I occasionally need to remind myself that not everyone studies the rules to D&D in the manner in which I do. (Indeed, most people haven’t been playing the game over thirty years!) Rules summaries and clarifications are very useful for people who don’t want to immerse themselves in the minutiae of several hundred pages of rules. And it is for those people that Sean Wicket … Continue reading D&D 5E Supplement review – Player Cheat Sheet
The fifth adventure of the D&D Expeditions releases, The Courting of Fire, brings the Cult of the Dragon to centre stage, as the party investigates the theft of several papers and tomes from Mantor’s Library. One of the ongoing flaws of the DDAL adventures is their introductions: many are vague and don’t really give the party a good reason to enter the adventure. Some of … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review – DDEX1-05: The Courting of Fire
The fourth novel set in the Forgotten Realms, Spellfire, was released in July 1988. It was the first novel of the creator of the Realms, Ed Greenwood, and it would prove to be his only novel for six years, as he was kept rather busy writing gaming material for the Realms. (Since 1994, he’s published quite a few more books…) Spellfire exists in two forms: … Continue reading Book Review: Spellfire
Dues for the Dead is the fourth adventure released by the D&D Adventurers League and the closest to a traditional dungeon crawl. Designed by Steve Winter, who has written and edited more adventures than more people (including Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat), it sees the player characters asked to investigate the catacombs beneath Valhingen Graveyard in Phlan. The characters are … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: DDEX1-04 Dues for the Dead
Alabaster Palace of the Dao starts in an interesting way. The universe has ended. Ragnarok has come, and now Chaos reigns. For many stories, this would prove something of an impediment. Rob Couture uses it in an entertaining manner: the player characters, once legendary heroes, have been resurrected by a Rakshasa and are asked to recover the four Jewels of Perfection, artefacts that will allow … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Alabaster Palace of the Dao
Including humour in a D&D adventure is a tricky thing. The fact is that, although most of us find the actions of our players incredibly amusing, we’re uncomfortable with the idea of entire adventures being devoted to humour. History tells us that they’re tremendously hard to write well. Gary Gygax handled the humour of Alice in Wonderland by making the Dungeonland adventure as deadly as … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Adamantine Chef – Supreme Challenge!
Douglas Niles’ second book in the Moonshae Trilogy, Black Wizards, was first published in April 1988, as the third release of the Forgotten Realms novel line. It continued the story of the Prince of Corwell, Tristran Kendrick, and his friends. With the Darkwalker defeated, the relationship between Tristan and his father has returned to its natural state; that is, not a very good one. When … Continue reading Book Review: Black Wizards
When you play role-playing games, it is generally the case that your PC comes from somewhere and has a personality and history. The character isn’t just a collection of numbers, except in the most basic of dungeon crawls. Not everyone is good at creating these personalities and backgrounds. 5th Edition D&D uses “Background” system to give some context to the character and explores a few … Continue reading RPG Supplement Review: 5 Questions
Dan Coleman’s Dungeons on Demand series has produced a good number of excellent dungeons for DMs to use and players to enjoy. He is currently running a Kickstarter for the third volume of the series, and has sent me one of its five adventures to (p)review. If Looks Could Kill is an adventure for 6th-level characters and presents a single dungeon stocked with monsters, traps, … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: If Looks Could Kill
Robert Adducci, best known as the Community Manager of the D&D Adventurers League and for his work with the Athas.org website, has released a small pdf through the DMs Guild that provides ten monsters for use in D&D. Entitled Underdark Enemies, it is particularly useful for providing additional threats when running the massive sandbox adventure, Out of the Abyss, but the demons and fire giants … Continue reading D&D Supplement Review: Underdark Enemies
