Not so long ago I quoted exhaustion as being one of the 15 reasons I love 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons. Given the often deranged mental gymnastics we have to do to make hit points make sense, it’s great to have a second, separate mechanic that measures life force, and moreover one that – unlike […]
You know the scene. The corpse of the hero lies lifeless on a cold temple slab, his pale flesh lit by flickering orange candlelight. Meanwhile, the fate of the known world lies in the hands of the priests whose orations to their god represent the only chance to bring this chosen warrior back into the […]
I’m no D&D historian, but I think it’s fair to say that few, possibly none, have contributed more to the game’s lore than Ed Greenwood. The Canadian writer started writing novels set in his nascent Forgotten Realms as early as 1967 (aged 18 at the time), before developing the setting as the homebase for his […]
For some time I’ve been deliberating over designing a Name of the Rose-inspired murder mystery adventure for D&D. The imagery of weary travellers arriving at a remote monastery in the dead of winter has a certain romantic appeal, while the sinister atmosphere of a body count increasing in an isolated community feels like something that […]
Long before the pandemic began, D&D was already heading online. Digital toolsets like D&D Beyond are far more efficient than pen and paper at tracking hit points, gear and level progression, Discord servers can be used to neatly file campaign information, while the world’s first virtual tabletop, Fantasy Grounds, launched in 2004, challenging the possibilities […]
As the nights get darker and the days get colder (at least for those of us tuning in from the northern hemisphere!), it’s become a tradition at this time of the year for D&D players to embrace the scarier side of fantasy. Now, given that our favourite tales of horror are often rooted in helplessness […]
The Dungeon Coach is one of the best D&D 5e homebrewers out there, in my opinion, and in this video he talks about the inferior damage output of two weapon fighting (aka dual-wielding) in 5e, vs. two-handed weapon fighters, and why he feels that’s unfair. After all, both these offensive styles require using both hands […]
It took me all of five seconds to pile in on various feats and class abilities I felt were too deadly when I first started this blog in 2016… but it’s taken me five years to tackle 5th edition’s most commonly-occurring damage spike: sneak attack. The reason being, of course, that when it comes to […]
When I wrote Dragonbowl, on top of writing the storyline, I found myself including little bits of advice that DMs might profit from in their bid to extract maximum drama from the adventure. Perhaps the most interesting was a box out about plot armour. And the reason it’s interesting (for me at least) is because […]
A while ago, I proposed six alternatives to the overused trope of starting your D&D adventure in a tavern. When M.T. Black recently asked his Twitter followers what fun variations they had seen to the “you all meet in a tavern” adventure beginning, I shared my article and then condensed my six alternatives (plus the […]
