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
Adventures from the Potbellied Kobold is a collection of 15 adventures for 5E, designed by people who have done a lot of work in the industry. Clocking in at 172 pages, it presents adventures from level 2 to 9. Usefully, each adventure has a suggested run-time. The shortest is 60 minutes, the longest 4 hours, with most sitting at about 2 hours about right for … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Adventures from the Potbellied Kobold (part 1)
Released as the first part of the Plague of Ancients series for the D&D Adventurers League, The Frozen North starts a group of new characters lost in the frozen wilderness after an avalanche and sends them on a desperate chase for survival. A four-hour adventure for level 1 or 2 characters, this is the second introductory adventure for Season 10, after Ice Road Trackers. As … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Frozen North
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
Although G1: Steading of the Hill Giant Chief is not the very first adventure published for Dungeons & Dragons, it is close enough. And it is fascinating. The framing of the adventure is simple: Giants have attacked the lands of men, and you must explain to them that such is a bad idea. With as much force as you can. To make things simpler, when … Continue reading Steading of the Hill Giant Chief
Ice Road Trackers is the first of the adventures for Season 10 of the D&D Adventurers League. Designed by Shawn Merwin, it consists of four one-hour adventures for level one or two characters. It occurs during the events of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden, but, as with most of the DDAL adventures, runs separately from the hardcover adventure. This adventure introduces characters to … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Ice Road Trackers
With Ballarat moving towards restarting public play of Dungeons & Dragons in our local store, Guf Ballarat, once again it has fallen to me to organise the events. More correctly, I volunteered to do it, because I much prefer organising an event to just participating in one. We are in an odd space where the store is still getting going again. Well, it always was … Continue reading D&D Adventurers League – A Look at the State of Play
Libya. 11 January 1941. The LRP has been renamed the LRDG and has been given the task of attacking an airfield at Murzuq. However, for this scenario, the Italians had a potent defense: a medium tank! Yes, it is the second scenario of Undaunted: North Africa. This game started just after we played Scenario 1 and is another of the introductory scenarios to the game. … Continue reading Undaunted: North Africa – Scenario 2
Libya. 17th September 1940. The British LRP (Long Range Patrol) came across an Italian fuel dump and airstrip and attacked, seeking to destroy it. A few Italians stood between them and victory. This engagement is the first scenario in Undaunted: North Africa, a deck-building war game designed by David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin. Unlike most historical wargames, each counter on the map represents a single … Continue reading Undaunted: North Africa – Scenario 1
Drums in the Marsh is a four-hour adventure for level 1-4 characters and part of the first season of the D&D Adventurers League. The adventure features an investigation into recent kidnappings and raids and then a trip into the Twilight Marsh to discover the perpetrators and rescue the victims. For a low-level adventure, this is very ambitious and gives many options for the players and … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Drums in the Marsh
