This session saw the characters proceeding northwards with the caravan, spending a day in Daggerford, and ingratiating themselves with the cultists. I had a full table this week, with seven players and myself as DM. All in all, we had slightly above 30 players participating this week at Good Games Ballarat. My session focused a little more on role-playing and story this time around. I … Continue reading Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 9
At long last, the first of the new Dungeons & Dragons comics has been release. Legends of Baldur’s Gate #1 sees Jim Zub (writer), Max Dunbar (artist) and Jon-Paul Bove (colorus) telling the tale of Delina, a moon elf wild mage, who begins the story fleeing from gargoyles who have been sent after her for an unknown reason. In her attempts to protect herself from … Continue reading Comic Review: Legends of Baldur’s Gate #1
There’s a lot of creativity required from the Dungeon Master when running this stage of the adventure, which is aided by preparation. I’ve been a bit distracted of late, so I haven’t been able to prepare as much as I really should be doing. Thus, for this session, I kept things fairly simple as the adventurers continued to accompany the cultist’s wagon up the Sword … Continue reading Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 8
With this session, my group left the safe harbours of the D&D Encounters program and wandered into the murky waters of Casual play. All of which means that I’ve stopped ignoring the pacing guidelines of the D&D Encounters version of Hoard (which would have had us going for a few more weeks in any case), and are now working from the adventure text directly. And … Continue reading Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 7
At the climax of episode 1 of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, the weary players may see the champion of the enemy, Cyanwrath, come out before them and issue a challenge: Either the defenders of the village send out a champion to defeat him in mortal combat, or he will execute a family that he has captured. As he does so, one of the militia-men … Continue reading An Ethical Dilemma in Dungeons & Dragons – the Cyanwrath Challenge
We had our lowest attendance for D&D Encounters this week – a mere 30 players – although I expect numbers will rebound somewhat next week as several players return from birthday parties and the like. We were also missing two Dungeon Masters – as it happened, from the tables who were missing most of the players – so we merged those two tables and Sam … Continue reading D&D Encounters – Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 6
Hoard of the Dragon Queen is the first of two adventures written by Wolfgang Baur and Steve Winter set in the Forgotten Realms. The two adventures have the players coming up against the fresh plans of the Cult of the Dragon, a long-standing villainous group in the setting, to summon Tiamat from the Nine Hells. The designers of the adventure are experienced. They’ve been working … Continue reading Running Hoard of the Dragon Queen – Episode 1
This was the first session where we split the Encounters groups so that five of the groups played at 5.30 pm, and the final group played at 7.30 pm. It worked pretty well, and Kris was glad to be able to hear his DM in the later session. Overall, we were a little down on numbers, but that still meant there were 36 people participating. … Continue reading D&D Encounters – Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 5
This session began with our heroes having been sent to the raiders’ camp to find out who they were, how many there were, what their plans were and – if they could be bothered – to rescue a monk who had been captured by the raiders. At the end of the last session, the group destroyed the raiders’ rear guard, and then convinced the one … Continue reading D&D Encounters: Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 4
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
