Quite the Pickle is a collection of four, linked one-hour adventures set in the town of Saltmarsh. All revolve around a local tavern, the Snapping Line, which employs two dwarven brothers with a secret. The adventures are for level 5 to 10 characters, and though optimised for a party of level 8 characters, containing scaling notes for other levels. The first two adventures feature tournaments … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Quite the Pickle
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is an adventure for level 1 characters set in the world of Eberron. It is derived from the well-known story by Washington Irving. The adventure proceeds like this: The adventurers arrive in the village of Sleepy Hollow, where they discover the local school master, one Ichabod ir’Crane, has disappeared. As they investigate his disappearance, they uncover several odd things in … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
I have recently been playing quite a bit of the board game Etherfields, a campaign/story game where you explore a Dreamscape for something you have forgotten. In theory, the story becomes apparent as you play, but I have not progressed far enough into the game for it to reveal itself yet. However, one of the reasons I have not progressed far enough is because Etherfields … Continue reading Etherfields and the Death Spiral
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything has a lot of interesting material in it. As I am far more likely to be the Dungeon Master rather than a player, I thought I might share with you a few thoughts about the new material in the “Dungeon Master’s Tools” chapter. Note that I am deliberately excluding both Group Patrons (Chapter 2) and the new magic items of Chapter … Continue reading A Quick Look at the Dungeon Master’s Tools of Tasha’s
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything has landed! Hooray! I immediately turned to the DM section to see what it could offer me. The answer is rather mixed, but that is to be expected: I am an experienced DM who is rather set in his ways. Advice on Session Zero is not new to me, and I tend not to include puzzles in adventures I design. I … Continue reading Negotiating Desires
The Dungeons & Dragons game is built around the idea of small skirmish combats – fights with no more than a dozen combatants on each side. Of course, occasionally you have lots of opponents, but typically they are there mostly as scenery. One fireball or other area effect spell and they go down and do not trouble the characters again. One thing that the rules … Continue reading Running Chase Movement in Dungeons & Dragons
In the beginning: The original cleric class debuted in the first version of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974. There were only three classes in those days: Fighting Man (Fighter), Cleric and Magic-User (Wizard). The Thief (Rogue) came along the next year with the Greyhawk supplement. The original cleric was good at fighting but initially could not cast spells. Instead, it gained that ability at level … Continue reading The Cleric in Dungeons & Dragons
The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl was published in 1978 as the second of the “Giant” series. It one of the earliest Dungeons & Dragons adventures. Incredibly, to our modern eyes, it is a mere 8 pages, with maps printed on the interior of the cover. The plot of the adventure sees the heroes sent on a mission of revenge against giants that have … Continue reading AD&D Adventure Review: The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl
One of the flaws I have seen in Organised Play adventures (such as the D&D Adventurers League) is this: Starting the scenario with a wide-open question and no set goal. For instance, you start in a town’s marketplace. Or a tavern. And the next question is “what do you do?” What is missing here? An immediate goal for the characters! Why are they in the … Continue reading On Opening Scenes of Organised Play Adventures
In 1984, TSR published the second of the Conan adventures, Against Darkness, by Ken Rolston. Oddly, it also proclaims on its title page that Anne C. Gray developed it; I can only imagine that Anne contributed significantly to the adventure. Such a significant credit line is rare in the products of the TSR era! As with the first adventure, Conan Unchained, this is a very … Continue reading AD&D Adventure Review – Conan: Against Darkness!
