As many of you know, I’m starting a D&D clockwork campaign called Gears of Ruin set on a dying, water and magic-poor world. One where the gods nearly lost the war against the Primordials and more or less abandoned this ravaged, but resource-rich husk to its own fate.
Chatty’s Tales of the Arabian Nights
Instead of providing another review of the game, I thought I would tell you the story of my ‘character’ to showcase how rich the game is. Note that while I may flourish the prose of my tale a bit (that’s what being a storyteller is all about), what I will present actually happened during the game.
Keeping up with the PCs: Part 3, The DM’s Toolbox and Other Dirty Tricks
Welcome back to this series about helping D&D 4e DM’s keep up with players who manage to become more performing than the game’s default assumption. In part 1, I described the “Secret Synergy Bonus” that made players a lot better at dealing with combat encounters that should otherwise be more challenging. Then in part 2, […]
Keeping up with the PCs: Part 2, What Not to Do and Quick Fixes
In part 1, I discussed a common occurrence in D&D 4e where parties becomes much stronger than they should be through what I called the ‘Secret Synergy Bonus.’ This occurs when players figure how to play their PCs as a focused team based on good communication and smart use of power combos to increase combat efficiency […]
Keeping up with the PCs: Part 1, The Secret Synergy Bonus
Many D&D 4e DMs have experienced, over the last 18 months, a shift in their gaming group’s performance. PCs have become capable of taking absolutely everything thrown at them with more ease than the game rules assume. Encounters at the PCs’ levels barely make a dent in the their resources anymore: “Dude, I lost like, just one Healing Surge”. Higher level encounters are also often dealt with with relative ease.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish!
(No I’m not retiring from RPG blogging, no worries) As I stand here by the seaside of Florida, I reflect on the upcoming blog merge with Critical Hits, planned to happen sometime during Sunday Jan 24th. Not so much because I’m having second thoughts about merging with Critical Hits and play the role of Prima […]
Chatty makes a Killing in Open Gaming Table #2’s nominations
I’m still in Florida, getting my head happily baked while my children play in the pool and get their feet frozen in the Atlantic. I got an idea a few minutes ago. A few days ago, Jonathan Jacobs posted the list of the 375 blog posts nominated for possible inclusion on the second Open Game […]
Gone South, will be back Jan 25th
I’m leaving for a one week vacation tomorrow. I’ll be driving to Burlington Airport tomorrow night (a 2 hour drive), sleep over there and have fun with the TSA’s security rules from 4h30 AM onwards on Saturday morning to eventually land in Orlando somewhere around noon. We’ll be spending a few days with the Dire […]
Gears of Ruin: Session 1, Revolutions per Machines, Part 3
See part 1 and part 2. First Contact This combat encounter had 3 goals: Give players a fairly challenging fight to give them a better feel for their PCs’ powers. Set a hostile first contact with mechanical monsters, in this case some undead warforged (you read that right) Spring a surprise on the player by […]
Gears of Ruin: Session 1, Revolutions per Machines, Part 2
See part 1 here. Get me some Competence Porn, stat! The first scene had a few goals. Introduce the PCs to the first important NPCs of the campaign, give them a quest for the night, but more importantly, make them look good! The scene started with the PCs waiting to be summoned to show up […]
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