During the long history of Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeon Masters and designers have sought ways to make monsters scary. Well, scary to fight at least. Sort of. If you ask people about how combat should feel in the game, you’ll get a bunch of different answers. There is one strand that thinks that fighting is a failure state, and that combat should be incredibly deadly. … Continue reading Fear the Monsters
We played this session of The Shattered Obelisk on Monday, February 6, 2024. The action continued through Chapter 6, and the exploration of the dwarven crypt sacred to Dumathoin’s clergy. The characters started this session looking at a blank wall. The players had worked out it would be opened when they pulled both levers at once, but let’s consider the wall. How out of place … Continue reading The Shattered Obelisk, session 15
Have you heard of Tomb of Horrors? Designed by Gary Gygax for the original Dungeons & Dragons game (and based on an idea by Alan Lucien), it is infamous as a character and party-killer. It was designed to test the skills of D&D players and was the D&D tournament module at Origins I in 1975 – that’s only a year after Dungeons & Dragons itself … Continue reading Classic D&D Review: Tomb of Horrors
Although the main part of our original AD&D Greyhawk game was now over, there was one offshoot of it, and it all came down to my brother’s character, Brunak the Barbarian. You see, Brunak was a Frost Barbarian. He was a long, long way from home. I have this sneaking suspicion that in the early stages we actually said he came from the Wild Coast … Continue reading Memories of Greyhawk Campaigns Past: Brunak the Barbarian
CM3 Sabre River was published in 1984 as a level 18-22 adventure for the Companion Set rules. Unlike the two previous adventures in the series, Sabre River does not use the dominion rules at all. Instead, it’s an adventure featuring a lot of dungeons. It is also it is a mostly linear, story-based adventure. The plot the adventure kicks off with a young boy reaching … Continue reading Classic D&D Review: Sabre River
I’m midway through reading a bunch of different RPG products at the moment, none of which I’ve really dived into enough to feel confident about writing a full review, but I thought I’d give you a few thoughts on a couple of products relating to wilderness play. Uncharted Journeys (Cubicle 7) I’ve written quite a bit about this already as I’ve been using it in … Continue reading RPG Products I’m Reading
We played our thirteenth session of The Shattered Obelisk on Monday, January 22, 2024. We were proceeding through Chapter 6. It was an unusual session. One of our players (Vel’rali) had lost his voice. So, he communicated to us throughout the session with posts on Roll20 chat while the rest of us talked on Skype. It worked surprisingly well. I will mention this here: I … Continue reading The Shattered Obelisk, session 13
The publication of Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits in 1980 was an important event. After about a two-year wait, we finally had the conclusion to the Giant and Drow series. However, the author of the adventure wasn’t Gary Gygax, who’d written the first six modules, but instead Dave Sutherland. Gygax explained the substitution in the adventure – he had written the first six modules over a … Continue reading Classic D&D Review: Queen of the Demonweb Pits
You’re playing Dungeons & Dragons the right way. Unless you aren’t. What’s the right way? Well, the best indication is that you’re enjoying it, and your friends are coming back each session, eager to play more with you. That’s really the only metric we have. Every bit of advice we have on the game comes from someone’s own experiences, and what makes it so hard … Continue reading Your Own Dungeons & Dragons
We played this session of The Shattered Obelisk on Monday, January 15, 2024, the first session after a long break. Vel’rali was back, and Nymia’s player had chosen to create a new character – Killin, a NG earth genasi paladin (Oath of Ancients) following Mielikki. Syzoth and Jake the rogue henchman made up the rest of the group to rescue Simeon, Nymia, and the others. … Continue reading The Shattered Obelisk, session 12
