I had a rather odd session of The Shattered Obelisk last night. As some of you may be aware, I run this campaign every Monday night. It has three players and I DM. We play online, using the Roll20 platform as our Virtual Tabletop (that’s what VTT stands for), and using Skype to talk to each other. Due to the quality of my internet connection, … Continue reading Only Possible Online and other thoughts
We played our seventh session of The Shattered Obelisk on Monday, November 6, 2023. You may notice that this is three weeks after the last; we were about to go through an erratic patch of play. The party had obviously had a very long rest! Nothing disturbed them during their rest, and the party returned to where they left off – the cavern with the … Continue reading The Shattered Obelisk, session 7
Descent into the Depths of the Earth is the first of three modules in the “Descent” or “Drow” series, and the fourth of 7 modules in the special campaign series generally known as the GDQ series. First published in 1978, the adventure picks up after the end of the Giant series, with the adventurers pursuing the fleeing drow elves into a long tunnel deep under … Continue reading AD&D Review: Descent into the Depths of the Earth
Although I remember the beginnings of the Elemental Evil campaign well, I don’t remember all that many of the details. Well, it was nearly 40 years ago now! It’s an odd thing revisiting my memories of this time, because I’ve read the source adventures many times since then – but at the time I was coming at them as a player. In my later revisitings … Continue reading Memories of Greyhawk Campaigns Past: Elemental Evil
I was watching Justin Alexander’s stream yesterday when one of his watchers lamented that newer players didn’t know about all the tricks used in the old days. Such as using marbles to test if a passageway sloped downwards, or a ten-foot pole to test if the passageway ahead had a pit trap in it. Justin replied that it doesn’t take much for that sort of … Continue reading Using (Your) Marbles – Decision Making in RPGs
In 1984, the writers of TSR UK were also writing adventures for the D&D Expert line. Drums on Fire Mountain is designed for a party of five to eight characters of levels 5-8, and… oh, my God! What’s up with the cover? Yes, they actually managed to misspell Graeme Morris’s name on it. And the back cover. It appeared as “Grame”. Oh wait, you meant … Continue reading D&D Adventure Review: Drums on Fire Mountain
We ran our sixth session of The Shattered Obelisk on Monday, October 16, 2023 The party had finally reached Wave Echo Mine! Hooray! Entering the Mine, they quickly discovered a pit and the corpse of one of Gundren’s brothers. Moving quickly, they looted his cloak. Because it looked magical. And they’re adventurers! The pit led to tunnels leading east and west. Using the ropes that … Continue reading The Shattered Obelisk, session 6
The original Baldur’s Gate computer game had a massive problem. The side content was more entertaining than the main quest! It’s a funny thing about designing open world games, which a lot of D&D is. It works fine as long as everything is side content – a smorgasbord of options that the players can choose. Which quest to go on? Which dungeon to brave? But … Continue reading Goals and Side Quests
We played our final session of Shadow of the Dragon Queen on Monday, August 28, 2023. The four characters had penetrated the heart of the Flying Citadel and needed to take it down before it could wreak havoc on Kalaman. Present for this session were the following characters: In their previous session, the party had retrieved the mirror of erised reflected paths and were now … Continue reading Shadow of the Dragon Queen, session 13
G3: Hall of the Fire Giant King is rightfully considered a classic of Dungeons & Dragons adventures. For a module that is only 16 pages in length, it contains a great deal of incident, evocative description, and adventure. It premiered as the final round of the D&D tournament at Origins ’78, and an account of the winning team’s accomplishments was published in Dragon Magazine #19 … Continue reading AD&D Adventure Review: Hall of the Fire Giant King
