‘If you want a remote Dungeons & Dragons player during these grim times, let me know. Happy to make like Geri and re-join the band.’ My brother WhatsApped me this message on a Sunday morning at the end of March last year. It was the day before Boris Johnson announced a national lockdown. Three days … Continue reading Our final session: playing Dungeons & Dragons in a pandemic
7 June marks one year since my first post on the site. And what a year it’s been! I want to say thank you to everyone who has commented on, shared, or subscribed to the site. What started as a vague idea last summer has since grown into something that brings me much joy. I … Continue reading Happy birthday, Scroll for Initiative!
This post is the second in a series in which I go back through D&D lore and show you how you could adapt some of the ‘forgotten dragons’ for 5th edition. Last month I focused on the lost chromatics: brown, purple, grey, orange, pink, and yellow dragons. Today I am going to look at the … Continue reading Forgotten dragons, part two: metallics
The 5th edition Monster Manual has ten true dragons: five chromatics and five metallic. True dragons become more powerful as they get older. There are also ‘lesser dragons’, like faerie dragons, pseudodragons, and wyverns, but that’s a whole other topic. How much do you know about the other true dragons? In this series, I’m going … Continue reading Forgotten dragons, part one: chromatics
Don’t get me wrong: I love fantasy roleplaying games. After all, I do write a blog about Dungeons & Dragons. But I also believe that fantasy, and D&D in particular, is not without its problems, some of which can be fixed, or at least mitigated. In this article, I plan to run through four issues … Continue reading Four Problems with Fantasy
How do you determine your character’s ability scores? According to the Player’s Handbook (page 12), the default is to generate them randomly. You roll four six-sided dice and record the total of the highest three, six times (‘4d6 drop lowest’). Other options are point buy (technically a variant rule) and taking the array: 15, 14, … Continue reading How to fix 4d6 drop lowest
A few months ago, following an interesting discussion on Reddit provoked by my post on creating awesome characters, I put the following question to Twitter: are roleplaying games an art form? In hindsight, it might have been better to ask, ‘can roleplaying games be an art form’. Perhaps the wording would have made a difference. … Continue reading Is D&D art?
Wizards of the Coast In 5th edition, there are three main ways of determining your ability scores. One method is point buy, listed as a ‘variant’ in the Player’s Handbook. Another method – the simplest – is to take the array: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. But for many players, the default method, rolling, … Continue reading Rolling Stats
The Tomb Raider games achieve a really nice balance between several different gameplay elements: exploration, puzzles, stealth, and, of course, combat. And these are all elements you can embrace in D&D!
I asked Twitter and Reddit what people would like to see from D&D over the next couple of years. After 400-plus comments, there are definite trends emerging: some expected, some rather surprising.