Tuesday, August 16, 2016

How Often Do You Play?

Serious question: How often is not often enough? Say you play in a weekly D&D game. Sometimes things come up, so let's say your group meets 44 times in the 52-week year to play. That's greater than three sessions per month on average. If a player wants to play, and commits to play, how many sessions a month should he or she play? Is it up to the player? Say a player commits to play but plays only 2 sessions a month on average. Is that enough? Should there be a house rule regarding participation?

Monday, August 8, 2016

Bad Rolls

The party came upon a Froghemoth last session, and as all 16 HD monsters, it had pretty good saves against the Magic Users spells. That didn't stop me from publicly rolling bad and having my 116 HP creature be polymorphed into a small turtle. I don't think anyone thought that would work, but why not? By the stock chart there is a decent chance of success. Anyone think I should have fudged to prevent such an anti-climactic end?

Friday, August 5, 2016

The Chopper, still in good shape.

I have used my Maciejowski chopper to cut wood, cut logs, fake wooden shields, thickly rolled newspaper, and enough water bottles.

The handle is still tight. The blade has very slight waviness to it now, not really visible in the pictures. It's still very sharp.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

What is going to happen?

It's odd going in to Saturday's game and not knowing what my players are going to do. I'm not unprepared, I must state up front. I just don't know where they are going to go. I have endorsed the sandbox game so much that I wonder if the players are holding back their ideas on purpose, to catch me unprepared. I can understand the desire to test the boundaries of my prep-work. It's all good. Bring it.

Enough for now. I am going to try to post more often. Just because I think it would be good if I did. I want to look at this in five years and say, "I was such a fool back then." So that means having a record. If you folks would also like to respond, feel free.

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Evil Inspiration

As much as I am a fan of DMs inventing their own stuff, drawing on the endless resources of their minds, eschewing modules and sourcebooks, I, nevertheless, could possibly dig a game set in this world.

Monday, May 30, 2016

Free Chapter from Book Two

This is a stand-alone chapter from my up and coming sword and sorcery novel, the second in Marlaya's storyline. It is spoiler free and told from the point of view of a character who will not be returning.

Sunday, May 29, 2016

What does playing in a sandbox actually look like?

Imagine two kids in their backyard, playing in a large sandbox under a jungle gym. One of the kids pushes a bunch of sand together into a big mound, then starts to form that mound into a castle. She uses the good damp sand to help hold her structures together and uses tools to compress the sand. Her toy shovel lets her castle walls have a certain smoothness that is very appealing. She builds four towers, each of which has a flat top upon which she can set plastic figures. In the end, she is very happy with her creation, one born of her own mind.
Her friend isn’t quite sure what to do in the sandbox. He has played in sandboxes before but was always unsure. He looks to his friend for guidance. His friend formed a pile so he copied her, building his own pile. Then his friend started forming walls, and so he tried forming walls. Every step along the way, he looked to his friend for guidance, to show him how to play in the sand, and what to build.
It is often similar in D&D. Players want the freedom to play in the metaphorical sandbox game but often don’t know what to do when they get there. This is why so many are content with being railroaded. They learn that the right way to play is to see what is offered by the DM, and to respond instead of create. They wait for input, from the other players and the eager DM, before deciding what their character will do, or even WANTS to do.

Think about how your players approach the game.

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

So, what wouldn't you allow in your game? What Top Ten things would you as DM not allow in your game? Think about it. Make a list. Then when you are ready to start DMing, throw that list in the garbage.

I should stipulate that I didn't say "who" but "what."