My friend Teos Abadia recently made fun of me for not opening a bunch of D&D Miniatures boxes that have been sitting on my shelf for the past six months or so. They’re still not open, and I’ve just put more boxes of the latest miniature release on top of them… likewise unopened. The idea was that I’d open them and review them, but life … Continue reading To Miniature, or not To Miniature
Every so often, a rather unusual product enters my review pile. This is the case with The Undertaker, a character background designed by Jerry LeNeave, known better to me as DreadGazeebo on Twitter. The product is just a solitary page, which describes the background. It’s also an object lesson on how to design personality traits for a background. I read them, and I’m inspired by … Continue reading 5E Supplement Review: The Undertaker
Screams at Sunset is an adventure for levels 2-4 by Jeff C. Stevens. It is also an adventure for levels 4-6, if you use the alternative version with monsters from Volo’s Guide to Monsters. The adventure begins with the characters coming to the aid of a farmstead that is being attacked by goblinoids – goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears – and allows the characters to investigate … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Screams at Sunset
It has not escaped my attention that not everyone is as fast as arithmetic as I am. Adding two numbers together can take time. The play of the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons isn’t as bad for this as 3E (where adding 17 and 24 together wasn’t that unusual at the higher levels). Combat in D&D often plays like this: “I attack and roll … Continue reading A Tip for Quicker Play of Dungeons & Dragons Combat
For the first time in a little while, I started a new Dungeons & Dragons campaign on Friday. As with most of my home campaigns (as opposed to the store-based play where I run the published adventures in the Forgotten Realms), this campaign is set in the venerable World of Greyhawk setting. I’ve been running campaigns in that world since 1998, and I was playing … Continue reading A New Dungeons & Dragons Campaign
Wizards of the Coast have announced their first product of 2017. It’s a compilation of seven previous-published adventures, updated and revised for the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Its name? Tales from the Yawning Portal. I’ve had the pleasure of playing or dungeon-mastering all seven of the adventures that will be released in this product, so it seems appropriate to do something extremely unusual: … Continue reading Tales from the Yawning Portal – Adventure Retrospectives
The rules for the Assassin (a Roguish archetype) in the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons include an extremely powerful ability: Assassinate. It’s the signature ability of the class, and it can be very effective. A reminder of what it does: You have advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn’t taken a turn in the combat yet. In addition, any hit you score … Continue reading Rules Spotlight: Surprise and the Assassin
Tabletop Babble is a new podcast from James Introcaso, once the host of the Round Table on The Tome Show. In his first podcast, he interviewed Mike Mearls. It’s a fascinating interview, where Mike discusses the state of D&D and its future. James kindly gave me permission to post a summary of the interview. Note that this is a summary, not a transcript; it is … Continue reading Mike Mearls – A summary of the interview on Tabletop Babble
The 1984 Basic Game adventure for the Dungeons & Dragons system, Journey to The Rock, is an oddity. Written by Michael Malone, who only has one other design credit (an adventure in Dungeon Magazine #57), the adventure is surprisingly slight, and manages to avoid using dungeons; for the most part, it’s a wilderness adventure. It should be noted that the original plan for the Basic … Continue reading Adventure Review – B8: Journey to The Rock
When 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons was released, it also gained a series of eight adventures that took a group of adventurers from levels 1 to 20. Starting with the Sunless Citadel and continuing through to Bastion of Broken Souls, it demonstrated something that previous editions hadn’t provided: a complete “Adventure Path” series that went the full range of levels. However, players only familiar with … Continue reading Musings on Adventure Path Structure
