Sometimes it is tempting, for a variety of reasons, for a DM to want to roll the dice for the players.

Shocking?

Absurd?

A good idea?

In general players love to roll dice.  It is part of what makes the game fun.  Watching those little bits of plastic roll across the table give the game a tactile sensation that is just plain lacking in a computer RPG.  It really enhances the suspense.  Shaking those dice, hoping, wishing, praying that it isn’t a 1 or that you may get that desperately needed 20.

But then you have people cheating or completely incompetent or who just seem to never have their own dice.  It would be so much easier just to do it for them.

This is probably not a good idea.  Cheaters generally get caught by other players and players have ways of enforcing rules.  Those who lack the interest in the game to get (or remember) their own dice will eventually quit anyway.  Bide your time and they will disappear all on their own.

The one situation in which you may wish to consider rolling dice for players is when it doesn’t make sense for the character to know the result.  If they are searching, you may not want the players to know if anything can be found or not.  If a character rolls high and the search result is that they found nothing then they will quit because the player knows that a high roll means there was nothing to be found.  Likewise if they roll a 2 they may metagame a bit and decide to have thier buddy go over the area again because they know the die result.

You may wish to consider making a house rule to make these rolls yourself.  You may wish to consider search, listen and sneak attempts under these rules, but certainly nothing which has an obvious result like jumping or opening a door.  If you do decide to implement such a rule, be consistent.  Make the rolls all the time, not just when there is something to be found.

Like all house rules this is something to be implemented with care and thought or perhaps not implemented at all.

Have fun gaming!

Welcome back to Dungeons and Dragons Corner.

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The party approaches an old keep.  There is a crumbling out wall.  The party has discovered footprints and a wily character among them has determined that kobolds are in the are.  The party is pretty sure the kobolds are guarding the small courtyard leading into the keep but aren’t 100% sure of their location.

Basic D&D
The party consists of 1 Elf, 1 Magic-User, 1 Halfling, and 1 Cleric.  The person playing the halfing is the noob, but you already guessed that.

The party stops and listens.  The elf makes the listen check and hears the kobolds moving.  They know where they are so the party moves in.  The DM rolls for a surprise round, the kobolds are surprised but he ignores the roll because quite frankly he wants the party to have some challenge.  They roll initiative.  Silently the DM curses because the party won initiative.  There are 4 kobolds.  The elf attacks and kills one.  The cleric attacks and kills one.  The Magic-User throws a magic missile and kills one.  The Halfling misses.  The remaining kobold fails his morale save.  The party loots and turns up 13 cp.  The party curses the magic user for wasting his magic missile, they go back to town to recover the lost spell.

1st/2nd edition AD&D
The party consists of 1 Elf Fighter/Magic User, 1 Dwarf Cleric, 1 Human Magic-User and 1 Half-Elf ranger.

The party stops and listens.  The elf makes the listen check and hears the kobolds.  The DM rolls for a surprise round but nobody is surprised.  Everyone rolls initiative.  The DM re-explains THAC0 to the half-elf.  The Half-Elf takes one out with a bow.  The DM re-explains THAC0 to the elf.  The elf takes one out with a bow.  The Magic User sits on his but not wanting to waste his only spell. The DM is about to re-explain THAC0 to the dwarf but he rolled a 2.  The kobolds hit the elf for four damage.  Next round the kobolds run and the dwarf gets one on the way out.  The party loots and finds 13 cp and a cursed sword which turns the dwarf into a fairy.

3.x edition
The party consists of a gnoll barbarian, githzeria monk, sun-elf wizard, and goblin rogue.

The monk makes a listen check and hears the kobolds.  The rogue sneaks out and scouts their exact location.  They get behind the gnoll who charges in with his guisarme.  In the surprise round the gnoll slaughters one, the monk kills another and the rogue kills a third.  The wizard offers sarcastic commentary and checks his email.  The party loots and finds 13 sp which they ignore.

4th edition.
The party consists of a tiefling warlock, a dragonborn fighter, a Halfling rogue and a half-elf ranger.

The half-elf makes a listen check and they figure out where the kobolds are.  The DM has them playing on full scale battle mat so they lay out their positions.  In the first round the ranger shoots but misses, the fighter charges but his attack also misses.  The Halfling has no ranged weapon but is scared to engage.  The warlock scores a hit and does some damage.  The kobolds proceed to severely damage the fighter while keeping out of his range.  By now the players have figured out that kobolds have more than 3 hp.  They keep it up for another 4 rounds until all of them have burned their daily powers and the fighter and rogue have both dropped.  The ranger managed to drop the last one.  The part loots and finds a potion of healing and 130 gp.  They decide that three strikers in the party wasn’t a good idea after all.  They decide to re-form the party.

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So I got an email from the creators of Spellfury to get an opinion of their latest release.  Honored as I am that my opinion would count for something I’m not sure what to say.

My previous review of spellfury hasn’t changed in opinion at all.  It is still the super-low budget get together with a video camera and some editing software and have some fantasy fun that it always was.  In this episode we get a bit of the back story.  Aparently the elf chick’s father was slaughtered at the family home and she is out to get revenge [...] Continue Reading…

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Basic D&D
Please, please, please, please make my save vs. dragon breath.  Yes!  What, I still die.  You suck!  This game sucks!  I hate you all!  Grumbles and rolls new character sheet.

1st/2nd edition AD&D
Please, please, please, please make my save vs. dragon breath.  Yes!  What, I still die.  You suck!  This game sucks!  I hate you all!  Grumbles and rolls new character sheet.

3.x edition
Fortunately I min/maxed against this very possibility.  One hit, in the right place should do the trick.  What, you gave him class levels?  Prestige classes?  You bastard?  Fort save?  What?  Oh this roll had better be a [...] Continue Reading…

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Basic D&D
Magic-User/Elf: Fireball!  All mobs grovel before me or perish!
Fighter:  It thought you said that at level 3 with phantasmal force.
Magic-User: Oh yeah, I guess I did.  What are you complaining for you XP leach?  Maybe you can dodge a fireball, shall we find out?

1st/2nd edition AD&D
DM: Fireball!

3.x edition
Wizard:  What?  They so nerfed fireball.  This sucks.  This so sucks.  Dammit I’m going to play a cleric.
Cleric:  What?  They so nerfed hold person.  This so sucks.  Dammit I’m going to play a wizard.
Fighter:  Whoa, iterative attacks at level 6.  This rocks!  Suck it you spell casting sissies, I’m going to [...] Continue Reading…

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Basic D&D
Cleric:  Woot!  I’m level 3 already.  Rolls d6 and copies in new attack and save numbers.
Magic User: Finally level 2.  Now I can cast sleep twice a day!  Rolls d4 and curses the dice.
Fighter/Dwarf: Level 2 , cool.  Better attacks and more HP. Rolls d8.
Halfling:  What, only a stupid d6 for HP?  What kind of a fighter is this?  You guys told me a Halfling was good.  You bastards!
Thief:  Level 3, cool.  You know it does get kind of tedious re-copying these skill charts every level.  Anybody else have to do this?
Elf:  Leveling up?  I think I need [...] Continue Reading…

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The party finds a locked treasure chest.  They are all pretty sure that it is trapped, but they also know it has the treasure they have been looking for.

Basic D&D
The party consists of 1 Elf, 1 Magic-User, 1 Halfling, and 1 Cleric.

The party convinces the Halfling that he should pry open the chest with the 10 foot pole he brought along while they wait in the corridor outside.  When they hear his body they go in and loot the chest and the Halfling.  They get 100pp 636gp and two gems worth 300gp and 550gp.  They rejoice, dividing the loot [...] Continue Reading…

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Okay, so the debate has waxed hot around the internet, so I’m going to add my grease to the fire in the next series of posts.  Try not to take me too seriously because, as with everything else I do this exercise is about finding the fun.

Sample the first:  character creation.

Basic D&D

Roll 3d6 six times.  Put your lowest score into Charisma.  Put your highest score into your class’s prime requisite.  Copy down your saving throws and attack numbers.  Roll starting gold.  Buy equipment.  Ten minutes later you are in the dungeon.

1st/2nd Edition AD&D

Roll 4d6 six times.  Put your lowest [...] Continue Reading…

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Looking for another collection of campaign ideas?  Need a storyline?  Got something you want to share but you don’t want to start yet another D&D site that is just going to die out in 2 weeks?  Maybe you should try legendarygate.com.

Legendary Gate is a new online tool designed to help collect and distribute campaign ideas, adventures, campaigns, and all that good stuff.

Legendary Gate will, of course, not solve all of your problems and it may not be the tool for you, but like so many other things in the DM toolbox, there is a time and a place for [...] Continue Reading…

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There are a lot of roles out there that are very fun to play.  Most of us prefer to play the action oriented damage dealing sorts.  I was not surprised when we put together our first 4th edition party everyone (and I do mean everyone) chose a strike role for their first character.  I was also likewise not surprised when they all decided this was a bad idea and started mixing it up a bit.

One of the main problems was nobody wanted to be the healer.  Being the healer isn’t always very glamorous.  You don’t generally get to dish [...] Continue Reading…

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One of the things that can be frustrating to players is that they simply get stuff that they don’t need or want for their characters.  Either the magic items simply aren’t useful or they don’t have the right potions or they simply prefer using an axe to a magic sword.  By the same token as a DM it can be really frustrating when the players just don’t have what they need to perform well in the dungeon that you have spent forever planning.

Putting some time into the shops in your world can go a long way towards solving these [...] Continue Reading…

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Fundamentally all table top games are about interacting with other people.  It doesn’t matter if you are playing Monopoly, Magic The Gathering or Dungeons and Dragons.  Being able to understand what other people at the table are thinking is an invaluable skill in any game but can be especially useful in Dungeons and Dragons where player interaction has far fewer restrictions than most other games.

If you are running the game, being able to pull of a lie at a table full of savvy players can be really difficult but at the same time very important in order to maintain [...] Continue Reading…

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So this is for all those of you out there not interested in paying the Wizards of the Coast Use tax in order to use their character builder/managment software.

MWMDragon over at www.dungeonsdragons.selfip.com has created a new database specifically for storing your 4th edition character information, which of course can be useful for a variety of different applications.  Personally (if I weren’t paying the WOTC tax) I would use it because I keep all of my data electronically and it would be a convenient way of storing said data w/o worrying if my hard drive is going to crash.

MWMDragon said [...] Continue Reading…

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Typically I don’t bother with the myriad of online stores out there selling everything from panake syrup to re-usable diapers, but Shopwiki caught my attention.  Not only because they don’t necessarily sell everything that you can find on their site or even make money when you buy it but because when I did a search for Dungeons and Dragons I found very quickly links to some good vintage D&D books, books that I couldn’t find on Amazon or after a lot of searching elsewhere.  So I’m passing it along to the rest of you.

Shopwiki is basically a wiki for [...] Continue Reading…

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One lesson I’ve learned the hard way is to be careful what I say as a Dungeon Master.  Believe it or not the players listen.

Sometimes when describing a scene I will add a sentence or two of flavor just to make the scene stick a little bit.  The players take this added flavor text to heart and before long they are so focused on the color of the princess’ dress that they are completely overlooking the half burned letter from the evil overlord that she was attempting to destroy when they walked in.  Suddenly the color green is an [...] Continue Reading…

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