I recently ran M.T. Black’s Call of Cthulhu adventure, “The Room with No Doors”. We had fun. I see this as a single-session adventure. The text says it runs in 3-6 hours, but we ran it in about three, perhaps a little under. At its heart, it is a ghost story. The characters need to investigate a haunted house and stop the haunting there. However, … Continue reading The Room with No Doors review
In general, the most disruptive event you could have in a Dungeons & Dragons game is the Total Party Kill (TPK). That event where every member of the party dies. One player character dying is a tragedy, but the campaign continues. However, if everyone dies, then it stops all the ongoing stories of the characters and could derail the campaign completely. The possibility of a … Continue reading On Total Party Kills
I am extremely bad at this. In the beginning, Dungeons & Dragons had a definite structure for how you handled dungeon exploration. It went something like this: Exploration is broken into ten-minute turns On the party’s turn, they can perform one of these activities: Move up to their speed – assumed to be slowly and while mapping, so 120 feet per 10 minutes was fast! … Continue reading Structured Dungeoneering
The original presentation of deities in Dungeons & Dragons is unusual. It was a short description of their combat abilities and not much more. And the book instructed you not to use them in combat, which was odd. Justin Alexander recently talked a little about it in his blog, The Alexandrian. Later games, especially Runequest, paid a lot more attention to the deities and their … Continue reading Using Deities in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign
X7 The War Rafts of Kron was released in 1984 as part of the “Expert” line of adventures; that is, wilderness-based adventures for the Dungeons & Dragons line rather than the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons line. It is for characters of levels 9-12. In this adventure, the characters venture beneath the waves to save a princess from the tritons who have kidnapped her. However, the … Continue reading D&D Adventure Review: The War Rafts of Kron
“Next time for sure!” One of the aspects of the Dungeons & Dragons rules that is somewhat missing is a discussion of whether or not you can reroll an ability (skill) check. This is something that various editions of D&D have treated differently. In first edition, the rule was generally no. In third edition, it was generally yes – with a few exceptions. So, which … Continue reading Skill and Ability Checks: Can You Reroll?
On my birthday, we began a new campaign. The adventure? Curse of Strahd. It is the third time I have run the adventure. As I have expressed on Twitter, I delight in adventures that I run more than once – the experience of a role-playing game is something that changes whenever you get a new group. Different things are explored and emphasised. My conception of … Continue reading Another Visit to Curse of Strahd
I am fascinated by the process of designing adventures to be published and used by others. There are many, many factors to consider. I came up with three – which I posted on Twitter – then M.T. Black offered some more. The three I posted: You want to present a path through the adventure You want enough detail so the players can go beyond that … Continue reading Thoughts on Designing Adventures for Publication
As a follow-up to my post about the Plotless Campaign, consider running the first chapter of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden in such a manner. In this structure, the characters are wandering adventurers, start each adventure walking into a new town, quickly discovering it has a problem, and solving it. What is different about this from the standard Rime? You ignore the rationale about … Continue reading The Rime with No Name
My Dad’s Monster Manual is a monster book. It has monsters. It has art you will recognise, coming as it does from the official 5E Monster Manual. And it gets you to look at those bits of art differently. The book started with James Introcaso showing the Monster Manual to his father, and his father coming up with his interpretation of what each piece of … Continue reading 5E Supplement Review: My Dad’s Monster Manual
