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.
Greetings! And welcome back for another installment of One Die Short. The below page depicts the first meeting of the PCs, an important, and sometimes overlooked aspect of building a good campaign. Interaction between PCs is crucial, and can make or break a game. Surprisingly, it’s also something that isn’t often used to its fullest…
Puzzles and Mazes and Riddles oh my! Puzzles and Mazes can be implemented in so many ways, we’ll start with mazes. A lot of people hear maze and imagine large shrubs and a minotaur hiding somewhere, or a series of stone walls in confusing settings or something similar to the Labyrinth. Remember, a maze can…
Illusions – how you use them and how to use “Disbelieve”. 4E: (Page 68, DM’s guide) “Illusions can mimic any terrain. Creatures that realize that an object is an illusion ignores its effects, while those that do not realize the truth behind the illusion react to it as appropriate. Use Character’s passive insight checks to…
In my article “DMing Muse” I mentioned a few elements that are good to put into a DnD game, and then decided that “Wait a minute, this would be great to talk about also!” So here I am again! Some of the elements I mentioned in that article are traps, monsters, friendly npcs, non friendly…
By Guest Blogger Jason L. Dawson Players are clever. They scheme, plan, plot and connive their way into and out of the most difficult situations we as the DM can create. This is especially true if you have players in your game who are tactically minded. I have the singular joy (and curse, at times)…
by Guest Blogger Daniel “The White” LeBlanc One of the most underrated yet important parts of DMing is the creation of dungeons for the adventurers to explore. Too often we focus on the story telling or interesting ways to run the fights, all the while ignoring the fact that the players need places to be…
How to handle the unease, paranoia and dread of a haunted house without losing the fantasy hero charm.
I ask James Wyatt about his choice for the next campaign setting, how the decision is made and his plans for the fifth edition.
I sit down with Designer Manager James Wyatt and grill him about message board critics, the new ardent class and his old gnoll slaying days.
We explore the lands beneath the waves and what your group could get out of adventuring there.
Focusing on your players is one of the most important things you can do as a DM besides actually showing up to the game. As an improviser, focus is vital. If you’re not actively listening to your scene partner, you are not only missing the scene, you’re missing the point!
Not every player interaction can be a violent confrontation resolved at the business end of a longsword. No, seriously.
Tips for building your own fantasy holidays and sample celebrations, such as the drow Festival of Webs.
I know this sounds contradictory to everything a DM knows to be true, but your job is not to write the story — it is to set up challenges and obstacles, and it’s your players’ job to find the solution.
With enough time and preparation, just about anyone can run a D&D game. But how do you create new stuff “on the spot”, under pressure, and when your players demand it?
NPCs are ubiquitous and ignored. Dismissed as unimportant, as if that’s what the “N” and “P” stood for in NPC: uNimPortant Character.
In the spring of 2007 I did not work. I wrote. A lot! This was before I started writing for Dungeon Mastering. I was writing a novel (which is still just a draft). Writing fiction is tough, but it’s also fun and rewarding. For me it was also a great learning experience. I polished skills…
My stint as an aspiring novelist made me a better writer and a better storyteller. I thought I’d share a few writing techniques that I learned through books, websites, and experience and how I use them to be a better DM.
My stint as an aspiring novelist made me a better writer and a better storyteller. I thought I’d share a few writing techniques that I learned through books, websites, and experience and how I use them to be a better DM.
I put on my eye shadow and high heels and explore gender bending….in roleplaying games!