Dungeon Mapp (iTunes link) fills in a missing piece of that equation for those who play RPGs on a grid, most notably the past few editions of Dungeons & Dragons and its spinoffs. Dungeon Mapp is an app for the iPad that lets a DM build dungeon maps (or wilderness, or several other terrain types), as well as populating the maps with extra features. You can then use it to entirely run your combats from within the app, placing party members, monsters, and managing initiative all from within the program.
Critical Hits Podcast #32: Mike Shea and Dave Chalker on Epic Tier Play
Mike Shea and Dave Chalker talk about running epic tier games in D&D 4e.
The Architect DM: Worldbuilding Diary
For well over a year now I’ve kept an eye on the material that our friend Dennis has been producing over at his blog The Spirits of Eden for his RPG setting, the World of Adel. I’ve talked to him a few times about his worldbuilding and the setting that he’s created, and every time we talk I marvel more and more at what he is creating. Today he has started a series of posts he is calling a Worldbuilding Diary and I was instantly impressed and inspired by it.
Infinite Possibilities, Itty-Bitty Comfort Zone
My nerdcation to Washington DC last month opened my eyes to a lot of things. These included crab chips and secret ginger candies that stop motion sickness. Mostly, it was the exposure to open-form roleplaying games that has been taking up most of my free processor cycles. Despite being the guy in our group that would cheerfully handwave every combat in favor of having an all-roleplay session, I find myself flummoxed when faced with the infinite possibilities of a game like Fiasco. I have a lot of fun when it works, and nobody has fun when it doesn’t.
D&D Zombie Apocalypse, Part 1: Genesis
In which Chatty tells the story of a great 100% made up on the spot D&D 4e game he ran for new players at the New York ComicCon. Be careful, it contains zombies and wolves.
The Architect DM: On Character Creation
If someone asked me for a single bit of advice to improve their roleplaying games, whether as a DM or a player, I would tell them to spend as much time as they can reading the great fantasy and sci-fi books that are out there. For the first several years that I was playing RPGs I was not an avid reader and had not even heard of many of the classics, including ones that everyone should have heard of like The Lord of the Rings. At the time I thought many of my friends were insanely creative or stricken by some miraculous form of otherworldly inspiration, but as I’ve read more and more of the books out there I began to realize that most good ideas in our RPGs have been inspired by or even directly ripped from other sources. For example, in one of the first D&D games that I ever DM’d a player showed up with a character named “Muadib” and I remember thinking that it was a very unique and interesting sounding name. A year or two later I started reading Dune and groaned when I realized he’d simply lifted the name straight out of that book.
Improv Pushups: The Movie
Early Monday morning, I bid farewell to one Dave Chalker (who I had been staying with for the week, and who had risen with me to get me to the airport before the coming of the dread Day Star).I came all the way to the East coast for one specific purpose: to game my face off. More specifically, DC Gameday was this weekend, and I wanted to game my face off as close to Congress as I possibly could. Somebody’s got to show those guys how to play nice together, right?
Five Wishes for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons
Even if you live in a cave on a desert island, there’s likely some neck-bearded castaway next to you predicting and complaining about a 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. We’ve heard it for five years and we’ll hear it for five more, regardless of what new games are released. Most recently, 3rd edition veteran […]
D&D Ninjas Have Arrived
Today, my first Dragon magazine article was published: “Class Acts Assassin: Secrets of the Ninja.” This article, as part of the Kara-Tur theme of this month, brings PC ninjas back into D&D as a build of the Executioner Assassin introduced in Heroes of Shadow.
Roleplaying Resurrection
In Fiasco, there’s not really dice rolling, except for the start and middle bits, and trust me, those don’t count. It’s all decisions, decisions and storytelling, decisions and storytelling and improvisational roleplaying. Uh oh, there’s that word. Roleplaying. I’m going to have to sit at a table with other people and write a story out loud in the voice of a character that I just met, all while those other people are staring at me and judging me and hating me. This kind of thrown-in-the-deep-end roleplaying is a little daunting. No, wait, that’s not the right term. It’s gonad-shrinkingly terrifying.
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