Dragonlance D&D Game Blog

As I've mentioned from time to time , I often look for inspiration as a Dungeon Master from a variety of different sources, and I'm always on the lookout for inspiration from unlikely channels. Recently, as I was trying to introduce my 5yr old son to Scooby Doo, one of the cartoons I loved as a kid, and I found myself seeing the show as a wonderfully plotted long term Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Now, just to clarify. When I was growing up, I was watching reruns of the original Scooby Doo, Where Are You! show, which, while good for its time, had some shortcomings in terms of story and animation. The show I was trying to introduce to my son to was the 2010 Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated (henceforth abbreviated as SDMI). After the first episode, I was hooked, not just as a TV fan, but also for the story telling techniques that I could borrow for my own D&D games. Now, here are a few reasons you should be watching Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated right now! Easy...

Awhile ago, I noted that at D&D Adventure League tables that I ran, few of the players had never had DMs who used the new Inspiration mechanic from 5th Edition. Worse, in games I played as a player, none of the DMs used the mechanic, which I think is great way to help encourage roleplaying at any D&D table (from AL to home games). To try and turn the tide, I wrote a little article about it for the D&D Adventure League website, which you can check out here: http://dndadventurersleague.org/a-little-inspiration/ I hope you check it out and feel free to leave any feedback (good or bad) on the official website (You can leave feedback here, but more people will probably see your comments there).

Last post , I talked about rediscovering an older 2nd edition product, and how, after re-reading it, found it's almost as useful today as it was back then. After that realization, I decided to go back and dig up the companion product to Dungeons of Mystery, Cities of Mystery and give it a second look. Cities of Mystery actually came out before Dungeons of Mystery, but I didn't buy this when it first came out, so these reviews are actually in purchase order, not release order. Turns out Cities is, like Dungeons, almost as useful now as before. Of the 64 pages of content, the only useless material is the few monster stats the book provides in the City Adventures section, and that's only because they are in 2e format. The other 99.8% of the book is just as relevant today. Like Dungeons, this book provides a top down look at cities, from such broad ranged topics as where to locate them, to what types of governments and rulers run the city. This is great if you have no idea...

I was going through some old gaming materials, part of my 2e collect, and came across the remains of this little gem: Dungeons of Mystery. This was one of a number of products that came out in the second edition days to help facilitate using miniatures in your game. This set focused on dungeons (not surprisingly) and provided a number of dungeon themed maps that could be flipped and turned and pieced together in different ways to make each time you used the maps unique. The product, a skinny boxset,  typical of many other similar 2e releases, also included fold-up cardboard rooms that you could use to build out a dungeon lair. The set did come with a variety of room sizes, and a few other flourishes, like stairs and an alter set up for key encounters. Also there were "doors" that you could attach to the fold-up walls anywhere to show where the door would be for a given room. I remember building out some, or maybe even all, of the "rooms", but these were real...

Monsters are the life blood of any good Dungeons and Dragons game. How many past stories do you tell that hing on encountering the imposing dragon or the horrific lich? There are plenty of Monster Manuals and Bestiaries available for you to choose from, but every so often you may want something original. For new monster inspiration, I often look to Animal Planet and other nature channels and websites. Recently, I can across a web channel Earth Unplugged and a great video about Bizarre Animals. Check this out if you want some ideas for easily tweaking animals for your next adventure. Some of my favorites include the pig-nose turtle (possibly a companion to an underwater ranger, the pig-noose granting some bonus to perception), the thorny devil (lizard with thorny/sharp hide) and the blue dragon (sea slug). For the blue dragon, I envision a monstrous land based slug with tentacles (which naturally include grapple capabilities) and maybe an ability where if it is hit with poison...

As I've mentioned previously, inspiration for a DM should come from everywhere. So I recently came across a couple of links that got my DM senses tingling, and I thought I'd share some with you. Here's a link to an article about a huge cave covered in all sizes of crystals: http://news.discovery.com/earth/naica-big-pics.html It immediately got me to start thinking: Maybe a frost giant lair, with the huge crystal "logs" as the building blocks for structures in the cave. Or a lair where the crystals are difficult terrain for the PCs, but not for the flying creatures attacking them How about the erratic patches and crystal logs serve as cover, or obstacle. Maybe the attackers are well trained to use the formations to their best advantage--attacking from up high and sliding down a log and engaging in melee in the next round. Lastly, what if the crystals are highly reflective, disorienting the PCs by providing a natural equivalent to mirror image. Looking at these cav...

In previous posts, I've mentioned some of the tools I use as a DM ( Post-it Notes , and Heromachine ), but one of the fundamental tools is inspiration, or more importantly, where to get inspiration. Madonna once sang that "you can dance for inspiration", though anyone seeing me dance might only be inspired to think "that poor man is having a seizure... right there on the dance floor!" So, other than Madge's advice, where do I find inspiration as a DM? A lot of different sources, actually, and hopefully a few you haven't thought of yourself. I think anything can be a source of inspiration, from an automobile, to a sudoku puzzle, and for everything from a character name (Katera-- as in Cadillac Catera), to a method of random dungeon generation . The real trick for the DM is keeping their DM hat on (in the background) as they go about daily life. Here are some of the sources that routinely inspire me. By far and wide the best resource I've found is the ...