You know, sometimes you don’t need combat. At least, not for every session. Something I learned from listening to the podcasts of liveplay games is that there are positives having one or more sessions in a row be all about roleplaying, even if it’s mostly shopping. (And, yes, I mean *listening*. I can’t for the […]
Author: JW the DM
Describe Stuff
When playing on a VTT, it’s easy to screw up this particular bit of immersion-creation. I know I’ve done it. I still do it often and need to remind myself that, every time the PCs enter a new area or discover a new thing, they need to have it described. It’s easy to get inadvertently […]
Don’t Mix Physical Dice With Virtual RPG Play
The title says it all…but you may be wondering why. Let me give you an example that recently happened to a friend of mine, a DM who is also running a virtual game on a virtual tabletop. One of the benefits of virtual dice over physical dice is that, when someone rolls publicly on a […]
The VTT Brings the Game Full Circle
Interesting thought: Back in the OD&D through B/X and the beginnings of 1E, back before Ravenloft and Dragonlance unleashed the potential of actual storytelling and logic for roleplaying games, the games were not that far from boardgames that you could play without the board, but often used a ‘board’ (map) anyway. The biggest difference between […]
The Pros and Cons of Digital Dice Rolling
Finally! A post about VTT stuff from the VTT DM! I’ll take care of the cons of digital dice rolling right up front: You lose that awesome visceral sensation you get from rolling actual dice, in person with other people, and cheering as you see that last tip-over on an edge puts the 20 on […]
Dungeon Turns are Cool
I can’t remember where I was re-introduced to dungeon turns but I’m so glad I was. (I’d cite the source if I could find it.) They were originally used in 1e and BX but disappeared later. I’m not sure when they disappeared. It happened during my 30-year break, during which I completely forgot about them. […]
For BBEGs Battles, Ask for a Break Mid-Battle
I’ve usually had pretty decent BBEG battles. For the most part. If I had a DMing weakness (other than not having an encyclopedic knowledge of all the spells), then it would be dialing in the difficulty of my boss fights. It’s like waiting for an avocado to ripen: not yet…almost there…just about…really close…too late, it’s […]
I Screwed Up
Well, I screwed up yesterday. I did a big DM no-no, and I watched myself do it. Granted, I was DMing on only 4 hours of sleep, but that’s no excuse. The players were having a BBEG fight. It wasn’t going well for the BBEG. All the minions had been cut off from them the […]