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Tony

5 Tips for Building Interesting Encounters, Random or Otherwise

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What does a good encounter look like? While not every battle should push the characters to their limits, whether in or outside on the main story arc, they also shouldn’t come off as material from a filler episode. If done well, these seemingly random battles should not only set the tone for your campaign but also promote its lore. So, let’s take a look at developing encounters, so yours can be memorable for all the right reasons. 

How a Real Archmage Fights: Threshold of Evil and D&D’s Most Underrated Wizard

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The life of an adventurer isn’t always about saving the kingdom and having ales. Sometimes, the heroes are faced with failure, and nothing is a greater example of this than a TPK. So. allow me to pay my respects to an old rival of mine as I begrudgingly explain why he deserves to be counted among the ranks of the greatest D&D wizards, such as Elminster and Mordenkainen. 

The Richest D&D Adventure of All Time: Greyhawk Ruins, Is It Monty Haul if It’s Canon?

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What if the treasure horde was just so over the top that instead of its collection being an awesome moment it was more of a WTF one? Let’s take a look at the module that made my players feel like they both jumped the shark and nuked the fridge, and what was done to keep the campaign going afterward. 

The Hardest D&D Adventure of All Time: Anyone Ever Run Through the Throne of Bloodstone?

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The Throne of Bloodstone is the finale of a 4-part series that was published in 1988. What makes this module so unbelievably difficult that it made the #1 spot on my most challenging module list? Grab yourself a coffee and let’s talk about how, back in the day, D&D used to crank the difficulty up to 11.

3 Dungeon Magazine Adventures That Changed My DMing Life – Revisiting One of the Greatest Gaming Resources From Back in the Day

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If you were a DM from the 80s and 90s, odds are that Dungeon Magazine was an essential part of your gaming tool kit. Personally, Dungeon provided several elements of gaming that have always been near and dear to my heart. Let’s take a look at three unforgettable Dungeon magazine adventures that had such an impact on both my players and me that we can remember them vividly more than 30 years later. 

Castle GreyHawk: The Thor Ragnarok of Old-School D&D Adventures From Back in the Day

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Castle Greyhawk isn’t really just a module. Castle Greyhawk did for D&D what Ragnarok did for the Thor franchise. The overall premise is this: Extremely unusual monsters are emerging from the castle dungeons, and your party has been hired to put a stop to it. What made Castle Greyhawk unique was its use of breaking-the-4th-wall comedy that would have impressed even Deadpool.

Melding Science, Magic and Mutants in an RPG? A Look at the Palladium and Rifts System From Back in the Day

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Recently, a good friend of mine asked about my experience playing the Palladium/Rifts system. Afterward, he said that it sounds so fantastic that I should run a game using it, and part of me would love to go down that road. The setting is well-crafted, the art in the sourcebooks is fantastic, and its concept is nothing short of amazing. But here’s the problem …

The Starter Game: When You Need More Than Just a Session 0 for New Players

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Even if your players have experience with gaming or roleplaying, new systems always have more parts than a deluxe Lego set. What if there was a way to bring first-time players into a campaign and get them comfortable right away? you could run a specially designed starter game that is more focused on getting everyone familiar with how the system works before jumping headfirst into things. At the end, your new players should walk away with a foundation for how both their characters and the system operate.

The Great One-Shot: A Simple 5-Step Guide to DMing Standalone RPG Adventures

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Even if you are in a campaign with a fantastic plot, sometimes it’s refreshing to do something a little different. The answer to this is to run a one-shot game that has a beginning and an end yet is entirely separate from the main story arc. So, strap yourselves in and let’s take a look at a simplified guide to running one-shot games without screwing up the campaign already in process.

6 Steps to Building RPG Characters Your Party Will Love and Your DM Will Love to Hate

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Did you ever conceptualize a character who you expected to run like a badass D&D version of Batman, but instead of getting Ben Affleck, you ended up with Adam West? Unfortunately, a lot of things can go south between your imagination and the gaming table. Therefore, I have composed a list of 6 tips to help prevent your next dark and gritty character from unexpectedly ending up as the version of Batman with floppy ears and bat shark repellent (but with much less charm).