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Hello fellow Wizards community members.  I have found whiter shores from which to broadcast myself.  I'm on YouTube now under the channel PhDnD:

PhDnD on YouTube

Here you can find both my theoretical & experimental ramblings on all things RPG (specifically D&D.)  Check it out and sub up!  Much better material than I was able to provide here.  The YouTube RPG community is also very interactive and fun.  Check it out!  

As always, I try and reply to EVERY post, comment, or message I get.  Hit me up! 

I am glad to announce my new site, DM Starfire on Wordpress.  Follow my blog to learn new ways to keep your game fun, efficient, and above all else, the best D&D game ever.  Please come support me there.  I'm taking suggestions for articles and topics right now so comment on my page over there or here to give me some ideas!  I'll be posting soon about a new project that I've undergone to create the best method EVER for creating adventures.  Check it out!  And thanks for your continued support!

Hey Gamers, 
It has been a few weeks since the last post but I am getting away from campaign details in this post to talk about an important piece of every D&D game: preparation.  

First off, you obviously need to prep your adventure and what will actually happen in the game session.  I will not go into details on adventure creation here but there are a few things you need to be sure to have.  Have a basic outline of the storyline as a minimum.  Chris Perkins provides a fantastic example in his article here.  

DM TIP!
I use Obsidian Portal to organize my campaign and outline sheets like the one above.  Wizard's Community also has an excellent wiki to organize and save data like this.  

Next up, you need your monsters.  Have the stat cards on hand ...

Hey everyone!  Quick update.  My party has recently split into 2 groups for a few reasons.  Firstly, we were at 7 PCs with another wanting to play.  Too many for an epic tier adventure.  Secondly, the group was wanting to go in different directions storywise.  Lastly (along with a growing tension between a few players) it worked better based on where everyone lived and how far they had to commute to play.  
The first group I refer to as the Seekers (Lomian the vryloka warlock, Gauthak the goliath barbarian, Jinroy the changeling bard, and Astrid the half-elf battlemind) because they went off seeking other things.  The second group is the Chosen (Three the warforged cleric, Shadow the human hybrid, Aetius the eladrin bladesinger, and Stelian the vryloka...

Fellow gamers,
Tonight I played in another campaign run by a friend of mine.  I love DMing more than anything but its good to get to see a game from the players' side, too.  Our session tonight included ZERO combat encounters and that is what I wanted to talk about in this post.  

Dungeons & Dragons with no fighting?  What in the...

Tonight's game made me realize what it takes to have no combat involved.  I've always known that extreme roleplaying groups can pull off no combat sessions but this was my first experience in one.  I was told before hand so I was a little bummed that there was not going to be any fighting.  But the next thing I knew, the session was over and I had a blast.  Here's why:

Freedom
Our characters were not railroaded in any way. ...

SPOILER ALERT!!!
THIS BLOG IS REGARDING THE TOMB OF HORRORS 4TH EDITION ADVENTURE.  SKIP DOWN TO "GAMING ON" TO AVOID SPOILERS!!


The players finally made their way to the end of the tomb on Pluton.  After a vicious fight with a fey in the feywild crossover, the characters end up in a room with a large skull on the floor.  While attempting to return the magical gems to their spots on the skull, an aspect of the dead god Nerull attacks.  A second appears and the fight is really on!  Lomian, the vryloka warlock was the first to fall.  Shortly after, Three, the warforged cleric, died and that is when the party began to freak.  With some good rolls, good tactics, and strong wills the three remaining party members were able to defeat the aspects and move on to...

Our campaign is run in a semi-created world known as, "The Fold."  The 4th Edition D&D campaign known as “Quest for Starfire” takes place in a world that includes some of the published D&D world.  You can find remnants of Bael Turath as well as the Nentir Vale in the southeastern region of our world.  The special portion of our map is of a region known as “Aestonia.”  This is place, originally created by me but expanded upon by our gaming group.  Most of the campaign takes place on this massive continent.  I’ve created a map of one coast of Aestonia for reference:

The map shown here is the main region of Aestonia.  Most of the events occur near this area.  Keep in mind that this map shows no

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Last night, I finally got to be a player in a campaign again as one of my friends began his.  (Fear not, I'm still DMing my campaign and its still in full swing epic tier.)  I got to refresh myself on what it was like to build a character and fully bring him to life.  Brandis, the human swordmage was born.  A skilled blademaster and seeker of knowledge, Brandis met his party and they began their journey.  

Character development is a campaign-long event.  Characters are constantly evolving (they should be) and changing into the being they were destined to be.  I write this post from the vantage point of character creation.  These tips and tricks, however, can be applied at any time and any level to add more depth and create a more developed character.

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