I’ve run Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat three times each, Curse of Strahd twice, Out of the Abyss and Princes of the Apocalypse once each, and I am currently running Storm King’s Thunder and Tomb of Annihilation. By now, I’ve had a lot of experience running the campaign adventures of Wizards of the Coast. Many people evaluate adventures based on how … Continue reading The Structure of Campaign Adventures
Every so often, the players in my D&D games do something unexpected: They talk to the enemies! There are many styles of playing D&D. I came up through the school of dungeon-delving where almost every monster tried to kill you, and the rest of the challenges were traps. I was about ten years old when I started, quite shy and not used to talking to … Continue reading D&D Tips: Role-playing Strategies
A Lake Full of Mystery is a short, two-hour adventure for 2nd-level characters. It is full of misspellings, strange capitalisations and poor grammar. I want to mention that first, as they are prominently featured throughout the product. In the adventure, the adventurers are hired to deal with a “Small pest problem”. The person who hires the adventurers is a shady person, so he won’t tell … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: A Lake Full of Mystery
Hunter is an adventure for level 1-4 characters by Will Doyle and James Introcaso. It sets the adventurers the task of surviving the night in the jungles of Chult while a dangerous plant-based predator stalks them. The adventure first presents a description of the valley the adventurers are trapped in, then describes various NPCs – mainly members of the Flaming Fist – they can interact … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Hunter
The theme of star-crossed lovers inspires this tale of woe by Richard Jensen-Parkes. From Ancient Grudge is an adventure for character levels 4-5, which sets the adventurers the task of investigating a haunted mansion and putting the souls of two cursed lovers to rest. It’s a very well-constructed adventure, which should provide a session or two of entertainment for your players. The structure is relatively … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: From Ancient Grudge
Shawn Merwin’s Return of the Lizard King is an adventure for levels 1-4 characters that provide an alternative opening for Tomb of Annihilation. It has no relationship to Tomb of the Lizard King, a 1E adventure by Mark Acres. The adventure starts in an unusual place: a misfiring teleport spell takes the adventurers to the Feywild. There, they discover the realm under the effect of … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Return of the Lizard King
Player character backgrounds don’t do much if they stay in the player’s possession and you don’t see them. That’s the way of many, many campaigns – certainly most of mine. The players come up with backgrounds for their characters, and they rarely see play. The construction of many D&D campaigns relies on the main story being presented by the DM. The DM offers adventure opportunities … Continue reading Dungeon Master Tips: Backgrounds and Adventure Ideas
A few people have decided that the best way of funding their RPG projects is to go to kickstarter. People like James Introcaso and Johnn Four. They’ve got a full sandbox, hexcrawl campaign covering levels 1 to 20 to release. It’s written, they just need funds for art. It’s called The Demonplague. Mike Shea’s book of advice for Dungeon Masters is also getting a new … Continue reading A Couple of RPG Kickstarters
In The Gleaming Cloud Citadel, the adventurers need to find the Archmage of the eponymous mage academy. He’s ensconced in his tower, and his fellow mages are worried about him; they hire the adventurers to find out what’s wrong. Unfortunately for the adventurers, not all the wizards see eye-to-eye on this, so the adventurers must deal with competing wizards at the same time while also … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Gleaming Cloud Citadel
This is a wonderful time to be a Dungeon Master. There’s a huge amount of material out there, interest in the game is at an all-time high, and there are all these creative Dungeon Masters out there who are sharing their techniques. Which is just as well, because I’m horrible at coming up with new monsters, spells and magic items. What makes a successful DM? … Continue reading The Art of DMing: Assembling the Pieces (The Non-Creative DM)
