One of the excellent aspects of Lost Mine of Phandelver is that it includes a number of side-quests. These are quests which don’t advance the main storyline that you can get from NPCs you meet. Side quests allow a Dungeon Master to present a view of ongoing life in the world. Necromancers investigate buried ruins (and cause problems with wandering zombies), orcs strike from a … Continue reading Examining Phandelver: Side Quests
In the World of Greyhawk, there’s a kingdom ruled by an evil demigod. The kingdom and the demigod have the same name: Iuz. In the past 20 years, I’ve run a lot of campaigns set in Greyhawk, and we’ve often flirted with the idea of dealing with the threat of Iuz. His priests and orcs have popped up every so often, but they’ve never been … Continue reading Player Choices: Into the Land of Iuz
One aspect I didn’t touch on in my first article about hit points was the rate of natural healing. For those of you who began with the current edition, it didn’t work the same way. It was slower. In Original Dungeons & Dragons the rate of healing was one hit point per day, except for the first day when no hit points were restored. This … Continue reading Hit Points Through the Editions, part 2
In the beginning, there was Chainmail. And, in Chainmail, characters were either alive or dead. A single hit was enough to kill most characters. However, this was a miniature game, and a single player controlled many characters. Well, figures or models. The more powerful characters, such as the Hero or the Superhero required several simultaneous hits to kill. A Hero required four regular men to … Continue reading Hit Points Through the Editions, part 1
There’s one feature of Dungeons & Dragons adventures that anyone who runs the game quickly comes to learn: Adventures are incomplete. Not just incomplete in the sense of “add players and a Dungeon Master”, but incomplete in the sense of “this adventure is missing important things I need to run it!” Sadly, it’s our lot in life to have incomplete adventures. The fact is that … Continue reading The Incomplete Adventure
Mike Mearls’ “Greyhawk” Initiative system has provided a welcome shake-up in the consideration of the Dungeons & Dragons rule system. It’s a completely optional system, and one that seeks to provide a little more unpredictability and tension into combat by removing the predictable order of actions that is part of the basic 5E ruleset. I’ve now run two sessions with versions of these rules. (You … Continue reading Greyhawk Initiative: Another Look
I recently ran a set of three short sessions using the original Dungeons & Dragons rules. I tried as much as possible to keep to the rules as presented in the original three booklets (plus Chainmail), without introducing any of the material added in Supplement I: Greyhawk or in later versions of the game. It was a fascinating experience. I struggled with using the rules-as-written … Continue reading Original Dungeons & Dragons: The Magic-User
One suggestion that has been made to me many times is that miniatures are much cheaper if you paint them yourself. Right… There’s just one problem with that: painting miniatures takes time. And quite an investment up front in the paint and brushes. In the spirit of making sure I know what I’m talking about, I’ve spent time over the past few weeks painting the … Continue reading More on Miniatures
In the beginning, when a party of adventurers encountered a group of monsters, both sides rolled a six-sided die. If a side rolled a 1 or 2, that side was surprised and had to stand by while the opposing side got a free round of attacks (or of fleeing, if the opposition looked scary). As the game developed, certain characters and monsters changed the chances … Continue reading The Joys and Horrors of Passive Perception
At my current point in life, I’m finding myself extremely busy with work and with running Dungeons & Dragons, but with very little time to set aside to preparing adventures (or writing reviews or blog posts). I steal what time I can, but I’m not always able to do the preparation I want to. (I’m hoping things get less frantic later this year; there have … Continue reading More on Improvising Sessions
