On Monday, 13th May, 2024, my group of four players stepped into the 50th Anniversary adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, Vecna: Eve of Ruin. With a combination of two brand new and two existing 10th level characters, they came to the city of Neverwinter, where as recognised heroes they were contacted by Lord Neverember, who had a problem. The problem? Missing citizens. And worse than … Continue reading Vecna: Eve of Ruin, session 1
I’ve had a chance to read through some of Vecna: Eve of Ruin, the new campaign adventure from Wizards of the Coast that takes characters from levels 10 through to level 20.
My initial impressions are cautiously positive. I’m going to refrain from spoilers here for the most part, except for a few things that I believe are generally known. If you want to be entirely unspoilt, here’s your chance to stop reading!
I intend to start DMing this adventure next Monday.
Continue reading “Vecna: Eve of Ruin – First Thoughts”
As I write this, it’s the early access release day of Vecna: Eve of Ruin. Except, of course, I’m in Australia, and it’s still the day before in the US. So, it isn’t out yet. I’m not entirely sure when it will go live. Perhaps in 17 hours when I’m asleep? For the first few years of this edition, I was incredibly excited whenever a … Continue reading Eve of the Eve of Ruin
Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk is a 2023 campaign adventure published by Wizards of the Coast that takes characters from levels 1 through 12. It incorporates the excellent starter set adventure The Lost Mine of Phandelver, and then continues onwards for seven more levels of exciting adventure. Or at least, they hope you’ll find it exciting. The new material involves a plot by mind … Continue reading Review: The Shattered Obelisk
We played our eighteenth session of The Shattered Obelisk on Monday, February 26, 2024. Everyone was in attendance – the DM (me) and all three players. In that virtual kind of way that we have by playing on Roll20. The group is five characters, though. I run the fighter (Simeon) as an NPC, because running a champion that way is very quick. And the artificer’s … Continue reading The Shattered Obelisk, session 18
What would happen if you ran a campaign in 5E where you only allowed three classes: Fighter, Cleric, or Wizard? Well, it’d probably go quite well. Those three classes cover a lot of bases. Why did I select them? They were the original classes in Dungeons & Dragons. The rogue (thief) came along later – the first supplement added both the Thief and the Paladin. … Continue reading Only Three Classes? A Greyhawk Campaign Proposal
We completed Chapter 6 in this session of Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk, which was run on Monday, February 19, 2023. The current characters in the campaign are: Syzoth’s player controls the rogue henchman, I control Simeon. (Simeon stays out of discussion for the most part, though I occasionally employ him to aid roleplaying between characters). When we left off our previous session, the … Continue reading The Shattered Obelisk, session 17
When Dungeons & Dragons began, large parties of characters entered the dungeons. When AD&D came along, it was basically assumed that nine people would venture into the dungeon, in a 3 by 3 square. By the rules of the time, three men could stand abreast in a 10-foot corridor. Although D&D was inspired by miniature gaming, it quickly lost the miniatures and became what we … Continue reading Trends of Lowering Character Numbers
We ran this session of The Shattered Obelisk on Monday, February 12, 2024. The party began the session at the great crossroads at the heart of Gibbet Crossing, after killing the lone alpha grick that was there. Listening carefully, they heard rustling sounds to the west. My party is very much of the mind that you shouldn’t leave monsters to creep up on them, so … Continue reading The Shattered Obelisk, session 16
If you want to get me mad about something, take away agency from the players in a situation where they believe they have it. Yeah, it’s the Quantum Ogre. What’s a Quantum Ogre? It’s an ogre encounter that appears regardless of the choices of the party. You ask them, “Left or Right” when they come to an intersection, but both paths lead to the ogre. … Continue reading Left or Right?
