Of the three pillars of D&D, combat is the one most defined in the rules, and, for most groups, it’s going to take up a significant part of each session. D&D is a complex game, though, and, handled badly, combat has the chance to become repetitive, frustrating, or tedious. How, then, can we make combat as exciting and evocative as it should be?
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!
If you’re a DM, real-life workload can be a significant barrier to your game prep. How do you get ready for a session when you’re completely snowed under?
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.
Wizards of the Coast At some point in your D&D game, the party is going to come up against a villain of serious stature: a major enemy who has played a key role in the story so far and needs to be taken down. In this article, we’re going to look at how to create … Continue reading How to Run a ‘Big Bad’
How and why would you run an evil D&D game – and should you?
5th edition gets an awful lot right. But it is not perfect. Here are five areas of the game that are apt for tweaking.
D&D has always worked on the assumption that adventurers work together as a group. Which group, then, works best? With at least twelve character classes to choose from, and a gamut of subclasses, it’s not a straightforward question.
Wizards of the Coast How do you go about creating a character in D&D? Most of us follow the step-by-step approach in Chapter 1 of the Player’s Handbook. We roll stats, we choose a class, a race, and a background, and we pick out equipment and spells. We might shake up the order a bit, … Continue reading Creating Awesome Characters
Wizards of the Coast When planning a game of Dungeons & Dragons, a DM has to consider the short term, the mid term, and the long term. In our context, ‘short term’ means encounters: short scenes based around combat, exploration, or social interaction. ‘Mid term’ would be an adventure: a series of encounters linked together. … Continue reading Plotting a campaign