Are your players dragging themselves to the table and struggling to lift their dice? Not sure how to jump start your players’ enthusiasm? Forget the Red Bull I.V., all you need are the tips from our Kicking Up the Energy series. First up, metagame edition!
Random plot generators? Just clicking through them can provide at least 1d4 hours of entertainment. If you find a good one, you might even generate a nifty plot hook for your next adventure — but even the bad ones are good for a laugh.
25 questions – that’s all you need to answer to know your inner D&D4E character. And don’t come whining to me if your inner character sucks!
What comes out of a meeting between an uber-villain and a red dragon? A how-to guide!
All the information you need to start, run, and end a campaign with as little preparation as possible.
Power your way to great gaming sessions by optimizing your prep time.
Most DMs know (from experience) Murphy’s Law. It states that if anything can go wrong, it will. These Murphy’s Laws of roleplaying games are brought to you by Maikl of RPG Thoughts, and confirm the inevitability of some things in RPGs, as suggested by yours truly (Immutable D&D Laws) and Stupid Ranger (Some things are inevitable). The…
This is a brilliant guest post by Mr. Gnome from The Random Gnome’s Random Lair. For hours of computer- and retro-gaming goodness be sure to check out his site. The digital world of Dungeons & Dragons Truth be said, computers do face quite a few problems when striving to provide us with proper RPG experiences….
D&D Tuesday tips for DMs (DNDTTFDM) 04-15-08 PCs are the backbone of your campaign. Villains help flesh out the adventure! Here are some easy ways to make that villain brilliant, annoying, intrusive, challenging. In other words, these are my thoughts on making villains easy to hate and remember! The love-to-hate-them villains should: Miss appointments. The villain asks…
Who needs a gridmap? You forgot your gridmap? Or your minis? Or you need a change of pace for your campaign? Here a 5 ways to replace the battlemat. Top 5 ways to run a game without a grid map Whiteboard or chalkboard When I was in college I would often get together with some…
Random thoughts With the ever-growing geek population I wonder if we’re ever going to live through a “taped glasses and hunched back is sexy” trend. 7 quick ways to make your campaign better Just because you have planned a fun campaign and your next few games are prepared doesn’t mean your campaign can’t get better. …
Cameo time Looks like I’m going to have a special PC cameo during my next game. A good friend of mine who has never played an RPG has recently shown interest. So what will I focus on for that special occasion? Make him understand the DM gets free pizza, chips, and salsa. Let him roll…
Build a better world in less time This is a quick read that will help you shave dozens of hours in world building. A lot of work went into this document and the content was edited and updated since it was first written. Have fun. Download the Instant World Builder PDF (right-click and “save as”)…
I bundled the Instant World Builder in a single file but I decided to wait for a few days before releasing the .pdf file. The reason? I want to make it better. So this is an unofficial addition to the project. Generic NPC quirks A great way to add flavour to a region of a…
This article is part 8 of the Instant World Builder series. The color commentator Two of the characters in my ongoing campaign once met an NPC – completely improvised at the time – who stuck around and became a fan of the 2 PCs. The NPC was a bard and would travel the world singing…
This article is part 5 of the Instant World Builder series. Starting small. Thinking big. In the previous Instant World Builder article – Starting small – I mentioned that designing a small area to start a campaign is a great way to save time, but the campaign still needs a grand plan. So what’s the…
This article is part of the Instant World Builder series. Instant world builder #3: Data You could spend weeks gathering information about the world you’re creating – poltical system, level of magic, climate, fauna, how awesome red dragons are, etc. So how do you determine what is valuable information and what is just irrelevant fluff?…
Prepare a better campaign in less time This is a quick read that will help you shave dozens of hours in campaign planning. A lot of work went into this document and the content was edited and updated since it was first written. Have fun. Dowload the Instant Campaign Builder (.pdf file) (right-click and “save…
Random thoughts This morning a rooster decided it was a good idea to start crowing right next to my bedroom window. It’s 8am right now and he’s been going for 3 hours straight. A wizard NPC looking to play mind games with his enemies should just summon roosters when they’re trying to sleep. Running an…
Have you read the first part of this article? Read D&D rat chase – Part 1 here! The Woldians say… This article stemmed from an e-mail discussion between Robert – a Dungeon Mastering reader – and Kim & Jerry from Woldian Games. If you haven’t done it yet take the time to check it their…
Running a chase scene – Part 1 Robert sent me an e-mail when I was in L.A. to get some tips on running a chase scene. I did not get to write down my thought at the time because I was hanging out with Merlin. Lucky for him and I, Robert also asked a few…