Dungeon Masters in D&D 5E don't necessarily have a lot of tools to manage factions, NPCs, and long-term dangers. The Dungeon Master's Guide provides lots of excellent advice on creating villainous NPCs, but I personally need more. I've used Fronts from "Dungeon World" pretty extensively as a way to organize various Dangers with their Grim … Continue reading Progress clocks in Dungeons and Dragons
I sat down this weekend and listed out the three games I currently have planned, then started thinking about what I want to do next. All of my current streams take place on the Variant Roles channel on Twitch, for what it's worth, and are archived on YouTube. "Jayemdae Tome" by Donato Giancola As I've … Continue reading Updates on upcoming streaming
Many games based on (or "powered by") the Apocalypse engine use a core 2d6 mechanic: roll two six-sided dice and potentially add a modifier (usually between -1 to +3). If the result is 10 or higher, you succeed; if it's 6 or less, the GM ("MC" in many games) gets to make a hard move; … Continue reading Powered by the Analysis: 2d6+N
I learned an important lesson on Saturday night about open table games: consider carefully how much you want the world to change based on one session. In my ongoing Dungeon World community game, some players wanted to return to the Dreaming Wood. This location used a mix of two Lampblack & Brimstone Dungeon Starters: "The … Continue reading Free Dungeon Starter: Caves of Hypnos
Ross Castle—Killarney I've been running some Dungeon World games (off stream) for members of the Variant Roles community for the last month or so. It's not a "serious" campaign, for whatever value you might attach to that word. It feels more like a series of one-shots, sometimes with recurring characters. This all stems from the … Continue reading Community Dungeon World Games
NB: Stream of consciousness style. Just throwing this down someplace. "Broken Concentration" by Clint Cearley I really need to end my Wednesday game because weeknights are just too difficult. I've already cancelled my Tuesday and Thursday games, and I haven't done Monday in a long time. Already, this Wednesday and next have no game because … Continue reading Spring 2019 Campaign Musings
Chapter art for Level 11 Troglodyte Warrens I recently ran Level 11, "Troglodyte Warrens", from Dungeon of the Mad Mage for Variant Roles. You can watch the first of the two sessions below (I will add in the second when it's posted). Spoilers follow, obviously, at least for that level of DotMM. https://youtu.be/8XA2JN8DunM?t=673 In this … Continue reading Using DW style prep in D&D
