On my birthday, we began a new campaign. The adventure? Curse of Strahd. It is the third time I have run the adventure. As I have expressed on Twitter, I delight in adventures that I run more than once – the experience of a role-playing game is something that changes whenever you get a new group. Different things are explored and emphasised. My conception of … Continue reading Another Visit to Curse of Strahd
I am fascinated by the process of designing adventures to be published and used by others. There are many, many factors to consider. I came up with three – which I posted on Twitter – then M.T. Black offered some more. The three I posted: You want to present a path through the adventure You want enough detail so the players can go beyond that … Continue reading Thoughts on Designing Adventures for Publication
As a follow-up to my post about the Plotless Campaign, consider running the first chapter of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden in such a manner. In this structure, the characters are wandering adventurers, start each adventure walking into a new town, quickly discovering it has a problem, and solving it. What is different about this from the standard Rime? You ignore the rationale about … Continue reading The Rime with No Name
My Dad’s Monster Manual is a monster book. It has monsters. It has art you will recognise, coming as it does from the official 5E Monster Manual. And it gets you to look at those bits of art differently. The book started with James Introcaso showing the Monster Manual to his father, and his father coming up with his interpretation of what each piece of … Continue reading 5E Supplement Review: My Dad’s Monster Manual
There is a style of Dungeons & Dragons campaign that I quite enjoy. It is one that does not use a campaign-long plot but instead provides a picaresque experience, with the adventurers travelling from place to place and dealing with various situations as they encounter them. It is one that is very easy to construct, especially for new DMs. The characters may be heroic, or … Continue reading Running a D&D Campaign without a Plot
Blinsky’s Toyshop is an adventure for level 3 to 7 characters set in the land of Barovia. As it is centred around a somewhat cursed toy shop, I see no difficulty in playing this adventure in most settings, except perhaps Dark Sun. It might feel too light-hearted for there! The basic idea is that the characters visit Blinsky’s Toyshop, one of the more memorable locations … Continue reading 5E Review: Blinsky’s Toyshop
Quite the Pickle is a collection of four, linked one-hour adventures set in the town of Saltmarsh. All revolve around a local tavern, the Snapping Line, which employs two dwarven brothers with a secret. The adventures are for level 5 to 10 characters, and though optimised for a party of level 8 characters, containing scaling notes for other levels. The first two adventures feature tournaments … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Quite the Pickle
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is an adventure for level 1 characters set in the world of Eberron. It is derived from the well-known story by Washington Irving. The adventure proceeds like this: The adventurers arrive in the village of Sleepy Hollow, where they discover the local school master, one Ichabod ir’Crane, has disappeared. As they investigate his disappearance, they uncover several odd things in … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything has a lot of interesting material in it. As I am far more likely to be the Dungeon Master rather than a player, I thought I might share with you a few thoughts about the new material in the “Dungeon Master’s Tools” chapter. Note that I am deliberately excluding both Group Patrons (Chapter 2) and the new magic items of Chapter … Continue reading A Quick Look at the Dungeon Master’s Tools of Tasha’s
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything has landed! Hooray! I immediately turned to the DM section to see what it could offer me. The answer is rather mixed, but that is to be expected: I am an experienced DM who is rather set in his ways. Advice on Session Zero is not new to me, and I tend not to include puzzles in adventures I design. I … Continue reading Negotiating Desires
