When I first played D&D, using the AD&D rules in the early 1980s, every gold you earned gave you XP, and thus gain levels. You also gained XP from killing monsters, but based on what I observed from the published adventures and comments in the Basic and Companion rules, about three-quarters of your XP would come from treasure. (Some players did away with this, but … Continue reading D&D Adventurers League Changes: Gold
If you’d like to pick a topic in D&D that has seen many varying viewpoints, try the awarding of magic items. How many? How powerful? If you read the old magazines and rulebooks, you’ll find a lot of advice about not giving out too many magic items. There were horror tales of “Monty Haul” games where everyone had vorpal swords and were slaying gods. It’s … Continue reading Changes to the D&D Adventurers League! Magic Items!
Once upon a time, players gathered around a table and delved into a dungeon. They slew and avoided monsters, and they came out with treasure. For this, they were awarded XP. Most of the XP was for the treasure they gained, but a small amount (one-fifth according to some advice) was for the slaying of monsters. In a recent session of Dungeons of Dragons, a … Continue reading The D&D Adventurers League is Changing! Don’t Panic! (Experience Points)
In The Golden Apple by Luciella Scarlett, a party of Tier 1 characters chase a rogue eladrin into the Feywild, get caught up in the machinations of the fey courts, and have an opportunity to stop the rogue causing a war between the courts. This is a great basis for an adventure, and I’m very fond of tales of the fey. The adventure begins in … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Golden Apple
Shawn Merwin and Chris Sniezak recently touched on the phenomenon of most groups always turning left when they came to an intersection in a dungeon, as part of their Down with D&D podcast. The decision to “turn left first” is one I’ve observed at many tables over the last couple of decades. My feeling is that it comes partly from the decision to take the … Continue reading In the Dungeon: Left or Right?
Ashley Warren’s A Night of Masks and Monsters is a single-session adventure for level 3 characters. Set in the city of Ibrido, the adventurers get to experience a masquerade party where the masks have unsettling, magical properties, and the host has unsavoury plans for his guests! This is an adventure with excellent ideas, which doesn’t always execute them well. That it lacks a synopsis is … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: A Night of Masks and Monsters
Greg Marks’ Oubliette of Fort Iron is a significant milestone in the D&D Adventurers League range. It was released in 2015 as part of the second season, and it’s the first two-hour adventure for the league, a format that has come to dominate the range. The adventure is mostly a linear dungeon-crawl, with encounters split between combats and hazards. None of the three combats is … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Oubliette of Fort Iron
The Lich’s Heart is a free adventure by John Thompson for 10th-level characters. It has a very short and sweet blurb on the DMs Guild: This is the adventure I wrote to propose to my girlfriend. It reads like an old-school adventure. The adventurers explore a ruined castle, encountering various tricks, traps and monsters. Some puzzles require items from other areas of the castle to … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Lich’s Heart
Keep things short. Don’t overexplain. That background you wrote? It should be shorter. That NPC personality? Do you need that much detail? Try dot points. If you take over a page for an encounter, it’s too long. If it’s over a column, can you shorten it? Adventures are read twice, if you’re lucky. Once to prepare, and once during the running. When a DM runs … Continue reading On Brevity, Clarity and Adventure Writing
Sorrow’s Ruin is a Forgotten Realms adventure for first-level characters by Blaise Wrigglesworth. The adventurers must save a prophet of Ilmater from agents of Loviatar, the Goddess of Pain and Suffering. It offers a combination of wilderness and dungeon-delving, and it has some role-playing opportunities as well. The adventure begins with the kidnapping of Brother Dendar, a priest of Ilmater. The adventurers follow him to … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Sorrow’s Ruin
