The Queen of Spades is a Dungeons & Dragons adventure for level 7 characters that should last from eight to sixteen hours. At its heart, it is an investigative adventure set in the Forgotten Realms, where the heroes must face a force of chaos and – especially – bad luck. The adventure does a lot of things very right. I am particularly impressed by how … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Queen of Spades
Warriors of Krynn is not the game I was expecting. When I heard that the new Dragonlance adventure, Shadow of the Dragon Queen, was getting a supplementary board game for resolving the clashes between armies, I though that it would be about, you know, battles between armies. It isn’t. Well, it is, but that’s in the background. Instead, it’s about the actions of the heroes … Continue reading Warriors of Krynn – First Impressions
G’day, folks! I know I haven’t been blogging much recently – and also my presence on Twitter has taken a nose dive. I would love to say that it’s because I’ve been working on wonderful projects that I’ll share with all of you, but it’s more a case of finding a few other things to occupy myself. Some of them are boring (work), but others … Continue reading Still Alive!
Today’s session was a 3-hour delve in to the seventh level of Joseph Bloch’s “Castle of the Mad Archmage“, which I’ve been using as the basis of my Castle Greyhawk campaign. For the seventh level of the dungeon, there are some seriously underpowered monsters here. I know it’s an old school dungeon, but even so, you’d expect better foes than “1 zombie” or “2 skeletons”, … Continue reading Exploring the Crypt level of “Castle of the Mad Archmage”
I rarely run Dungeons & Dragons campaigns where I know in advance who the Big Bad of the campaign is. Well, that’s not true – I do know when I run published adventures. However, for my homebrew campaigns, it is something that I work out as the game progresses. This is not the only way to do it. I know many of my friends know … Continue reading Uncovering the Campaign’s Big Bad
For our play of the Castle Greyhawk campaign, I’ve been developing my own Wandering Monster tables. For the most part, these are aimed at providing danger – thus foes – for the players. Especially when – on the Labyrinth level – this was the main thing that would challenge the party. Let me say: Using only wandering monsters? Not good. You want areas of interest … Continue reading Two Wandering Monster tables
I am very fond of wandering monsters. This is partly due to me still running large dungeon complexes, but I also use them in wilderness adventures to break up the play and provide moments of unscripted action. The original version of wandering monsters in the dungeon was a check every 10 minutes, with a 1 on a 1d6 roll indicating monsters encountered by the party. … Continue reading The Joy of Wandering Monsters
Dungeons & Dragons is a resource-based game. For most of its editions, you have a limited amount of resources, with hit points and spells being the main two resources you deplete. However, if you look at its original presentation and then compare it to the current version, there are a few rather significant changes to how things are handled. Particularly concerning access to healing – … Continue reading The Game of Attrition
The exploration of the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk continued today with more of the labyrinth level (taken from Castle of the Mad Archmage). This is not a well-designed level. It’s way, way too big, only has a few monsters, and most of those are weak. The minotaurs are good – but the party, even after several sessions, hasn’t found any. Too big, too diffuse… and … Continue reading Four Encounters
One of the bits of advice I give new DMs is this: Have more than one foe in a fight. The trouble with solo monsters is that they’re often underwhelming or, alternatively, far too powerful. This can derive from their ability to focus fire on one hero. In a fight against four goblins, it is very difficult for those goblins to all attack the same … Continue reading How many Monsters in an Encounter?
