Creature Feature 1

The Sea Lion

From the Monster Manual: " A Sea Lion is a fearsome aquatic creature with the head and fore-paws of a lion and the body and tail of a fish."

The Sea Lion is nothing special in terms of combat, with a 1d6+4 claw attack and a 1d8+2 bite attack combined with the rend ability they are pretty standard fair as far as monster attacks go. There are no breath abilities, no level drains, and no spell-like abilities, just claws and teeth. The artwork and the glaring pun alone are enough to make the Sea Lion one of my favorite D&D monsters and for those reasons I have chosen it as my first monster for my Creature Feature.

The Worst Group I Ever DMed

I have been Dungeon mastering for a long time, I have seen groups come and go, some good some bad. Over the years however there has been one group that stood head and shoulders above the rest. To this day the single game I ran for them haunts my memories and sends chills down my spine whenever I am asked to DM for a group I have never played with before. What follows is a recount of that night and the horrors within.

Summer and Gaming

This month the Blog Carnival over at rpgba.org is hosted by Dice Monkey and is about summer and gaming. This is a rather wide open topic and can be anything about gaming in summer.

Please note that the below post is meant as satire. I love gaming and love the gaming community. The purpose of this post is to poke fun at the stereotypes we have all endure because of our hobby, as well as share a little bit of what happens at my local hobby store.

Making a Dungeon That Works

Exploring Dungeons is a staple of most fantasy role playing games. Generally speaking the word dungeon is used as a very broad term that describes just about anywhere characters may adventure. This could be anything from a series of caves to a castle floating high above the earth. These dungeons are traditionally filled with creatures for the players to fight as well as treasures for them to take. Plundering dungeons is fun and a great many nights have been spent looting deep beneath the bowls of earth, but making a dungeon can be a bit tricky. I wanted to give newer DMs a couple of ideas that might help ensure their dungeons are not boring and off putting to players. These tips are more about the feel of the dungeon instead of the actual layout itself.

Barbarians of Heavy Metal Kickstarter

Unplugged Backer rewards.

I was checking around Kickstarter this morning as I often do, looking  for something new, something exciting, something eye-catching, and then I found this. Barbarians of Heavy Metal, a role playing game where the players get to play Guitar wielding, apocalyptic metal heads, with mechs. I am so in on this one. Everything about this game screams classic 80s heavy metal fantasy album art. While I do find the setting to be interesting and as I read through their Kickstarter page it is evident that they guys doing this have a sense of humor and that is something you really need when developing a role playing game about 1980s metal music. The idea of the game being released on tablets, while an interesting concept honestly kind of put me off. I don't what to have to be the GM that has to tell everyone that they have to have an android tablet to role play with me. My other concern is that I don't have to worry about my character sheets bugging out, crashing and erasing themselves in the middle of a gaming session. Now they are offering a soft cover version of the game, called the "unplugged" version and that is what I will be looking at. Reading the questions at the bottom there is some concern over the programming knowledge of the people involved, however they did say that if something would happen and the app release would not work they will be doing softcover versions of the game for every backer. It seems that they people running the campaign are really into their product and very willing to talk to the community about the game. I would say check it out and if you are interested at all back them, I don't know that this would work well for a long term campaign but I think this would make a great setting for those one off games.

Tips for New RPG Players

I wanted to follow up on my tips for new GMs by posting a few tips for players new to the world of role playing. Being a new player in a role playing game can be hard and if you are not careful the veteran players around you will steal the stage and you have the potential to end up on the side lines so to speak and miss out on a lot of fun. As a new player if you keep the tips below in mind it will lead to a much more entertaining experience and leave you wanting more instead of wondering why you just wasted the last couple of hours of your life sitting around a table with these people.

A Couple of Tips For New GMs

If you are new to the world of Game Mastering (or Dungeon Mastering or Narrating, or whatever your game system calls it) the task before you can be daunting to say the least. It has been a long time since I started GMing but I still remember the first game of Dungeons and Dragons I ran. I did everything wrong, from skill checks to role playing in general I messed it all up. Over time I got better and today my players consider me one of their favorite GMs. Whenever we get a group together I am always volunteered to GM, I in fact cannot remember the last time I played a role playing game instead of running it. So without further ramblings I present you with a few tips to help get you through your first couple of games.

Winging It

Sometimes when I show up to run a session of whatever we are playing at the time my arms are loaded down with notes, charts, books, and graph paper. Other times I show up with nothing more than a sack of dice, some rulebooks and a pen. I love sitting down and writing up the next grand adventure for my players. Spending late nights drawing maps and crafting encounters, but as I have gotten older I find that time is at a premium. With real life getting in the way of my gaming time I have found myself winging it more and more the last couple of years. Now I have been gaming with pretty much the same group for the last 15 years so they know what to expect when I show up at the table empty handed. I don't mean to wing the sessions most times, I set out with good intentions and lots of cool ideas in my head. There are times though where these ideas of grandeur sit in my head and the next thing I know it is Saturday night and I have six people sitting around a table looking at me expectantly. When this moment strikes I am left with two options, call off the whole night or make something up on the fly and see where it goes. Since the first option is not an option we go for the second for better or worse. I have had some amazing sessions over the years that just evolved organically out of a single plot point that may be stuck in my head. As I said before my players know me and they are there to help when they know I did not have a lot (if any) prep time and will chime in with their own ideas to help the story along. Some of my most memorable gaming sessions have come out of my complete lack of preparation. Not having a set structure allows me to get the players involved and keeps me from railroading them. This is not to say every gaming session I have ran without prep went wonderful and was loved by all. I have had my share of nights where things did not go right and I could tell by looking around the table that no one was really into it and we just called it early on those nights. So the next time you see that game night is looming upon you and you are still staring at an empty sheet of graph paper don't cancel, just show up and make it up. If you encourge your players to help a little by dropping hints that do not intrude with the game you can get everyone involved and have a ton of fun. In the end that is why I do this and I image it is why you all role play, to have fun and get away from the pressure of real life for a little while.

Five Quick Free RPG Rule Sets

There are many people writing free RPG rules these days. Most of these rules are published online in PDF format for download. Some of these free games are as big and complicated as the big names in the role playing world, others not so much. I have compiled a short list of quick free RPG rule sets. These rules are only a couple of pages long and most assume that you have done some role playing in the past and are familiar with the common terminology. If you have never played a role playing game before I would not suggest starting with these because most of the basic knowledge needed to play an RPG has been omitted. If you have experience with role playing these games offer a nice alternative to the major games on the market and because of the short rule sets they are great for those one off nights.