Available on Amazon (affiliate link) We played our eighteenth session of The Shattered Obelisk on Monday, February 26, 2024. Everyone was in attendance – the DM (me) and all three players. In that virtual kind of way that we have by playing on Roll20. The group is five characters, though. I run the fighter (Simeon) as an NPC, because running a champion that way is very quick. And the artificer’s player (Syzoth) plays the rogue as well (Jake). We started with four, then picked up two henchmen about halfway through when Simeon got captured, then Nymia’s player lost both her main character and he ..read more

The first adventure in the Expert series had been the fairly serious Isle of Dread. The second had been more of a funhouse dungeon in Castle Amber. Expert Set Adventure Module X3, Curse of Xanathon, wandered into some seriously weird territory. It is designed for 5-8 characters of levels 5-7. Douglas Niles had begun his writing career at TSR by writing the not-for-novices novice-series adventure of Against the Reptile God, which I reviewed earlier this year. Curse of Xanathon was his second adventure, and although the adventure’s cover says it “combines town and wilderness adventuring”, it is ..read more

What would happen if you ran a campaign in 5E where you only allowed three classes: Fighter, Cleric, or Wizard? Well, it’d probably go quite well. Those three classes cover a lot of bases. Why did I select them? They were the original classes in Dungeons & Dragons. The rogue (thief) came along later – the first supplement added both the Thief and the Paladin. But do you actually need a Rogue in the party? With the 5E skill system, it’s quite easy to build another character – probably a Fighter – with their core trap-finding skills. And though the Rogue’s sneak attack is nice, it’s hardly ..read more

I was having a discussion the other day with Mike Shea and a few other people on his discord about mechanics that are “All or Nothing”. Which is a really inaccurate way of saying spells like Hold Person – either it works or it fails, and you’ve given up a resource to attempt the action. “Do or Die” mechanics? “Risk it All” mechanics? I don’t know. I might need more sleep. (I definitely need more sleep). The example Mike actually gave that started me thinking about this was one present in a few games where you have a stack of chips that you can spend to increase your die roll – but must be use ..read more

Today’s the day that the second part of the Final Fantasy VII remakes comes out – this one called Rebirth. I’ve been playing through the first part (Remake), and it’s an example of how good content can be expanded, given excellent voice acting and gameplay, and become even more than the original. It’s funny to think of a game from so long ago – the first steps of the Final Fantasy series into more than just pixel action with moving figures – getting so big a remake, but here we are. It’s also interesting just from a game design point of view. FFVII Remake is a very linear game. In some places ..read more

We completed Chapter 6 in this session of Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk, which was run on Monday, February 19, 2023. The current characters in the campaign are: Syzoth, yuan-ti artificer (artillerist) Killin, earth genasi paladin (oath of the ancients) Vel’rari, tiefling sorcerer (divine soul) Simeon, human fighter (champion) Jake, human rogue (assassin henchman) Syzoth’s player controls the rogue henchman, I control Simeon. (Simeon stays out of discussion for the most part, though I occasionally employ him to aid roleplaying between characters). When we left off our previous ..read more

When Dungeons & Dragons began, large parties of characters entered the dungeons. When AD&D came along, it was basically assumed that nine people would venture into the dungeon, in a 3 by 3 square. By the rules of the time, three men could stand abreast in a 10-foot corridor. Although D&D was inspired by miniature gaming, it quickly lost the miniatures and became what we now call “Theatre of the Mind”. This continued for some time, but towards the middle of the 2E era, a push was made to make standard rules for miniatures combat – something that was not defined well by the original ..read more

Available on Amazon.com (affiliate link) We ran this session of The Shattered Obelisk on Monday, February 12, 2024. The party began the session at the great crossroads at the heart of Gibbet Crossing, after killing the lone alpha grick that was there. Listening carefully, they heard rustling sounds to the west. My party is very much of the mind that you shouldn’t leave monsters to creep up on them, so they investigated, and thus discovered all the regular gricks that would have come to aid the alpha grick if it had lived long enough to summon them. It’s a well-described chamber, with slimy muc ..read more

M1: Into the Maelstrom is the first of the adventures designed to use with the D&D Master set, that is the expansion of the D&D Basic game for levels 26-36. In the D&D Companion set, the PCs were rulers of kingdoms or the ruler’s principal servants. By D&D Master, their mortal lives are drawing to a close and they’re reaching towards the possibility of Immortal existence. The actual D&D Master set is a mixed bag, and it doesn’t come as much as a surprise that the adventures for it are likewise problematic. Into the Maelstrom continues the tale of the Kingdom of Norwold beg ..read more

If you want to get me mad about something, take away agency from the players in a situation where they believe they have it. Yeah, it’s the Quantum Ogre. What’s a Quantum Ogre? It’s an ogre encounter that appears regardless of the choices of the party. You ask them, “Left or Right” when they come to an intersection, but both paths lead to the ogre. Different locations, same ogre. As a DMing technique, it has its advantages, especially when you’re short of time. But presenting the players with the illusion of a meaningful choice is likely to be a break in the social contract. For many players ..read more