Category Archives: The Blog

Xanathar & How-To DM: Character Creation Guidelines

First and foremost, before I get into anything else, or do anything else, here he is, in all of his hateful and dreadful glory, The Xanathar: Isn’t he just the cutest?! Just…that way he looks like he’s going to either not kill you outright or disintegrate you? And even from the rear, you just KNOWContinue reading “Xanathar & How-To DM: Character Creation Guidelines”

Tuesday Game: A Player’s Perspective: Licking Wounds & Seeking Vermeillon

We found the Hopeful Dopes caught in a dire situation as their keep, the Dope’s Hope, was ambushed by a hoard of orcs and a werewolf. Several members were fell by this band of muscle and malice, but our weary defenders were able to finally repel them. Several guards, the decorated hobgoblin Grinkel, and theContinue reading “Tuesday Game: A Player’s Perspective: Licking Wounds & Seeking Vermeillon”

Painting Profile: Finishing the Xanathar

Dear Readers, Today is a landmark day. But also disappointing! I’ll show you what I mean. You know where we left off, and here’s where we went! Here we are. We did the shading over the body! I used Nuln Oil (Citadel) shading for the main body, with Argax Earthshade for the mouth and eyeContinue reading “Painting Profile: Finishing the Xanathar”

Rime of the Frostmaiden: The Codicil of the White

When last we left our heroes, they were in the dungeon level of Auril’s Abode…her home. The party had just finished the Test of Preservation, and stood before the entryway to the Test of Cruelty. The party opened the door and found themselves in front of empty tents…Searching through, they found the Bear Tribe, preparingContinue reading “Rime of the Frostmaiden: The Codicil of the White”

Let’s Do Some World Building: More on the Village of Borest

Last time, we took a look at the concept of world building and applied it to a small town of Borest, specifically the inn. We fleshed out a few NPCs. Now, let’s flesh out some more. Last time, I said I’d flesh out the town mayor/selectman/elder. The reason I left him off the list isContinue reading “Let’s Do Some World Building: More on the Village of Borest”

DM Story: The Story of Kief

Back in the day, when I first played Dungeons and Dragons, my group consisted of my cousin Daniel being the DM (he was a few years older than us) and Jack (who was my age). We had many a grand adventure. Jack and I each had two characters, with me playing a thief (what theyContinue reading “DM Story: The Story of Kief”

Painting Highlight: THE XANATHAR

Oh, boy, do I have an update for you all today, Dear Readers! I finally got my metallic color paints in! Here’s an unboxing for you: This is the box that I finally got in the mail! A lovely tray, with the lovely colors and the one effect. Additionally the 16 ball barrings that allowContinue reading “Painting Highlight: THE XANATHAR”

Rime of the Frostmaiden: Tests of Auril

When we last left our heroes, they were preparing to battle two frost giant skeletons wielding anchors on long chains. The heroes fought hard, and the frost giant skeletons fought just as hard. The party played it smart, though, and came out victorious. Heading further in, they found a female Frost giant, completely encased inContinue reading “Rime of the Frostmaiden: Tests of Auril”

How to DM: Forming a New Group

Today’s installment is on forming a new group; what to look for and what to avoid. I hope this helps you in forming your own future groups! Determine the Sort of Game You Are Playing This is the first and most important step in finding a new group. What kind of game are you planningContinue reading “How to DM: Forming a New Group”

Tuesday Game: A Player’s Perspective: Elemental Intrigue & Return to Shadowhold

Our adventuring party found itself once again at the Three Wolf’s Head Inn and Tavern as they made their way to Waterdeep to seek out work and investigate the cultists of Imix they had encountered previously. Their interrogation of a cultist led them to seek out the Troll Skull Inn & Tavern, and they wereContinue reading “Tuesday Game: A Player’s Perspective: Elemental Intrigue & Return to Shadowhold”

How-To DM: Dealing With Player Issues

Dear Readers, our usually scheduled “Player Perspective” is not available today due to the writer being unavailable. As such, I am doing an early edition of “How-To DM.” I will return with “Player Perspective” when the player is available next, and tomorrow will be a painting update on the projects I am trying to finish.Continue reading “How-To DM: Dealing With Player Issues”

Rime of the Frostmaiden: Assaulting Auril’s Abode

When last we met, the party had decided to head out to the island known as the Isle of Solstice, upon which sits the ancient fortress called Grimskalle. Their transportation? The whale Angajuk, who has a magical boat upon his back. The party travelled for three days, Angajuk playing the tour guide, showing old shipwrecksContinue reading “Rime of the Frostmaiden: Assaulting Auril’s Abode”

Quick Painting Update: The Shame Lessens

As most of you may know, I have a number of miniatures that I had begun to paint, but had abandoned for reasons like: “Gah, this isn’t as fun to paint as I’d thought it’d be,” and “This mini sucks. Why did I buy it?” and my personal favorite “I have so many minis…so many…OOH!Continue reading “Quick Painting Update: The Shame Lessens”

DM Story: When a New Player Decided to Grapple a Troll at Level 1

I had a group of players who were literally ALL new to D&D. Super eager to learn and loves to play. And they do things that NO VETERAN PLAYER WOULD EVER consider doing. I was running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, and they are just starting. They deal with the bar right easily enough, and the troll/stirgesContinue reading “DM Story: When a New Player Decided to Grapple a Troll at Level 1”

How-To DM: Using a Random Encounter Table

So, you have a great campaign, maybe one you wrote, maybe a prewritten one. Who knows. And you have a random encounter table. The question usually comes up: what do you do with it and when do you use it… Here are some ideas: The Players Derail the Campaign So the players have gone totallyContinue reading “How-To DM: Using a Random Encounter Table”

Tuesday Game: A Player’s Perspective: Forest Defenders and Lost Children

Previously, the Hopeful Dopes found themselves inciting a goblin rebellion against their hobgoblin leader, but the hobgoblin quickly dispatched the rebel scum before being knocked out himself. The group proceeded to take their captive back to Dope’s Hope, and they then questioned him for any intelligence on this mythical goblin king he served. Unfortunately, theContinue reading “Tuesday Game: A Player’s Perspective: Forest Defenders and Lost Children”

Miniature Painting Spotlight: Miniature Restoration – Pegasus

Hello, Dear Readers! I hope your week is going well. I’ve been doing okay, truth be told, and working on a lot of self-care. In fact, today’s post is about a miniature that is dear to me. It’s my dad’s old mini for one of his favorite characters: the bard Pegasus. Pegasus was an oldContinue reading “Miniature Painting Spotlight: Miniature Restoration – Pegasus”

Not All Puzzles Require Solving

Even though I was unable to play my normal Sunday Adventurers League game (I had to travel again yesterday), I was able to play my Sunday evening Discord game. I’ve talked about this group before (how the wood elf Elren befriended the tarantula named Benjamin), and it’s a good group. Currently, it’s made of ElrenContinue reading “Not All Puzzles Require Solving”

Let’s Do Some World Building

Dear Readers, I apologize for a lack of post this last Friday. Both yourdorkmaterials and I were swamped. Thanks for your understanding! So we’ve talked a lot about building adventures, and encounters, and campaigns, etc…But what if we want to build a world? Well, that’s what we are going to look at doing today, andContinue reading “Let’s Do Some World Building”

Miniature Painting Spotlight

So I promised an update on the painting of the female elven ranger miniature that one of our Dear Readers had won in our first giveaway, and here is where she was last… Well, she advanced some… She was coming along quite well… And then I did some more work, getting the base paint onContinue reading “Miniature Painting Spotlight”

Tuesday Game: A Player’s Perspective – Three Grave Road and Goblin Revolt

Last time on DBZ… wait wrong story… We left our adventuring companions taking on a bandit raid targeting a former raider by the name of Tara Grassel/Lyra Firebrand who was providing food and board for our adventures. The bandits were pushed back with spells and sorcery, and the party was able to put out mostContinue reading “Tuesday Game: A Player’s Perspective – Three Grave Road and Goblin Revolt”

Rime of the Frostmaiden: Small Group, Large Deeds

Dear Readers, this week, only three of my players were able to make our Sunday Adventurers League game. As such, this session was much more role-play centered than combat centered. When we last left off, our heroes were in a lost spire of Netheril, broken off from the floating city of Ythryn when it crashedContinue reading “Rime of the Frostmaiden: Small Group, Large Deeds”

Where to Put Things

Dear Readers, I am not an organized person. I have to leave clutter around here and there, and my desk is barely usable. So when I decided to organize my miniature painting and modeling supplies, I want you to understand how excited my wife was. My wife is the organizing and storage lover in ourContinue reading “Where to Put Things”

Product Review: Army Painter Wet Palette

Today, Dear Readers, I am doing something a little different. Today I am doing a product review for the Army Painter brand wet palette. As I am a frequent fan of their brand of miniature painting, sculpting, and terrain products, I thought it was time for me to actually tell you about what I thinkContinue reading “Product Review: Army Painter Wet Palette”

How-To DM: Combat Encounters – Design — The Daily Dungeon Master Blog

by yourdorkmaterials A Moon Druid, a Barbarian, a Rogue, a Monk and a Wizard walk into a cave…sounds like the start of a joke, doesn’t it? But a party like this can be a nightmare to build challenging encounters for. The Druid and Barbarian effectively have twice (or even three times at low levels) the […]Continue reading “How-To DM: Combat Encounters – Design — The Daily Dungeon Master Blog”

DM Story: How The Daily DM (accidentally) Traumatized a Table of Middle Schoolers

So, I was DMing a table of mostly middle schoolers (one of them is my son), and very early into the campaign, the party bard was tired of how long it took to get across the city and asked me how much it costs to hire a wagon. According to the PHB, it costs 1Continue reading “DM Story: How The Daily DM (accidentally) Traumatized a Table of Middle Schoolers”

Premium Subscriber Post: When Awesome Campaigns Fizzle Out

Until next time… P.S. – I hope you are enjoying the premium content! If there are any topics or subjects you would like me to address, feel free to let me know in the comment section below!

Tuesday Game: A Player’s Perspective – Shadowhold Outcome and Grassel Farm

When last we saw our adventure party, they had found themselves in Shadowhold at the precipice of a demonic statue that held their goal, the sword of Veldspin’s father. Veldspin desired to pull the sword so that she may reunite the lands her father had ruled once before, but her hired help of daring adventuresContinue reading “Tuesday Game: A Player’s Perspective – Shadowhold Outcome and Grassel Farm”

Painting Miniatures: Space Marine

Dear readers, today’s painting installment will be a step-by-step on how I go about painting a Warhammer 40K space marine. These are, in particular, primaris space Marines. Unfortunately, I will not be able to show you what they look like prior to priming, as I have already primed them. But I will go over howContinue reading “Painting Miniatures: Space Marine”

Home Campaign Combat and Battle in the Throne Room (Rime of the Frostmaiden)

Home Campaign As you may recall, my family’s home campaign is the Curse of Strahd. After dealing with the fallen paladin’s of Argynvostholt and gaining their support with defeating the Devil Strahd, the party headed to the Amber temple to retrieve The Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, a unique holy symbol created specifically to help inContinue reading “Home Campaign Combat and Battle in the Throne Room (Rime of the Frostmaiden)”

Currently Traveling

Dear Readers, I apologize for the lack of posts today, as I am traveling to take my daughter back to college after visiting this weekend. Tomorrow I will have a wonderful post talking about our home campaign and the awesome fight that happened there in as well as a summary over the events that happenedContinue reading “Currently Traveling”

DM Story: Near TPKs

Dear readers, this blog post is brought to you by me using voice to text, so if there are errors or mistakes, blame Android. There comes a time in a dungeon master’s life where you build what you believe to be a good, challenging, and balanced encounter. Often times, due to the nature of howContinue reading “DM Story: Near TPKs”

HOW-TO-DM: THE HOUSE RULE

Hello everyone! In this week’s installment of How To DM, I’d like to talk about house rules. Ah, the temptations of the house rule. Most of us can’t resist the urge to open the Pandora’s Box of Amateur Game Design and homebrew some rules while we’re homebrewing everything else, right? But fewer things can totallyContinue reading “HOW-TO-DM: THE HOUSE RULE”

Tuesday Game: A Player’s Perspective – Delving Into Shadowhold

Dear Readers, this post is brought to you by our guest poster (and player at my Tuesday Group), Brandon. I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did! The group found itself gather round the The Three Wolves Head Tavern and Inn licking their wounds after their most recent encounter that cost themContinue reading “Tuesday Game: A Player’s Perspective – Delving Into Shadowhold”

Painting Update: Fighting Laziness and New Projects

So, here’s some of the projects I have worked on since the Space Marine, using the new techniques for drybrushing that I have learned. Behold! Manshoon! As you can see, the drybrushing/highlighting and shading techniques I learned turned out very well, I think. Next, we have Artemis Entreri…Gah, I shouldn’t have started this mini. IContinue reading “Painting Update: Fighting Laziness and New Projects”

Rime of the Frostmaiden: “Have Fun Storming the Castle, Boys!”

In our League game, the two female players were unable to make it to our session this week, thus the title. So when we last left our heroes, they had thwarted the attack on Ten Towns by the chardalyn dragon that Xardorok Sunblight, the duergar king and clan leader in the mountains, had created. TheContinue reading “Rime of the Frostmaiden: “Have Fun Storming the Castle, Boys!””

Of Miniatures and Subscriptions

Dear Readers, As you could tell recently, I had offered premium subscription services. The problem? WordPress.com can be…finicky sometimes. So although you can still support The Blog, you will be getting the premium content via email until I can get things figured out. This is JUST subscriptions via thedailydungeonmaster.com. I have the subscription on hereContinue reading “Of Miniatures and Subscriptions”

How-To DM: Rainy Days and…What Day is It? Thursday, You Say? Well, Yeah, Those Can Get You Down, Too…

Not sure what the weather is like where all of you are, but today is rainy and dreary. In a word: sucky. At least for me. That said, when you are having such a day, and you have no games to prep for, what do you do with that extra time when you are inContinue reading “How-To DM: Rainy Days and…What Day is It? Thursday, You Say? Well, Yeah, Those Can Get You Down, Too…”

Rime of the Frostmaiden: Of Duergar and a Dragon

When last we left our party, they headed for the goblin fortress to make good on the peace treaty. The party stopped to rest on the way back from Brynn Shander with a herd of goats and a signed peace treaty, the gnome wizard casting Leomund’s Tiny Hut to provide shelter. One member stood guardContinue reading “Rime of the Frostmaiden: Of Duergar and a Dragon”