Story Hour: Part 3



Valek, Eladrin spymaster



Again with the tardiness! I'm just messing up left and right here. Still, here we continue where we left off: The players just defeated a rogue mage bent on power and domination. The players found a clue to their next goal; a map with a small pyramid symbol on it with the annotation "more power, pyramid of shadows." So the players left Thunderspire Mountain.

Shortly after they left on their way down they realized they were being stalked. Quickly they gathered and formed a plan; but it didn't really matter as the person stalking them jumped from the trees: an eladrin who introduced himself as Valek. He said he had been waiting for the players but couldn't afford to wait any longer. He urged them to trust him, but he couldn't talk now, as he was being pursued by assailants. If they trusted him and let him use a teleportation ritual to go somewhere safe, he would tell them everything.

Integrating Player Backgrounds

First off, a heartfelt apology to my readers for not posting anything in the last few days. Life has been kicking my butt between home, work and school over the past few days, but I'm back now! Today we'll talk about a topic that has been on my mind for a week or two now: player backgrounds. Not all DMs use them, some require them, and I recommend them. If you're using a homebrew setting, it gets the players to learn about the setting by having them build their character into it. It also helps the DM come up with ideas and populate areas he never had (remember all that blank space we left on the map? Yeah, here's where it comes in handy), which is a very handy technique for world-building (called collaberative design, but we'll get to that another time). For now, I'll discuss how I use backgrounds in my campaign.

Penny Arcade/PvP Podcasts

Today I bring another installment of the "Learning from the Masters" segment, whereby I offer an example of fine DMing talent. This week I bring you another round of Chris Perkins' DMing genius, but this time with a different group: the creators of Penny Arcane and PvP comics. This is a series of podcasts that highlights how to run a decent game even if your players are a bit chaotic in nature.

There are 3 series of the podcast, each one about 8 episodes long. The second series even includes a super-awesome guest player: Wil Wheaton! So I'll get out of the way and let you enjoy some more awesome gaming.

You can find episode one here, and all the rest of the episodes can be found here.

Happy gaming!

The Power of Choice

I don't have a whole lot of time to make a post today, as I'll be prepping for the climactic final encounter for one of the groups I run tonight, and that will eat up the bits of my day that aren't filled with my job. So today I'll talk about player choice, and how you can use it in your game.

A lot of DMs, especially beginner DMs, are nervous about letting the players choose their own path. What if they do something I'm not prepared for? or worse, What if they do something that breaks the story? This leads to what is called railroading: forcing the players onto the path you write for them, without a chance for them to make their own choices. Railroading is bad, except in specific cases where you know precisely what you are doing.

If railroading is at one end of the spectrum, then the other end would be sandboxing. This is a type of game where the DM has no pre-set story or plan, and lets the players do what they will. At its most extreme, this means that plot hooks are not given, and the players are left to hunt down possible adventures. This, like railroading, is bad unless you know what you're doing. So what do you do? Find a happy medium, and that's what I'll talk about today

Story Hour: Part 2

So it is Sunday again, and you all know what that means right? Story Hour Sunday! Today we'll continue the story where we left off last week, following the next big adventure in my campaign. This time, however, I won't bother with trying to teach anything; I'm just going to ramble through what happened in my campaign.

Thunderspire Labyrinth

This is a big adventure, but I'll make it as brief as possible without missing the highlight, if I can remember them. We left off last week after the players slew a cult of Orcus leader around the city of Winterhaven. We pick up this week as the characters, heroes as they are, were asked by the lord of the city to investigate some reports of missing persons in the area. Not only that, but with a letter found on the corpse of the necromancer (yay plot hooks), they were able to deduce that these people were kidnapped as slaves to be used by some group called the Red Hand. They found out that this group was located inside a large mountain a weeks travel away. So off they were, heading towards - dun dun DUUUUH - Thunderspire Mountain.

Adding Horror to your Game

Today I'm going to talk less about procedural topics like campaign building or monster design, and instead I am going to talk about something that even I haven't worked out all the way yet: Being scary with your game. Turning a roleplaying game into a horror game can be tough. Like reputations, it takes a while to build up good horror, and it can be ruined with a single off-hand comment. To this end, I will share my experience with horror, and 5 tips to making it work in your game.

The Story of Orsik

One of my hobbies other than DMing is painting metal miniatures. Usually this goes with my DMing as I can paint minis to use at the table, but my current painting project is a bit different. It's not a mini meant to be used at the table, rather its a diorama, depicting one of the coolest characters I've ever had the pleasure of running a game for. I finished this beast of a project last night, after 3 weeks of modeling, and I wanted to share this with everyone; share the awesomeness that is Orsik.