Few of the published Dungeons & Dragons adventures make use of a home base that you return to again and again. This is not, in fact, that surprising. When you think of classic fantasy adventures, I bet mostly you think of adventures that take place far from home. The Lord of the Rings, The Odyssey, and many more – they feature trips to exotic lands … Continue reading Home Bases as Adventuring Hubs
Looking up at my shelves, I can see a lot of published Dungeons & Dragons adventures. It’s sort of the thing I really enjoy, so I’ve collected many of them – but by no means all. And (sadly), I’ve tended to concentrate on the official ones rather than spending lots of time going around what other authors are doing. But you’ve got to start somewhere. … Continue reading The Big Adventure: Home Bases
I’ve been running Empire of the Ghouls for the past few months, and one thing it has a lot of is wilderness travel. Like, a lot. “Road Trip: The Adventure.” And this brings me back to how difficult it is to run engaging wilderness travel in Dungeons & Dragons. This is a problem that goes back to the early days of the game. In The … Continue reading Wilderness Travel Redux
Given the recent changes to twitter, I will rarely be posting there from now on. Unless things get significantly better. You can follow me on Bluesky here: https://bsky.app/profile/merricb.bsky.social Continue reading Goodbye, Twitter
One of the things that amuses me on the internet is people telling other people that a computer game isn’t a RPG. For those of us who mostly exist in the tabletop space, well – computer RPGs typically lack the one distinguishing feature of a tabletop RPG: A Gamemaster. You don’t have the human interaction and creativity that allows the game to deal with any … Continue reading What is an RPG?
I have never played a Persona game. I gather some of the mechanics I describe in this article come from there. (And likely other games I’m unfamiliar with). However, I am now playing Metaphor: ReFantazio. 20 hours in. Very much enjoying it. It’s a JRPG set in a fantasy world, where the assassination of the king sets off a quest to stop his assassin becoming … Continue reading Time Management – Metaphor: ReFantazio
We’ve been using the new rules for about three weeks now, ever since the beginning of my Empire of the Ghouls campaign. The physical rulebooks still haven’t arrived in Australia, so I’ve been looking up rules in various compendiums (Roll20, Beyond20) as they become relevant. Which means that I certainly haven’t read them all yet! But there are things that come up in play, and … Continue reading Things that surprised me in D&D 2024
In the city of Zobeck, in the world of Midgard, trouble was brewing. It began, as many might expect, amongst the kobolds. And likely, there were gnomes involved as well. Despite years of supporting Kobold Press in their Kickstarters, I am quite unfamiliar with the world of Midgard, my players even more so. Following the underwhelming ending of Vecna: Eve of Ruin, I felt I … Continue reading Empire of the Ghouls, part 1
The new “edition” of Dungeons & Dragons, which I guess I’m calling D&D 2024, has started landing. Except physical editions of the Player’s Handbook in Australia, which are somewhat delayed. As it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a gaming store, I’m not sure how long they’re delayed. Reports vary. (October 11?) But as a digital denizen these days, running D&D on Roll20 … Continue reading Days of Dungeons & Dragons 2024
The new edition of Dungeons & Dragons has dropped – at least the Player’s Handbook has – and so we are all a little distracted by that. I haven’t been blogging much of late. I’ve continued to run my 5E Greyhawk campaign every second Friday, and my Vecna: Eve of Ruin campaign ended last Monday. Next week, we’ll use the 2024 D&D rules to go … Continue reading The City of Arches
