A Quick Word on Theatre of the Mind

I run most of my Dungeons & Dragons games as Theatre of the Mind; that is, I don’t use miniatures. This does not imply that we end up using a lot of description to enliven the combats. In fact, my groups tend to be brutally efficient about most of them, except for the odd combat where we decide to put more effort into it. I … Continue reading A Quick Word on Theatre of the Mind

The Joy and Frustrations of Investigations

I’m currently writing a Convention-Created-Content adventure for premiere next year. It also happens to be an investigation. Yes, two things I’d never thought I’d do. Investigations are tremendously popular as D&D Adventurers League scenarios, but they’re very different to the D&D scenarios I grew up with. Those scenarios involved some wilderness travel and a lot of fighting monsters in a dungeon, perhaps with some interesting … Continue reading The Joy and Frustrations of Investigations

5E Adventure Review: Underworld Speculation

Underworld Speculation is a two-hour adventure for level 1-4 characters, designed by Chris Lindsay of Wizards of the Coast for use in stores as the Introductory Adventure for Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. It is a D&D Adventurers League legal adventure. And it’s fun. Really, really fun. The adventure comes with six pregenerated characters of level 3 that were built using options from Xanathar’s Guide to … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Underworld Speculation

5E Adventure Review: The Donjon

The Donjon is the eleventh adventure of the Curse of Strahd season of the D&D Adventurers League. A four-hour adventure for character levels 5-10 written by Ash Law, it has the adventurers rescuing the leader of an orc tribe from a slither of yuan ti serving a dracolich. If you were wondering what this has to do with the ongoing storyline for Curse of Strahd, … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Donjon

Are the D&D Adventurers League Rules About to Change?

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything is now available at WPN stores around the world, and on dndbeyond.com, and probably Fantasy Grounds. In a week or so, it’ll become available through other outlets. It’s a superb book, well worth purchasing regardless whether you’re a player or a Dungeon Master. There are a lot of new player options, although it’s the Dungeon Master material that makes me very … Continue reading Are the D&D Adventurers League Rules About to Change?

D&D Adventure Review – CM1 Test of the Warlords

The D&D Companion set, released in 1984, was the first set of D&D rules that dealt with a matter mentioned in both the AD&D and original rules and never developed that much: the player characters as leaders of realms. Test of the Warlords was the first adventure released to supplement those rules, and it moves the setting northwards to the newly claimed realm of Norwold, … Continue reading D&D Adventure Review – CM1 Test of the Warlords

5E Adventure Review: Jungle Treks

Jungle Treks is a collection of six short adventures for character levels 1 to 10 by Teos “Alphastream” Abadia and Eric Menge. Although set in Chult and designed to supplement the Tomb of Annihilation adventure, the scenarios could easily be used in any jungle-themed setting. The scenarios are as follows: Tavern Trouble – In this adventure, a gang of scoundrels curse someone the party need … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Jungle Treks

Thoughts on Dungeons & Dragons Adventurers League at PAX Australia 2017

The last few days I’ve been organizing and running Dungeons & Dragons games at PAX Australia. We were running eight tables at the same time of D&D throughout the 30 hours of the convention, a commitment that required 23 Dungeon Masters and support staff, and allowed us to run 125 individual tables of players – or somewhere around 720 players. The actual figure will be … Continue reading Thoughts on Dungeons & Dragons Adventurers League at PAX Australia 2017

5E Accessory Review: D&D Adventure Grid

One of the more popular RPG accessory over the past few years has been the Flip-Mat, a double-sided thin cardboard mat that is pre-printed with a one-inch grid and an aesthetically pleasing (with luck!) background. They are designed so that you can use dry or wet erase markers on them, which then can be erased. With the rise in prominence of miniatures play since the … Continue reading 5E Accessory Review: D&D Adventure Grid

5E Adventure Review: The Carver’s Cave

The Carver’s Cave is a short adventure by R.M. Jansen-Parkes for characters of levels 3 or 4, although it provides notes to scale it to second or even third tier parties (levels 11-16). The adventure takes a simple, unsettling concept and explores it well. It’d also really like an obliging party of characters who could get captured when you wanted them to, but the adventure … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Carver’s Cave