I was watching Justin Alexander’s stream yesterday when one of his watchers lamented that newer players didn’t know about all the tricks used in the old days. Such as using marbles to test if a passageway sloped downwards, or a ten-foot pole to test if the passageway ahead had a pit trap in it. Justin replied that it doesn’t take much for that sort of … Continue reading Using (Your) Marbles – Decision Making in RPGs
In 1984, the writers of TSR UK were also writing adventures for the D&D Expert line. Drums on Fire Mountain is designed for a party of five to eight characters of levels 5-8, and… oh, my God! What’s up with the cover? Yes, they actually managed to misspell Graeme Morris’s name on it. And the back cover. It appeared as “Grame”. Oh wait, you meant … Continue reading D&D Adventure Review: Drums on Fire Mountain
We ran our sixth session of The Shattered Obelisk on Monday, October 16, 2023 The party had finally reached Wave Echo Mine! Hooray! Entering the Mine, they quickly discovered a pit and the corpse of one of Gundren’s brothers. Moving quickly, they looted his cloak. Because it looked magical. And they’re adventurers! The pit led to tunnels leading east and west. Using the ropes that … Continue reading The Shattered Obelisk, session 6
The original Baldur’s Gate computer game had a massive problem. The side content was more entertaining than the main quest! It’s a funny thing about designing open world games, which a lot of D&D is. It works fine as long as everything is side content – a smorgasbord of options that the players can choose. Which quest to go on? Which dungeon to brave? But … Continue reading Goals and Side Quests
We played our final session of Shadow of the Dragon Queen on Monday, August 28, 2023. The four characters had penetrated the heart of the Flying Citadel and needed to take it down before it could wreak havoc on Kalaman. Present for this session were the following characters: In their previous session, the party had retrieved the mirror of erised reflected paths and were now … Continue reading Shadow of the Dragon Queen, session 13
G3: Hall of the Fire Giant King is rightfully considered a classic of Dungeons & Dragons adventures. For a module that is only 16 pages in length, it contains a great deal of incident, evocative description, and adventure. It premiered as the final round of the D&D tournament at Origins ’78, and an account of the winning team’s accomplishments was published in Dragon Magazine #19 … Continue reading AD&D Adventure Review: Hall of the Fire Giant King
One of the interesting features about RPGs (well Dungeons & Dragons, but others as well), is that there are actions that sound fun, but quickly become extremely unfun when applied to the player characters. Things like stun, disarm, paralysis, and so on. Abilities that boil down to the player skipping one or more turns. I find this particularly interesting because it’s something mostly invisible to … Continue reading A Stunning Conundrum
Our first D&D session of 2024 took up the campaign when the last session left off: exploring the mysterious tower in the ruined city on the borders of Ket. Two factions were interested in the contents of the ruins: the refugees from the Plains of the Paynims, and a goblin force known as the Red Caps. The basic plan for the adventure came from the … Continue reading Adventures in Greyhawk: Under the Tower
Published in 1984, UK6: All That Glitters is another memorable adventure for level 5-7 characters from TSR UK. As I noted in my review of Eye of the Serpent, the UK adventures had moved away from the World of Greyhawk, instead each being set in its own setting. However, while reading this adventure, I began to wonder if it were actually a Greyhawk adventure with … Continue reading AD&D Adventure Review: All That Glitters
We played our fifth session of Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk on Monday, October 9th, 2023. After our previous session, the group was now aware of where Cragmaw Castle was and were keen to find and explore the location where Gundren was meant to be held captive. I have a very inconsistent approach to random encounters these days. Typically, when there’s story-based adventuring to … Continue reading The Shattered Obelisk, session 5
