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What to play after finishing the D&D Starter Set
It is fair to say that the D&D Starter Set adventure, “The Lost Mine of Phandelver”, is a good adventure. I’m currently running it for the third time, and my players are doing things my other...
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Adventure Design Elements: Beginnings
Out of the Abyss, the new adventure from Wizards of the Coast, begins with the party as prisoners of the drow and needing to escape. Princes of the Apocalypse begins with the party sent to the region...
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DM Tips: When to Say “No”
One of the more common pieces of advice to give new Dungeon Masters (and Game Masters) these days is that they should say “Yes” to their players. This is good advice. It comes from an understanding of...
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Entering the Wilderness: Exploration and Castles
Dungeons & Dragons play is traditionally divided into three environments: Dungeon, Urban and Wilderness. Of those three, the Dungeon is by far the easiest to prepare and run. The Wilderness, on the...
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Entering the Wilderness: Tracked Exploration
Although hex-based exploration was the dominant form of wilderness exploration in the early days of Dungeons & Dragons, a few adventures used a hybrid approach that drew on dungeon design. That is,...
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The Rise of Tiamat revisited: The Tomb of Diderius
The track of Varram, the white wyrmspeaker, takes the characters into the Serpent Hills. The Rise of Tiamat basically glosses over a lot of what can be found in this area – the random encounter table...
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Entering the Wilderness: Going Gridless
The release of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Set in 1987 marked a significant point in how wilderness maps were handled at TSR. Instead of providing a map overlaid with hexes, as had been the case in...
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Old School, New School: Thoughts on Adjusting D&D
I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons for a very long time. Not for as long as some out there, but for most of my life. I’m not entirely sure which year I began, it’s been so long. It’s somewhere in...
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The Rise of Tiamat: Dealing with the Yuan-Ti
The second section of the Tomb of Diderius has the problem most small lairs have: what happens when the party kills most of the monsters and then retreat? Are they followed by the Yuan-Ti seeking...
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Planning for the next season of the D&D Adventurers League
One of the tasks many of us have to consider over the next couple of months is how we’ll run D&D Adventurers League games. There are more options than before: they can be run at home, online, in...
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Entering the Death House
The newest season of D&D is upon us! Curse of Strahd, the first 5E adventure set in the land of Ravenloft, a dark gothic horror setting, will be released in select game stores on March 4th and more...
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What to play after the D&D Starter Set (redux)
Just a note to all that I’ve revised an earlier post on the options available to you after you finish playing the D&D Starter Set, including more details on Out of the Abyss and adding the DMs...
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About the D&D Adventurers League adventures
With the advent of the DM’s Guild website, the D&D Adventurers League adventures (once known as D&D Expeditions adventures) have become available to everyone to play. It’s worth writing a word...
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A Half-Elf Bard for Curse of Strahd
During the last season of the D&D Adventurers League, I created a set of first-level characters that I could give out to new players at conventions and store sessions when we didn’t have enough...
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Running Curse of Strahd, part 1
After the TPK (Total Party Kill) in Death House, we started playing the full Curse of Strahd adventure. And, of course, things promptly got interesting. Curse in Strahd is an adventure where the...
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Running Curse of Strahd, part 2
Vallaki, the fortified town to which the adventurers took Ireena, is an important place in the progression of running Curse of Strahd. It provides a place where the players can rest between expeditions...
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D&D for Beginners: Writing Adventure Notes
If you’re new to Dungeon Mastering D&D, the task of designing an adventure can be pretty daunting. After all, you’ve picked up Curse of Strahd or Lost Mine of Phandelver and there are lots and lots...
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Designing Adventures: Objectives
Designing a basic adventure for Dungeons & Dragons isn’t hard. Just draw a map, put some monsters and treasure in it, and you’ve got an adventure! It’s one of the reasons that D&D remains the...
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Running Curse of Strahd, part 3: Krezk
In our previous installment, the adventurers had defeated the druids and blights that had taken over the Wizard of Wines winery. It was now time for them to go to Krezk with the winecarts, fulfilling...
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Running Curse of Strahd, part 4 – Yester Hill
Life’s been a little crazy recently, so while D&D games have continued, blog updates have not. Many apologies for that! When we last saw our brave band of adventurers, they were heading off to...
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