shamusyoung

DM of the Rings LV: Does That Seem Right to You?

"In the book, Gandalf acted much as he always did in this meeting: Annoyingly Mysterious. You can’t really fault him, that’s his style. In the movie, it seemed like he was just being a jerk. I can’t fault him there either. If I came back from the dead as a nigh-invincible super-wizard, I’d probably run around doing this sort of thing to everyone." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings LIV: Get Shorty

"I could not figure out a way to put Liv Tyler into episode LIV. Pity. But I did manage to work Danny DeVito in there, which was kind of unexpected." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings LIII: Waste Not, Want Not

"Don’t get too hung up on horses. While the rulebooks have all sorts of rules for movement speeds while on foot, encumbered, or riding, the truth is that all travel takes exactly as long as the DM wants it to. This brings to mind the wise old saying:

“A player is never late, Dave. Nor is he early. He arrives precisly when the plot dictates he should.”

Or something lik...

DM of the Rings LII: I Specialize in Ranger-ing

"When dealing with railroading DM’s, never waste skill points on the tracking skill. If it’s part of the plot, you’ll find it no matter what you roll. If it’s not part of the plot, then it doesn’t exist anyway." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings LI: The Tenacity of Greed

"The saying is, “No honor among thieves”, but I think it applies just as well to the other character classes. I would not be shocked at all to find a paladin and a cleric arguing over which one of them gets to pry the gold fillings from the teeth of their recently slain companion, and if they are obliged to resurect him afterwards.

Originally players did this because the rules only aw...

DM of the Rings L: Not to be Looked in the Mouth

DM of the Rings XLIX: The Name Game

"Nobody wants to play a campaign with Emperor Fred or High Chancellor Gary, and so the usual approach is to give everyone high fantasy names like King Geon’ai, Sir Lua’an-Eradin, or Lady Alaain Mera-Dovrel. You know, strange and fantasy-ish. Of course, this means the names will all be unpronouncable, difficult to spell, and easily confused. For fun, have your players describe the plot of yo...

DM of the Rings XLVIII: Dwarven Diplomacy

"I see a lot of kids with those “I Roll Twenties” t-shirts. I don’t know what game they are playing, or where they get their dice. I need one that says, “Help. The dice are trying to kill me.” " ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XLVII: -2 to Maturity, +2 to Funny

"The rulebooks never say that players earn XP for finding ways to imply the other guys at the table might be gay, but you would never know this from observing their behavior." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XLVI: The Hunt Begins!

"Players complain so much about having to walk long distances. You would think they were actually, you know, walking there." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XLV: Last Disrespects

"How to motivate your players:

1. Entice them with a compelling story.
2. If you can’t do that, then bribe them with treasure.
3. If you won’t do that, then let them know that if they don’t play along they will be stuck in this boring, treasure-less campaign forever." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XLIV: The Exodus Continues

"Merry and Pippin were about the most underused characters in this campaign. I imagine the two of them sat on the couch playing XBox, and if they were needed for anything they would shout their actions over their shoulder without looking away from the TV. Now that I’ve come to this point, it would have been nice to have a gag where (during some tense or serious moment) the two of them were pl...

DM of the Rings XLIII: Rail-Rodian

"When railroading players, ALWAYS have a backup plan in case they derail the plot. By tradition this backup plan is, “Put players back on rails.” " ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XLII: Joining the Rebellion

"Characters come and go, but the relative success of a campaign story can be judged by the number of players who are willing to see it through to the end." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XLI: A New Hope

"It would have been pleasing if this extra-large (double, actually) comic had ended up being number “XL”. Missed it by one. (What kind of a dork obsesses over details like that? Sheesh.)

I’m sure this is an unexpected turn of events. Don’t worry, I know where this is going. You don’t. Ha ha." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XL: What Dreams May Come

"Live free or die, man. Live free or die." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XXXIX: Don’t Hate the Player

"So after a couple of weeks of speculation about what will happen to Boromir, you can… speculate some more!

On Monday I’ll have the other “half” of his death. It was just too big to cram into one strip.

As I write this I find I can only do one of two things at any given time:

1. Tell the story
2. Tell a joke

I really envy the skill of Rich Burlew, ...

DM of the Rings XXXVIII: As Simple as Calculus

"And here I finally deliver the joke / point I wanted to make way back in strip #16. The rules as presented in the rulebook seem sensible enough: If someone enters a square adjacent to an enemy, that enemy gets a free swing at them, right then and there, regardless of who’s turn it is. I’m sure propon...

DM of The Rings XXXVII: Intervention Interruptus

"The Circle of Fantasy Roleplaying Life:

1. Enchantment: You begin a new campaign. How exciting! As you play, you will eventually experience…
2. Disillusionment: You notice all the flaws in the campaign. Loot distribution is uneven. The house rules outnumber the core rules, and the only person who knows these house rules is the DM. Some players...
   2023-09-09 10:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post

DM of the Rings XXXVI: Hates the Dice! Hates Them Forever!

"The most terrifying part of any campaign is when the players at last wiggle free of your grasp and escape the railroad plot you’ve devised.

This marks the first time our hapless group has broken from the plot as set down by Tolkien himself. What does this mean? Is the whole thing going off the rails now? Has our hapless DM finally lost control? Will he cheat in order to stick to his pr...

DM of the Rings XXXV: A Dubious Victory

"The players are there to overcome challenges and earn rewards. If you are foolish enough to deny them the desired supply of challenges and rewards they will instead amuse themselves by frustrating the goals of your campaign and thwarting your emerging plot. In this way you can view loot and XP as the candy with which you bribe your wayward players into behaving themselves." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XXXIV: Let’s Make A Deal

"I’ve had my players try to barter for items I was trying to give them for free. This is not a bad thing, but it always throws me off-script. It’s like little Timmy coming downstairs on Christmas morning and crying out, “Sweet! Okay mom and dad, how much for the big box with ‘timmy’ on it? Huh? How much?” It doesn’t matter what you say now, the moment is ruined." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XXXIII: Stuffinged

"I’m taking Thursday off, so no comic on Friday. Enjoy your holiday." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XXXII: Fire Safety

DM of the Rings XXXI: Familiar Lamentations

"Players are always in a hurry to reach town. Once there, they will be in even more of a hurry to leave." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XXX: Misunderstandings Abound

"This one has a bit of an in-joke in the second panel. The phrase, “Why is nobody ever glad to see us?!” was uttered in varying forms quite often during our campaigns.

I often tried to speak in Tolkienesque form when roleplaying some ruler or other important NPC, although the effort was usually wasted because of the misunderstandings it caused. The players would ask me to tra...

DM of the Rings XXIX: Organizational Skills a Plus!

"In any large prewritten campaign, the DM is bound to read the wrong bit of dialog sooner or later. Sometimes it’s easier to cover up than others. Sometimes it’s impossible. In these cases it can be a great relief when you realize nobody was listening to you anyway." ~Shamus

DM of the Rings XXVIII: More Magical Topography

"Oh look. Another secluded place of secret enchantment and arcane mystery.

Yawn." ~Shamus

Finally, News.

Many people have noticed that despite being told we'd be uploading old content, and updating the site...nothing has really happened. We haven't forgotten, but the transition from Dad doing everything, to unexpected family takeover, was (shocker!) not as smooth as we hoped.

The haphazardly decided upon system and attempted delegation of tasks looked like this:

Mom: H...

DM of the Rings XXVII: Luminous Treasure

"Sooner or later, we all become Dave.

A quick glance around this site should reveal that I have a profound dice problem. I can’t walk into the geek store without picking up a couple of new dice, even when they are sold for the outragous price of $0.75 ea." ~Shamus