One of the suggestions in the new D&D Starter Set is that you work out a Marching Order for your party. This is a pretty simple concept – it’s the formation that you use when moving around – that has seen some development through the history of D&D. In the early years of the game, adventuring parties were often much bigger than they are now. … Continue reading D&D Concepts: Marching Order
The new Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set was released to all stores this week. If you look around, you’ll find a lot of reports as to how the adventure in it plays. This is one of them. If you plan to play the adventure, it’s probably a good idea to stop reading now. Because there are going to be lots of SPOILERS ahead for the … Continue reading The Lost Mine of Phandelver – Session 1
Dungeons & Dragons was originally published as “Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures”. The use of miniature figures was mandatory, right? Well, even in the very early days, Gary Gygax was playing the game without miniatures. In fact, there weren’t all that many rules in the early D&D that actually required the use of miniatures; nothing like the … Continue reading Visualising Combat in Dungeons & Dragons
When you get down to it, my D&D designs are greatly influenced by the form of the game that Gary Gygax seemed to be writing about in the DMG. And that means dungeons. Lots and lots of dungeons. Yes, I know that he also wrote about territory development and wilderness exploration, but those sections are rather scant in the DMG, whilst there’s a lot on … Continue reading Caverns of the Oracle: One of my personal megadungeons
The next few months are going to see my Friday night D&D game playing through the Starter Set adventure, getting used to how the new Dungeons & Dragons rules work, incorporating the additional features of the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual and Dungeon Master’s Guide as they come out. Based on comments from the Wizards design team, I expect it will take five or six sessions … Continue reading My next Greyhawk campaign: Onnwal, 606 CY
Last Friday, the Greyhawk D&D 4E campaign we began in June 2008 finished. Six years and over a hundred sessions since we started, the group stopped the cultists of Tharizdun from unchaining the Chained God, and thereby stopped the End of the World. Just as well – I’ve got another campaign running in Greyhawk on Saturdays. It would be a bit unfortunate for the other … Continue reading Finishing off D&D 4E in style!
Skills have seen a wide variety of approaches over the years. The earliest forms of D&D tended to only have formal mechanics for the functions of the thief, but the role of mechanisms for overcoming non-combat challenges have expanded since then. The current skill system is relatively pared down and uses a simple resolution system. D&D 5E uses the Ability Check as the basis of … Continue reading A Primer on Skills and Proficiencies in the new Dungeons & Dragons
Although I’ve written a lot about the various initiative systems in D&D, I could quite easily fill a lot of space talking about how healing has changed through the editions. For players moving from AD&D to 5E, the way healing works is likely to be quite strange. Yes, you still have spells that allow you to heal, but why are Hit Dice being used for … Continue reading A Primer on Hit Points and Healing in the new Dungeons & Dragons
While a lot of the rest of the world was sitting down to play their first games of the new D&D using the Starter Set, my regular crew of players were playing AD&D with me. Mainly because the Starter Set isn’t out here yet in Australia, which does make it just a little difficult to play The Lost Mine of Phandelver! Our regular numbers were … Continue reading The Castle of the Mad Archmage
The new Basic Dungeons & Dragons PDF is now available, as you probably know. It contains the new procedures for spell casting in D&D, which have a few differences from earlier forms of the game. What hasn’t changed is who can cast spells: Fighters and Thieves can’t, Clerics and Wizards can. The Basics: Prepared Spells and Slots Each caster prepares a number of spells at … Continue reading A Primer on Spell Casting in the new Dungeons & Dragons
