Artificer's Intuition

"Sing us the song of the century"  - Green Day, Song of the Century Like many people, I love music.  In my spare time, at work, while driving, I tend to usually have something going.  When I get into the zone with things, it helps me stay there and get stuff done.  In one word, music is immersive.  What else do we look to immerse ourselves in?  How about our D&D games? Many DM's (myself included) seek to include elaborate maps.  Others include fantastic descriptions, create awesome encounters, and so on and so forth.  While all of those things are great, I think finding new and exciting ways to interject some musical themes in your games can be just as fun. I don't believe in playing music for the sake of playing music.  I'm not somebody to just put on a playlist and play D&D.  I've read about it, and another DM of mine did it once, but it didn't really do it for me.  Was it cool to have various instrumental p...

"Snow goons are bad news." -Calvin, Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons It's funny when you have a bunch of ideas in your head, yet you can't seem to organize them/put them onto paper.  I'm at that place right now for my Vellyn (ice and snow continent) campaign. There are ideas I've been sitting on for a year, and when I first got them, they weren't even Vellyn.  I had run a couple of adventures with my friends, and then planned on sending them into the Shadowfell.  While there, they would have to explore a location called the Library of Lost Secrets.  I planned on having them fight dark yetis, shadows, and evil snowmen. Yes, you heard correctly, evil snowmen.  My middle school years were heavily influenced by Calvin and Hobbes, and I'm proud to say that those ideas carried over into Dungeons and Dragons.    I even went on to start making some of my own snow goons out of Crayola model magic, toothpicks, and a mark...

"Who are you? I really wanna know."  - Who Are You , The Who Last week I interviewed Teos Abadia.  He answered seven questions for me, then suggested I answer the seven questions I gave him (slightly altered) about myself.  So, here we go! 1. What's the origin of the ArtificerAlf name? When I first started playing Dungeons & Dragons, the first class I played was an artificer.  I thought it was fun making potions, items, and magic weapons.  When I started the blog, I wanted a cool sounding name that reflected my first experiences with the game.  For some reason, Artificer's Intuition jumped into my head.  I think I was subconsciously influenced by the Magic the Gathering card of the same name.  When I joined Twitter, the name @artificersintuition was too long, so I went with a nickname I've had all my life, based off my middle name.  The name was Alf (some have said I look remarkably like Gordon Shumway, but that has nothing...