I am quite fond of the downtime activities in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and I have used them extensively in my Monday night campaign (the Weekend Adventurers game). However, there are a few points where I have found them lacking. In particular, the way that you purchase magic items. I never allow the players to select an item and just buy it. It’s always a … Continue reading Buying Magic Items – Revisiting Xanathar’s
Quest for the Heartstone, with an identification code of XL1, was published by TSR in 1984. It is an oddity – the only adventure written to support a couple of action figures. The action figures in question? Warduke and Strongheart (and some of their friends). Although I was active in the game around this time – and bought the adventure a few years later – … Continue reading AD&D Adventure Review: Quest for the Heartstone
One of my players – a bard – asked if he could extort shop owners during his downtime. The rogue is already stealing from them, so why not extortion and blackmail? The “Crime” downtime activity – as given in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything – requires three checks with random DCs. It basically represents a burglary. For Blackmail, those checks don’t make sense. So, let’s uses … Continue reading Expanding Crime (Downtime Activity)
My Monday night Greyhawk campaign is currently using a format that we’ve dubbed “Weekend Adventurers”. That is to say: each session is what happens on the weekend. The party then go back to their regular jobs for the rest of the week. That is, they have a week of downtime between each session, which they might spend working or pursuing other activities. The rogue of … Continue reading A Little Quest – Notes on Improvisation
In my last essay, I discussed the relationship between hit points, armour class and the survivability of the character. It occurred to me that in Dungeons & Dragons 5E, Armour Classes exist in a fairly narrow range and are achieved by two primary methods. Either by having a good Dexterity and wearing light armour or by wearing heavy armour and caring not about Dexterity. A … Continue reading Bad Design: The AD&D Monk
Players looking at the original form of Dungeons & Dragons may be surprised to discover how little Plate Armour costs. You could get the best non-magical Armour Class as a starting character. I find this interesting. In the beginning, a level 1 character had 1d6 hit points. If a monster hit you, you would take 1d6 damage. When you reached 0 hit points, you died. … Continue reading The Tension between Armour Class and Hit Points
I delight in running all levels of Dungeons & Dragons. You can always throw exciting challenges at the party, and they can always surprise you with their solutions. I find nothing better than setting a challenge without knowing how to overcome it and watching the players invent something in front of my eyes. As the DM, you are the interpreter of the adventure environment. Use … Continue reading Actions, Rewards, and Consequences
Tabletop Roleplaying Games (TTRPG) exist in a unusual place. To quote Gary Gygax, “Unlike Chess… the rules are not cut and dried.” (AD&D Players Handbook, 1978). That is to say, Dungeons & Dragons and its ilk rely on a base set of rules and then on the referee’s judgment to fill in the gaps (or even interpret the rules). So, to define things, a “rule” … Continue reading Rules and Rulings
I have been spending a lot of time listening to podcasts and reading books on history over the past couple of years. The history of revolutions. The history of Rome. The history of the late medieval period in Europe and the transition to the modern world. The study of the Late Middle Ages is of particular interest to me because of Dungeons & Dragons and … Continue reading A Sense of History
I love running low-level adventures for Dungeons & Dragons. The early levels of the game can provide memorable experiences. However, there are things I dislike seeing in adventure designs for that level of play. I do not enjoy it when first level is one incredibly dangerous combat and that’s it. I am also not particularly fond of party fighting a lone boss monster at level … Continue reading First-level Dungeons & Dragons Adventures
