Shadow of the Dragon Queen, session 11

Our eleventh session of Shadow of the Dragon Queen took place on Monday, August 14, 2023. In our last session, the heroes had defeated Belephaion, the leader of the Dragon Army forces in the City of Lost Names and prevented his plans for the city. However, we weren’t quite done with Chapter 6; there was still a couple of events to go. Those events were … Continue reading Shadow of the Dragon Queen, session 11

Thoughts on “A Stranger Among Us” – A Castles & Crusades adventure

My D&D 5E Greyhawk game is running through a series of adventures written for the Castles & Crusades game. Published by Troll Lord Games, C&C is one of the longest standing systems of what we now know as the OSR. It was first released in 2004. Castles & Crusades is a variant of the first edition of D&D, with a few interesting touches that set … Continue reading Thoughts on “A Stranger Among Us” – A Castles & Crusades adventure

Thinking about Wilderness Travel

Running an interesting wilderness travel session is hard. Part of that is because there are different reasons for that session. Do you just want to get from point A to B to continue the story? Or is there something in the wilderness you need to find? One of the odder random wilderness encounters in a published adventure was a multi-room monster lair. The problem? It … Continue reading Thinking about Wilderness Travel

D&D goes F.A.S.T.

One of the odder launches occurred this week: Dungeons & Dragons now has its own dedicated streaming channel. Except almost everything you’d assume about the service is wrong. Just at the moment, it is showing three original shows – “Encounter Party”, “Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill!”, and “Heroes’ Feast” – and repeats of the D&D Cartoon from the 80s. Possibly other things, but I haven’t … Continue reading D&D goes F.A.S.T.

Shadow of the Dragon Queen, session 10

We played our tenth session of Shadow of the Dragon Queen on Monday, August 7, 2023. In this session, the party continued through Chapter 6, exploring the City of Lost Names. In the last session, the players entered the city through the Path of Memories and restored their broken Dragonlance at the flooded Temple of Paladine. The city’s ruins were mostly abandoned, although they could … Continue reading Shadow of the Dragon Queen, session 10

Shadow of the Dragon Queen, session 9

Our ninth session of Shadow of the Dragon Queen was played on Monday, July 31, 2023. In this session, we began Chapter 6: The City of Lost Names, The backstory for the city involves the killing of a good dragon during the Age of Might. Which really makes no sense because during the Age of Might the good dragons were all sleeping and/or absent. Whenever … Continue reading Shadow of the Dragon Queen, session 9

Shadow of the Dragon Queen, session 8

We played our eighth session of Shadow of the Dragon Queen on Monday, July 17, 2023, continuing through chapter 5: The Northern Wastes. At the end of the previous session, the characters had rescued a dragon egg and some sea elven captives from Camp Carrionclay, and then returned to Heart’s Hollow to recuperate. This left them with a few dangling threads. The leader of the … Continue reading Shadow of the Dragon Queen, session 8

Economy is Hard: Soul Coins

Making a good economy in any RPG is a challenging affair. Many players have noticed how the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons has trouble providing things for characters to spend gold on. So, what happens when you invent a new currency for an adventure that the players can spend on stuff? Well, what’s most likely to happen is that the designers don’t think through … Continue reading Economy is Hard: Soul Coins

Running The Shattered Obelisk, session 3

On Monday, September 25, 2023, we played our third session of Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk. We were missing one of our players but continued with three characters. I didn’t tone down the encounters, thinking it would be interesting to see how it went. Interesting is certainly one word for it! The session began with the characters with Halia Thornton, having realised she was … Continue reading Running The Shattered Obelisk, session 3

Running The Shattered Obelisk, session 2

We played our second session of Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk on Monday, September 16, 2023. This session covered the end of Chapter 1: A Dangerous Journey, and the beginning of Chapter 2: Trouble in Phandalin. We ended our previous session with the characters defeating the Cragmaw goblins and rescuing Sildar. Which led to the fun little interaction of me describing Sildar as a … Continue reading Running The Shattered Obelisk, session 2