In the AD&D adventure A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity, there are two areas on the upper level that have no doors or openings providing ingress for the players. This is probably a good thing, as a wight and a pair of basilisks lair within, but I’ve been asked by a friend what they’re doing there are how the players are ever meant to find … Continue reading The Strange Case of the Wight and the Basilisks
At 100 pages, A Storm About To Break is the longest adventure release I’ve seen so far for the new edition of D&D. It is the first part of “An Echo of Days Past”, an adventure arc in unexplored lands to the east of the Empire of Sarvania. The adventure is written with generous helpings of rules explanations so that it is suitable for new … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review – An Echo of Days Past: A Storm About To Break
A long, long time ago (1988), the Greyhawk Adventures book from TSR presented a set of rules for adventuring with level 0 characters in the AD&D system. Every so often, an adventure designer returns to that idea, and creates an adventure for characters that haven’t quite settled into their character class. The idea is that through the actions you take on your first adventure, you … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Rise of Heroes
The Mystery of Malvern Manor is a short, free adventure by Dan Head, which he posted on his website. It’s taken from his home campaign for his family. Unusually, the first encounter has the party acting as mobsters – they’re sent to break someone’s legs for not paying the local dwarf leader what he is owed! “Fortunately, there’s a pack of worthless adventurers in town.” … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Mystery of Malvern Manor
Adventure Shorts Volume 1 is a 20-page PDF released by R&D D&D Adventures for the new edition of D&D. It contains five short adventures for the game, each designed for 4-5 level one characters. In practice, it contains five two-page adventure, reproductions of the maps suitable for handouts or reproduction as a battle grid, and an introduction and title page. The whole is very nicely … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Adventure Shorts volume 1
I began playing this game five days ago, having gone a little too long without playing any serious war-games. As with a lot of my war-gaming activity, I played this game solitaire. My ASL games with Michael are on hold as our schedules just haven’t matched up too well of late; most of the time we’ve got too many players so my multiplayer games come … Continue reading Squad Leader report: Hill 621
I’m very sorry to have learnt that John Hill, the designer of the seminal game Squad Leader, has died after a heart attack. I came to Squad Leader late, and was introduced to its successor, Advanced Squad Leader first, but there’s no doubt it’s been a game that I’ve very much enjoyed playing. By a strange chance of fate, I’ve been playing a solo game … Continue reading John Hill, designer of Squad Leader, passes
Waterdeep, City of Splendours. The city’s citizens had been worried by the appearance of a flying castle in the sky nearby, but the castle had moved off northwards, ignoring the city. The five travellers who came into the city’s gates, accompanying a wagon full of goods, were unaware of the panic their transport had sent the city into, but were glad to be getting back … Continue reading The Rise of Tiamat, session 1
“I want to pat you!” That was what Ice told the surprised White Dragon, who suddenly was confronting a halfling sorcerer who really, really like dragons. As Ice was especially charming – aided by having advantage on Charisma checks against dragons – the white dragon, whose name was Glazrael, acquiesced and discovered it was rather nice. Then he took Ice for a ride outside the … Continue reading Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 18
Having thoroughly scouted most of the castle last session, the group now prepared to cause as much trouble for the cult as they did. Between sessions, I allowed some retooling of the characters, in particular with their spell lists, as the group was finding that some of their spells were proving far less effective than they needed to be. The most relevant change was that … Continue reading Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 17
