Our group finished Sloobludop this week. That means, yes, we got the big scene and I hope it felt suitably epic for them. Week 2 The previous week largely consisted of random encounters for leveling and environment, then a big fight against the kuo-toa loyal to the Deep Father. I don't set up full maps … Continue reading Out of the Abyss: Campaign Diary 2
After completing "Forge of Fury", the adventurers had not all leveled to 5. This meant they couldn't start "Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan" as a group. We talked about options, and eventually we decided to run Out of the Abyss instead. That led to further discussion about whether or not to stick with Adventurers League for the … Continue reading Out of the Abyss: Campaign Diary 1
Right now feels like a good time to look back at my gaming for the last few months and then ahead to what comes next. Weyward Scions (homebrew) My alternating Sundays campaign with friends has almost wrapped up. The DM and one of the other players are law students, and thus they don't have nearly … Continue reading Campaign planning: Autumn 2017
The "Rage of Demons" tier 1 storyline wraps up with "Six Knives for Torin Nomerthal". This mini-storyline actually consists of DDEX03-12 and -14 together. I found them somewhat different, though, so I'll separate them out a bit as I review them here. As normal, these reviews include spoilers after the jump. So for this portion, players should … Continue reading Six Knives for Torin Nomerthal
Adventurers League has a lot going for it, but it can easily lead to railroading. As DMs, we pick some adventures to run, probably within a given storyline like Rage of Demons or Tyranny of Dragons. Then we tell players which adventure we'll play that session and they get to experience it. This doesn't have to … Continue reading Sandbox concept for Adventurers League
The Quest of the Week schedule for Adventurers League got an update today, and it has something special in it... Tomb of Annihilation modules! They'll start running in September, and some of them have some particularly evocative names: DDAL07-01 City on the Edge - Tier 1 (lvls 1-4) DDAL07-02 Over the Edge - Tier 2 (lvls … Continue reading Tomb of Annihilation: AL campaign planning
My Rage of Demons campaign moved on to DDEX3-02 Shackles of Blood. This adventure continues the theme of "The Deep Threat" in the Rage of Demons storyline. This is a more traditional adventure in which the characters investigate some missing halflings near Hillsfar and run into some complications from the local tyrant's enforcers. If you run … Continue reading Review: Shackles of Blood
I only know one way to love things: throw myself into completely, maybe even obsessively. That has an obvious dark side to it: at some point, I often tire of the thing and cast it aside, at least temporarily, once I've finished devouring it intellectually. I crave that sense of newness, of exploration. (Earlier in life, I feared … Continue reading I only know one way to love things.
As a way of easing myself back into playing D&D "publicly" (i.e. not just for my kids or solo), I set up a couple of mini-campaigns on Roll20 to run according to Adventurers League rules. This way, I would have an easy time finding players and also an excuse for doing so in an episodic, … Continue reading Review: Harried in Hillsfar
Technoskald's Forge 