Plot Hooks

Classic Halloween image.  The lightning lit castle on the hill.  Looming over the town below.  The perfect hook for a halloween or horror game experience.  Assuming your players will take the obvious bait in the even more obvious trap that you want them to walk into.  Of course they could do the completely logical thing and burn the castle to the ground.  Or siege the castle.  Or any number of intelligent courses of action that don't involve walking into the trap.  Darn those players for thinking when you don't want them to and not thinking when you do want them to.

Art from here
LooneyDM out

Spiders

Generally I'm not a fan of memes posters.  I do make exceptions for the originals and ones the pull the meme off well.  Hopefully this one falls into the latter category.  I also hope I haven't caused anyone's arachnophobia to kick into high gear with this poster.

Art fromWotC art gallery
LooneyDM out

Dirgesinger

D&D is so full of odd ball classes, feats and prestige classes.  Dirgesinger is one of those prestige classes.  Bards and undead rarely get along but this is the exception to that. 
Art from here
LooneyDM out

Sune

In my internet travels I stumbled upon a picture of Sune, Forgotten Realms goddess of love and beauty.  It was accompanied by this description "When Sune appears to the mortals of Faerûn she wears only a near-transparent gown. She is known for her lustrous red hair that drapes down to the ground, her eyes of shining emeralds and ruby red plump lips".  Seriously this reads like something out of erotica.  I know that it has classic roots (Aphrodite, Venus, etc) but why do all the female deities of love have to be drawn and described like they walked off the set of a porn movie?  It's not like all of them have lust in their domain portfolio either.  That said there's a long tradition behind it, and I suspect there would be a severe outcry from some quarters if the goddess of love didn't match up with contemporary standards of beauty.

Art from WotC Art Gallery
LooneyDM out

Rings

I have poor planning skills this week.  So you get bad pop culture reference jokes about magic items.  And a rant about magic items.  I hate picking out magic items.  Because dammit I don't want to have to choose between the boring stuff like +x to hit and damage or important ability score and the interesting stuff like immovable rods and decanters of endless water.  They need to be in separate wealth bins or the +x items need to be dropped from the game math so I can get the item that will be the most fun, not the item that will let my character retain functionality.

Art from WotC Art Gallery
LooneyDM out

Shoulderpads

I used to think that excessive shoulderpads were strictly a Warhammer 40K motif.  Then I found this picture in the WotC art gallery archive.  It really speaks for itself.  But I'm going to speak about it anyways.  There's no way that he could use that sword while wearing those shoulderpads.  They'd definitely stop him from moving in a way that would allow the sword to be effective.  Though that may not be the point.  Still they're overdone for a fancy dress outfit as well.  The sword is lacking a scabbard as well.  His outfit is overall a total mess and he should feel bad about it.  Not as bad as he should feel about being a drow but that's another post entirely.

Art from WotC art gallery archive
LooneyDM out

Turn Undead

I enjoy playing clerics.  What I don't enjoy is the ubiquity of turn undead.  I dislike it for a few reasons.  The first is I dislike monster specific situational abilities.  Especially as class features.  It requires that the DM throw you a bone by intentionally using a creature type that is weak to your abilities.  This goes similar for rangers and their favored enemy ability.  Bane weapons aren't as bad as you can switch them out for other items.  Turn Undead and Favored Enemy you're stuck. 
The other reason is the theme dissonance.  Decide to play a cleric of the chief illusion deity of the setting?  Still have to take turn undead.  Want to play a cleric of a war deity who doesn't give a crap about undead?  Too bad, you're still doing the turn undead gig.  It makes no sense in so many cases but you're still unable to trade it in for something useful or conceptually relevant.  Thank goodness for divine metamagic and devotion feats in 3.5 and the healer's mercy alternate class feature in 4e which at least allow you some flexibility.

Art from GIS for Turn Undead
LooneyDM out

Special Snowflakes

There's always one PC who just can't go with the flow.  They have to have something that sets them apart.  Something blatantly obvious to everyone who plays with them.

Art from WIN!
LooneyDM out

Aggressive Negotiations

Last night we almost went into aggressive negotiations as our potentially new employer admitted he was behind the kidnapping we had to thwart previously.  He gave us a plausible reason but we're on our guard.

Art from here

Makani: (( Classic PC plan B, USE MORE FIRE! ))

Seldon"Smoke": traveling to find someone who can best the undefeated bear?
Bear: (( Go WWE on their asses ))
Seldon"Smoke": millions have tried and lost, do any of you think you have what it takes?
DM: (( shame folding chairs don't exist yet ))
Larrasa: (( improvise ^_^ ))
Bear: (( I am pretty sure with my strength check I could make one fold... just saying ))

Makani: This is the Unsoppable Bear, a wrestling champion
human male 12: (( .... unsoppable? He cannot be picked up by a bounty paper towel? ))

Larrasa: (( rolled a 1 on his typing check! ))

DM: (( The inn is peaceful, aside from Seldon's activities. ))

Larrasa: (( Seldon is in bed with the elf? ))

Larrasa: (( is that a rapier in your scabbard, or are you just happy to see the stablehand? ))

Captain Exposition: (( lol really? Who changed my name? ))

LooneyDM out

Wizard

Some people trade their very souls for phenomenal arcane powers.  Others trade different things.  Like their fashion sense and social lives.  To paraphrase Harry Dresden "Wizards are nerds".  Maybe that's why I don't play wizards often.  Their lifestyle and means of acquiring arcane power hits a little too close to home.

LooneyDM out

GMing Advice

There are many pieces of good GMing advice out there.  This is one of the ones I heard very early in my GMing career and it has stuck with me for a good long time.  Not everything is a win for the players.  Not every obstacle can be overcome.  The biggest hurdle is realizing this and then dealing with it, both on the player side and on the GM side.  It is also rather fitting given the TPK I delivered last friday in my weekly D&D game.  Okay, not completely a TPK but the entire party was rendered unconscious and captured with as yet unspecified results

Art from GIS for "dragon wins"
LooneyDM out