Lights, Camera, Roll for Initiative

I confess that I haven’t seen any of the previous D&D movies (because I have way too many other things I need to watch that don’t apparently suck). But on the subject of the current hysteria regarding a new film and the possibility that said film will/won’t suck, and how to make sure it does/doesn’t, I have what I suspect is a minority view.

I don’t think there should be a D&D/Forgotten Realms movie. Like, not now, not ever, not under any circumstances. Because no matter what approach is taken to a film, no matter how objectively good it might actually turn out to be, D&D is such a vast creative phenomenon that it’s impossible for a work as brief as a feature film to even begin to capture what the game means to those who know it, and to overcome the sense of “Why should I watch a movie about this nerd game?” on the part of those who don’t know it.

Instead, there should be a D&D/Forgotten Realms cable TV series. An ongoing, slow-building, visually and viscerally compelling narrative that can take advantage of the episodic nature of that medium. Because only a medium that has the space to fully explore a world and the sense of imagination at the heart of that world is going to allow the breadth of storytelling that can do justice to the lore of the Realms, and to the sense of what the game is and what it means to the people who play it.

(Archive post from the personal blog.)

D&D 30 Day Challenge — Day 30

Best DM You’ve Ever Had

At the end of a month of thinking about D&D stuff, and with all the nostalgic reflection that inspires, I’m going to bestow this most prestigious honor on my good friend Kevin. (’Sup, man?) Kevin was the very first DM who ever ran me through a D&D session (as has been recounted here previously and was linked to on Day 1), so on some level, he can be held responsible for how much of my life has been gloriously wasted on this stuff the past thirty-odd years. But even more that, Kev was a DM I always looked up to back in the day, because playing in his games showed me how to be a better DM.

I remember Kevin for the epic scope of his campaigns. (You ever wanted to play a D&D campaign set on Larry Niven’s Ringworld? You ever wanted to play a kick-ass heroic adaptation of Lord of the Rings? We did BOTH AT THE SAME TIME!!!!) I remember the almost perfect amount of detail that went into his games — enough to make a scenario and its setting and characters feel real, but never so much that it felt like an alt-history lesson. I remember his ability to extemporize encounters out of thin air, often with no actual game materials in front of him. I remember with great envy Kev’s ability to keep a campaign moving by adroit improvisation, deftly talking his way out of the most insanely random shit that his unappreciative players (including me) could throw at him.

All the things Kev did (and made look easy, to my eyes at least) comprised skills it took me a long time to master as a DM. And though a number of different DMs (including me) have been behind some of the anecdotes relayed here over the past month, Kev’s games are ones that I still look back on most often. Not just with nostalgia, but for inspiration. I suspect that if DMing has any ultimate goals beyond the entertainment value, the world building, and the sense of satisfaction that comes with helping other people have a good time, being able to inspire players thirty years after the fact is probably high up on the list.

(Archive post from the personal blog.)

D&D 30 Day Challenge — Day 29

What is the number you always seem to roll on a d20?

No specific single number shows up more often than any other to my mind and recollection, but there’s a specific range of numbers I roll way too consistently on a d20: Under 10. As a DM, I can (and often do) go through the first ten minutes of combat — making attacks, defense rolls, and saves for a half-dozen monsters — and never roll higher than 9. Not just “rolling badly”, but seriously never rolling anything in double digits. I’m a statistical wonder that way, as my players will attest.

(Archive post from the personal blog.)

D&D 30 Day Challenge — Day 28

A Character You Will Never Play Ever Again

Multiclass spellcaster, at least using the D&D 3.x/Pathfinder rules. (5e does multiclass spellcasting quite a bit differently, and though I haven’t had an excuse to experiment with it yet, I suspect it’ll play better than the older systems.) One of my current PCs is a multiclass cleric/sorcerer, and he’s in a great campaign, and I like the character a lot. But when combat rolls around, playing a multiclass caster becomes exactly the same as playing two characters who are slightly lower level than everyone else in the party, and who can only act on alternate turns.

(Archive post from the personal blog.)

D&D 30 Day Challenge — Day 27

A Character You Want to Play in the Future

An archer. I haven’t played a straight-up archer in a long time, but I’m DMing two campaigns right now featuring awesome bowslingers (both of whom are actually using the same magic bow; the campaigns are set about twenty-five years apart), and am playing in a campaign alongside an elven ranger who does about a thousand points of longbow damage per round. As such, I'm getting increasingly antsy to break out a (virtual) bow again someday.

I’ve always loved the whole Robin-Hood/Green-Arrow-Longbow-Hunters archetype of distant, moody characters despairing about injustice and the people lost from their lives while they fight for freedom and the common folk — but always from about three hundred feet away where they never take any damage.

(Archive post from the personal blog.)

D&D 30 Day Challenge — Day 26

Favorite Nonmagic Item

10-foot pole. No other answers will be accepted.

(Archive post from the personal blog.)

D&D 30 Day Challenge — Day 25

Favorite Magic Item

The Machine of Lum the Mad.

(In my own campaign world, this ancient and dangerous artifact has been hidden and rendered largely dormant in a coffee bar — “Joe’s Mud-Puddle Cafe” — in the city of Mooncastle, where it now functions as the espresso machine of Lum the Mad. True story.)

If we’re not counting artifacts, bag of holding, because every edition of the game has specified what happens if you accidentally tear one, but doesn’t specify how tearable it actually is. Plus, even the smallest bag of holding can be filled with 250 pints of oil (that’s by the weight limit; its volume limit is staggeringly higher, but oil is heavy). Dump that out from a height and follow it with a lit torch, then spend hours arguing with the DM over whether it does or doesn’t do 250d6 of fire damage.

(Archive post from the personal blog.)