“Where does he get those wonderful toys?” ~ The Joker (Batman, 1989)

Last weekend, when I had the opportunity to attend Origins Game Fair 2010, it gave me a chance to see other Dungeon Masters in action. Although I would consider myself a “veteran” DM, given over 30 years of D&D experience under my belt, there are always new tricks one can learn by playing in a game under a new Dungeon Master.

Now I’m not suggesting this is an exhaustive list of DM Tips, and some you may have heard before. In fact, Mike Shea over at Sly Flourish.com gathers dozens of tips from Twitter each month and is coming out with a whole book of them next month! But these are some ideas I saw in action this past weekend that I had not considered using in my game, but after some “hands-on” experience, I’m inclined to use them as well.

Laser Pointer – one of my Dungeon Masters had a small 2-3” long tube on a long lanyard around his neck when he came to the gaming table. It turned out this was a laser pointer, which you can buy from places like ThinkGeek.com, starting at around $8, although you can get the more extravagant models for as much as $500.00!



So why a laser pointer in a D&D game? Well mainly to make it easier on the Dungeon Master to point out actions on an encounter map. Rather than having to clumsily stretch out over the DM screen to point to a monster or hazard, with the possibility of knocking over one’s screen (or worse yet, beverage!), a laser pointer lets the DM just indicate a monster with a little red dot, and can even indicate where it’s attacking or moving.

Plus, you should see the really rad things laser pointers do with the newer “sparkly” dice!

Action Point Cards – I knew that WotC offered these to DMs who run RPGA and D&D Encounters, but had never played with them in a game before. I usually let my Player-Characters handle their Action Point tracking, and relied on the “honor system”. Now I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong with the “honor system”, but I did find something elegant about the DM passing out Action Point cards when we reached a Milestone, and then tossing them back to her when we decided to use an AP. All in all, It was a fun prop, and made record keeping a breeze.

Props/Prop cards – Another nice idea I saw in action last weekend was the use of “prop” cards, representing important quest items and other things found during the course of an adventure. For instance, when a key was found that would be used later to open an important door, the DM handed out a small card with a key drawn on it. At first I thought this was a bit silly, I mean, we all knew that the party had a key. But having the key in front of one person meant the DM did not have to ask who was holding it, and should something happen to the keyholder, like he gets eaten by a monster or falls down a pit – well then the party knows they have a challenge getting their key back!

And in another session, the DM passed out cards for special magic items found in, and to be used during an adventure. Given the fact that some of these items were technological devices, being a spin-off of the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks adventure, having prop cards prepared and ready for the Players was very handy indeed!

Paper “Stand-up” Monsters – TSR and Wizards of the Coast have both made these at one point or another, and certainly this idea is nothing new. Taking a paper cut out with a couple long tabs, tenting it, and taping it together to make a stand-up mini is not a new concept, but you sure don’t need WotC or some other company making them for you. At least one DM this past weekend, using a free Open Source program called GIMP was able to put together some really nice paper stand-ups and use them as miniatures in his game.

GIMP is very similar to Photoshop, and can be used to manipulate images and print them in any size you desire. There are tutorials online for using GIMP, from the GIMP site as well as from specialists like the folks at the Cartographer’s Guild boards.

With very little work, a DM can use a program like this to make all kinds of monster “minis” for a few pennies, rather than spending cash on metal and plastic figures, by using images readily available from the web. DDI Subscribers have a real advantage, gaining access monthly to the art of Dragon, Dungeon, and the newest book releases from WotC, which offers hundreds of images yearly from which to create fantastic looking stand-up paper minis!

Customized Encounter Maps – Another possibility if you get good at GIMP (or Photoshop), you can use the images from the Dungeon Tile releases to put together a customer map. Again, this will most likely require you to have access to a DDI Subscription in order to download the images, but I saw one DM put together some amazing maps without the fuss of trying to make the dungeon tiles fit together.

From my own experience with Dungeon Tiles – which one of my Players purchases in vast quantities (Thank you Chris!) – they can often get bumped and moved around on the table during the course of play. Lately I have taken to using “fun tack” on the backs of the Dungeon Tiles – the sticky blue putty does a great job holding the tiles to the table and prevents them from sliding around.

But for those DMs not blessed with a Player that likes to accessorize the game, making your own encounter maps from the Dungeon Tile images is the next best thing. It helps to have access to a color printer too, but not required.

Styrofoam Spheres of the Elemental Chaos – This idea did not come from last weekend’s convention, but from a recent post by PennyArcade’s Gabe: D&D in the Elemental Chaos part 1 ! This setup for handling the moving chucks of debris in the Elemental Chaos was truly inspired, and looks fantastic. Just goes to show you what a little work, some paint and some Styrofoam spheres that you can get at any craft store will do for your D&D game!

And those are some of the new DM’ing ideas that I will be implementing in my D&D 4E, having seen how well they work up close at last weekend’s Origins. So to all my DMs at Origins Game Fair, I want to thank you for taking the time to make sure we all had a great time – and for showing me some new tricks to make my own games better!

So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!

This entry was posted by Editor-in-Chief on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 at 12:22 pm and is filed under Dungeonmasters' Insider, Tricks of the Trade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.