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Free stuff is good, more so during christmas time.

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Head on over there for a chance to score a free book!  Contest runs until Sunday Dec 6th....

In my "Warstories" series of articles, I touch on the subjects of handling large battle maps at the table, and player vs. player situations in D&D.

Speaking of maps, I had an opportunity to interview Mike Schley, one of the main cartographers for both D&D 4th Ed. and the Pathfinder RPG.

I've also been busy with reviews, with the latest issues of both Kobold Quarterly and Dungeon Magazine getting the NewbieDM review treatment.  I also reviewed the latest set of Dungeon Tiles, Sinister Woods.

Finally, I put together a questionnaire for DM's to use when facing the prospect of running a campaign with complete strangers.  Sometimes it's good to know certain things ahead of time, and not learn them a few sessions into the campaign.

That's it!  I hope you get a chance to check out my website at newbiedm.com!

You're just not going to get the tiles to match, and you're going to end up tossing them aside.  I designed a few nice rooms, and the images instantly created the stories for me.

This is an arcane library I created, after I couldn't find any suitable maps online.

Here's another element I plan to add to my dungeon tile encounters:

Read more about this at my blog:  www.newbiedm.com

The book is chock full of good, solid advice on crafting stories, using your player's preferences to create adventures tailor made for them, and encouraging roleplaying.  It also has a more in depth look at skill challenges and how to run them.

You can find my full review over at my blog.

Also, I think anything that DM's can use in regards to skill challenges is a welcome addition, as Ithat's been the hardest part of DM'ing for me.  There is a new example of a skill challenge being run at the table, although if it's another social one I'll be dissapointed.

I was able to interview James Wyatt, author of the book, for my blog.  You can read the interview here.

But for this blog, I'm interested in knowing what tools people are using for initiative tracking?  It could be as simple as jotting down names on a piece of paper, or maybe on the side of the battlemat.  Others use computers and software to track the battle and its consequences.

So what do you use in your games?  Is there a system you've had in place for years that you just won't let go of?  I'd love to read about it.

Visit my site if you'd like to read my review of the two systems.

You can find the article here.

An article on timing your player's actions in an attempt to speed up combat in 4e D&D.

Here's a post on a couple of things I picked up at Gencon for my 4e game.

Using the D&D Compendium? Here's a quick way to level the traps and monsters up or down rather quickly.

Finally, here's my homemade Star Wars scroll for the first adventure in the Dawn of Defiance Star Wars campaign I plan to start running soon.  It was created on Adobe After Effects and Photoshop.

I began dm'ing last year, and I didn't find what I was looking for in regards to a website aimed at new dm's.  Sure, there are tons of websites out there dealing with dm'ing, but I never felt that they were talking to me snd my needs, so I created my own.

I probably won't be updating this particular blog, so just see it as a sort of introduction to newbiedm.com, and I hope to see you there sometime! 

Happy Gaming.