I delight in running all levels of Dungeons & Dragons. You can always throw exciting challenges at the party, and they can always surprise you with their solutions. I find nothing better than setting a challenge without knowing how to overcome it and watching the players invent something in front of my eyes. As the DM, you are the interpreter of the adventure environment. Use … Continue reading Actions, Rewards, and Consequences
Tabletop Roleplaying Games (TTRPG) exist in a unusual place. To quote Gary Gygax, “Unlike Chess… the rules are not cut and dried.” (AD&D Players Handbook, 1978). That is to say, Dungeons & Dragons and its ilk rely on a base set of rules and then on the referee’s judgment to fill in the gaps (or even interpret the rules). So, to define things, a “rule” … Continue reading Rules and Rulings
I love running low-level adventures for Dungeons & Dragons. The early levels of the game can provide memorable experiences. However, there are things I dislike seeing in adventure designs for that level of play. I do not enjoy it when first level is one incredibly dangerous combat and that’s it. I am also not particularly fond of party fighting a lone boss monster at level … Continue reading First-level Dungeons & Dragons Adventures
In my Greyhawk campaigns, I have a tavern the characters use as a base. (It’s the Green Leaf Tavern in my new game). And these taverns have notice boards that list a few potential quests for adventurers. And I add to that a few rumours the characters hear. I should emphasise that this is for a more sandbox-based campaign, where I rely on player input … Continue reading Short Quests and the Living Campaign
In the beginning, there were no published adventures. And then there were. The initial offerings tended to be in the terms of “Here’s a location. Here are its inhabitants. You figure out what to do with this product.” And then things changed. Adventures were designed more with goals in mind – the players were in them for a reason! And more structure formed around them. … Continue reading Thoughts on Adventure Structure and Railroading
In the early writings about running Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax and others suggested you create a base for the characters (the town) and a nearby dungeon (the dungeon) wherein the monsters guarded the treasure. Over the years, I have done a lot of play based on that idea. And it is rare I detail the town to any great extent. This the thing about … Continue reading The Town outside the Dungeon
Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, one of the first “adventure modules” produced for Dungeons & Dragons, has many things that fascinate me. One of those elements is how it is presented: not as a scripted piece of action, but as an environment to explore and interact with. This is the format of many of the early adventures, which make few assumptions about the actions … Continue reading Steading of the Hill Giant Chief as an Adventure Environment
I have been thinking about how combat works in Dungeons & Dragons 5e, and – as with many modern versions of the game – it is no longer a game of attrition. In the early editions of the game, healing magic was hard to come by. (A seventh-level cleric in AD&D with a 16 Wisdom can heal at most 7d8+1 hit points per day). And … Continue reading Combat, Vulnerability, and Hit Points
One of the early Dungeons & Dragons adventures suggested a ratio of 40% fighters, 30% magic-users, 20% clerics and 10% thieves for a good proportion of character types on that adventure. It is a ratio and a concept that has stayed with me: the ideal of the party that can take on all challenges! Back in those days there was a smaller selection of classes, … Continue reading The I in Team
I recently finished running my players through some of Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, which I had used as part of our campaign quest to find the Rod of Seven Parts. In the early days of Dungeons & Dragons, the designers expected the players to create a map of their explorations. (The DM could gain much humour by comparing the player map to their own). … Continue reading Empty Rooms, Mapping, and Pacing
