#dnd Tip: It isn’t always about the players. The DM has needs too. What about MY needs!? I’m not just a dancing monkey here to amuse you! (@AngryDM source) I’ll admit it that tweet irked me, and I think it might come back to why I’m a SissyDM rather than an AngryDM. (Much as I …
Tag Archive: DM
Recurring the Villain
I’m not sure about you, but I have a lot of problems with getting a villain to have a life of more than 1 encounter. (I also have players that get cranky about bad guys that get away.) This blog is basically inspired by two things I’ve recently come across specifically for the purpose of …
Old School Roleplay & Skill Challenges
Today I read (belatedly) @SarahDarkmagic’s article There’s No Role Playing in 4e and couldn’t help but think “that was a skill challenge”. Sarah specifically mentions wanting to make the session based on a skill challenge, but not knowing where to start, she also mentions being inspired by @newbiedm’s Red Box (Basic DnD from the 80′s) …
What did you say?
Language is an important part of culture, but it is also a terribly impractical thing in a game. In the real world we have things like the tribe in one valley speaks an entirely different language to the tribe in the next, but in a game world, while entirely realistic this is just annoying, and …
The Challenge of Kings
I have been recently reminded that 4E currently has no way of managing characters running a kingdom (as a group or even as competitors) or leading armies, and in thinking about those things it seems to me that the skill challenge mechanic is ideally suited to just such applications. Rulership & Paragons Firstly ruling a …
What do you do?
Not really part of writing an encounter but a critical part of running one is getting the players to do “stuff”. That can be anything from “use a different attack” to “engage with the skill challenge”. Now oddly for me this is one of those places my real job has a lot to say about …