Is there an authentic experience?

Recently an old groupmate of mine has just returned from his studies in England and has shown an interest to start DMing again. Back then we used to play 3.5 but he's eager to try his hand at 4E this time. So he's been gathering up some players to run a one-shot this week.

One of the players that will be playing in the game is a friend of mine who has observed us play 4E on many occasions before but this would be his first try at any form of RPG.

While I think this is a great thing since a potential new player is entering into the fold but I do have some little qualms. Mainly because I have played under my old groupmate as a DM before and he has an....'unorthodox' way of running his games.

What concerns me the most is that my DM groupmate is a real rules hacker. I remember when we played in one of his 3.5 campaigns, he had hacked the rules with his own houserules that it felt like we were playing a different game altogether.

I know every DM is bound to have their own houserules and it wouldn't really bother me if it was minor rule changes for the sake of running the game smoothly. But I'm starting to worry what sort of effect this would have on the new player, seeing that this will be his first impression of the game where he gets his hands dirty with the mechanics.

If his first impression is wrapped into something that doesn't have any resemblance to what is being played by RAW, he might fall into the trap of 'one wayism' and it would be harder to 'undo' the damage rather than preventing it in the first place.

So my real question is, is there really such a thing as an authentic gaming experience that should be introduced to new players? Should there be some kind of 'base model' of gaming, so that new players will eventually learn what he likes and dislikes about each DM's style that he plays under and will choose accordingly? For the benefit of the greater gaming community?

Another question would be what makes an authentic experience of gaming (or in this case, 4E)? Do you think it's possible to run any RPG system without any houserules, whether from the trivial to the outrageous? Or there's another way to teach RPGs to a new player where he learns to tell the difference earlier on?

Tell me what you think in the comments.

March 2010 RPG Blog Carnival: How to be a Better GM? Roundup

First off, I would like to thank all the contributors to the March 2010 RPG Blog Carnival that was brought to you by Questing GM; the gamer in search of gaming enlightenment.

I'm truly humbled that you all have taken your time to do your respective posts and I'm sorry that I wasn't able to comment on all the posts that came my way as work caught up with me.

To be honest, I was expecting the RPG blogger community to come up with complex and long posts on their elaborate ways of improving their GM but was indeed surprised that some of the advice that I found were really simple things that we, as GMs, may have taken for granted and need to be reminded of them.

For this blog carnival, I received a total of 13 links to posts from old bloggers that I have known during my early days in the RPGBN as well as new blogs that I've read for the first time.

I was hoping that some of the big names (especially those who mainly deal with the subject of GMing) in the RPGBN would have made an appearance but it seems they have moved on from the RPG Blog Carnival festivities and are doing something higher in the geekierarchy.

Nevertheless, it was good to see the new names and hopefully their participation in this and the forthcoming blog carnivals would do well to their geek cred and blog traffic and keep the flame of the blog carnival alive for some time to come.

Without further ado, I'll try to summarize my thoughts on each and every post that have graced this blog carnival for March 2010.

Initiative or What? and Evil Machinations shared the same idea that not even the best GMing guru can solve your GMing woes if you don't get any feedback from your players.

In fact, the best people to judge your GMing skills are most probably your players instead of other GMs.

So getting the feedback is very important which you can get either by just talking to your players or have them fill a questionnaire.

Geek Ken follows the same idea but also adds that one of the best ways to improve your gaming is to take your ass off the hotseat and play something that is not D&D for a while.

Or just learn to take it easy while your doing it like taking a swim in The Astral Sea.

Then again, practice does make perfect, says Sunglar from Stargazer's World so all is not lost if your players has glued your said ass to the DM's seat and cast some kind of geas spell that compels you to improve your GMing there.

You just need to know the secret... (no, this has nothing to do with New Age philosophy)

Back Screen Pass stresses the importance of playing to your strength as a GM and make it your selling point to your players. It's better to get comfortable while you are GMing instead of trying too hard to impress them when you are not at your best.

If all else fails, Butler, Wolf and Bowman have a better solution. Throw everything at the wall.

Since he started DMing in 2008, Newbie DM's blog has become one of the more visited ones among the rest of us. After a little pestering him on Twitter, he kindly did a post about how he was improved his GMing over time with a fair share of his own tips and perhaps a sign of a new breed of GMs?

And what other classical GMing advice would be left out if it wasn't Late To The Party for mentioning that one of the easiest way to be a better GM is to steal (and stretch).

On the other hand, one of the more peculiar GMing advice that I've read came from Fame & Fortune who described the way of the snow in GMing.

Not every GM always have good advice but the good ones are the ones that usually ask questions on how they can improve like the one asked by Paths of Adventure on how to describe damage differently.

I liked tenletter's post because it makes me look smart but I think there is an important lesson to be learned from organizational theory because it is can be applied on gaming groups. Don't let the title of his post fool you.

Lastly, The Action Point takes an extra action to relate this quote with GMing.

“Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.”

It's a great post especially for new GMs (albeit a little on the long side) because it nails down some of the most basic ways of improving your game and recognizes what GMing boils down to.

That's all for March and I hope that readers would find one of these posts helpful in making them a better GM one way or another. I can only apologize for the slight delay of writing this round-up.

In the meantime since we're nearing mid April, it's still not too late to contribute to this month's RPG blog carnival which is undergoing an Exchange of Realities with the topic of Let Me Show You My (N)PC.

March 2010 RPG Blog Carnival: How to be a Better GM?

Wow, time really flies and it's already March. I remember signing up to host the RPG Blog Carnival back sometime last year and now the RPG Blog Carnival is pitching their tents for the first time at the Questing GM.

As for this month's topic, it is something that I have chose much earlier because it is something that is close to my heart and one of the reasons why I started this blog; Gamemastering.

I started GMing the same time I started gaming and even after more than 10 years of so-called GMing experience, I still think that I haven't learn all there is to GMing.

Not all GMs are not made perfect to handle every kind situations that comes out from the chaos that is called roleplaying and every day we might encounter a new situation that we have never been in before. Even with the same group of players that you've been playing for decades.

As GMs, I not only have to keep running the game smoothly, I also have to find new ways and ideas to keep my games fresh so that my players would keep coming for more. I always want my players to have fun in my game and that is one of the greatest rewards that I can ever have as GMs.

The reason why I chose the name Questing GM was because I believed that as a GM, I'm always finding out new ways to improve my game for me as a GM and for my players whether it's the way we run combat or how the setting was designed.

It's a learning process that never ends and I believe that we can all learn from each other.

So for this month's blog carnival, I invite, fellow bloggers to do a post on;

How to be a better GM?

Shares your anecdotes, your advice, your own reflections on whether you have improved as a GM, how do improve your game or any other posts that can be helpful to your own or someone else's game. There's just so many aspects in GMing that I'm sure you can chime in on something.

Once you have posted up your post, kindly leave a link at the comments section so that I can do a roundup at the end of the month.

Let's keep the flame from dying, people. I don't want this to be the last blog carnival.

Questing's Readings - 1/11/09

It's November and the former board of the RPG Bloggers Network have made their decision. Dave Chalker has made an announcement, after deliberating through the 6 proposals that were submitted, they have trusted the reins to Duane O' Brien from A Terrible Idea.

You can read what the future holds for the RPGBN in Duane's inauguration post but it doesn't seem to imply much drastic changes. Time will tell and we'll see in the first month.

Of course, a new month means a new topic for the blog carnival. This month, the carnival is hosted by Uncle Bear where he ask bloggers to share their thoughts on community; a fitting subject since he started the Role Playing Media Network and with the recent transition of the RPGBN.

Not only does this topic comprised on the online community but to the off-line as well. It would be interesting to see some post that describes their gaming community outside the US.

This week's readings has been pretty fruitful as there are good advice in various areas from GMing, adding elements into your game and some RPG-related history.

A Buttefly Dreaming
Adding Fear to Your Game
Since last weekend was Halloween, here's some pointers on how to instill fear into your game and how not to.

Campaign Mastery
Legendary Achievements: Colouring Your Campaign with Anecdote and Legend
How the Guinness Book of Records can help to improve your description.

Ask the GMs: PC Choices and Consequences
Great advice, especially if you are running a sandbox (some of the advice even points to that direction), on how you should decide how your PCs' actions have an impact on your setting.

Critical Hits
5 Tips For Running Dungeon Delves
Although these advice are aimed for running short delves, it is still good advice for any DM who is running a long-running campaign.

Purple Pawn
Dr Thomas Radecki’s List of D&D Related Deaths and Violence
An interesting link to murder cases during the 80s scare that this insane psychiatrist claims that D&D was the cause of it.

The RPG Anthenaeum
Five ways to recycle an old D&D campaign
Some elements in a campaign that can be reused even in the same campaign.

Level up your creativity with an 'imaginary bank account'
Few GMs underestimate the power of carrying a notebook in your pocket when an idea pops in. Here's another way you can organize your inspirations and ideas that comes to mind.

The Spirits of Eden
Creating Controlling Powers
Although aimed at developing new controller powers, this is a very good insight into the mechanics of controller powers. While useful for homebrewers, I also think this is useful for min/maxers.

Wyatt's Advice On Play-by-Post Recruiting
I don't play-by-post but these advice should be useful for anyone who plans to start. You obviously shouldn't take advice from a guy who has predominantly played online for 5 years *wink*.

Whitehall ParaIndustries
Looking Back: Elements of Complexity
Groups and Complexity

A breakdown listing different types of game complexity and how groups relate with game complexity. I admit that I do have my own taste of complexity and this could explain why I'm also adverse to some others.

Winning in RPGs

It has been a common question asked. How do win in a RPG?

This could be seen as a misconception that since RPG has the word game in it, there is a winning objective. Through skill, imagination and wit you have beaten the game, you have defeated every challenge thrown against you and you are the champion.

While traditionally you can't 'win' in a RPG but instead of saying 'no, you can't', we could embrace the spirit of 'yes, you can!' This is where I think as GMs, we can actually use the word 'winning' to our advantage.

After giving it some thought, if I'm ever asked 'how do you win in a RPG', my answer now would probably be, 'you decide as a character'. There are so many things you can do in a RPG that it isn't a question of a lack thereof objectives but a matter of which one you think gives you the greatest satisfaction as if you have 'won'.

Think about it, would you feel like a winner if you character has accomplished the following?

• Your fighter becomes a king/warlord with his own army to command and a land to rule over.


• Your wizard has gain ultimate power, a tower with a hoard of powerful artifacts and is the undisputed mover and shaker of the land, kingdom and universe.


• Your rogue has overthrown the thieves' guild leader and now you are an influence in the underworld, feared and respected by everyone in the streets.


• Your character has reached epic levels, has learned all the feats, skills, spells/powers and a combination that he/she could ever learn to become the perfect character.


• Your character has found a powerful artifact and used it to save the world.


• You avenged the death of your village by destroying the BBEG, rescued the damsel in distress and fulfilled your destiny as written in your background.


• After living as an adventurer for 25 years, you safely retire with limbs in one piece and enough a fortune to last you and your family for a lifetime. Your children are born in a world that you know is safer by your hands and they themselves grew up to be heroes of their time.


• Your character ascends into godhood, dictating the lives of mortals and your name has been uttered in legends and myth.


• Your character went into the dungeon and slew the dragon and took their stuff.

As mentioned earlier, there isn't a lack of objectives. On the contrary, the sky is the limit and beyond. It should up to your players to decide how do they want to beat the game. Not everyone has to have the same winning condition and this is where motivation comes into play.

As a GM, letting your players choose how they want to 'win' a RPG is telling you what is the motivation of their character and you can be sure that they are willing to give it their all in order to reach that objective, it's their end goal. It not only gives their character a purpose but also your player to come to your table every game day.

So how would you win in a RPG?

{Quest Log} Pre-Campaign Blues

After going through the disastrous TPK during our one-shot session, the group has decided that they like to move on to a long term campaign.

I proposed to the group that we should go through all the published modules from Wizards and so we are picking up H1 Keep on the Shadowfell this coming weekend. From there, I intend to move along through each module and tie them together as an episodic campaign.

It's been a while since I've run a campaign so I've been a little rusty in trying to get things organize and remember what should you prepare during the pre-campaign.

I've wanted to run a pre-campaign session where I could get the players together and discuss a little about how are we going to tie their characters into the setting. Unfortunately, work called up and I had to cancel the pre-campaign met.

So we had to do most of the char gen and discussion over a local forum where most of my players are members of (it even has a sub-board for D&D so it was appropriate to have them there anyway) and would go straight for the session this Saturday. While I would have much prefered a face-to-face meetup because then ideas could be bounced back and forth between the players and the DM on the spot but through the forum, we managed to most of the character generation process, questions and answers done.

Despite the hassles that we had with the character builder, our group once again decided to give it a second-shot and it was important that I lay down some houserules of how should the character generation process be done.

On the day of work, I managed to bump into one of my old players and he mentioned that he was interested in trying some 4E. That's quite a nice blessing in disguise as our group had only 4 players and an addition would make it an ideal 5-man party.

Eventually, I asked the other group members and they were ok with the new player (which most of them happen to know the guy IRL). I passed him my char gen houserules and a link to the free version of the character builder. Hopefully, there won't be any mishaps again this time.

While the Character Builder really does make generating a character a really quick process, I don't think that it really reduces the amount of time spend on creating a character in a campaign. What the Builder does is that it gives players more time to spend on deciding their character backgrounds (which is probably where all the time should be spent anyway).

Since this was going to be a campaign with episodic links, I figured that it would still be best if the players could come up with background information for their characters so that I could tie them into the Nentir Vale.

I think my biggest mistake at this point is that I forgot to give them any information about the setting that they would be play in but I expect that they would be able to come up with some generic ones and I can work the details in with them after that.

Although they have already chosen their backgrounds from PHB 2, so far only 2 out of my 5 players have fully fleshed out their character background and I'm only wondering do the remaining players need a little information to help them with their decision. What I can do to rectify this problem at the moment is post up some little information about the setting that they playing in on the forum and hopefully we can flesh out the details on the session itself.

I'm starting to feel my way into running and organizing a campaign but it feels like I'm back to square one and have lots to do at the moment.

Do you think that I should have done the pre-campaign face-to-face meetup or should have posted up the information much earlier to help with their character background process?

Let me know as I enjoy the feedback.

Questing's Readings - 19/7/09 & 26/7/09

First of all, sorry for not posting last week's Questing's Readings. Not having a permanent internet connection sucks right now and I'm still considering alternatives of getting a different ISP. On the other hand, that's not too bad a thing since I will be compiling posts that I've enjoyed last week together with the ones from this week. So that you would will enjoy the double goodness coming from the RPG Bloggers Network.

Before we move on with the readings, some news of what's been happening in the RPG bloggersphere. Critical Hits and Mad Brew Labs from the RPG Bloggers Network have been nominated for the Best Website alongside with websites like Dungeon-a-Day run by Monte Cook, Kobold Quarterly by Wolfgang Baur and Obisidian Portal, the campaign wiki providing service.

Although it probably isn't fair to have blogs and commercial websites in the same category but it is still quite a big achievement for the network to have 2 of its members listed out of the 5 nominees. I have featured both of these blogs in Questing's Readings before and it will be a hard choice to make between the two for the content that they have generated over the past year.

Critical Hits has been pretty much my go-to website for any RPG-related news which has a crew of writers that have good connections with the industry. These are the guys that I look up to in regards to gaming journalism and they have also produced some indepth analysis especially in the 4E mechanics.

Not to mention that Dave Chalker, Danny Rupp and Graham Poole are part of the founding members of the RPG Bloggers Network which has been the next best thing for the online RPG Community since ENWorld (who award the ENnies), in my opinion.

Mad Brew Labs has always been about thought provoking posts. Although I don't share all of his taste but we both share an interest in understanding RPGs from an academic point of view. In fact, his blog was the first that came into mind when I first posted up what is still one of the most commented post I've done for this blog.

Outside of his blog, I have known Micheal Brewer to be very active in the RPG/Blogger community with his most recent participation as the host of the June RPG Blog Carnival, the RPGBN Shared Setting and co-founding NeverMet Press.

So I would ask you to go over to both of these blogs, read through what they have to offer to make up your mind and give your votes to these guys to support the underdogs. Hopefully this will win us some recognition among the judges in charge of the ENnies to give bloggers their own category the next year.

Now let's head over to what is going to be a long post ahead of us with lots of link love to posts (and blogs) that weren't nominated but are equally deserving for their great content. Throughout both weeks, we have some bloggers sharing topics on dealing with character deaths,, staging the 'epic' and character development.

A Butterfly Dreaming
What are the Best 4E Ability Score Arrays?
A very good look and thought about the possible combination of scores you can get from the 22 point buy and the ability score arrays from the PHB. This is interesting if you are a bit of math geek and useful for the min/maxer.

Advanced Gaming & Theory
Creating a Meaning Festival
Some ideas on how to run and roleplay an archery and jousting contest with some ways of implementing them into your campaign as potential plot hooks.

At Will
Is it a Fight or a Skill Challenge?
A good reminder that DMs should not be too rigid in deciding how PCs should overcome an encounter and let the players decide. This plays against the argument that 4E does not encourage roleplaying and it is something to keep in mind.

A boss in parts
An attempt to implement into 4E an often seen monster design concept in console JRPGs with a few examples. This is certainly an interesting approach to monster design for 4E.

Beneath the Screen
A DM's Dilemma: Dealing with Deadlines
5 advice on what you should do if you are having less time to play with your group or are moving away from town. Even if you are not in this kind of situation, I think it is still good advice for DMs in order to run a fun game.

5 Tips for Dealing With PC Death
5 advice on how to handle PC deaths and how they can sometimes be an opportunity for more roleplaying.

Campaign Mastery
Ask the GMs: An epic confusion, or how to stage a blockbuster finish
Someone asks the GMs whether their epic-spellcasting villain should go all out with his powerful arsenal at first when going against the PCs in the climatic final encounter. See what Johnn and Mike have to say. It's long but it has really good advice.

Fame & Fortune
staging epic conflict
Sort of a follow-up to Campaign Mastery's post on epic fights but this focuses more on how to make epic campaigns without being cheesy.

Inkwell Ideas
Game Design Tips from the Paizo RPG Superstar Contest
Some general advice and guidelines given by the judges of the Paizo RPG Superstar content in designing magical items. Most of these advice are not system specific and it would be good reference for those who are intending to join in next year's contest.

Jonathan Drain's D20 Source
Five Ways to Make Your Player's Life Easier
This could be summarize into talking with your players, giving them the spotlight and be willing to compromise which are generally good practices as a DM.

You're Dead!
A look into death throughout the editions and why death should not always be a harsh penalty because of the level, financial and equipment loss that it incurs.

Beyond "You Hit": Describing Damage
A very interesting way of describing damage based on ability scores, monster type and character class.

The Art of the One-Shot Adventure
The benefits of one-shot adventures and how to implement them into your ongoing campaign.

Life and Times of a Philippine Gamer
A Discussion on Trust
An interesting look on the concept of trust, trustor and trustee and how it can be applied in-game between NPCs and PC with a few examples from his current campaigns.

Newbie DM
Don't make the PC's ride your newbie railroad!
5 ways to improvise when your PCs goes off the track. This is normally good advice for new DMs who tend to railroad but it's good advice all around.

RoleplayingPro
Addressing Metagaming
Distinguishing lesser and greater metagaming with the latter being more destructive to the game. There are some advice on how to handle greater metagaming.

Building Memorable D&D Characters: Race & Class
Building Memorable D&D Characters: Backgrounds

A very good list of pointers to think about when developing your character background based on your class, race and the backgrounds from the Player's Handbook 2.

Sly Flourish
Four Tip's From Robin's Laws
4 general tips taken from the GMing bible by Robin Laws if you haven't read it before.

Four Tips for Kings of the Trollhaunt Warrens
P1 King of the Trollhaunt Warrens is the first paragon tier adventure module from Wizards and it is the first chance for the PCs to experience high level action and exploration. The four tips here recommend doing some groundwork much earlier before adventure begins to increase the satisfaction when the players go through it.

Stargazer's World
Interview with Wolfgang Baur
An interview with the man behind Kobold Quarterly, his nominations in this year's ENnies, his career, his future plans and love for the pesky buggers.

A Gamer in Japan Pt 2 - Location, Location, Location
Ever wondered where do Japanese gamer meet to play? I'm surprised to read that Japan has a gaming retail chain that also caters to RPG gamers.

Stupid Ranger
Developing Your Roleplaying
DM Your Way To Better Roleplaying

Dante and Stupid Ranger giving out simple ways for players and DMs to promote more roleplaying on the table.

tenletter
Maslow's Sandbox Game (Or Needs-Based Player Hooks)
An interesting idea of how to create plot hooks based on the character's needs according to the Maslow pyramid.

The Gherkin Patch
The Iron Triangle of Game Design
A very interesting article based on the constraints of software engineering and how it can also be applied to game design with playability, simulation and universality as the three points of the triangle.

It's a little long and can get quite heavy at times but it does paint an interesting portrait of the limits of designing the 'perfect' system.

Questing's Readings - 12/7/09

This week is an invaluable week for DMs. There's a bunch of posts with great advice on DMing, a couple design tips, resource links and even business tips coming out from the RPG Bloggers Network. So without further a due, let's get on with the readings.

Examiner.com
A wealth of RPG worldbuilding advice
If you haven't been following Uncle Bear's excellent worldbuilding series, then here is the one stop post to catch it all compiled together.

Gaming Brouhaha
Want to inject more roleplaying in to your 4E game?
Some ideas of using characters' personal goals and beliefs and rewarding descriptive play as good ways to bring the roleplaying that 4E seems to be 'missing'.

JavaWorld's Daily Brew
10 Business Lessons I Learned from Playing Dungeons & Dragons
A demonstration of what you learn from the gaming table can be applicable and, in fact, sometimes useful in real life. This post is taken via The Escapist on Life Lessons from D&D.

Inkwell Ideas
RPG Resources of the Day: 101 Fantasy City, Town and Village Maps
RPG Resources of the Day: Two Sites with Hundreds of Real Historical City Maps

The first post contains maps of fictional and fantasy maps while the second one contains real and historical cities from different periods. This is really a great list to mine from.

Jonathan Drain's D20 Source
Golden Rules of Game Mastering
Two very important rules that every GM (and player) should know about GMing.

Life and Times of a Philippine Gamer
New Players in Old Campaigns
Inserting new player into an ongoing campaign with veterans can be a pretty delicate task. If not done properly, it can slow things down tremendously. So here's a 3 question checklist to ask yourself if you have done your part as the DM to make them comfortable not only to the rules but to the ongoing campaign.

Player Advice: Information Management
The only post this week that is for players. A list of really good questions to ask yourself when playing your character to make informed decisions. This is particularly useful for espionage themed games and it can be useful for DMs as well.

Musings of the Chatty DM
4e Lessons: The Penny Arcade/PvP D&D Podcast, Part 1
4e Lessons: The Penny Arcade/PvP D&D Podcast, Part 2

Chatty's observation about 4e classes and DMing from the three D&D podcast sessions with the Penny Arcade/PvP crew and Wil Wheaton. There's some pretty interesting points brought up in the second part of the series, especially the one differentiating the types of DMs that Chris Perkins and James Wyatt are from Chatty's perspective.

Newbie DM
The DM binder, folder, or notebook
What is a DM binder and what should it contain in it. He even shows what is in his own DM binder. I'm starting to believe that you can actually run a game with this alone without having to do any prep at all.

RoleplayingPro
Back Behind the Screen , and in Front of the Computer
4 things you can do when you are suffering from gaming withdrawal or just aren't getting enough out of your gaming.

Sly Flourish
Four Skill Challenge Tips
Designing and running skill challenges has always been a challenge for DMs who are new to it. So here are four simple tips to make it easier to run and things to keep in mind when designing them.

{Quest Log} Let's Get This Party Started

After 3 grueling years wasting away in an oil town that is devoid of any semblance that can remind me of any gaming activity, I'm finally back in my hometown and ready to game again.

Ever since I've been back, some of my group mates are already bugging me to get a campaign going but I've decided to squeeze a one-shot session this coming weekend (saturday or sunday) instead. That's right, after one year, I finally get my first taste of 4E!

But then panic attack strikes. I'm afraid of how the session would turn out to be and it makes my knees jerk. I haven't been DMing for 3 years and 4E is a completely new system for me. Even though I've learned the basic ropes and tricks, I'm not sure if I'm ready to run it yet. Other than my lack of knowledge (and confidence), I'm also ill-equipped. No power cards, no miniatures, no battle grids and other gaming supplies. Speaking of which, where's my dice?

I'm already having nightmares that this first session is going to turn into a complete disaster because of boring grinds and a waste of time due to plenty of book flipping.

I don't even know which adventure do I want to run. It has to be able to fit into a single evening session (4 hours?) so I'm not going for H1 Keep on the Shadowfell this time. I'm thinking of just picking up the level 1 dungeon from Dungeon Delves but I don't want to turn it into a grind fest where my first taste of 4E is simply 3 combat encounters rolled together.

In between being excited that I get to organize a game after so long, reading up on the rules to ensure that I don't make mistakes, selecting and prepping the adventure and looking for impromptu gaming supplies, I'm in a messy situation right now.

Ahh! The perfectionist in me wants to get everything right the first time!

I'll keep you posted on what happens next week (if everything goes well).

What about you? Have you ever felt this way when you are getting back in gaming after a long hiatus?

I don't mind taking suggestions on what I should do too, if you have any good ideas.

The Multiverse is REAL!

Just watched this Youtube video about a theory that there is a multiverse rather than a universe.



It's amazing to see how some of these theories mentioned are so similar to the D&D cosmology. The baby universes sounds like demiplanes and the Far Realm could be a parent of the current world (imagine the horror!). There are also some good homebrewing ideas to base on this theory of creation.

The implications of a multiverse theory gives us a new perspective on how we should treat religions in D&D. Maybe the gods have this knowledge of the multiverse and that the main motivations of the gods are battling for a much higher stake of cosmological dominance than they would have their clerics and paladins to believe in their faith. Perhaps only the Invokers are let on in this little secret?

This could be one way to look at planar campaigns for those who can't wrap their heads around it.

Tell me what do you think?

One More Things

Last year, I talked about single elements that can be the main focal point for an entire campaign. After giving some more thought and a comment from Ravyn. I would like to expand more on the list of one things that you can based an entire campaign on.

One Location
This was pointed out by Ravyn. An entire campaign doesn't always have to take your players outside one environment. It could stay in the same place as long as there is always something to do or something is constantly happening around the PCs.

Cities are a good example of creating a one location campaign and there are published settings out there that takes this idea (Ptolus, Sharn, Waterdeep, City of Brass) but it is not always limited in urban areas. It could also be wilderness based such as an island, a forest, a mountain, a plain or even a dungeon (World's Largest Dungeon, Undermountain, Castle Greyhawk).

One location campaigns sounds very much like sandbox campaigns and the way to run this is to maintain the dyanmics of the setting while you keep surprising your players all campaign long.

One Race
This may sound odd at first but there is quite a few potential of creating a campaign where all players are only allowed to play as one race. I don't know how common it is but I have heard alot of people only allowing humans in their campaign.

By doing so, they increase the value and mystery of the other staple races and this allows the GM to expand on them in different directions that wouldn't be balance if they were playable. In a human only campaign, elves could be elevated to wield more arcane power and appear more feyish or dwarves do really stay in their mountain homes and never leave them which creates an adventure for the human players to find them.

Another potential benefit of playing in a human-only campaign is that roleplaying can become easier. Some players and newbies could find it hard to roleplay as any other race because they themselves don't think or behave like them. In the end we are just humans pretending to be elves and dwarves (or half-orcs) so why not just be ourselves?

However, this idea isn't limited to only humans. What not try playing a campaign where you're only allowed to be halflings? Or a monstrous race?

One Power Source
Alright, the idea sounds very 4E-ish but it is already being done in other RPGs before it, just look at any of the World of Darkness RPGs. In 3.x days, you could build an entire campaign out of the Psionic Handbook, Tome of Magic or Book of Nine Swords.

With new 4E classes coming out almost by the buckloads that would most likely let each power source cover all the roles, it would be interesting to see how different classes from the same power source match up with or against each other.

Certain power sources could inspire themes that won't normally be as effective when used in a campaign that also allows other power sources. For example, a combat tournament or arena to find the best martial character in the world holds more significance and would not ostracize any players in a martial power source only campaign.

One Incident
This normally works as a campaign setting's background. All post-apocalypse campaigns are based on this. In fantasy, a recent example is the Spellplague in the Forgotten Realms. Although world destruction is a very common and dramatic incident to have an entire campaign based on but there could be other more mundane incidents that could affect the campaign setting as well.

In modern settings, 9/11 is the catalyst of war on terror and it could be the incident which could spark a international anti-terrorism campaign where players either play as spies or an international elite squad of counter terrorist.

The same could be done with medieval fantasy setting where the king is dead and a civil war of succession is erupting in the campaign setting. This was done in Eberron with the end of the Last War but it sets the stage for a campaign centered on fantasy espionage, politics and intrigue.

Incidents don't also have to be disasters or tragedies, sudden dramatic and perceived to be positive changes could still be used to create conflict. Perhaps a recent scientific or magical breakthrough or discovery in medicine could lead into a potentially good effect towards the campaign setting but there is also a dark side of using the drug.

The most important thing about these campaigns is that the details of the incident itself has to be clear and its effects to the campaign setting (good or ill) has to be prevalent enough to change the life of those in the setting or how the campaign is run. They are usually more memorable if the incident is named like The Rapture or The Revolution.


Well, that's it for now. Anymore one thing campaigns that you would like to share?

One Thing One Campaign

Although I love my campaigns to have elaborate and sophisticated plots, diverse encounters and a great number of NPCs, I don't actually have all the time or resources (inspirations!) to try and build one from scratch when my players are waiting for me to complete my masterpiece while deprieving them of their gaming fix for months.

There is definately an easier way to create campaigns that can still instill enough fun and roleplaying for players. What I'm trying to say is that campaigns don't have to be a complicated affair and don't always have to last over a long period of time. You just need the right elements to let the players feel like they are playing a full-fledged campaign.

In fact, you don't need that many elements. You just need one.

Yes, that's right.

One.

Here's my list of things that you just need one to have a whole campaign dedicated to it.

One Artifact
This is the most easily overlooked campaign-screaming element which promises to bring alot of fun for players. It appeals to powergamers because this is the chance for them to own and use something that some DMs would outright forbid in their games for balance reasons. While an artifact is usually steep with its own epic historical background, it would please the storyteller in your group.

The role of the artifact in the campaign should be identified first. Is it an evil artifact that needs to be destroyed? Or is it the only artifact that can save the world from something?

For the former, look no further than Lord of the Rings to see how an entire campaign can revolve around one artifact.

For the latter, an example of how a campaign can revolve around an artifact is the old retro-cartoon Xyber 9.

One Big Bad Evil Guy
This is the classic of classical 'one-thing' campaigns. There is one villain that is out to do something evil and the PCs have to stop him.

The keyword is power. The villain has to be powerful. So powerful that it takes the whole party to take him down. There are many BBEG archetypes that are usually associated with this kind of power like liches, vampires or evil gods.

Although it is common that BBEGs are evil (it puts the E in BBEG afterall) but it can be an interesting twist to have a BBGG too. Look at Anakin who was turned to Darth Vader from Star
Wars or Prince Arthas who became the Lich King from Warcraft. They may have been good at one point, maybe even a close aquaintance or friend with the PCs but they have still turned BAD and only the PCs are powerful enough to stop him.

There could be a moral satisfaction of defeating a BBEG but there could be moral salvation for the PCs by defeating a BBGG.

One Monster
Very similar to the BBEG but there is no moral requirement to stop this one. This works often when said monster is tremendously huge in size,

Power is still the keyword here and with monsters, they are capable of having really crazy powers or immunities.

The text-book example of this is the Tarrasque. Back in 3.x, not only trying to defeat the monster was tough because of its crazy stats and spell resistance but killing it made it a monster that not everyone had the right power level to do so.

One Book
So far I can say that this applies to D&D books released by Wizards. They have a habit of releasing books that focus on a central theme.

In 3.x, there were books about the aberration, undead, dragons, demons and devils (one book each), being good and being evil and even being dead (Ghostwalk)!

In 4E, we have the recent released Draconomicon and the Manual of the Planes while the undead book will be released next month but there is an excerpt which tells you on how to create a campaign with that book.

Having a focused theme for a campaign needs a specialized group of players. It shows them the direction on how PCs should generate their characters based on the needs and the theme of the campaign. It also opens possibilities that wouldn't normally work well in an open-ended normal campaign.

For example, a min/maxed cleric that is build to emphasis on radiant damage attacks would shine more brightly in an undead campaign while it makes an easier choice for a ranger's favored enemy when he is playing in a dragon-slaying or abberation hunting campaign.

For the DM, it could be an opportunity to explore certain types of monsters or themes that they may have never incoporated in their adventures or campaigns before. Other times, some DMs are just better in having a strong focus in a campaign than trying to run a kitchen-sink type campaign.

The ultimate book for me that fits into this criteria of being able to have a whole campaign revolved around it is closer to us than you think; the Monster Manual.

But That's Not All
In the end, while it can be easy to base a campaign on one thing. It does lost its luster and appeal gradually over a certain period. The best bet to lose the boredom and make it interesting again is to mix these 'one element's together.

You could base a campaign around a BBEG who wants to gain control of a powerful artifact that can only be destroyed by casting it into the mouth of the Tarrasque and then destroying the tarrasque itself.

So any one element that can used to craft a whole campaign to share?

4 Fundamental Questions That Religion Should Answer in a Fantasy Setting

It's been a while since I would imagine myself contributing my fair share into a blog carnival. Last month's Superheroes was just a subject that I was too unfamiliar to crack. This month's Religion while broad has managed to produce some really interesting and insightful pieces on the subject thanks to the wide amount of talents and thinkers in the RPG bloggersphere (that just keeps getting bigger!).

So here I go, with my first post (hopefully more will come) on Religion and here's hoping that it would be just as good as those that came before it. The title says it all so take it away.


Religion plays a big part not only in the lives of just the wandering adventurer but also to the common folk that stay in their farms and towns. Its influence can be overraching beyond the character's expectation and the fervor that it causes could even frighten the most toughest of adventurers. Faith is a power that cannot be underestimated, many good and evil has been and can be done in the name of faith, religion and gods.

Psychology aside, religion also plays an important part in fantasy settings because while scientific explanations is not usually embrace for explanining the planes, cosmology and magic, religion is one of the key knowledge that people see as the most acceptable (if not logical) explanation to the mysterious and supernatural.

These fundamental questions should underpin some of the important aspects of how religion plays a part in making a fantasy setting more alive to your players and at the same time provides a guideline for homebrewers when they are making their own pantheon for their setting.

What is the source of divine magic?
In a fantasy setting like D&D, there are classes which are inclined to a divine power source which grants them their spells. Clerics and paladins, for example, rely on their devotion to a divine source which translates into giving them powers for their devotion.

Religion should give a proper explanation of where the source of their powers come from because it is the first act of will of the gods that is prevalent from a cleric than a wizard. Divine servants are mortal beings empowered by their faith and how that faith translates into manifestable power is going to be the first question that people will ask when they see it on a daily basis.

The simplest explanation given in 3.x D&D is that gods had the ability to grant spells to their followers. They only have to pray, meditate or dedicate a certain number of hours at a particular period of the day and they will be rewarded with their spells.

But what if you wanted to try something different? What if divine magic did not come from the gods?

In the Forgotten Realms before the Spellplague, while clerics were granted their spells by their gods but the source of energy that powers their spells still comes from the Weave which is the embodiment of Mystra, goddess of magic.

This is one of the first mysteries that when designing of using a published pantheon that a DM should be able to give a straight answer to his players who needs to know an answer. Naturally, there could be many versions of the truth for different deities and pantheons but a cleric needs to know who is powering his/her spells and how.

Who are the gods?
As a servant of the gods, the servant must know what kind of relationship he/she shares with their patron. Naturally as a servant of a god, there is a bond that the servant must feel that he/she shares deeply with their god that would give him a source of power for his faith.This could depend on how the god/pantheon normally operates and the possibilities in a magical fantasy setting can be much more than in the real world.

There are many settings (Birthright, Forgotten Realms) with examples that gods had or do walk the earth alongside their mortal worshippers which means that the worshipper is able to see their god and interact with him/her/it physically.

Then there are gods who remain distant (Eberron, Dragonlance?) from the affairs of mortals and only provide their own words of guidance when they worshippers call their names or never give them an answer at all.

In 3.x and older editions, these answer will have implications on how spells like Commune or other divine divination spells work.

Only by being informed on how the gods will respond to their worshippers will their servants know when to call upon their name and have a greater understanding of how their work would expand the grand scheme of things in the universe/cosmology at large.

What happens when I die?
One of the main reasons why people believe in religion is to have an insurance against death and joining the clergy is one good way to get top marks in getting the best benefits in death. The reward that awaits after death is a great motivation for a servant to dedicate his/her entire life in the service of one god.

Thus the details will need to be laid out on why dying or being a matyr in the name of one god is better than the other god. One of the most common reward anticipated in a religion on the matter of death is going to heaven; a promised land where the soul can rest eternally in the most absolute and ideal way as possible.

Will a cleric for the god of war be satisfied if he is promised that he will be taken to the land of eternal peace and pacifism or the land of eternal battle, bloodlust and bravery?

Then there is also the issue of death and resurrection. In D&D, this is a quite a common question and problem because raise dead and resurrection spells are accessible by higher level clerics. What happens to the soul when it leaves it mortal shell? Does it suddenly wake up and find itself in whatever fate it is suppose to deserve or a spiritual journey must be taken to complete his exodus to the heavenly/infernal realms?

How are resurrection spells suppose to work in the context of how death, soul and heaven/hell is interpreted by that religion?

Perhaps souls that have reached their final destination and have passed through the gates of their metaphorical heaven means that the soul has committed itself beyond the mortal realm and cannot be called back to the living?

Then how does this answer the question about the position of the undead and the process of creating undead?

These are important questions because death and undeath is a common issue in most fantasy settings especially in D&D.

What is the Meaning of Life?
Modern monosthetic religions in real life have teachings, scriptures or doctrines that tends to tell mortals how to live their lives. A person who follows these tenets to the extent that he/she preaches them to others should have great foundation of belief in those values that he/she thinks could change the world.

By answering this question, it becomes very useful for players to roleplay their divinely enlightened characters. It usually starts with a few core values of what the god believes makes the world go round, what it should be and finally comes down to the mission.

Missions are the greatest pointers on how a cleric or paladin should act and lies as the main motivation for his/her action in everything they do. It has becomes the sole purpose that they believe that their god has given to them in life and this is what they must do. Although the application and implementation of their actions in accordance to their mission is widely variable to subjective repercussions but at least it gives them a sense of meaning for their actions, justified or not.

Whether it's the mission to evangelist and convert every non-believer into neophytes of the One True God, to enhance the knowledge of the ignorant folk for the god of knowledge or to slaughter every orc man, woman and child that is the abominable offspring of the orc god in the name of Moradin, the Soul Forger.


There could be more questions that needs answering and I just wrote whatever that popped in my mind. I really don't mind if any of you had others to share and your views on the subject. Hope you enjoy this and let me donate my modest contribution to this month's blog carnival.

My DMing Weaknesses

I was inspired to do this post after reading this thread here. It was a discussion of DMs who were talking and acknowledging whether they are a 'bad' DM or 'poor' at DMing.

So after some perplexed self-reflection, here are some of my own DMing weaknesses that I will admit to a fault.

Unable to run a game on the fly
I think a really great game is one when the DM is prepared, or at least gives his players the impression that he is in control. As a DM, I plan my scenarios as extensive as possible, trying to come up with any possible solutions that my player can think of and try to lead them towards a certain direction of where they should go.

Sometimes I get overconfident with my prep that I give my players endless choices as if they are in a sandbox environment and would be able to adapt to any of their actions.

Still, players will always be players. They can always think up of something that will throw me off my railings and now I have to find a new way of approaching the scenario if they have not avoided it altogether.

When that happens, all prep has been thrown out of the window and it's time to improvise which leads me to my first weakness; I'm bad at improvising.

When all my plans have gone down the drain, I have trouble coming up with something original at a moment's notice. I can come up with different new ideas for a game but it takes time and mostly involves alot of time sulking in a corner or hiding under my basement, doing just that.

My only way to keep the game moving is to rely on stock, stereotype and typical NPCs (like the dwarven blacksmith, the fat, gruffy bearded innkeeper etc.), plots (saving the damsel in distress, killing dragons for XP etc.) and monster encounters (goblins, kobolds, orcs etc.) which ultimately leads up to the point of achieving nothing except telling my players that it is 'The End' (XP & loot) for that session. That's if they don't get too bored with the session at mid-point.

My game relies heavily on good prep and getting organized before the game is pretty important to me because I must be able to sort out what happens when things get rolling. When things get out of hand, all hell breaks loose and what would have been a great game becomes dull and boring.

As I've learned, my only guideline of winging it is this; Whatever you do, just make sure it is going to be fun for the players. Even if the plot arc is on its way to ruin, just bury it up with some whacky and crazy encounter and end the session after that. Your players will still come out of the game having satisfied and having a good time. If you can't save the plot, save the fun.

I don't like to tell my players that they've de-railed themselves from what I've prepared for them because that usually means the session has to end there and then (but I'll probably tell them after the session). My players respect me by giving me time to prepare for the next session and I also respect them not to say that their choice of action would ruin the game and therefore should not be allowed to be taken. So by admiting that it is my fault for not preparing ahead in the middle of the game is like throwing a wet blanket over them when they are suppose to have fun.

Boring Combat
This is quite related with my first weakness. My combat routine does fall into the 'you hit, you miss,'. I've tried to come up with descriptions during combat, but it also comes down to 'you swing your axe and you hit'.

Also combat as draggy as it was in 3.x, reduces my energy level somewhat. When an encounter runs for hours, the tension and pressure dies down and all we ever do for that afternoon or evening is taking our sweet time to roll dice until someone dies then we feel good about it and move on. However, by then the momentum of the game and myself have long grinded into a halt which shows for the rest of the session. I personally like to blame the system for that but it is also part of my job to keep combat exciting, so I'll admit that part of the fault is mine.


These are my major weaknesses which I believe can lead to or cause minor weaknesses that I'm not aware of at the moment. The best way to solve your problems is obviously talking to your players. There are the ones whose feedback you should listen to and only they know how you can improve on them. Afterall, RPGs is about cooperative gaming right?

So, do you have any DMing weakness?

Word of Wizards - Campaign Items

Campaign Items

I find this is a very good article that shows you ways on how to incorporate Artifacts and the newly introduced Vehicles in the Adventurer's Vault into your campaign.

What I really liked about this article is it tells you when should PCs receive artifacts/vehicles, how artifacts and vehicles can affect encounter and campaign design and how to move on without them.

I certainly recommend this a must read for anyone who is interested in running a campaign based on artifacts with 4E D&D. Although most of the advice really ties mechanics with the fluff of artifacts, some of the advice should be alright to be carried over in other systems.

I've never run a campaign like this before. Now with this and the recent Items of Legend article, I'm really considering the possibilities.

On a side note, I'm really liking the format of Dragon supporting a product just after it is released with relevant and useful articles. It's too bad that I'll be missing articles such as this in the future so it's no reason not to download it now for free!

Hurry before it's too late!

The Looter DM

(A post dedicated to The Looter)

He is the kind of DM, that for the life of himself, can never come up with something orignal because he is not creative enough to save his own life.

He is also probably one of the most laziest DMs around because he never goes around designing encounters, writing adventures or weaving a plot for his own campaign.

Don't even get your hopes up that he has even read the rules for generating NPCs or creating monsters.

All he ever does before a game is watch TV, read novels or comics and surfs the net. Alot.

Just hours before the game, for his DM prep. He just writes a few notes and prints out stuff like a factory and he's ready to go.

When on the table, his players would applaud him as the next greatest DM-autuer there is. The Looter DM runs an enjoyable and fun game for his players. He impresses them with interesting adventures, dangerous and innovative monsters in combat and unique NPCs to interact with, all set in one overarching campaign plotline. The game is breathing with new and original ideas.

To his players, his game is considered a work of art and nobody could have done that without spending days and nights hiding in a basement creating new stuff.

How does he do it? You may ask, if only they knew his secrets.

If his players were any wiser, they would have been able to identify certain things during the game that were sort of familiar to them. Maybe it was the way the scene was set up, or maybe that villain had a psychological complex from a movie, or was it from a novel?

The Looter D knows that there is an unlimited supply of ideas out there; both generic or specific enough for his needs. He calculates that spending the time to find those outweight the amount of time spent to make one from scratch. He figured that if someone is better at making up new and cool stuff than him, why bother?

He would search, dig and fill any plot hole that he can find. He will rip every written NPC or Monster limb by limb right off the hands of every published or non-published material otherwise. He records every memorable scene from movies, plays and rewinds them until he gets them right.

He is a copycat and at the same time a vulture that circles around the sky in search of anything that can used in his game and lands to feed it off its bones. Once he's done, he buries them with his own poo to cover his tracks.

There is nothing that will stand in the way between him and what he sees as a treasure trove of parts for his next adventure or campaign.

The Looter DM is a scavenger. He has no shame and no reservation of being called one. If asked, he would probably admit that he is one. He feels no guilt of ripping off from somebody as long as he camouflages it well and it is used to create a fun gaming session for his players.

His art lies in making things work together while adding a new face to them. Tinkering them and grafting them to fit into his campaign. Adapting and converting what is already there and using them as a framework to make something useful for his needs. He admires and appreciates those who can masterfully create new things, but repays that respect by tearing it apart into compartmental pieces for his own use.

His craft is knowing how to bend the rules to make things from other systems work and having good DMing skills to excite and entice players during the game while throwing them off his trail of ingenious ripping.

RPGs to him, is a stage to entertain players, not a platform to display your latest work of art.

Despicable? Maybe. Pratical? Definately.

In the end, he lives by the first rule of every D&D adventurer, 'Kill them and take their stuff,'

How Much Do You Love Your Homebrews?

This is my first time participating in a blog carnival and I have decided to unleash my thoughts on this. So this is (hopefully) one of my many entries to the 2nd RPG Blog Carnival; Hombrew.

As a DM, I love to homebrew, it's another aspect of fun in RPGs that lets me flex my creative muscles for things in a much wider scope other than deriving ways of TPKing our players. Mostly because I get to feel like a real 'god' and because I see things larger than the players sees them.

Everytime I embark on a homebrewing project, it is out of an act of love and inspiration that I spend hours of reading, researching and writing about them. Slowly building them usually from the ground up and letting them occupy my absent-minded minds every now and then when I'm bored and not thinking about anything else.

I like to say this for most DMs, but homebrew creations are our most beloved and treasured ideas come to life and we give every proper dedication of our time, commitment, thought and effort to cherish them as their benevolent 'god'. Afterall, if it's not fun, then what pay so much attention?

Much as I love my homebrews, there is a slight chance that I am loving them too much. While RPGs gives me an outlet to spawn my homebrews and give them a place to exist in my minds, it should be remembered that hombrews are spawned for one purpose and that it is meant to be used for gaming by other players. Homebrewing for a game means that it is shared with other people, even though I end up doing most of the work.

I fell into this trap once when I was homebrewing a setting for a campaign that I was planning during my early secondary school years. The campaign that I had in mind revolved around an evil archwizard who tricked and mind controlled all wizards in the campaign setting and used them to start an uprising against the king and evidently the world.

I started out by creating the BBEG, the kingdom, the king and his loyal cohorts and the NPCs that the players were meant to meet along the way throughout the course of the campaign. As time went on, I started imagining the heroic deeds that my players and their characters would be performing to thwart the evil plot of the BBEG and the final showdown.

As I was doing this, I was running another campaign with my players and we're quite far from over but I wanted to plan ahead for the next campaign since I was running the current campaign based on pre-written notes.

As I continued imagining, I, for some reason or another, started filling in the faces of the characters that were supposed to be played by my players. Gradually, I created a party of NPCs that were supposed to represent the PCs; A female elf wizard, a human rogue, a human fighter and a pair of half-elf twin rangers. Whenever I started thinking about what sort of encounters or events that the PCs are about to face, I imagined them being roleplayed by these characters instead of my players. I had even started planning the romantic development between the elf wizard and the human rogue and the final showdown which involved the elf wizard being turned into a mind controlled minion and the rogue had to kill her in order to free her curse. The characters evolved and developed so much that they took a life of their own in my campaign and homebrew.

Eventually, these placeholder characters took over the role that should have been played by my players. I became afraid that if I let my players played the characters that they wanted for the new campaign, they would derail everything that I had imagined prior and ruin the flow of the campaign that I had imagined.

This is a case in point for me that as a DM, I sometimes can get a little obessed with my homebrew and ideas that I often forget the purpose that they are made for. Needless to say, this homebrew and the campaign that it was made for was never played. Although it was for mainly other reasons (my players went on to occupy their time with chicks, computer games and other commitments) but I take it as a personal reminder that if I hadn't been so caught up with my own self-indulgence with my own homebrew (the irony!), the campaign could have been fun to run for my players with their characters.

It is something that I still try to keep in mind when I'm homebrewing a new campaign or setting but habits do die hard. The fear that once you have a shiny new homebrew, it gets unappreciated by the players for all the effort that you put in it is still there. It's like you've finally detailed every corner and arrowslit of a castle but all the players wants to do is launch a trebuchet at it.

The whole idea of homebrewing for a game is to relax and stay focused. It's alright to keep some things vague once in all while and always review the playability of the homebrew. If there's something that you should let the players decide, resist the tempation of filling it in for them. If you want to have your work appreciated, leave clues instead.

That's all about the story of my unrequited (and pathetic) love with my own homebrew.

What about you? Has there been any of your own homebrews that you loved and treasure them a bit more than you should have? Or maybe there were homebrews that should have been given more love than their deserved?

Tell us about your experience!

Simple Homebrews: Mix and Match

This is my first time participating in a blog carnival and I have decided to unleash my thoughts on this. So this is (hopefully) one of my many entries to the 2nd RPG Blog Carnival; Hombrew.

Homebrews are very rewarding but very time-consuming to do. As we all know, ideas can come from anywhere. It normally starts off with an idea or inspiration when watching TV, reading a book or a sudden stroke of genius that comes when you are doing the dishes.

These moments are sometimes very hard to come by and when your brain is suffering from a creative burnout or writer's block, it would take a while before it is capable of producing ideas on its own again.

Here's a simple homebrewing method which I use that is less draining to do and it gives me the same satisfaction of seeing my ideas come together.

Start with a theme or an idea of what you are trying to build and stick with it as your main focus. I see every idea that can be used for roleplaying as a piece of a puzzle. You just need to find another idea that has a similar or consistent theme, concept or subject that can be joined together. The key is to be able to come up with links to join them together. It can be any kind of links imaginable as long as it's justified by a suspension of disbelief. Use one idea to flesh out or build on top of another idea and eventually you wil see the pieces combine into a big picture.

For example, you could read up the autobiography of someone, watched a movie about a serial killer, watched a documentary about haunted houses used by cultists for rituals involving sacrifices on Discovery and saw the news of a recent unexplainable or gruesome murder during the primetime news.

Put two and two together and you could turn it into an adventure with a fleshed out villain, a plot hook, a sequence of events that the players can investigate to get to the killer and a dungeon that is eerily detailed.

This method is meant to find what works together or what's not or you could challenge yourself linking stuff that are completely unrelated under one focus. The results can be surprisingly original.

You don't have to think up of something completely new from scratch but it still takes a little bit of creativity of trying to join the pieces together which gives it your personal touch.

The trick is to leave nothing unscavenged. Published or homebrew. Fictional or real. Steal, rob or pry every idea out of the cold fingers of somewhere because once you start joining the dots, it will take a life of its own and becomes unique when you are go with it from a single direction.

All you need is a source of news or information to be exposed to. Wikis with a random page function (like this one) can really work wonders with this.

Have fun stirring the brew pot!

Good advice for starting 4E

4E has been out for a month now and while I haven't get the chance to really play (read; DM) yet, I'm sure the new system is going to attract alot of new players. As I reach back to my hometown during my semester break from uni, I was surprised and delighted to find out that a few people I knew had bought a copy of the PHB!

And these are people who had never played or just had a few sessions with me back in the 3.5 days!

Despite any misgivings that I have heard about 4E compared to previous editions, it doesn't matter to new players. If you have new players who are excited about the game, why let personal and jaded experience ruin the fun?

We don't get alot of players from around this part of the world and these early signs are one that needs to be captured. So introducing the game is crucial in creating a fun, memorable experience that will make new players come back for more.

While the advice given below is particularly useful to DMs like me who are constantly going to introduce the game to mostly first timers, it can still apply to many DMs running the game for the first time and it is a good foundation for running enjoyable regular gaming sessions.

Teaching Role Playing Games to New Players