Ode to the Roleplaying Mom...

In honor of Mother's Day, I thought it best to say a few words about your character's mother. (No, this isn't going to be a series of "your character's momma is so fat" jokes...)

Sometimes nurturing, sometimes gone...

Often, your character's mother will fall into two categories: the nurturing type that readily awaits any update from their all-grown-up child, or sadly, she is dead and gone. Very rarely will she have some sort of mental illness or be the cold standoffish type.

This is where this post could diverge into a valuable discussion on how to give your character's mother some interesting characteristics, but I think I'll leave that one for when I'm in a less irreverent mood.

Another interesting thing about your character's mother: your arch-rival always knows where she is, and given the opportunity will capture her and hold her hostage. For this reason, I recommend your character giving ol' Mom a very valuable gift, if she is still among the living.




A necklace of fireballs, when you love her enough to give her the ability to do 10d6 damage. You know... to keep her safe from interlopers. Also, a few lessons on how to use it might not hurt so she doesn't incinerate her sewing circle showing it off. And sending her a letter from time to time wouldn't kill you, would it?

I'm Totally an Awesome Dragon

I found this way-cool quiz to tell which dragon you are over at DungeonMastering:

Sun Dragon

In the war between good and evil, types take the side of the noble and good.
When it comes to the powers of Chaos vs. those of Law and Order, your inner dragon walks a fine line between Law and Chaos.
As far as magical tendancies, Your inner dragon has the ability to conquer the world of magic, but it will not be easy.
During combat situations, whether by spells or by claw, your inner dragon will do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Dragon Description:

During its adolescent stages, a Sun Dragon's body begins to excrete an oily substance through it's skin which burns slowly over time, like napalm. When it reaches this age, the Dragon is ignited by it's elders. Sun Dragons are totally immune to fire.

After it is ignited, the Sun Dragon's flames will continue to blaze for the whole of the dragon's natural life span. Sun Dragons are extremely fierce in combat. The Sun Dragon is among the noblest breed of dragonkind.They are revered both for their ferocity in combat and their great wisdom.

A Girl's Best Friend

With a nod to Vanir for his D&D diaper bag, I'm totally stealing his idea to bring you this: the D&D Special Occasion Purse. This isn't just any purse, it's one of those cute, tiny little purses you only use for special occasions. So, for all the ladies out there, and for those guys who always wondered why even bother with such a tiny little purse, here's my take on things, D&D-style.

Since this is a tiny little purse, and there's a lot of stuff to cram in there, it goes without saying that this is actually a bag of holding; it appears pretty small, but there's plenty of room in there for all kinds of things:

• Scroll, Transportation: when that date goes horribly wrong, every girl needs an escape plan.

• Wand, Light: because you never want to be stuck in the dark, digging out your keys from the bottom of your purse.

• Disguise kit: for touching up your disguise, I mean, make-up.

• Goggles of Minute Seeing: because you would never wear your glasses during your date, but you might need them later.

• Scroll, Eagle's Spendor: to improve your appearance to impress your date, or improve your date's appearance if he doesn't quite match up to the profile he gave you.

• Scroll, Silence: if he talks too much, you can easily shut him up with this.

• Scroll, Expeditious Retreat: this one is reserved for those extra special occasions, like weddings, where you didn't really want to be there in the first place so you can get out quickly.

Sorry, Leopold, Plots are for Players!

Well, I had intended to write a serious post in the New Player Orientation series, but instead, all I could think about was Leopold the Dancing Plot Point. So, here's a little story I think we can all enjoy.

While gathered at the local tavern, four adventurers began sharing their aspirations to save the world and make a name for themselves. They were all from small towns in the area, each drawn to this tavern in this town because that's where all adventurers got their start. All of the sudden, they here a commotion out in the street. They rush out of the tavern to see... a messenger.

Leopold: Hail, Adventurers! I bring news. Great catastrophe has struck the town of Shady Hollow.

Kaley: That's my home town! I have to find out what's going on...... wait.... aren't you Leopold, the Dancing Plot Point?

Leopold: Uh, no. I'm Leonard, the Dancing Messenger Point.

Drek: No, no... You're Leopold! Look, gang, it's the Dancing Plot Point.

Kaley: I don't know, Drek. He says his name is Leonard.

Leopold: Yes. Leonard. That's me. Not the Dancing Plot Point.

Kaley: See, not the Dancing Plot Point. C'mon gang, let's go save Shady Hollow.

Off the group tromps to Shady Hollow, where they began their journey to save the world.

The moral of my story: DMs, try as you might, you can't always disguise the dancing plots points, but that doesn't mean we won't figure out a way to follow them.

Monty Haul X-TREME

When I was in high school, I played D&D almost exclusively with my best friend at the time. And since I was 13, I got some seriously amazing stupid ideas.

A Tale of Greed and Tragedy

I had just discovered multiclassing, and I decided to go for the gold. My character at the time was a Fighter/Cleric/Magic-User named Presto Perfecto, and he was completely awesome. Well, except for that part where it took him 3 times as long to advance as a normal single-classed character. My friend was playing a Fighter/Illusionist, and hated the slow advancement as well. We played these characters for awhile and then just couldn't stand the burden of slow advancement anymore. So we did what any rational young teenage nerds would do: attempt to rules lawyer.

The plan was simple: we'd found a passage in the DMG that said 1 Experience Point is equal to 1 gold piece. Since it was just me and him, and neither of us was really "the DM", we could simply come up with a lame exuse to give our characters as much treasure as we wanted to get as much XP as we wanted.

The problem was, I'd also recently gotten a copy of the Manual of the Planes. It was there that the seeds for Presto's eventual downfall were sewn.

Thar's Minerals in Them Thar Planes

If 1GP = 1XP, then jewels were worth a lot of GP. And what has more jewels than the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Mineral? So we decided to mine it for jewels and gems. We decided on some "standard" amount each mine would yield, and then set about drawing maps of our huge encampments, detailing where all our mines were.

At the end of the day, my friend and I compared maps, and he had drawn his mines significantly smaller than my mines, and there was consequently way more room on the paper for his. Thusly, his character (by our detailed calculations), was about a 5100th level Fighter / 5096th level Illusionist, and poor presto was only a 3000th level fighter / 2850th level Cleric / 2785th level Magic-User. My friend then declared his character evil and started ravaging the land, his former friend and rival Presto no longer strong enough to be a threat.

I was, of course, powerless to stop him by drawing more mines on a new paper. That would be against the rules.

Share Your Silly D&D Story

I could really stretch for a moral to this story, but there really isn't one. I was 13, dumb as a post, and loving every minute of it. I guess it just goes to show you can have intense fun playing D&D even when you're doing it horribly, horribly wrong. This is a prime example of why our D&D group consists primarily of people over 25 - so nobody dies.

At any rate, we'd love to hear your ridiculous D&D exploits, so share your tales with us! (Knowing I was not alone in my teenage stupidity might help me sleep at night.)