Almost everything you think you know about history is probably wrong (or at least staggeringly incomplete). At least, that’s the impression I’m getting as I spend more time learning about aspects of our history. Even if you know some of the bigger points – that there was a American Civil War, that there was a battle at Bull Run, and so forth – you’re probably … Continue reading History and Dungeons & Dragons
The Tier 1 adventures of Season 9 of the D&D Adventurers League conclude with M.T. Black’s The Day of the Devil, a little romp in Baldur’s Gate about cultists, murders and – gasp! – devils! The adventure has a 2+2 structure, that is, a two-hour adventure with two one-hour bonus objectives, and comes as close as any adventure I’ve run to presenting this satisfactorily. It … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Day of the Devil
Salvage Operation is, in essence, a simple little adventure until the final act. You explore an unusual dungeon – a wrecked ship! – fighting the foes aboard, until you reach your objective: a treasure in the hold. The tricky bit about the adventure is running the final section, where your group needs to escape with the treasure! Your players may want to discover what happened … Continue reading Running Ghosts of Saltmarsh: Salvage Operation
Dead Canaries is a DDAL-legal CCC adventure for level 11-16 characters, in which the characters must reintegrate the mind of a wizard who has gone slightly mad as a result of meddling with “tar stones”, magical rocks first seen in the first of this trilogy, Weakness of Rock. The adventure mostly stands alone, and you can play it without the others of the trilogy and … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Dead Canaries
Weakness of Rock is a DDAL-legal adventure for level 11-16 characters set in Hulburg, a mining town on the north of the Moonsea. As with many of the towns in this region, it’s rebuilding after several disasters befell it, and the trouble it’s currently facing comes from below. The initial situation is that three miners have fallen into comas after mining some of the magical … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Weakness of Rock
The Lost Sanctum is a four-hour adventure for level 5-10 characters by Paige Leitman and Ben Heisler set in Elmwood, a small town on the edge of the Moonsea, which is recovering after the detonation of a devastation orb. It is part two of a trilogy; I haven’t run part one, but part two stands very well on its own. It’s also an excellent adventure … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review – The Lost Sanctum
I’m posting a couple of forum posts I made a few years back, talking about the concept of Balance in RPGs. Balance… is tremendously important to any RPG. If you don’t think it is, then you don’t understand what balance is. It doesn’t help the clarity of discussions that there are actually two types of balance with regard to playing RPG, both of which get … Continue reading On Balance in RPGs
It’s out! Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus has been released! I’ve bought it three times already. Once with the normal cover, once with the special edition cover, and once in the D&D Beyond digital format. Two of them will likely see heavy use. The other, not so much. I’ve been playing D&D for a long time. I played a bit in the Forgotten Realms when … Continue reading The Best Baldur’s Gate Adventure
A recent blog post by “Jester” David on problems with the Dungeons & Dragons hardcover adventures made me consider the use of sandboxes in D&D adventures. A lot of people talk fondly of sandboxes, but I’m unsure how many like the examples we’ve seen in official adventures. There’s a reason for that: Sandboxes, certainly in the context of a narrative story, are hard to design. … Continue reading Goals and Sandboxes
Of all the adventures I’ve run, Danger at Dunwater is one of the most difficult to approach. Why is that? It’s because it’s very hard to discern the shape of it. You’ve got an adventure that well could be entirely played as “you walk up to the lizardfolk, talk to it in Draconic, and part friends”. That’s what happened the first time I ran it. … Continue reading Running Ghosts of Saltmarsh: Danger at Dunwater
