Community

roleplaying – the acting out, or performance, of a particular role

What is Dungeons & Dragons without roleplaying?  A video game of the mind.  What do I mean by this?  Well, let’s examine.  Assume that no roleplaying is allowed.  You play Vengeance, a dragonborn warrior by choosing his actions and guiding him through an adventure.  You have a set list of things you can do (powers, feats, rituals, etc.) and you execute them and wait for the consequence.  To me, this sounds like the slight upgrade of a video game.  (The upgrade being that your imagination does not have a special effects budget)  ”Vengeance uses breath weapon and deals the orc 24 points of damage.”

What is Dungeons & Dragons with roleplaying?  An

...

When planning a campaign, I recommend that DMs write a few paragraphs to answer these questions:

How are magic items created?
Who makes magic items?
What resources are needed to make magic items?
How common are magic items?
Can you buy magic items?
How valuable are magic items?

I think answers are campaign-dependent. As a DM, I answer these six questions for each campaign I run and provide a summary to the players before they create their characters. This provides background information they need to create their characters (they need to know other things too--things about the setting).

Here are three possibilities:

Low magic: Magic items are very rare. No living people know how to make them. Most people will never see a magic item. There are stories of ancient items that have been lost, or are rumored...

Looking for D&D players in Southeastern PA, either an established group or maybe someone who knows a good place that runs weekly games. I also started a group for players in Southeastern PA, join up if you're interested.

Would you use this critical hit card?
 
">

One of big selling points of 4e was that it was easier to run with less prep time. Monsters were easier to modify, treasure was easy to manage, and encounters simple to build. On the side of the players there were fewer rules, with a small number of overarching rules and many exceptions in the form of powers and feats.

However, with all that said, the game has hit a wall. There's only so far it can be simplified. Any farther and we start losing more of what makes the game what it is.

For Players

One of the problems of D&D is the daunting amount of information needed to play the game. It's a wall of text. There's a lot there. The books are heavy and full. Ostensibly, 4e has made this easier, with fewer rules than the massive combat chapter from 1e-3e.

In practice, 4e is no easier to

...

Ok, well in this thread the question was asked on how to break up players focus firing one target at a time. It seems to have sparked quite the debate as it's up to 16 pages at the time I began this writing.

The OP's gist is basically, all they do is focus fire one mob at a time and I find it boring. This is a fair statement. Some dislike the idea of spreading around damage because it will make combat last longer, and many of these people think combat lasts too long as it is.

I don't have anything against focus firing. After all, if your party finds a good synergistic way to methodically eliminate your enemies, go for it. The quicker you take them down the less of them there are to damage you. Its only good defense by good offense. But like many things, the idea of changing up tactics

...

"When moving closer to the broken door, the gleaming reddish eyes of a Giant Rat was staring at us, waiting for the first move. Killing it was not hard, but waited beyond the door was the unimaginable! The room had cages with the sweet fowl stench of rotten flesh and blood smear traces flow all over the room. This was not couture at all. Giant rats attacked us by the masses. Guess they were startled by our entrance. But, at the other end of the room were 4 human like figures. We called out for assistance, but no response. It is only when they slowly shuffled around with a moan we realized they were not men anymore. Not human to say the least. Suddenly, the 4 Zombies approached us slowly. Having all these Giant Rats around we had to make a plan. And quick..."

This was my sort of last

...

No matter what anyone tells you, DMing ain't no walk in the park. There's a lot of prep work to be done and when you're a guy who tends to lay out plans A through tripple Q, you definitely find yourself worn out. But don't let all this complaining fool you though. I actually enjoy the pre-planning and meticulous crafting that goes into making a solid experience.

Finding a good gaming store can be a daunting task. I've been treated badly before from various stores that tend to, how should I say this... make you feel like an outsider. For a group of people who are often marginalized for their love of gaming, I never understood why they'd do the same to someone else. That's probably the reason I didn't get into D&D sooner.

Lucky for me, Googling for local shops revealed perhaps the best

...

Stop me if you've heard this one. A D&D-curious individual wants to start playing D&D but has never sat down and played. Only with this neophyte, I wondered how hard it is to start out as a DM. After all, what do you do when the storying telling and hosting aspects of the game draw you in more than playing the actual game. 

With a couple of friends who have shown a little bit of interest (mostly due to the aspect of collecting dice & minis... and wearing a wizard's hat), I decided to take the reins and get started with D&D.

So what follows on this blog is my experience with D&D through the eyes of someone who's probably bitten off more than he can chew.