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You are here: Home / Archives for 2010

Archives for 2010

Character Concepts: Dragonborn

February 25, 2010 by Bartoneus

A handful of character concepts and builds for creating an effective and elementally devastating dragonborn. From a Warden/Fighter that spews acid left and right to becoming an all-powerful avatar of the deceased god Io.

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games, The Architect DM Tagged With: 4th Edition, D&D, dnd 4e, dragon born, Dragonborn, Dungeons & Dragons, PHB races, player's handbook, race, roleplaying games, Roleplaying Games

Critical Hits Podcast #18: Planning Your Campaign Using the 5×5 Method Seminar

February 24, 2010 by Dave

I gave a talk at synDCon 2010 on how to use the 5×5 Method to plan a campaign arc. I took suggestions from the audience and walked through the process, and by the end, we had the structure to start planning.

Filed Under: Critical Hits Podcast, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 5x5 method, campaign planning, seminar, syndcon

Gears of Ruin: The Phantom Rails, Part 1

February 23, 2010 by The Chatty DM

The one rule I gave myself was “Shape the adventure based on the questions your players ask you” and “When in doubt, ask for a skill check”.

It worked wonderfully. So much so that my first true sandbox dungeon adventure probably felt like a seamless linear adventure narrative to my players who probably thought they were just following the path I had made for them.

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2009-2010 Campaign, Clockwork D&D, Gears of Ruin, Tropes

Video Interview with D&D Creative Manager Chris Perkins

February 23, 2010 by guest

Nick interviews D&D Creative Manager Chris Perkins about being a killer DM, running D&D for celebrities, and making your NPCs memorable by doing voices.

Filed Under: Critical Hits Podcast, Interviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, D&D, killer DM, NPCs, penny arcade, pvp, robot chicken, voices, wil wheaton

Will of The Forsaken (WTF for short)

February 23, 2010 by Vanir

There was a full decade of my life when I declared there were two things I’d never play. One was MMO’s. I decided this when a guy I knew quit his job to play Everquest full time and mooch off his girlfriend. The other was collectible card games, because I was astounded at how much money one could drop on them. This decision was made easy to live with by being in college and/or mostly poor. Over the last two years, both of these vows have been broken.

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Dire Flailings, Humor, Video Games Tagged With: ccg, collectible card games, kazamonsteelskinftw, mtg, warcraft, world of warcraft, WoW, wow tcg, wowtcg

Inq. of the Week: A Whole Lot of Class?

February 22, 2010 by Bartoneus

Martial Power 2 comes out tomorrow, and having gotten a look at the book I am very disappointed that my current party does not have any martial classes at all out of eight players, not even through multi-classing. This has led me to wondering exactly which classes all of you are playing and as a result which classes are the most played and which don’t get that much love.

Filed Under: Featured, Inquisition of the Week, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4th Edition, class, D&D, dnd 4e, Dungeons and Dragons, martial power 2, PHB3, roleplaying games, Roleplaying Games

Critical Bits for the week ending 2010-02-21

February 21, 2010 by Gato the News Robot

Check out "Clerics of the Covenant of War" by @matt_james_FR, powers and an item for your battle cleric. http://bit.ly/9qZBUs (DDI sub req) # If you tried to download any of the podcasts from our feed and had issues, please try again- they should be up now. # RT @io9: Did Dungeons & Dragons Motivate Dr. […]

Filed Under: Critical Bits Tagged With: twitter

Friday Chat: Are You Watching the Interweb?

February 18, 2010 by The Chatty DM

In the last few years, as I gravitated to jobs with extremely lenient web access policies (and absent monitoring) and started blogging, I found myself drawn just a bit too much. You know, the kind that makes you spend just a little too long catching up with the Questionable Content archives, or fall for link-baiting to a website that will ruin your life.

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: Friday Chat, Net Addiction, Net Famous, Productivity, Watching TV

Critical Hits Podcast #17: Demolishing the Edition War – Roleplaying in 4e Seminar

February 18, 2010 by Dave

Matt James of Loremaster, David Phillips, and myself gave a talk at synDCon 2010 about the origins of the Edition War in D&D, using skills for magical effects, why combat might be prevalent, tips for using skill challenges to increase roleplaying, and more.

Filed Under: Critical Hits Podcast, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, edition war, seminar

The Almighty Player

February 18, 2010 by dixontrimline

Excuse me, but could I have just a few moments to talk to the players out there? If you’re a DM, with your level-plus-four encounters, your killer dice that never roll below 15, and your behind-the-screen smirk, I’d just ask you to step out of the room for a little while so I can address the players… okay, are they gone? Good.

Filed Under: Editorial, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: player advice

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  • Bartoneus

    Danny works professionally as an architectural designer and serves as managing editor here at CH, which means he shares many of the duties of being an editor but without the fame and recognition. He also writes about RPGs, videogames, movies, and TV. He is married to Sucilaria, and has a personal blog at Incorrect Blitz Input. (Email Danny or follow him on Twitter).

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