Instant Campaign Builder Part X: D&D superstars This article is part of the Instant Campaign Builder Project. It’s tweaking time All the hard work is done. The campaign is almost ready to be unveiled. Almost! There’s still a few things you can do to make it better. In no particular order here are 4 things…
Instant Campaign Builder Part IX: Ending the campaign This article is part of the Instant Campaign Builder Project. Why plan the ending? I strongly suggest planning the ending, the last scene of your campaign before the first game is ever played. Here’s why:
Instant Campaign Builder Part VIII: The First Scene This article is part of the Instant Campaign Builder Project. The first scene This is the first impression the players will get. Blow your players minds and they’ll be much more involved in their characters and your campaign. That should make your game easier to prepare –…
Instant Campaign Builder Part VII: Planting This article is part of the Instant Campaign Builder Project.
Instant Campaign Builder Part VI: Hype This article is part of the Instant Campaign Builder Project. The Buzz Most great events are preceded by an insane amount of publicity, which sometimes generates anticipation. I believe the Saturday morning D&D session can benefit from fabricated buzz and hype.
Instant Campaign Builder Part V: LOCKing scenes This article is part of the Instant Campaign Builder Project. The LOCK technique I read about the LOCK system in a fiction writing book and quickly figured that it would be useful for my D&D game planning. According to this system here are the 4 elements of a…
Instant Campaign Builder Part IV: Campaign Outline This article is part of the Instant Campaign Builder Project. Railroad vs. Outline I always want to plan badass campaigns and memorable scenes but I don’t want to force the players into a linear storyline. That’s where a good outline comes into play.
Instant Campaign Builder Part III: Improvisation This article is part of the Instant Campaign Builder Project. Trust your improvisation skills The tools and tips described in the Instant Campaign Builder Project can only be used successfully by a dungeon master willing to improvise. A lot!
I stopped counting There’s actually more than that but I was tired of counting! Given the popularity of the 83 free D&D adventures article I decided to clear a few hours in my schedule and look for free D&D maps. I found so many of them that I didn’t have time to look into map…
Instant Campaign Builder Part II: Props This article is part of the Instant Campaign Builder Project.Impress your players Your players don’t need to know that you only spend 1 hour or less preparing for each game. They just want to be entertained. They want something different.
This article is part of the Instant Campaign Builder Project.Knowledge is power The most important building block in a campaign is knowledge. Your knowledge of yourself, your Dming skills, your players and their characters. If the characters have yet to be created, I suggest you plan a first game around character creation before you start…
Edit: You can now download the complete Instant Campaign Builder. (pdf file) What is the Instant Campaign Builder Project? As a DM I always have 2 objectives when I plan a campaign.
I like to keep my NPC descriptions simple. I think that less is more when it comes to introducing an NPC in a campaign. Whether the character will never be seen again or is the uber-villain you should settle for one – only one – role-playable characteristic. Nothing else matters. The NPC’s motivations or stats…
Cartography is an art and a science, yet adventurers running through a daedalus of underground caves and passages while being pursued by evil creatures draw maps with extreme precision. I hate that. So I have developed a way to screw the players over when they’re trying to find their way out of a maze.
Sometimes I wish I were smarter. I wish I would have come up with the simple D&D flowchart I wrote about a few weeks ago (Smash it with a stick, July 26). I also wish I would have thought about making it better. I’m so glad I don’t have to think anymore Thankfully the Great…
It is impossible to defeat an army of goblins in 5 rounds. It takes at least 6 rounds. Role-playing sucks? They’re called role-playing games but for most of us the fun part is killing stuff. Why else would computer games like World of Warcraft get millions of players? Because they got rid of most of…
I can already picture my players as they’re reading this! Relax, I don’t intend to wipe out my party and I don’t suggest that anyone should plan to kill all the PCs in their game. But…
They’re famous because they’re real I was looking for a new concept for a D&D campaign this morning. I haven’t played D&D in 4 months because I’ve been away from home and I’m getting really pumped up to plan a ridiculously good campaign. After weighing all my options I decided to base my next campaign…
This article is part 1 of the “Start A Campaign… Now!“ series. Start A Campaign – Part 1: The first game Start A Campaign – Part 2: Before the second game Start A Campaign – Part 3: The second game Start A Campaign – Part 4: How to prepare a great game in 30 minutes…
I was browsing the D&D forums recently and someone was looking for hints on how to start a horror campaign. How I would plan for the first game of a horror campaign
Random thoughts I’ve been spending an awful lot of time on my laptop recently. I’m not getting much out of it except a tendinitis. Made me wonder about D&D characters who crawl dungeons non-stop. Do they ever get nagging injuries from the repetition of the same combat motions repeated over and over again? I can’t…