What’s the Crock Pot? Just a simmering bowl of lentils and herbs, with a dash of DMing observations. Don’t be afraid to dip in your ladle and stir, or throw in something from your own spice rack. I posted earlier about purchasing some of Hirst Arts’ CastleMolds with the intent of making a modular dungeon for my gaming sessions. Well, several jugs of plaster mixture and a lot of green ...

Most of the local terrain around my house is flat. This part of north central Illinois is prairie — flatlands in every direction.  It’s no surprise, then, that the dungeons we design around here are flat too.  The grid paper we design dungeons on is flat. The coffee tables we gather around are flat. The footmaps and map tiles we buy are flat. The minis we use certainly stand ...

He's a regular Becky HomeEc-y I like doing crafts. You're more likely to see me in a Michael's, a Hobby Lobby or even the paint section at Wal-Mart as you are at a game store. I guess I'm always looking for creative outlets. And painting the 25mm metal miniatures used in roleplaying games is just one way I express myself. Land of the Lilliputians  In fact, the most interesting aspect of ...

Villainy with a shadowy purpose: Rogues that strike out from dark alleys. Monsters that lurk in the dark spaces beneath the stairs. Creatures of smoke and raging spirits. The 4E Monster Manual has an outstanding selection of opponents of dark purpose. Here are some heroic-level encounters you can spring on the unsuspecting. (The target encounter XPs are for 5 PCs of each level). Level 1 Encounter Following the ...

What’s the Crock Pot? Just a simmering bowl of lentils and herbs, with a dash of DMing observations. Don’t be afraid to dip in your ladle and stir, or throw in something from your own spice rack. Beaten to the punch Before the last of my Remaking the Realms posts hit the Stew Pot, those crafty Wizards of the Coast dropped a freebie excerpt on us. We now have the "official" ...

In attempting to re-envision the Forgotten Realms before the official campaign setting is released, this series has looked at the advantages of DMs putting their own touch to the setting, using the town of Fallcrest from the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and providing a tour of how Mystra’s fall changed the politics and power structure of the North. To close out the series, let’s have a look at some ...

What’s the Crock Pot? Just a simmering bowl of lentils and herbs, with a dash of DMing observations. Don’t be afraid to dip in your ladle and stir, or throw in something from your own spice rack. Hanging out with merry men My summer reading has been pretty light. But I picked up one gem that hadn’t been checked out at our local library for two years: “The Merry Adventures ...

The collapse of the famed Moonbridge marks the fall of the goddess Mystra — and woe befalls the High Lady of Silverymoon (as it does all the Seven Sisters) — as the unweaving of magic brings disaster and an onslaught of monsters to the outposts of civilization in the North. Thus begins the Transformation of the North, the third in a series of posts describing how I’d remake ...

What’s the Crock Pot? Just a simmering bowl of lentils and herbs, with a dash of DMing observations. Don’t be afraid to dip in your ladle and stir, or throw in something from your own spice rack. Gaming brains don't belong in jars Wizards of the Coast will pull the plug on the gaming social networking site Gleemax in September. The site was difficult to navigate — a crippling factor for a ...

Fallcrest, as presented in the 4E Dungeon Master's Guide, is a gem. Designed to be a campaign starting point, it's got a handful of adventure hooks and can accommodate additional material of your own design easily enough. At the least, it's a good template for a town of your own design. For me, I'm attempting to make the Realms my own before the official published setting is released. (See previous ...

What’s the Crock Pot? Just a simmering bowl of lentils and herbs, with a dash of DMing observations. Don’t be afraid to dip in your ladle and stir, or throw in something from your own spice rack. No Tieflings Allowed James Wyatt (whose work on the 3E accessories Oriental Adventures and Magic of Incarnum I greatly admire) provides his player handout for his Fourth Edition D&D Greenbriar Chasm campaign in the Dungeon ...

Third Edition D&D designer Jonathan Tweet wrote an adventure for Dungeon magazine (Issue No. 89) entitled “Wedding Bells,” which in addition to featuring the wonderfully whimsical artwork of Spiderwick co-creator Tony Diterlizzi, has fixed in my mind a particularly vile image of the harpy. Yes, the harpy, a classic villain with a particularly nasty ability: a captivating song that it uses to lure victims —  usually hapless travelers, and ...

What's the Crock Pot? Just a simmering bowl of lentils and herbs, with a dash of DMing observations. Don't be afraid to dip in your ladle and stir, or throw in something from your own spice rack. Characters with class One of the new online features for Fourth Edition, once Wizards of the Coast gets the DDI rolling, is supposed to be a character creator. But in addition to generating stats ...

Bugbears are great monsters for the DM. They’re these brutish beast-men that know how to use armor and shields, and they have both ranged (javelin) and melee (morningstar) combat capabilities.  Moreover, the DM doesn’t have to hold back when they fight. As the Monster Manual describes them: “Bugbear attacks are coordinated and their tactics are sound if not brilliant.” That’s a descriptor that makes every DM’s heart pound faster. In ...

What's the Crock Pot? Just a simmering bowl of lentils and herbs, with a dash of DMing observations. Don't be afraid to dip in your ladle and stir, or throw in something from your own spice rack. Gotta Know When to Fold 'Em Card stock buildings, erasable battlemaps, D&D brand Dungeon Tiles, homemade encounter areas drawn with crayon. Those have been my tools in trade ever since I landed on the ...