D&D, D&D 5E, D&D Adventurers League, Play Advice, Storm King's Thunder

Running Storm King’s Thunder – Wilderness Encounters in Chapter 3

My current campaign of Storm King’s Thunder is run using the D&D Adventurers League rules. One of the aspects of those rules is that I can’t use milestones. XP must come from the players overcoming monsters, whether through negotiation or combat and set XP awards in the text. In the case of SKT, it’s almost entirely overcoming monsters. The little quests in the adventure don’t … Continue reading Running Storm King’s Thunder – Wilderness Encounters in Chapter 3

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D&D, Play Advice

Running Dungeons & Dragons at Conventions

As you may already know, I spent the Easter long weekend down in Melbourne, running and organising D&D Adventurers League games at the Conquest games convention. It was the first time I’d managed to get to the convention since the early 1990s; I’d planned to attend a couple of years ago, but an inconvenient bushfire almost destroyed our house about a month prior, but finally, … Continue reading Running Dungeons & Dragons at Conventions

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D&D

Day 3 of Conquest awaits!

Today, I’ve scheduled the following games: Sunday 9:00 am THENT01-01 Beneath the Surface Levels 1-4 Steam has been rising from ruins east of the city of Thentia for almost two tendays. Scouts and adventurers have gone to investigate, but have not returned. What might be lurking in the depths of those dark places, and will it remain there? Sunday 12:30 pm THENT01-02 Those that Dwell … Continue reading Day 3 of Conquest awaits!

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D&D, D&D Adventurers League, Play Advice, Storm King's Thunder

Running Storm King’s Thunder: Chapter 3

In this chapter, it’s all about the pacing. The end of Chapter 2 gives the adventurers several adventure hooks; missions suggested by the NPCs they’ve saved that give treasure and other rewards. Chapter 3 is the “sandbox” chapter, where the players can explore the Sword Coast doing little missions on the way. It’s all very Baldur’s Gate. The DM’s role here is to maintain the … Continue reading Running Storm King’s Thunder: Chapter 3

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D&D, Play Advice, Tyranny of Dragons

Hoard of the Dragon Queen – Adventure Structure

In my last article, I talked about the importance of the overall structure of campaign adventures. It’s very hard to run an adventure when you don’t understand the steps the characters must take to navigate their way through it. Each adventure has its own structure, and some have multiple paths. Hoard of the Dragon Queen is relatively straight-forward. However, there’s a couple of areas that … Continue reading Hoard of the Dragon Queen – Adventure Structure

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D&D 5E, Design, Play Advice

The Structure of Campaign Adventures

I’ve run Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat three times each, Curse of Strahd twice, Out of the Abyss and Princes of the Apocalypse once each, and I am currently running Storm King’s Thunder and Tomb of Annihilation. By now, I’ve had a lot of experience running the campaign adventures of Wizards of the Coast. Many people evaluate adventures based on how … Continue reading The Structure of Campaign Adventures

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D&D, Play Advice

D&D Tips: Role-playing Strategies

Every so often, the players in my D&D games do something unexpected: They talk to the enemies! There are many styles of playing D&D. I came up through the school of dungeon-delving where almost every monster tried to kill you, and the rest of the challenges were traps. I was about ten years old when I started, quite shy and not used to talking to … Continue reading D&D Tips: Role-playing Strategies

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D&D 5E, Review

5E Adventure Review: A Lake Full of Mystery

A Lake Full of Mystery is a short, two-hour adventure for 2nd-level characters. It is full of misspellings, strange capitalisations and poor grammar. I want to mention that first, as they are prominently featured throughout the product. In the adventure, the adventurers are hired to deal with a “Small pest problem”. The person who hires the adventurers is a shady person, so he won’t tell … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: A Lake Full of Mystery

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D&D 5E, Review

5E Adventure Review: Hunter

Hunter is an adventure for level 1-4 characters by Will Doyle and James Introcaso. It sets the adventurers the task of surviving the night in the jungles of Chult while a dangerous plant-based predator stalks them. The adventure first presents a description of the valley the adventurers are trapped in, then describes various NPCs – mainly members of the Flaming Fist – they can interact … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Hunter

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