30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 30

Day 30 - Best DM You've Had

Is my wife reading this? Okay honey then it's you!

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My wife is a good DM, but I'll make a confession...there's only one game I ever think of when I think back to "games I have enjoyed" and it was put on by my friend Terry back in my Tucson days. He wanted to try DMing, but had little experience. That said, he did a great straight-forward adventure involving my paladin hunting down an errant lich, and it was a damned good game.

My wife once ran an adventure in 4E in which I was a mage looking for mysteries of an ancient ruin in the deep north, while being harried by angry kobolds. I liked that one a lot, too.

That's it for the 30 Day D&D Challenge! Coming up Next: The Month of Halloween Returns! Can I manage a 31 day schedule for that month, or will I stick to an every-other day format like I normally do? Time will tell!

(Hint: I will write blogs in clusters; I had days most of the blogs for September written and pre-loaded on day one, and the rest finished a week later; if I tried to just write one a day I'd never get it done! Gotta use the time when I have it. As I write this it is Sept. 9th, and I have blogs pre-loaded daily through 10/3...)

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 29

Day 29 - what is the number I always seem to roll on a D20?

To me: it's usually 1 less than the target I need to make that saving roll or hit that monster/PC/whatever.

To my players: they'd say I seem to hit 20 a lot!

30 Days of Dungeons & dragons Day 28

Day 28 - A character I will never play again

Hmmmm.....there are tons of characters I'll never play again, probably because they are all dead or retired....but I guess if we're thinking in terms of archetypes, then I'll probably continue to avoid the "cheap comedy relief" character. Not that I don't include NPCs that are intended to offer a bit of levity, rather that I would never include a character who is there to suffer the role of fool to the detriment of any other reason. In the 80's I had a tendency to include at least one NPC in my games whose purpose was to be the butt jokes; Ookai the fat, bumbling orc warrior was a favorite of mine. Many years later I made amends for poor Ookai and brought him back as an NPC with a bit of depth, estranged son of an orc warlord who neither wanted the power of his father nor the evil nature of his kinfolk, and just wanted to enjoy a good pie....okay, so maybe I didn't totally make it up to him!

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 27

Day 27 - A character I want to play in the future

I'd really like to play a witch in Pathfinder, or maybe an inquisitor with a bit of the Solomon Kane vibe. If I ever got a chance to play in a 4E campaign with a DM I coud tolerate (I've had some awful experiences with 4E as a player) then I'd try a warden out, or default to my favorite class, the warlock. In 1st edition I'd love to try an assassin, as I never ran one as a player before. In 2E I always loved paladins and bards, but would love to try a really exotic priest of specific mythoi some day. In 3rd edition there were so many choices....probably try out the 3E warlock sometime, though!

I also love this image, would base something on it:

In terrms of personality....I usually work that out on the spot, so I don't have any hard personality for a prospective future PC to speak of....though it would probably be brooding, or sarcastic, and have a flip side (like a wizard who wanted to be a warrior or a warlock who doesn't like consorting with demons).

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 26

Day 26 - Favorite Non-Magic Item

I imagine that ten foot poles, torches, rope and such will make it in here. I will personally suggest that the most interesting of the mundane items out there was for me the pitons & hammer. As a kid I remember reading "pitons & hammer" and running off to figure out what the devil a piton was. After looking it up I proceeded to recquire any of my players who were trying to scale sheer surfaces and cliffs must be equipped with such to do so.

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 25

Day 25 - Favorite Magic Item

I tend to stick certain magic items in most campaigns (bags of holding, true-seeing devices, the occasional Deck of Many Things). But there is one device I love, but have used only once: The Apparatus of Kwalish. This bizarre artifact is just weird and cool. And it requires more than a little work by the players to figure out. The version I like best was the one described in 2E's Book of Artifacts. This artifact is an excellent way to get the players into some aquatically deep action:

The Apparatus is only the runner-up though. My true favorite, the book which has been the center of entire campaigns, is the legendary Codex of the Infinite Planes itself....this device is the lynchpin of many events in my Chirak campaign, the source of desire for liches and wizards everywhere and a general thorn in everyone's side, as well as an artifact that curses players who cannot resist using it!

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 24

Day 24 - Favorite Energy Type

Negative Energy! Sometimes also called necrotic energy. But my penchant for undead makes this a shoe-in. Plus, I love the concept of the negative energy plane and its many nearly unattainable mysteries (i.e. the city of Moil). The concept of a energy which steals life is just plain cool. I put the positive energy plane in as a close second, with its ability to fill things with so much life that they explode....

As a player though I am partial to the purging, cleansing power of fire!

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 23

Day 23 - Least Favorite Monster Over All

I have quite a few monsters I hardly ever use, but very few I just avoid using in general. Hell, I've even found a place for the flumph (or at least the Pathfinder version!)

I suppose I do admit to having no love for the lava children, though. I mean....yeesh....what on earth does one actually do with a lava child??? I know Paizo revised this raced as well, maybe I'll take a look at it and see if it, too, can be redeemed.

30 Days of Dungeons & dragons Day 22

Day 22 - Favorite Monster Over All

This is a hard one to choose, since I have so many. That said, there are a few creatures I tend to favor over all others and I think this honor goes to....the Lich!

Liches are the personification of the mad mage seeking power at the cost of his own mortal coils, or on occasion such wizards seeking any means necessary by which to extend their own unnatural lives indefinitely. Liches can on rare occasion be good (the good lich was a rare thing that first manifested in 2E) but far more often they are irredeemably evil. In most editions they are nothing to sneeze at, major foes that are manipulating behind the scenes and the battle with a lich is usually quite deadly.

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 21

Day 21 - Favorite Dragon Color/Type

Hmmmm....while red dragons come in close, they are almost edged out slightly be shadow dragons. The shadow dragon has served as a principle villain in more than a few of my campaigns (though so has the red!) so I guess I'll make it a tie.

Most notable red dragon of my games was Rovas, the guardian of the vessel of Tiamat, a colossal ancient red.

Most notable shadow dragon appeared recently as the guardian of the Pillar of Eternity, the Nightwyrm.

30 Days of Dungeons & dragons Day 20

Day 20 - Favorite monster (humanoid/natural/fey)

Would orcs count here? I've spent a lot of time in each of my campaign setting making orcs interesting and different. In Chirak orcs were created from the spilt blood of Shaligon, thirteen armed god/goddess of darkness and chaos. Every few hundred years their deity changes gender aspects; when Shaligon is in feminine form the orc clans are matriarchal and rule with cunning and deception. When Shaligon changes to masculine form the orcs rise up in arms as a patriarchal class of warlords seize power and take action against surface dwellers. In Lingusia orcs are an agglomeration of beast traits created by their dark god Baragnagor, and are driven by chaos to serve as the eternal armies of the Champion of Chaos, finding a measure of control only when that dark champion is subdued and between reincarnations. In Enzada orcs are called the Sarnathans, and they were created by the ancient Inhridan Empire out of elvish stock to make the perfect genetically engineered fighting force.

So yeah....I love my orcs!

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 18

Day 18 - Favorite Immortal (Outsider/Immortal)

I like a lot of planar monsters but I guess I've had the most fun with the Succubus over time. Most of the succubi who have appeared in my campaign end up being long term foes with names, usually manipulating behind the scenes or engaging the players in a duel with words (seeking to convince the players that they're not as righteous as they think they are) to get their way.

I never liked how 4E made the succubus a devil....she shall always remain a demon in my settings.

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 17

Day 17 - Favorite Monster (animal/vermin)

Hmmm I admit to being partial to swarms of vermin, especially rats, bats and spiders. Not sure I have a favorite, though....in the animal category I'd stick horse, simply because I like to take the time to make sure each player's horse has a bit of a personality (as horses are prone to having) so that when a threatening monster or trap appears that could slaughter the horse the players often feel a greater attachment to the beast.

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 16

Day 16: Favorite Aberration

Such a hard one to choose from! Beholders, Mind Flayers, Hook Horrors, Gibbering Mouthers, Neh-Thagglu.....well, there is one my players would suggest I am most fond of, though. And that one would be the...

Grell!

It may have been because I liked the idea of a tentacled, beaked floating brain monster. Or maybe it was the idea of lighting-spear-toting colonial grell in Spelljammer, but I've used grell...a lot...over the years. In my heyday of miniatures collecting I could field forty grell on the map, easily.

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 15

Day 15: Favorite Monster (Undead)

This one's easy. Although I might group the lich, huecuva or even death knight (or grave knight if you wish) up there, I admit to having a real soft spot for the serial-killer returned from the dead, the Mohrg:

My Wednesday group sincerely hopes they put the last of the mohrg down....unlikely!

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 14

Day 14: Favorite NPC

In my stable of NPCs I have a vast array of characters that I like to pull from. Some of my favorites include Moloron the inquisitive tiefling warlock who had the audacity to harness the power of a god in torpor, or Phyxillus the elvish empress of Hyrkania who was as prone to drawing blade and book to solve her realm's problems as she was to outsource the job. My favorite NPC in a long time, though, is Lady Poe.

Lady Poe is a background villain, and not the sort of woman to seek out an active conflict if she can avoid it. She's rules her realm of Kasdalan for centuries, after banning the practice of magic among men, and had given birth to dozens of daughters (boy children are usually put to death). He goal: a hegemony of female sorcerers who rule with an iron fist. Her failure? Her first love, the wizard (and something more) named Zam Redar.

Lady Poe is meant to be the wicked witch, the evil queen, the vicious sorceress and the conniving love interest who betrays the protagonist all in one package. She once angered a party of adventurers so much that they methodically tried to hunt down her daughters one by one just to spite here. She's largely behind the scenes, but her presence is always felt when someone gets too close to her sphere of influence.

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 13

Day 13: Favorite Trap/Puzzle

This is a hard one, because I am fond of a few specific tombs known as the Grimtooth's Trap series and it would be hard to pick just one from among so many. If I had to choose, though, I would say it was probably this one, which worked to great effect the three times so far I have deployed it:

I like that day 13 had this question, feels appropriate!

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 12

Day 12: Favorite Dungeon Type/Location

This one is easy. I have a tendency to favor tombs and mausoleums, necropolises and ancient barrow mounds....anything you tend to find someone buried in, in other words. Evil temples are probably a close second. Probably the least common dungeon in my games is an actual ordinary dungeon, the sort you find beneath a castle and intended to hold prisoners. 

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 11

Day 11: Favorite Adventure I have Run

I've run a lot of self-made scenarios, and tend to favor them. I have actually run a fair number of the older 1E modules, including the Slavers Series, Secret of Bone Hill, Keep on the Borderlands, Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain, Castle Amber, and others I have since forgotten about.

Of all the published modules I have run, I think the one I had the most fun as a GM with was this:

Aside from putting the legacy of Acererak and his vile tomb in to a larger context, it added some other evil places and notions to the mix, including an evil necromantic city of bones and the lost city of Moil and its legacy...and of course a replica copy of the original ToH module.

 I ran this campaign module for many, many sessions and my players and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 10

Day 10: Craziest thing that's happened that I saw

This is another tough one, because as GM I've seen a lot of crazy stuff but I feel it's not fair to include stuff I orchestrated or expected, so I'm going to look instead to things my players did which utterly surprised me and even derailed the entire anticipated outcome of an event. These are the moments I love best, when the players come up with a solution that changes everything, and keeps me on my toes (and I never railroad, I actively encourage these sorts of things):

I think the moment I most enjoyed came when I was running Runequest a few years ago and the players, who had been working in Pelegar, a demon-haunted land in western Chirak, toward stopping the malevolent incursion of some chaos god named Molabal from escaping the Plane of Dreams into the mortal world. The players had established that Molabal had been imprisoned for eons in his demiplane, and was the cause of much of the corruption and madness in the land. His minions in the mortal plane, led by choronzon demns and lamia, were intending to free him so he could rule the world or do whatever it was he had been thwarted from doing so many eons back.

When the players reached the point of confrontation, where they could effectively fight to seal the prison bonds of Molabal once more, while the chaos lord sought to diplomatically convince them his freedom was a good idea and his lamia minions tried to carve up any who would interfere with his escape, the players, rather than fight, went into negotiation mode. In a surprising turn of events (because I'm used to players seeing my suave silver-tongued villains as objects to destroy) the players suddenly got this wild idea that they really didn't...couldn't....pass judgement on the chaos lord. Sure, he may be a bad guy in some ways....but freeing him literally meant freeing their land from the pallor of madness his imprisonment had cast upon it, and while he may walk freely in the world once more, other, bigger heroes could take him down, they rationalized.

So in the end they literally freed him of his shackles and helped him get out, in exchange for his leaving them all alone so they could settle down as wealthy men in Pelegar. It was...shocking. It was like Frodo had taken the ring to Sauron and given it to him, on the reassurance that Sauron would leave the Shire alone.

Needless to say, I was perplexed but delighted. The entire conclusion to that campaign created two more campaign arcs that I used for future games, one of which included another group of adventurers who at last had to put Molabal down for good, and had to travel both backwards and forward in time to do it, witnessing his imprisonment, escape and his attempt to destroy the world by merging it with the Far Realm in the process. This, of course, is why the unexpected actions of players can lead to true greatness, and a wealth of additional plot ideas!