We Need The XP!

A problem I see in most groups is the missing player. There is almost always a player or two who can’t make the session, in our group we covered this by having another player cover their character for the session and in olden D and Ye D days this worked fine but in 4e this was a hassle. Each class, even the lowly fighter has its own flavor now and special rules that impact its play. Some of my players were really struggling to get their heads around another PC and it was not really fun for them. The second problem is ages old, the player who wasn’t there’s PC was somehow always the one in the most danger. This wasn’t intentional, out come the monsters and then there they are down on the ground taking death saves. I can try to cheat this as DM, but I have enough to juggle as it is. By the end of the last game we turned no show’s PCs into semi-NPCs, they got one at will they could use and in the case of a leader they could still use the class basic heals. This solved the first problem but left us with the second.

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Running games in Living Forgotten Realms can be a fun way to play D&D in nice convenient short sessions. Each session is planned to be a four hour game, although modules can run longer at times and there is no rule saying the game must be completed in four hours. As it is a world wide game that aims to let players play anywhere and get a similar game experience it is much more restrictive than running a home game, but you and the the players can still have a good time if you as a DM are prepared. read more »

Ok, I have been bluffing for thirty years. I am not a Dungeon ‘Master’ and you don’t need to be a ‘Master’ either to run a fun game. There are rules I don’t know, I forget to use all my powers as a DM sometimes and I don’t read every Dragon cover to cover.  I don’t pretend to know everything in the game. Dungeons and Dragons is cooperative story telling and it doesn’t require absolute mastery of all elements of the game to run good games. You do need good basic knowledge of the game’s mechanisms, but for most games a quick read through is all you need. read more »

Dicey by Fangleman on Flickr

One of the blessings of the internet is that it makes it much easier to connect with people who share your interests and there are ton of good sites on the net for finding people interested in playing roleplaying or miniatures games. If you live in an urban area there is a very good chance that there are active groups in the area already, if you live in the more thinly populated parts of the world you may have to try harder, but you may get lucky.

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Fantasy Figures

I love using miniatures in my games and have been using them in roleplaying games since the 1970′s but every GM should remember that the miniatures are there to heighten the enjoyment of the game, not to be the main element of it. Here are five mistakes I have made over the years while using figures in games and some thoughts about why they are mistakes. read more »