Thursday, August 13, 2009
Dungeons and Dragons has survived for as long as it has because of one simple rule: DM’s prerogative. What this means is no matter what action a player decides he or she would like to take, the DM has the final say on all rules. The DM can make judgments on what is and is [...]
A while ago there was an episode of the DnD podcast from Wizards of the Coast that had a tip for DMs to start every session with the players rolling initiative. This usually indicates that combat, or at least some action sequence, is about to play out and initiative determines the order that the characters [...]
Another form of encounter that plays out well is the Puzzle Encounter. The encounter challenges the players directly, and relies little on either skills or combat. The ever popular "what do we need to do to move on?" gag is pretty standard fare, as is the "gotta figure it out before we die" method, but [...]
Wizards of the Coast recently announced the release of a starter kit that gives a player everything they need to get started with 4th Edition D&D. The kit includes a basic ruleset, the first published adventure (Keep on the Shadowfell) and the free version of Character Builder, the last of which has been available for [...]
To keep things interesting, to give variation to play, and to keep characters from getting too awful strong in any one category (imbalance), DMs want to make sure that different types of encounters are placed into their campaigns. The primary encounters are categorized into three broad spectrums: Skill Challenges, Puzzles, and [...]