Jun 30, 2009 8
Welcome to Time Stop, your one stop shop for fourth edition Dungeons & Dragons news. This week I’ll bring you the latest news out of Wizards of the Coast, the podcasts that you don’t want to miss, a couple of articles from the RPG Bloggers Network, several resources to help your Dungeons & Dragons game, and finally a couple of web comics that have featured D&D recently.
Jun 25, 2009 4
Gamefiend already gave out some excellent dungeon mastering advice this week, so I’m going to take a quick break from my usual system modifications and advice to discuss something that me and many others loved and enjoyed about 3.5: the d20 series.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll clue you in. After 3.5 had been released for a while, Wizards released a series of rulebooks for 3.5 in the fall of 2002, starting with the core rules for d20 Modern, a contemporary setting for D&D 3.5. Shortly after that came companion sources like d20 past (for pirates and pulp action), d20 future (for your cyberpunks), and d20 apocalypse (for all you Mad Max fans). You can find just about all the rules you need to play at the following link from Wizards:
Jun 24, 2009 11
One hand giveth and the other taketh away? Both hands are probably wearing rings from the collection below. (These pieces might match up well with a skill challenge.)
Jun 24, 2009 9
The topic of RPG box sets and starter sets was raised on Twitter earlier today, which of course lead to discussion of the Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Starter Set for fourth edition. (More information on Amazon.) The current 4e Starter set is a quality product, well worth the $17 cover price. But what if you were willing to spend a bit more on a Starter Set? What if you were willing to pay for a “Deluxe” version? Something around $50.
Here is what I would include in such a Deluxe Starter Set, and most of it comes from current Wizards of the Coast products.
Jun 23, 2009 4
The goal of every DM is to make an encounter that leaps off the grid, gripping his/her players’ imaginations and being a topic of discussion years down the road. 4e makes encounter design much easier, but to get those memorable encounters, extra care must be taken. There are at least as many elements that can make a great encounter as there are DMs. One element remains constant through all of them: Complexity.
Now, it doesn’t mean that your players have to solve differential equations every encounter. When citing cmoplexity, I’m really citing that element of the encounter that makes it more than just laying blast templates and rolling for attack. To capture your player’s mind, you have to put them into encounters more complex than using their abilities. Added complexity creates “stretch”, how far players have to stretch beyond the normal range to beat the encounter. Generate stretch and generate interest. Generate interest and you stand a good shot at making a memorable encounter.
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