Last Christmas I ran the Bone Dragon Pyramid from The Creative GM’s Guide To Extraordinary Locations as a one-shot for some of my old school friends and their kids. I placed the pyramid in Chult (Forgotten Realms) and inserted a Heart of Darkness-style boat ride up the river Tyriki to reach the pyramid, after which […]
Tag: RPGs
I’ve seen even experienced Game Masters resort to railroading at the gaming table. Hell, I’ve been guilty of it myself, and on more than one occasion. But why would any GM stoop that low, when pretty much the one thing that everyone in this hobby agrees upon is that “railroading is bad”? Contrary to what […]
In my last post I talked about the maxim: “rulings, not rules”. Living by this maxim can drastically speed up your game, as making a quick ruling about a situation and getting on with the game is obviously far faster than poring through the handbooks and trying to reach consensus on the “correct” way to […]
Despite starting my RPG journey with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in the late 80s, I have almost zero nostalgia for the early days of D&D. It was fun at the time, but laboriously making my way through an improbable dungeon, prodding every square inch of stone with a 10-foot-pole for traps, all so I can […]
While cities in Dungeons & Dragons are jam-packed with adventure potential, it can be much harder for DMs to find the drama in an urban setting, versus that of the dungeon or wilderness. This is largely because the Dungeon Master’s main tool – monsters – can’t be deployed with the same frequency and credibility in […]
Last year I researched and wrote Candlekeep Murders: The Deadwinter Prophecy, a murder mystery adventure for 5th edition Dungeon & Dragons that I’m immensely proud of… hey, if Ed Greenwood gives you the thumbs up, you can afford to pat yourself on the back a little, right? My research not only included taking in the […]
I’ve seen people argue that there are only three fundamental adventure types in Dungeons & Dragons: Fetch, Kill and Discover. However, you won’t have to wrack your brains too long to think of a story that falls outside those rather narrow restraints. The blog Master The Dungeon proposes seven core quest types: Fetch, Kill, Escort, […]
When I wrote Dragonbowl, on top of writing the storyline, I found myself including little bits of advice that DMs might profit from in their bid to extract maximum drama from the adventure. Perhaps the most interesting was a box out about plot armour. And the reason it’s interesting (for me at least) is because […]
