The Secret of Karnov Mansion is a 3-4 hour adventure for 4th or 5th level characters. In it, the adventurers are invited to a nearby mansion where, they are told, they will be offered a job. Unfortunately for the adventurers, the job turns out to be not so great: they’re the intended prey of the family of weretigers that now inhabit the mansion! The opening … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Secret of Karnov Mansion
For those who haven’t seen it, the latest Campaign Coins kickstarter is in its final hours. I’ve found using these coins in play can significantly alter the attitude of players to treasure… and make them very reluctant to pay money to merchants! They’re so pretty! And dark and evil… And they have a couple of special coins for Rob Schwalb’s Shadow of the Demon Lord… Continue reading Counting down the hours on the latest Campaign Coins kickstarter
One of the great tropes in adventure fiction is capturing the protagonist and letting him find a way to escape. Unfortunately, requiring the capture of adventurers is extremely problematic in the middle of a game of Dungeons & Dragons. It is something that needs to be very carefully handled. The problem derives from the nature of D&D. The essence of the game is that you … Continue reading The Trouble with Capturing Adventurers
Karl Resch’s adventure, Fear of the Dark, is set in the time of the Rage of Demons, where madness and fear stalk the Underdark. The plot of the adventure is simple: A Zhentarim caravan has gone missing underground, and the adventurers must find out what has happened to it by exploring an outpost overrun by invaders. For the most part, it’s a standard dungeon crawl, … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Fear of the Dark
Weapon on the Wall is the first product of Kelnas. It’s a 5-hour adventure for 2nd-4th level characters, and it has some interesting ideas in it. It also suffers greatly from how it introduces the adventure. The major problem is that the hook to the adventure is that there’s this very special weapon (denoted as “Weapon” in the text) that hangs on the wall of … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Weapon on the Wall
One of the most important skills in the Dungeon Master’s toolbox is the ability to improvise. And, based on my long experience with the game, it’s a skill that takes time to develop. Like most skills, you get better at improvisation by actually improvising, and paying attention to what your players think of the result. Many of the games I’ve run have been improvised. Even … Continue reading On the Art of Improvisation
One of my delights in life is introducing the game of Dungeons & Dragons to new players, who then discover that it’s something they want to play again. In this quest, my local gaming store has become integral to the process of acquiring new players. We run D&D Adventurers League games at the store every Wednesday and Saturday evening. The games are a mixture of … Continue reading Introducing Dungeons & Dragons Through in-Store Play
Vladimir Arabadzhi’s Mad Mage’s Mansion is a four-hour adventure for two characters of levels 1-2, and is presented as a 33-page pdf file. He describes it as a “small party adventure”, and such things are a rarity – and useful for a DM who has a couple of players who want to play a game, but can’t find more players! In the case of only … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Mad Mage’s Mansion
The Claw of Winter is an adventure for 8th-level characters written by John Prichard. It is set in the kingdom of Cormyr in the Forgotten Realms. The presentation of the adventure draws very heavily that of the D&D Adventurers League adventures, even to having a similar format of rewards, monster statistics and encounters. It even includes downtime days and renown, although this is not an … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Claw of Winter
One of the things that occasionally occurs in Dungeons & Dragons games is an outbreak of player arrogance. The belief that the player characters are the biggest, baddest people in the game, and that nothing can touch them. This often ends very badly for the player characters. I’ve been playing D&D for a very long time, and many of my early games were played with … Continue reading D&D Player Tips: Paying Attention
