Review of DL1: Dragons of Despair

With Dragons of Despair, TSR launched the Dragonlance property, and we moved into a new era of D&D. It’s really hard to understate how important Dragonlance is to the history of D&D. The story was told through both adventures and novels, and for the first time TSR were concentrating on telling a really big story through their products. We’d seen hints of this approach to … Continue reading Review of DL1: Dragons of Despair

D&D Encounters: Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 3

Our numbers were slightly down this week from our all-time high of last week, but – at 36 players – it was still the second highest turnout in our store! It wasn’t as simple as six people couldn’t make it, though, as a couple of players who missed last week were here for this session. The fluctuating player base is one of the reasons that … Continue reading D&D Encounters: Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 3

Goblins of the Lost Mine (Friday session 4)

Our latest session of the Friday campaign saw us continuing through Lost Mine of Phandelver. We’d ended the previous session with the group starting their explorations of Cragmaw Castle; this session saw them conclude their explorations. Harbek, Martin’s dwarf fighter, could hear movement to the south through a small passage the goblins had made through the rubble. He set up guard near the doorway to … Continue reading Goblins of the Lost Mine (Friday session 4)

AD&D Review – UK3: The Gauntlet

I’m writing this review thirty years after UK3: The Gauntlet came out. This adventure is part two of the two-part Alderweg series. I was not particularly kind in my review of the first part of the series, The Sentinel. I did not enjoy it when I first read it back in the 80s, and I don’t particularly enjoy it today. It’s not a terrible adventure, … Continue reading AD&D Review – UK3: The Gauntlet

Defiance in Phlan – Introducing the D&D Expeditions adventures

DDEX1-1 Defiance in Phlan is the first adventure in the D&D Expeditions range from Wizards of the Coast. It is only available to organisers and DMs running games of the D&D Expeditions program, which is primarily in-store and convention play. While most of the D&D Expeditions adventures can be played in a single 4-hour session, Defiance in Phlan is written as five, short, one-hour sessions. … Continue reading Defiance in Phlan – Introducing the D&D Expeditions adventures

Adventure Review: Payback

Payback is the second of a two-adventure series that began with Wrath of the Goblinoids. In it, the players play goblins or other evil humanoids fighting against the encroachment of humans into their lands. As with my previous review, I’m reviewing a pdf copy I bought from DriveThruRPG. The adventure begins with the characters attending a meeting of the various humanoid leaders at the great … Continue reading Adventure Review: Payback

Adventure Review: Wrath of the Goblinoids

Sacrosanct Games is another publisher who produces old-school style adventures that are now releasing adventures for D&D 5E; their initial release is a conversion of an adventure they’d previously released for both the AD&D and Altus Adventum system. At present, it is only available in pdf. Wrath of the Goblinoids is an adventure for first level characters. The primary hook of the adventure is that … Continue reading Adventure Review: Wrath of the Goblinoids

Advanced Squad Leader report: S26 Last Ally, Last Victory

Most of the Starter Kit scenarios that Michael and I have been playing are quite short, although the later SK3 scenarios with tanks are taking us longer to resolve. However, this scenario, the second-last scenario in Starter Kit #3, took us a much longer time to play through: almost 5 hours in total, split between two Friday afternoons. (I recorded the location of all the … Continue reading Advanced Squad Leader report: S26 Last Ally, Last Victory

Adventure Review: The Mines of Valdhum

Mithgarthr Entertainment has already released two free adventures for 5E; The Mines of Valdhum is their first actual purchasable adventure. I bought mine from DriveThruRPG. The Mines of Valdhum has been released as a 37-page black-and-white PDF and is an adventure for 4-6 characters of levels 5-7. A previous version of the adventure was released for the Labyrinth Lords system, a variant of BECMI D&D. … Continue reading Adventure Review: The Mines of Valdhum

Lost Mine of Phandelver – Saturday session 4

As it turns out, running two groups through Lost Mine of Phandelver, each fortnightly and each offset from the other by a week is not entirely conducive to me remembering everything that happened in a session. These reports, therefore, are terribly important for reminding myself of what occurred in the previous session! We had five players at this session of the Saturday group: Jesse, Tait, … Continue reading Lost Mine of Phandelver – Saturday session 4