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NewbieDM Tutorial: The Battlemap Part III

November 17, 2009 by newbiedm

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 newbiedm

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 […]

Warstories: The Game Recap

November 6, 2009 by newbiedm

Here’s a quick thing I’m sure all DM’s do in one form or another, whether it’s via email, wiki, pen and paper, or some other form: the game recap. In my particular case, we don’t get to game as often as most of us would like, so as game recap is a great way to […]

Pre-Campaign Player Questionnaire

October 28, 2009 by newbiedm

Many times, we as DM’s do not have the luxury of playing with a group of people we’ve know for a long time and are comfortable with. I happen to have that luxury, playing with a group I’ve known and have been friends with for over 20 years in some cases, and haven’t had to […]

Calling the DM Hotline

October 8, 2009 by newbiedm

When I first heard about the DM hotline, I thought it was a joke. I mean, really, operators are standing by to answer your DMing questions? But it wasn’t a joke, and it wasn’t lame, it was actually pretty cool. The DM Hotline, operated by the folks at Wizards of the Coast will run from […]

Steal Smart: The Series

October 2, 2009 by newbiedm

The other day on Twitter I put a call out looking for reader written articles for the blog. I figured I’d let other gamers who may not have a blog of their own have a place to present their ideas and writings, and hopefully help all of us new DM’s in the process, by giving […]

Quick lessons from the Heroic tier, and looking ahead…

September 29, 2009 by newbiedm

As my campaign progresses, we are quickly approaching the conclusion of the heroic tier of adventuring. In fact, on our next session, I expect the pc’s to be almost at the threshold between tiers, and if that’s the case, I’ll just bump them up to paragon. My justification in doing so is simple: one, because […]

Advice for Newbie DM’s: The Competitor DM vs. the Storyteller DM

August 29, 2009 by newbiedm

This is a story about two different types of DM’s. One loves to DM his players through really tough and deadly encounters, pumps his fists when a player goes down, and curses when his die rolls badly. The other DM is crafting a story, and together with the players, they are all telling a great […]

Imposing a :30 time limit on 4th ed. players

August 24, 2009 by newbiedm

This posting stems from my previous one, where I highlighted some items bought at Gencon for my game. One of them was a :30 hourglass, which I plan on implementing at my table as a house rule. Each player, on his turn, will have to decide what his action will be in :30 or less. […]

Updating DDI Compendium stat blocks the easy way

August 19, 2009 by newbiedm

I found a relatively easy way to level up your traps or monsters quickly directly from the compendium, without a need to copy and paste it over to Google Docs or anywhere else. It’s through a javascript that lets you edit web pages on the fly. First, visit this page: http://www.labnol.org/internet/design/edit-web-pages-like-wiki/3832/ Follow the instructions, it’ll […]