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Finals at my college and final papers. Ugh. I got a part in a summer festival musical though. Looking forward to performing again in July.

Regarding monster design for my game in construction:

Whenever I DM'd for the local DnD Meetup Group, I got some of my most positive responses from players when I added narrative to the actions taken by enemies rather than just a simple "it hits you for X damage".

This reminded me of when I was first introduced to DnD through ADnD 2nd edition, when my brother would spout out awesome descriptions of what was going on during combat (it was always gridless when we played).

What if sample narratives were built into the design of monsters, for DMs to describe the action? This could benefit new and old DMs greatly and enrich the experience for the entire table....

My friends and I have learned to appreciate how much richer a campaign and a gaming circle can be when the players are encouraged to write journals, illustrate adventures and do other creative things. To encourage this, we give bonus experience for it. We witnessed an explosion of art and a regular chronicle of diaries for all of our games.
However, some players are more artistic, literary or otherwsie creative than others; and some players have much more free time than others. This leads to an imbalance in expereince points, some unspoken resentment from the other players, and a even some pressure on everyone to produce what should be just for fun.

My solution for my own campaign is that I grant bonus experience to everyone in the party, so that no one falls behind or feels obligated, but

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Things are progressing a bit slowly since I've had a lot on my plate with my studies and being in a musical.

I figured out an "advanced concept" of accuracy which builds upon the concept of bound accuracy. Not going to reveal it yet since it still requires some major tweaks for testing. My inspiration for this "new accuracy" comes from the combination of some old ideas that I've experienced in different games. It will be simple, streamlined, and -------- (last adjective omitted so as not to give it away).

I've decided to keep monster design separate from PC design. It will be similar to 4e design up to a certain point but the differences will be very noticeable.

Designing adventures will be easy with a very facilitated ability to add depth to storytelling. Tools will be made to compensate ...

With the design of 5th edition still underway, I wanted to rant a little about the ability (or rather the current inability) to add PC classes to monsters. Being able to make an orc into an orc fighter is pretty vital to my enjoyment of the game, mostly because making a classed creature equates with the DM’s ability to make NPC opponents.

This is a topic with some baggage, which needs to be discussed and acknowledged: past attempts have led to preconceived assumptions of what mixing classes and monsters means.

What Has Come Before

Almost no monsters had classes in the first couple editions. You had monsters and you had PCs and the rules were sketchy when you tried to make an encounter with say human fighters or an evil necromancer. You could add classes to some humanoid monsters,

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Everyone’s time comes eventually. Eventually bad tactics, story, or cold dice kill a character. I’ve lost a couple and I’ve killed a couple.

But what happens next? I’m not talking about the long tunnel with the bright light or passage to the Shadowfell, but what happens at the table. A character just died and there are two or three hours left in the session. What do you do?

What Came Before

This is the spiritual follow-up to an earlier blog where I mused about killing PCs, but did not really touch on the follow-up. This seemed like an omission, which I now correct.

Below are some options and discussion on what to do when a PC dies at your table.

The Watcher

The baseline action for a PC dying unexpectedly is that player sits around bored, watching events unfold.

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What I know and you know is wrong for we don't see eye to eye for the eye can't see if it is blind. Though we may be blind lets take a look at how we are not for if we can not see then we must also hear and smell of there things when we game. Hi and welcome to what is to come I am a young gamer with a never ending patssion to game but not video games like call of duty or Battlefeild i am a traditonal gamer of the art and craft of bored games a card game to the pinical of RPG's in my opinon (D&D) I am here to talk for now about some getting started techniques on how to play well any game involving a set of rules and some freinds.When we talk about games we think more about complex features and systemes we never seem to assume anymore about go fish or hearts I honestly can say I dont either...

I made the first update on my last post, DMing after research: notes on the Nerath Empire, regarding the history of the Nerath Empire.

To avoid endless repetition, I'll not repost over and over while adding new information. I'll just update the post and mark the changes in blue. Updating the post will be followed by a post like this one with the change log.

I hope it helps.

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Change log (18/04/2012)

1. Added information from the Monster vault. Threats to the Nenetir Vale and the Dungeon master's kit boxed sets. 
2. Provided evidence on where to put the height of the Nerath Empire.
3. Adjusted the date of the Saruun Khel civil war.
4. Revamped the chronology; it's now presented in a table containing the events and their dates in two simple

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EDIT: New info is written in blue.

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If anyone has read my blog posts, they may notice something: I'm an obsessor. I'm so obsessive that right now I'm obsessing over being clear on how obsessive I am... (?)

Point is, I'm currently DMing a campaign in the Nentir Vale which includes the published module Thunderspire Labyrinth. In there (v. 1, p. 2) it says that the minotaurs of Saruun Khel got into a civil war "three centuries ago". As a good obsessor, I went back to my DM notes and placed this event where it would fit in the chronology, but then wondered "What if I'm missing something or my reckonings are wrong?" So I went online and looked for some forums or blogs where this matter was discussed, but found that many people wonders...

In my Monday night gaming group, I needed a certain event to unfold at a certain point in time and so I nervously went about railroading the plot in that direction. Specificly, I needed the town of Fallcrest to fall to the evil organazation/antagonists, the Cult of Sheol (My campaign is set in the Nentir Vale for ease of immersion, but then I pick and choose published lore and often replace it with my own). I wanted this one event to be the transition into Paragon tier for the party, and to have it shape the primary struggles during that tier.

To set up this event, I had the party chasing Argon the Dragonlord (a kobold warlord who leads his troops mounted on an enchanted stone statue of a dragon) east across the vale towards Fallcrest. They caught up with him after the first day of his siege...