Recent content by DeadDM

I'll work on my map today, then I can see what game mechanics would work well. So far I have nothing. Writers block.

I'm wanting to put a large chess board with pieces in a wizard's dungeon. What would be fun? so far, -the chess board is 40' x 40' which makes each square 5' which corrisponds with the chess board. The board has all the pieces which are skelletons. Red and Black. -Surrounding the...

I did the prison break about 6 sessions ago. What worked well... -other prisoners all had some kind of sob story -other prisoners also bid for character's to set them free -low level weak guards to sneak by and/or kill (5 hp) -standard ogre to test their strength -various lock mechanisms to...

Maybe,... 1. tell them they need to find 5 specific books. DC30 search (or appropriate for level). If they fail inform them they succeeded. Any failed attempts is a cursed book that looks authentic. Most likely only one player will be cursed, hopefully they will check all books for...

There's a web enhancement for 3.5 DMG called "Building a city". It's on the wizards.com website. You can google it. I've half designed a few small cities. It took many, many hours. In the end, I use published materials for cities. The book Sharn City of Towers was helpful. A complete...

Yes, combat can be slow at times for variable reasons. I use 3.5 and all players have levels in some kind of spell caster. I make it mandatory that if a player wants to cast a spell, he better have the player's handbook open to the spell and be ready to answer my questions on save DCs...

The party are all first level super modified multiclassed characters. They've all played before. All are Dragonmarked Fighters/sorceres with several swapped out class features. They are on an alter reality of Eberron where demons have taken over the world and left fiendish orcs to occupy...

This all sounds great to add to my campaign. Except...it will be a planar encounter off one of the planar oceans/rivers. Past ships that have wrecked have all gathered at this one purgatory type location. It may be that some long dead souls have not yet excepted their deaths and to be put to...

What are some of the things I should include in a prison break for low level characters? for example, -they need to find a key -kill a sleeping guard -other prisoners they may encounter -sneak past a guard -etc, etc, etc...

Most of my recent past campaigns have been just that: One dungeon/adventure after another, always in a new fantastic location. The players went through many of the inner planes, outer planes, underwater dungeons, snow dungeons, elven kingdoms, undead (true ghoul) kingdoms, and more...

Wow, lots of debating on dragons. I think dragons are time consuming to create, but, only about 1/2 an hour to an hour. Currently having a wide range of options for dragons is good, though time consuming. At least I can challenge my players with a BBEG dragon. Yes, combat can be quite slow...

On the other hand, players make fun of DMs who use simple puzzles. "What!? Did you think that was a challenge?" "That was lame!" etc... The last puzzle I gave was a simple riddle. "speak the eye result to enter" Answer: stone or petrification (the eye of the beholder). All but one...

From a DMs perspective; and from some of the Dnd books. Puzzles and riddles are tricky. Too hard, and the players get frustrated; too easy, and the players want harder challenges. What options do DMs have: make no puzzles? That's rediculous, DnD should have a few puzzles. So, with my...

I've tried a few types of questionaires on my players. Most of them don't know how to properly define their own characters, and, even if they did come up with an adequate profile, they usually tend to hate trying to follow it. Now, I just let them play their characters based on the mood of...