Hi all! I have to say that my sophomore Gen Con experience was not only better than my first but also far exceeded my expectations, both as a gamer and as an RPG freelancer. It's always great to put faces with the names in the industry, as well as the opportunity to meet them. I also got a chance to meet a few fellow gnomies (I apologize for Saturday, ...

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 ...

I'm going to be starting a new series of posts about Frequently Abused Powers. Things that can overpower a game and kill the fun factor. Something like a really high Dexterity. I'm going to call it . . . F.A.P. (Frequently Abused Powers): The Problem With Dexterity Ahh Dexterity, a god stat by any other name. In any game system that emphasizes any sort of combat it is ...

Alright. I admit it. It's just a guess. I've never played in a game that had gnomes, surgery, and currency based economics, so I can't prove that surgery is one of those things that's effected by size category. I just get the gut feeling that since gnomes are small, the higher precision detail work required for performing surgery on them would command a price multiplier. Given the already astronomical price ...

Here's something that is important for the whole group to pay attention to: Character Roles. The best description of the problem I have read came from Fang Langford when he was working through his description of Scattershot a few years ago. At the time he called it Sine Qua Non, Latin for "without which not". [The current version is here.] It is important to clearly label the ...

When you need a break from GMing, whether it's a short one or a long one -- or even due to burnout -- nothing recharges your batteries and stirs up your creative juices like spending time on the other side of the screen as a player. Every GM is different, and every break is different. Right now my group is alternating two ongoing games: Sam runs D&D 3.5e two ...

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 ...

This post is inspired by John Arcadian's recent post, Ah, the good old Scry and Fry. Before I get into this post, however, I want to whip you into a frenzied mob. March with me and demand a solution to the whole "Scry and Fry" thing, especially the fry part. Gnome Arcadian, show us the solution or (raising torch high in gnomish hands) we'll show ...

I remember my first time GMing. It was after the third game I'd ever played in any system, ever. I caught the bug. I wanted to GM and do a better job than our current GM. Boy were there LOADS of things that I didn't know. I hadn't read enough of the powers and skills to know how to use them, I was too eager to ...

I finally got a chance to playtest "Dead Man's Hand," the Victoriana game I'm running at GenCon. The adventure was designed as a sequel to last year's "Lost Luggage," using the same characters and background. Since the 2nd Edition of Victoriana is only now getting a full print run, I decided to run this adventure as an "introductory scenario" (which saved me from having to update the characters). Since "Dead ...

How do you and your group generate stats? A lot of games answer this question for you; Hero System and World of Darkness are two popular games that lack random stat generation. For the last twenty years most newly designed systems have lacked random stat generation, though the exceptions have been the biggest players in the field. D&D in all of its prior incarnations and the ...

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 ...

Face it: You'll never match the polish and cool factor of a published adventure developed by a team of professional game designers in your home game. Nothing you run will ever be as cool as your favorite movie, with talented actors, a multi-million dollar budget, an experienced director and a massive creative push from dozens and dozens of other people. There's no way the plotline of your campaign will ever ...

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 ...

When you first think of running a campaign, there's probably one overwhelming motivation for your game. Whatever you do, don't forget it under the weight of all your research and preparation. Design your campaign to satisfy what you're aiming for. My group's current D&D3.5 campaign was conceived with two strong motivations in mind. We knew 4e was coming, but we had lots of supplements for third ...