Inspiration

I draw a lot of ideas from African Masks.  They're just so interesting, they get your mind running.

My game has been on hiatus for a while so posts will get a bit slower but I'm by no means done.

D&D software reviews

• DM Genie - the best so far just because it seems like a complete product but very big. Not really sure its something I want to spend money on if I don't end up using. Happily there's a 60 day evaluation so I can try a few things.
• Official D&D demo software from 2002. Unfortunately in many regards this software is completely broken but its simple and clean and works.
• RolePlayingMaster - uses a closed format for generation, not too many options -- couldn't seem to make much use out of it
• PCGen - seems broken. I've talked about this before. Annoying that so much time was put into an obviously huge collaborative effort that simply doesn't work. Every time I try to add items it complains I don't have the money or that I need to customize it. When I read the help on how to customize the items or get money, its useless. The help menu/documentation seems always a version or two behind. I gave up.
• Autorealm - very basic, hasn't been updated in a while, not very easy to use. I gave up pretty fast.
• jMapEditor - so simple its almost unusable. Drawing walls is very unintuitive and slow and it doesn't appear to output to anything printable or other formats. Seems more like a proof of concept program than an actual level-editor.
• Dungeon Crafter III - blessedly simple with some nice, basic map settings. Unfortunately no undo function and the output looks NOTHING like the screenshots. How did they come up with those?
• DM Cheatsheet - A great idea but really ugly on my windows firefox browser. Unusably so and definitely not going to see any more updates since the last one was in '05
• Storybook - untested but might be a good way to keep track of major characters in a more political setting.

Using Paint.net to create D&D maps

I find even just a little preparation setting up maps makes my life SO much easier. Graph paper is adequate but I'm trying to do everything digitally and current D&D resources on this topic haven't done the trick. If characters want to go back the way they came, I need to know where they were and what was there.

I'm currently trying out resources but here's one trick using Paint.net:

1. Create a simple 100 x 100 pixel map
2. Zoom in 1200%
3. In the menu, select "view" and choose "grid"
4. Use the fill tool to create a dark grey background

Then, draw out some areas and designate different available colors for different map symbols. I picked some that seemed right to me and then put a legend to the side of the page.

To add more detail to the map, change the canvas size to 700 x 700 or take a screen capture of the picture using FastStone Capture. Those tiny boxes will now become very big ones that you can draw more detail into or type text explanations.

Random findings

To flesh out locations, I like to give random findings to the characters that aren't just a pile of gold and gems but maybe still worth something.  Maybe one of them has magic properties or has enormous sentimental value?

* Small figurine of a cat
* Beautifully crafted wooden horse
* Pot with an old, rotted away plant
* Pouch full of silver coins of an unknown origin
* Sewing kit with various buttons and thread
* 3 old torches that still have the smell of fuel
* Carving of a tree
* Tiny knife on a thin, gold chain
* Old matted red hat
* Dirty map of some indiscernable place
* Silver horseshoes
* Nails (rusted or new) and boards
* Religious icon of unknown origin
* Sharp bronze spear tip
* Gold tiara
* Heavy figurine of a beautiful dragon
* Ring that always gives off a soft glow

Brainstorming

When I'm trying to come up with ideas, I just send myself images that come to mind via text message. They tend to spawn some cool things when I sit down with them later to flesh out ...

Deep blue lake. Hidden forest. World fold. Grey giants. Red Light in a hole in the wall. Creature that tells riddles. Cursed gold. Giant snake harmless and talking. Bold horse riders. Ancient children whose eyes glow. Distant land transport. Foiled attack on something. Betrayl foreshadowed. Drain grate war. Cold attack dogs. Frozen lake. Brutal curse. Blindness. Foster child. Hawk assistance.

Quite possibly the nerdiest things ever

A discussion about vampire anuses and a rap about kill-9.  One is D&D nerdy -- the other UNIX nerdy.

The "called shot" problem

One of the things that D&D tries very hard to do is make combat both interesting and accurate. So if you wanted to strike a person's hand or wrist or even their helmet specifically, you should be able to, right? You might even grab the rules sheet and call this "a ranged disarm" -- as this forum suggests -- which means a -4 penalty and allow a ranged disarm attempt. Or what if you want to hit that little green gem in the monster's forehead?

Well, issues with this problem are several and well-noted.

Suggestions on this thread included a "called critical" where the attempt is to make a "critical strike" (how D&D handles damage to weak areas). The attack would be aimed at a particular portion of the body. If its critical, they hit that part.

One suggestion was "unless you're using another option, your character is already trying to do that and on a crit he succeeds."

Related:

• A variation on "power attack" using dexterity.
• Free vs. swift actions (also)
  

What's your AC?

Based on suggestions over at KingsWorkCreative, I created a character quicklook spreadsheet.

DM "smart sword" trick

Your players are going to do what they're going to do and its hard to put them in the right place at the right time for something you planned on happening. To not give them choices means they're on a "rail" system of gaming, which is boring.

Example: characters come across a huge door. I want to use it later for something but the characters are bound and determined to figure out some way to get through the door. I want to tell them "wait a second" but I have no way of doing that without giving something away. We waste like 20 minutes and the characters are frustrated nothing would open this door I've introduced. Frustrating.

What do you do?

Solution: A "smart" item. The item can either see into the immediate future or has advanced senses like heat vision, scry, detect alignment. Whatever powers I give it, in the game its really just a way to pass the characters hints about what to do without being overly obvious. How is it that this section of the dungeon has never been discovered before? Nobody had a sword like yours.

This trick has more than one use: imagine the characters have just encountered an enemy that is far more powerul than they. Their most recent encounters have been successful and they're feeling like a good fight. Realistically if they take on this enemy, they're going to get pummeled. I pass the characters a note explaining the sword is self-lowering itself. The characters get the message and try diplomacy instead without having to pay out big time in healing potions and magic with no return.

When the DM isn't having any fun

The obvious next step is to change -- when you're the DM and you don't like the way the game is going, you set the stage differently. You can't control the actors but you can certainly push them in directions you want to go.

Making a sharp, left turn is disruptive to the flow that the game has taken on. My characters have been wandering around a very well-developed setting, finding all sorts of side events and adventures to occupy them. There's nothing wrong with this but its becoming one long series of distractions away from what I originally planned and was excited about. I had a basic direction and a creative arc for the game that's not happening.

The initial drive was to get them to the "great hope of civilization" and put them under the employ of my central character. Now, I'm finding all these side adventures kind of tediously slow and I just want to get them somewhere that we can have more coheasive games. I'm having to stay extremely flexible and I'm pulling out all my creative powers. That's fine for one or two games where your characters go somewhere you didn't expect and you've got to pull shit out of thin air but how did it get here?

Possible reasons:

• Too easy Somewhere along the way I've neutered the major antagonist by making her minions a bunch of ponces.
• Too clear I gave away too much true information and its completely killed the mystery. Misinformation makes it harder for me to keep track of but it also creates a puzzle the characters must actively try to solve.
• Easy and getting easier My characters are rapidly going up in level and I still don't feel prepared to handle or play out high level adventures or challenges. My characters in effect are running rough shod over my plans. Just dynamically rebuilding enemies in a game to be more powerful than the characters feels a little wrong.
  

Thoughts and ideas are of course welcome if anyone's reading this.