The Seven Sons of Moradin - actual play log

By reader request, I've linked and opened up the Google Docs continuing log of The Seven Sons of Moradin D&D campaign that I play in on Thurday nights. It's pretty neat to read, as many of the recent innovative posts here at DMG42 were created through its play, such as the popular Death and Reincarnation mechanics.

The notes are written very hastily, during the middle of the game, while we're drinking beers. So, it's a little sloppy at times, but very natural and organic, taking place entirely from the players' perspectives and relaying information that we find important without the shadow of the DM's plot schemes hanging over the descriptions.

Rule #7: The skill challenge goes on as long as it has to.

Fight Club (1999)

The 7th Rule of Skill Challenges is the same as that of Fight Club: it goes on as long as it has to. I'm talking specifically about the Complexity of a skill challenge, the number of successes that it takes to win.

Many of you are doing your skill challenges wrong. Bad fun wrong. This can be easily felt at the game table as a wooden, forced experience during skill challenges. Internet trolls and the haters on forums love to bash 4E's skill challenge system because of this feeling of artificial construction that so often rears its ugly head.

The subject of improving skill challenges has been gone over extensively the last few years. There's a lot of great information and advice out there, and that should certainly be taken in. The Trump/Fold mechanic of Fourthcore (as shown in adventures S1: RotIL and C1: CotG) springs to mind as a great addition to any skill challenge. This post, however, aims to change a more fundamental aspect of how skill challenges should be presented and run at the table.

4E Modern - Session #1 (09/11/2011) Recap & Game Master Notes

I normally don't try and advocate game recaps too much. When I read a recap on another blog I tend to find it boring and trite. However, I have been directly asked to relate my campaign's development, and like my olden days of college radio, it's hard for me to resist a request. If nothing else, these recaps will provide me with a means of communicating some of the implied ideas I have about Modern campaigns, as well as the less than clearly described rules, and subsequent rules tweaks.

Also, stats for evil Nazi Warlocks.

StarCraft Gamma World: Starships

Intro & Rules * Tokens & Sample Characters * Backgrounds, Equipment, Upgrades * Starships * The Prisoner coming soon!

Starship Combat

Enemy starships are added to combat encounters much the same way as standard creatures, each contributing their designated XP to the encounter total. Enemy starships, obviously, are only appropriate in encounters where they can threaten and interact with starships under the command or protection of the adventurers. Non-Combat vessels are ships that do not possess any weapons that are dangerous to other ships, but often represent support craft, transports, civilian vessels, and other targets of opportunity.


Vessels in combat are considered to be continually moving under their respective propulsion systems and inertia, and do not require a specific action to control. Starship positions relative to each other are not physically represented, but are instead assumed to be moving about on the battlefield at some distance to each other.

Red Hand of Doom: Enemy at the Gates

from wizards.com 

This chapter was one of my favorites to convert over. Almost the entirety of it focuses on an epic struggle to defend the city of Brindol from the advancing Red Hand horde. After the party has role-played through the beginnings of the chapter, restocking consumable magical items, finding new NPC Allies, etc., they engage in a freeform skill challenge to make battle plans for the defense of Brindol, convince any of the town's movers and shakers to their side of things, and do the actual fortifying of the town. Once the PCs have run out the clock on the ongoing campaign calendar, The Red Hand Horde attacks, with an overarching skill challenge representing the PCs and allies commanding the hodge podge Rebellion fleet Elsir Vale army, broken up by individual combat encounters representing crises situations which the PCs must rush to (such as when Hill Giants devastate the town walls), as they are the only heroes capable of handling such a threat.
The adventurer’s should be around 7^th Level by the time the actual fighting starts.
The Battle of Brindol awesome skill challenge extravaganza uses a modified version of the Air War Skill Challenge, one of the rare bits of non-editorial work at Critical Hits.