s all going pretty well at first; everyone’s having fun and the game’s running…
Last time we looked at different aspects to the horror setting, today we finish that topic up with the most important aspect of horror: The Twist. Now this is the most important trick to writing horror. Details and presentation are all nice and dandy, but the twist is where you blow your party’s mind. It could be…
“I am become designer, creator of worlds!” is a limited series on the ins and outs of building your own roleplaying game from the ground up—and with it a business model by which to grow and create more new ideas. In the first article in this series, we presented a three-step look at how we,…
Cat says… So, I am about to start DM-ing my first campaign with a group of people I’ve played with for a while, and I’m taking over for a DM that leaves a lot to measure up to. My problem is that since my partner has been playing and dm-ing D&D for a long time,…
Roberto V. from Stafford, NY asks… Keith, all of the complex political maneuvering and back-stabbing (sometimes literal) plus the brutal battles in a low magic setting are what makes Game of Thrones so addictive to me. How can we adapt those elements to our Pathfinder/D&D game while still making it fun for the players? And…
Looking forward to the “Weapons for Hire” Scrolls of Destiny solution? Look no further! Discover which sellsword plans to hire on with which noble House.
Playing the new Game of Thrones RPG? Toss this Scrolls of Destiny puzzle in your game for a quick, fun challenge for your PCs!
“What’s My Motivation?” is a regular column that uses a variety of methods found in the disciplines of acting, writing, and improvisation to help Dungeon Masters create compelling NPC’s and further flesh out their campaigns. Last time we looked at how fears or phobias can be used to give characters a challenge and make them…
Fears and phobias are similar but not the same thing. A fear can be considered a healthy respect where a phobia evokes an illogical and sometimes even a primal response like paralysis or savagery. Typically these stem from particularly harrowing or terrifying experiences in a character’s past.
I find that every character should have some religion to help fill them out a bit. If not religion, then at least some strong beliefs or worldviews. For NPC’s this might help you come up with some quick responses to PC questions and actions on the fly.
This week’s installment will look at how building relationships between characters and NPC’s leads to stronger characterization on both sides of the screen, greater depth to your campaign, and thus enriching the overall roleplaying experience.
“What’s My Motivation?” is intended to be a regular column that uses a variety of methods found in the disciplines of acting, writing, and improvisation to help Dungeon Masters create compelling NPC’s and further flesh out their campaigns. This week’s installment will look at how the standard alignment system, which many times is derided as…
Zachary asks: Do you ever run unscripted sandbox style games? Any hints for pacing in such? I prefer a sandbox style of play, and when I’m running a long-term campaign it’s my usual style. Even when I’m running my traveling game, I prefer a semi-linear style where the players are free to move in many…
Q: I’m a soft-hearted DM and I never know how to handle player death. Any advice? (Cassie from Austin) A: This relates to a number of the questions from previous months—how to make combat interesting, what to do when things take an unexpected turn. As DM you hold the player’s lives in your hands. At…
Welcome back to the column that breaks down gaming into what’s really important, ten things at a time! The dragons of D&D hold a much bigger place in the world than ordinary monsters. They can be movers and shakers, bullies or living gods. They can command legions or demand solitude. These ten plots use the…
If you read DungeonMastering.com, then you most likely play or at least come across video games. Console Cleric is a column that looks at various video titles to see what digital counterparts can add to tabletop sessions. Last time our controllers took a tour of Gears Of War 3. This time we’re jumping into THQ’s Warhammer…
Welcome back to the column that breaks down gaming into what’s really important, ten things at a time! The best civilizations in D&D have a very different feel from anything in the real world. A simple urban adventure could happen anywhere, but the exotic environments in these races’ cities open up much stranger options. 1….
Q: The only problem I’m having is how to make my campaign’s final boss feasible. My idea revolves around an evil monk who confronts the PCs in the final room of a temple. My problem is I wanted him to be a hand to hand fighter, but just found out that most of my PCs…
This Sunday, while running a game for my group, I revealed that a recurring NPC the PCs had believed to be an ally was actually a rather sinister antagonist. I believed, when creating his stats, that he would be a difficult enemy to defeat; indeed, I intended for the PCs to fail to defeat him…
We’re proud to present the 4th in a series of monthly articles by Keith Baker. Best known for creating the Eberron Campaign Setting for Dungeons & Dragons and the card game Gloom he’s also worked on at least five games that you’ve never heard of. Yet. QUESTION: “Okay, here are a few questions. First off,…