Here I sit, mentally preparing myself for the next half of our D&D 07-08 season. As I promised my players almost 5 months ago, I’m sending them Plane-hoping in the Great Cosmic Wheel. I’m done reading Planescape and while I love the setting’s potential, I was rather irritated by the late 90’s “Storytelling is a […]
Adventure Prep: Finishing a Campaign Arc
This Friday is the year’s last game session. It also coincides with the last session of the Seed of Sehan campaign arc I adapted from Dungeon Magazine to Ptolus. See here for the whole Campaign so far… As mentioned before, the game has been prepared for quite some time now and I’ve had time to […]
Adventure Prep: When Fun and Logic collide…
Woot! It’s game week again! Since this week’s game is the 3rd session in and around a Tomb dungeon, and since the adventure is pretty much prepped since last week, I was thinking of skipping this week’s prep article in order to focus on the campaign’s next chapter (Where Planescape meets Ptolus). But then I […]
Adventure Prep: My Recent Time Management Shortcuts
Now that I made a point about the value of our player’s free time, I must confess that I don’t have that more free time than them. Ronin and Ve4grm have made good argument that the DM’s fun factor must also be taken into account and does not want to waste his/her own free time […]
Adventure Prep: Tomb Re-engineering 101
Okay, I got sick last night, probably with the same bugs my wife and kids have been fighting these last 2 weeks. Hopefully I’ll get better for Friday’s game. If not well I just might have to pull the plug on it no matter how I’d much rather not do this. This week’s Adventure prep […]
Adventure Prep, Session 5: When Frustration leads to Inspiration
Okay, so this week’s game is a transition from my adaptation of the Vile Addiction adventure (From Dungeon Magazine #145) to its sequel, Spawn of Sehan from #146. Going in this week’s preparations, I had the following goals: Focus the adventure on the more impatient Butt Kickers like Eric and Math to make up for […]
Adventure Prep, Special Session: Introducing Newbies to D&D
Since PM posted his first ‘Perspective‘ post yesterday, I thought it was the perfect timing for posting this Adventure Prep/Response to PM’s post Next Friday, PM has agreed to get a few friends together and allow me to DM an introductory D&D game. I feel honored to be entrusted a mission so many of us […]
Adventure Prep, Session 4: The Dynamic Dungeon Crawl
Image Source: Wizards of the Coast (I’m baiting for a Cease and Desist letter, I know… hope this falls under fair use) Last time we left our current D&D game, I left my players in the middle of a Sewers-based Dungeon Crawltaken from the Vile Addiction adventure in Dungeon Magazine #145, much to the dismay […]
Adventure Prep, Session 3: Adapting a published adventure
Image Source: Paizo’s Dungeon Magazine Two players can’t make it to the game next Friday. According to our social contract when 2 or more players are missing, we try to move the game back one week. While this extra time could allow me to prepare a super extra awesome adventure, I find that I spend […]
Game Prep: The Mental State
Preparing an adventure represents about 80% of my game prep process. This includes stating the Bad Guys, setting the difficulty of the various Non-Combat challenges and creating loot that the players will appreciate. Aside: One of my last D&D 3.5 purchases was the Magic Item Compedium. This book is phenomenal and a preview of what […]
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