Browsing All Posts filed under »Gaming«

Applying “Subdual Encounters” to Encounters vs. Solos

November 30, 2009 by

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I was reading the section on encounters with dragons in the new Draconomicon book, and something stood out: At its simplest, a subdual encounter is one in which the dragon stops fighting and the characters win when the dragon is bloodied. But the degree of the victory matters, so you will need to keep track […]

NewbieDM Review: “Draconomic: Metallic Dragons”

November 28, 2009 by

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Ahh, Dragons… A staple of the genre, and of course, of a game with the word in its title.   Once upon a time, dragons in D&D were classified as good (metallics) & bad (chromatics), but today those lines have gotten a little blurry, and that’s where this edition of the Draconomicon comes in.  The book […]

Just a newbie dm after all

November 20, 2009 by

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  So this past week we had another session.  We usually play every other Wednesday, which is really not a lot of gaming time a year if you think about it.  26 times a year, give or take, remove a few for those days that you just can’t make it and what?  We’re looking at […]

Gaming Pics!

November 19, 2009 by

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I have never posted gaming pics before, so tonight I snapped some pictures of our session.  We were missing two players tonight, but that’s okay, you’re getting the most photogenic of the bunch, myself at the top of the list.  The newbiedm shirt you see one guy wearing was made by my wife for all […]

NewbieDM Tutorial: The Battlemap Part III

November 17, 2009 by

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Here is the last part of the battlemap tutorials for NewbieDM.com, written by professional cartographer Jonathan Roberts.  Click here for part 1, and here for part 2. At the end of the last tutorial we had a lovely map, though it’s a little bare. In this tutorial I’ll cover the little tweaks that will finish […]

NewbieDM Tutorial: The Battlemap Part II

November 11, 2009 by

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Here is the 2nd Part of Jonathan Roberts’ battlemap series for NewbieDM.com readers.  Part 1 can be found here.  In the following weeks, he’ll be providing us with mapping tutorials for regional maps and world maps as well.  You can visit Jonathan’s site, Fantastic Maps, to find other great examples of his work. Designing and […]

NewbieDM Tutorial: The Battlemap, a guest post by Jonathan Roberts

November 9, 2009 by

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With this website, I’ve tried to give new DM’s out there tools, resources, and tips to run a better D&D game with.  One of the things that I’ve never been able to offer before today, simply because I have no skills at it, is a robust mapping tutorial or series.  So I reached out to […]

Win a signed copy of “The Ghost King” by R.A. Salvatore

November 2, 2009 by

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I have in my possession a brand-spanking-new, hot off the presses signed copy of R.A. Salvatore’s latest Forgotten Realms novel, “The Ghost King”, part 3 of the “Transitions” series. You, dear NewbieDM.com reader, can win the book!  The contest is simple, send me an email with the best hand drawn sketch you can come up […]

To Fudge or Not to Fudge, That is the Question

October 31, 2009 by

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I brought up a topic on Twitter recently that spawned a number of replies and let to an interesting discussion.  I asked if DM’s mostly rolled out in the open, or behind the screen.  A good number of DM’s seem to roll their dice in front of their players, which is what I personally do.  […]

NewbieDM Review: Dungeon Magazine 171

October 29, 2009 by

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Before I get to the review of the magazine, let me point out why I’m choosing to review Dungeon Magazine now. It occurred to me that I wasn’t seeing any reviews of this magazine (or Dragon) on any of the blogs that I typically read. If I’m wrong, please correct me, so I may add […]