I thought I’d share a few new things that I’ve been carrying in my gaming bag lately for my D&D game. Which by the way, has already reached 13th level and shows no signs of slowing down!  Mystery Dice Goblin  I got a nice offer from the folks at Mystery Dice Goblin to send me some of their dice, and I have to say that I really like them. They come in a sealed bag, so I had no idea their colors would be when I opened them…   I was pleased with the look of the dice, in fact, I’ve started using them in my game. The party just left the Elemental Plane of Fire and I was usin ..read more

I created a short document with a few prompts for a system agnostic setting (started as a fanfic screenplay idea) for roleplaying in the GFFA. A lot of players join games with expectations of what to find in a SW setting, and I thought it would be cool to create something to subvert those expectations. There are a few facts about the setting and its assumptions, but lots of blank spaces for GMs to add their own stuff… Star Wars: The Corporate Era, set roughly 700 years after the films.. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bhMODvrPboc1af8XL1fs3koQEQXRFwmSulgLocuZP_M/edit?usp=sharing ..read more

I’m currently running a campaign based off of “Dragonsight”, a concept introduced in Fizban’s Treasure of Dragons. I’m having a lot of fun with it, and will likely blog about it soon, but have started turning the wheels on my next campaign and how to top what I’m currently doing.  I know I want to run something around mind flayers, and since my campaigns tend to all be based around apocalyptic threats, I thought of an idea that turns the tables on that… what if the world already faced its apocalypse, and the heroes are tasked with reverting it?  I call it Mind Flayer Matrix, and it’s ..read more

Lets get one thing out of the way… Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen is not a Dragonlance setting book. You have to go elsewhere if what you’re hoping for is a Dragonlance Campaign Guide, or a 5e version of Dragonlance Adventures. It’s also not a sequel to Hoard of the Dragon Queen (in case you’re not sure what’s going on and think it may be).  And what’s going on is that WOTC has decided to revive the Dragonlance brand for 5th edition D&D, in the form of an adventure and a mass battles board game named Warriors of Krynn that allows you to play the same characters in both ..read more

In this post we”ll visit the rich merchant kingdom of Sembia, and specifically the city of Daerlun. Sembia’s published origins are…interesting. Ready? in the first edition Forgotten Realms boxed set, much of Sembia was purposely left blank to allow DMs a clean slate to create their own cities and NPCs on. That idea went out the window some time later, but that was the original intent. In the 2nd edition boxed set entry for Sembia, we get a bit of passive-agressive text from Jeff Grubb about TSR having to fill in Sembia a bit, and people getting upset about it. It’s a wonderful little piece of ..read more

In this new series titled Beyond the Sword Coast, we’ll take a quick look at different locales throughout Faerun that campaigns can launch from or visit, outside of the all too familiar Sword Coast. We’ll start with the City of Westgate, one of my favorites in the setting, and how it can make for a fun place to set your urban D&D adventures. Westgate, far from the Sword Coast, on the south shore of the Sea of Fallen Stars (which can lead to further pirating adventures), is a true den of scum and villainy where the only thing that counts is money. And if there’d one thing adventurers like ..read more

I just launched a new campaign and I’m super excited about it. This past summer I ended a year-long campaign, and unfortunately it did not make it to the end. I wish it had, I loved the story we were telling, but we ran out of steam and ended it with the PCs at level 13. I think part of the issue was that we were counting XP, and it ultimately felt like a drag. I promised a 1-20 campaign, but didn’t deliver, partly because the slow leveling and partly because I ran out ideas and challenges for the party. We all burnt out on it and I’ve learned some lessons. So, new year and we got the itch aga ..read more

I had the opportunity to speak with legendary D&D authors Ed Greenwood and Jeff Grubb on the debut episode of my new webshow, The NewbieDM Show. It was an interview I’ve wanted to do for a long time, as I am a big fan of their work. Jeff Grubb is one of those D&D designers who was so prolific in his heyday, that it’s a shame he’s no longer involved with the game. The Manual of the Planes, Forgotten Realms, Al Qadim, Spelljammer… the man’s track record was solid–TSR, CALL JEFF GRUBB! Anyway, the interview was great, they are lovely people to chat with, and I hope you enjoy it. It’s part ..read more

I was musing on twitter about social conflicts in 5e, and how I think there’s a big disconnect with how they intersect with NPCs and Monsters, and thought I’d bring it to the blog to expand on it. I love twitter, but it’s not great for lengthy musins like this one… In 5e, social encounters between PCs and NPCs are presented as an opportunity for PCs to use their three main socials skills (Intimidation, Persuasion, and Deception), along with their Charisma attribute. They use their skills against a system that presents NPCs as having three attitude levels toward the PCs: Friendly, Indifferent ..read more

One of the things that still gives me a little bit of difficulty when I’m DMing is tracking time in the game’s fiction when the characters are in exploration mode. Combat is simple, the 6 second rounds are codified, and we know that 10 rounds is a minute in the game world, 5 rounds is just :30 seconds, and so on. Which means most fights are resolved in just under :20 seconds! Wow!  Social encounters are also fairly easy to determine, as it;s usually real time conversations, and perhaps some minor adjudications of time passing as you negotiate and wait around for the car salesman to go tal ..read more