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Archive for June, 2010

All Work and No Play…

30 Jun
Slide Ruler

The Slide Rule: All new players are responsible for their own slide ruler.

Recently I had a chat with a friend who has previously expressed disinterest in playing Dungeons and Dragons, despite enjoying roleplaying in general. His reason: It’s too complicated; I don’t want to do math, I want to play a game!

In a large part, this is true. I play D&D v3.5 almost exclusively, and it involves a lot of rules, a lot of dice, and a lot of math. Now, I am an engineer by trade and I highly support the learning and use of math skills, but there are times when perhaps we are doing too much work and not enough play.

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Posted in Gameplay Philosophy

 

Table Tactics: Birth of a Hero

29 Jun
Player's Hand Book - v3.5

The Source.

In my experience, character creation can easily take over two hours. That’s two hours of looking through books, mumbling stats and checking balance, asking the same questions over and over, figuring out how to calculate AC for the ninetieth time—and this is with experienced players!

This process takes even longer if you have new players at the table. They rarely have a solid idea about what type of character they’d like to play. They don’t know the rules of the game. They aren’t even sure if they really want to play Dungeons and Dragons—hint: a two-hour character building session with archaic rules and seemingly random numbers is NOT a great first impression.

So, how can you speed up the fun? Create characters IN A GAME!

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Posted in Table Tactics

 

How to Kill Your Players

28 Jun
This is SPARTA!!

Sometimes a glorious death will be better remembered than a victorious battle.

First, let me stress an important point on the topic of killing player characters: The DM is NOT playing against the party, but with the party. Again, this comes down to trust; if your players view you as the enemy, they will not trust you. Players that do not trust you are more likely to challenge your decisions, goof off at the table, and generate ear-splitting rants when their character dies. Now, having said that, here is how to kill players and keep their trust.

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Posted in Gameplay Philosophy

 

The DM is Playing Too!

26 Jun
A Stressed DM

This is supposed to be fun!

The main goal of any game is simple: have fun. Dungeons and Dragons is no exception. But a lot of the time the focus is put on the players having fun, and the DM is left to do all of the heavy lifting. It’s time to stop and remind ourselves: Hey, the DM is playing too!


This article outlines three easy ways for players to make the game more fun for their Dungeon Master.

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Posted in Gameplay Philosophy

 

Ok, go!

26 Jun
I hate sandcastles!

Your new campaign is like a sandcastle waiting to be smashed.

How many DMs have stressed over preparing every last detail for their upcoming game, only to find all of their hard work wasted when the players choose to go another direction? Not me! (anymore, that is)

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Posted in Gameplay Philosophy