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.

Behind the Screen: The End-Game Party...

I wish I could cite the specific source on this one (chime in if anyone recognizes it), but I remember reading a very interesting idea that suggested throwing a actual party with cake and general non-gaming merriment to denote the end of a campaign.

I like this idea for a lot of reasons (I mean, who doesn't like a party?), however I have the good fortune of having a tight-knit group of gamers in our squadron. We regularly get together on non-gaming nights to play Rock Band and hang out, however the non-roleplaying "partying" tends to peak when we've actively not roleplayed for awhile.

As Stupid Ranger has previously noted, we are in the middle of one of the more pronounced gaming droughts that we've had lately due to busy schedules and the dreaded Real Life, which happens to be at least a CR 30 these days for most of us. That means our next "session" will probably consist of vast amounts of pizza, music, and hilarity but likely very little actual plot progression.

Situations like this leave me a little dry on the whole end-of-campaign party front... we'd likely have to do something akin to a destination resort to muster up more of a party than we're likely to have when our group gets back together! I'm exaggerating a lot there, but it will be fairly difficult to differentiate an end-of-campaign event from our standard fare.

If anyone has any clever ideas for putting the big red bow on a major plotline, I'd love to hear it! For those of you that regularly host the end-game party, tell us your story! What do you normally do to make it special?

Behind the Screen: Inspiration from an unlikely source...

A thousand apologies for the lack of a meaningful post yesterday. With the ISP troubles, Stupid Ranger being on the road, and Vanir still taking care of junior we were somewhat out of options. Ah well, water under the bridge as they say...

Throw up the horns?

Well, probably not. Tonight I want to talk again about unlikely sources for roleplaying ideas, this time my topic will be classic rock. More directly, classic rock involving The Eagles. You see, the origin for this post comes largely from the alcohol that fueled our Cinco de Mayo celebrations around Stupid Ranger Central and my cousin, who exhibited wisdom beyond his years by recommending that we put some Eagles on to pass the time.

Several hours go by, and the mixture of beer and Don Henley vocals started to formulate into notions about Witchy Women, what lies along Seven Bridges Road, and whether or not love can truly keep us alive. I think the colorful vocals are what lent me toward campaign ideas, most notably during Witchy Woman and Hotel California... the portrait that is painted by these lyrics beg to find their way into a one-shot campaign for me.

Who knows, sometime soon these ideas may come into fruition... the only other artist that immediately springs to mind as one that constantly emits campaign ideas is Meat Loaf, but I'm sure Vanir will be along any time to explain how Meat Loaf is more of a characters icon than he is a DM's icon.

For those of you that enjoy morals to the story, we'll go with "don't hesitate to look for campaign ideas in unlikely places" and leave it at that.

ISP acting up...

This is just a notice that our local internet service provider is acting up, and due to the spotty service today's post will be delayed a bit.

Check back in several hours and we will attempt something a bit more complete and topical, until then please bear with us!

Behind the Screen: Spring Cleaning Your Campaign...

Stupid Ranger and I took a bit of a weekend getaway this weekend, and on our return trip I got bitten by the need to Spring Clean and get some of those tasks done that I've been putting over during the colder months (including previous cold months that have occurred years ago).

Out with the old...

As the weather gets warm (at least, in our part of the world) this year, take the opportunity to spruce up your own campaign. Got some old, tired plot point cluttering up your guest bedroom? Chuck it out, replace it with something interesting or at the very least different.

Being a fairly analytical nerd, I prefer to make lists. If you are similarly inclined, I highly recommend the classic "Pros and Cons" list focused on elements of your campaign. Is your story going well, everyone engaged? Pro. Too many powerful magic items or cohorts cramping your style? Con.

After you've got a prioritized list, take the top two items from your Con list and come up with some ideas how to bring them back toward the other side of the list. I actually like to propose a handful of in-game ideas how to rectify my Cons and then break them out into their own list to try to "crash" the idea, figuring out ways that my players could likely sidestep or derail my provided fixes.

I have previously explored this concept in my Failure Mode and Effects Analysis post, but it bears repeating as I feel this is a very good tool to use when breaking new campaign ground.

Take advantage of the nice weather as an excuse to start sprucing up your gaming sessions!!