Gaming in 2022

This year has been very much a mixed bag for gaming, meaning that this is also going to be a very mixed update.

The two campaigns I had running twelve months ago both came to successful ends - one the long-planned ending where the PCs confronted the Dark Lord and earned their freedom; the other a somewhat earlier end due to pressures of life. But both were satisfying ends.

Having expected those to mark the end of my gaming, I was swept up in some enthusiasm for a new campaign, "Isles of Dread". Thus far, I've actually had more enjoyment from writing the adventure than running it, but that's largely because it's early days. This campaign is also notable because we've returned to in-person gaming, which is nice.

However, this will be the last campaign I run for this group - we've slipped to a point where we just barely have a quorum, and that means that if even one person is absent it doesn't really feel right. Worse, it's very likely that one of the players will drop out reasonably soon, at which point we're below critical mass. Which is a shame, but also a nicely definitive decision.

I read a whole bunch of RPG books this year: a couple of books on GMing by Sly Flourish, a couple of adentures, a miscellaneous book on monsters, and a load of Level Up books. I'd actually recommend all of them - it's been a good haul. I've bought rather fewer books: a couple of Level Up expansions (with "The Dungeon Delver's Guide" being the outstanding purchase of the year), a small number of PDFs, and the new D&D Starter Set. But very little has caught my eye.

Looking forward, I'm not planning any purchases in 2023. I've largely sworn off WotC's material, and have virtually no scope for playing anything but D&D. So that's that. I might pick up the "Phandelver Campaign"... but I fear that may ruin a classic, so I might be better off skipping it.

And I'm very much on the fence for the 2024 update. On the one hand, it may well prove to be an improvement to the game. On the other, I'm really not liking most of the changes I'm seeing, and I'm unlikely to have a group with which to play anyway. So we'll need to see.

And that's that. As I said, a mixed bag. I expect 2023 to be a year of endings - "Isles of Dread" should hopefully come to a conclusion at some point in the year, and unless something changes that will mark my final campaign for a good long time, possibly ever. Which is sad, but it's also not a bad thing to end with.

Storm King's Thunder meets Spelljammer

I'm a big fan of the concept of "Storm King's Thunder", but was sorely disappointed by the execution. I'm also a big fan of Spelljammer, despite not at all liking anything I've heard about the new set.

Funnily enough, though, I'm inclined to think that the largely-failed SKT provides the key to what they should have done with SJ.

My proposed campaign concept casts the players as the command crew of a fairly unremarkable trading vessel - Serenity, essentially. While at one of three 'home' ports, they must deal with an attack by hostile forces from one of the big-bad empires.

Thereafter, the campaign progresses with the PCs mostly traveling around a big sandbox of locations, carrying cargo, but also engaged in various missions for one or more of the 'friendly' factions. However, wherever they go they find that forces of that big-bad empire. Over time it becomes apparent that there are multiple factions, with the PCs eventually putting together the realisation that the factions have become unbound because the central command of the (Elven? Vodoni?) empire have gone silent.

So the PCs must infiltrate the headquarters of one of those five factions to recover a key to open a portal to the locked 'home' sphere of that empire. Then they proceed to the centre of the empire where they become embroiled in the politics of the court.

That's the theory. Of course, there's a fair amount of work in there, especially in leading the PCs to the key revelations:

• There are five factions.
• Those factions are now working independently because the central command has gone silent.
• They should seek to restore that central command!
• Here's how to get to central command.

So, for the time being it's nothing more than a theoretical campaign. But I'm rather liking the fairly epic scope the whole thing, so maybe...

Isles of Dread at Year's End 2022

The session of "Isles of Dread" planned for today was cancelled at the last minute, meaning that we actually finished up for the year a week ago.

Thus far, the campaign is running smoothly, following one near-TPK that we did more or less recover from. The party have now completed part one, and begun digging into part two and thus the main plot of the campaign. I'm happy with this, and very happy with the structure that was established. It turns out the narrow-wide-narrow structure is extremely strong - who knew?

The hope is that 2023 will see the campaign resume and progress through part two fairly quickly. Part three is then much wider again and hopefully has the meat of the campaign.

So that's that - disappointing to lose the final session, but a positive start to the campaign.

Adventures in Zeitgeist

When I backed the Kickstarter for "The Dungeon Delver's Guide", I also took the opportunity to pick up the setting book for Zeitgeist. This was used in an Adventure Path that I have neither run nor read - it is well-regarded, but I didn't have an immediate use and so I skipped it.

Zeitgeist posits a semi-industrial world, with firearms and steam trains, printing presses and even photography. Some of this is magical, some technological. In that regard, it was somewhat reminiscent of Eberron, and indeed much of the sensibility of the world was similar, which is no bad thing.

The material was presented well, and covered all the subjects that might be expected - peoples, nations, history, running the campaign, and so on and so forth. And it was interesting enough. Except...

As I read the book, I did find myself thinking this was all nice, but what should we do with it? And while that was somewhat solved when I got to the final chapter (dealing with campaign styles), I did find myself left with more questions than answers. Which is a shame - this is a setting I could see myself really enjoying, but no campaign ideas leapt out at me.

That said, there's a whole bunch of material in there that I do fully intend to extract for my own use, notably the rules for firearms, and some of the new mechanical options. So that's good - certainly, I don't feel that I wasted my money.

So, can I recommend? Honestly, I'm not sure. I liked the style, but...

Make of that what you will.

Completed: Larder of the Sea Elves

The "Isles of Dread" campaign actually managed two weekly sessions in a row, with the consequence that the party managed to complete Part One of the adventure. They have now emerged from the Sea Elf larder and find themselves on the shore of Desolation Island, ready to begin part two.

My intention is to run two more sessions before bringing the game to a halt for Christmas (skipping the week of the 22nd), though it's always possible that that will turn into one, or even none.

I'm pretty happy with how this part of the campaign has gone. Some of the challenges would need a little bit of tuning up if I were to publish the thing formally, but as the truth is that I never will that's not a problem.

What is potentially a problem is that I could really do with completing the writing of the fourth part and, perhaps more urgently, getting the maps and handouts put together before I need to use them. That's something I'll want to do over the Christmas holidays, if not before.

The Christmas Ghost Story

I won't be running a Christmas Game this year - that tradition is now fairly definitiely ended, and besides I don't really have a group to gather. Which is rather unfortunate, since a few years ago I realised that the obvious use for that game was to tell a ghost story, in the tradition of olden times before Dickens changed things (with "A Christmas Carol").

Of course, I don't have an immediate ghost story in mind. It's more a sort of theoretical ghost story. But it's something nice to mull over.

A DMing Principle

I was having a discussion earlier about PC race, and I noted that my preference is for players to 'default' to human characters but that my players have a very different view and will basically never choose a human PC. And then I found myself imagining that I'd been asked the question of what happens if these impulses come into conflict.

My answer is actually simple on this one: the player gets their way.

The principle that I work to is that the PC is basically the only thing that the player gets to control. And the PCs are the only thing in the game that the DM does not get to control - the DM gets to choose literally everything else.

And so, my principle is that when it comes to what players do with their character, the DM's position is "hands off!"

(I'll also note that while I may come here, or other places online, to complain about this and other things, I don't do so at the table. When I say this is the players' choice, I really do mean that - there's no passive agressive grumping that they didn't do what I wanted.)

I may well have posted on this topic before. But I couldn't find it. So if it's a repeat... oh well.

A Next Campaign

"Isles of Dread" isn't going terribly well - after two sessions we hit a major scheduling issue and haven't managed to get together to more than a month; the second session ended in a near-TPK; and we're in a position where our quorum is more or less the entire group, which isn't a place where I'd like to be. Hopefully tomorrow we can make a bit of a fresh start; if not, we'll postpone until the new year and then give it one more go.

And the upshot of that is that I'm more certain than ever that this will be my final campaign with this group, and with no other group on the horizon and no time to form a new one, my options are limited.

And yet, and yet...

I find myself liking the adventure/campaign format I hit on for "Isles of Dread", I enjoyed the process of putting it together, and I'm very much drawn to that Eberron/Spelljammer campaign I've been noodling around for a while. The vandalism of Spelljammer in the new boxed set hasn't dampened my interest in the setting much - I'll just need to do my own version.

So... once I've completed the writing of "Isles of Dread", maybe I'll start writing up that Eberron/Spelljammer campaign in the same sort of vein, aiming for a nice mid-level mini-campaign assuming much the same group - and then keep it ready should I ever get the chance.

And if I don't, hopefully the writing of it will be of interest enough.

Dungeon Delver's Guide

I had been intending to skip the Kickstarter for this one - since I'm unlikely ever to actually play Level Up, I don't really need to be buying in to supplements. But the previews persuaded me otherwise, and I'm glad that they did! "Dungeon Delver's Guide" is an outstanding book, containing content of value not just with Level Up, or even 5e, but for D&D and D&D-like games in general.

The book is split into three sections: a moderately large section on PC options (that is, frankly, largely forgettable), a moderately large section on DM tools (that is also, frankly, largely forgettable), and a huge middle section on dungeons - and it is this that holds all the value in the book.

The centrepiece of the book is a method for building dungeons (and, I'd imagine, dungeon-like settings) termed NODES - each location might have a Novelty, Obstacle, Discovery, Escalation, or Set Piece. It's a really strong, flexible way to construct these things, and exactly the sort of thing that should be going in to the next DMG in 2024.

The book also has several example dungeons, lots of random tables of varying utility, and other bits and pieces. But, basically, it's that NODES system and the surrounding material that makes the book - that's where the value lies, and it is why I recommend it unreservedly.

And now I'm hoping they'll do two more: one each for wilderness and urban adventures.

The Tyranny of Important Choices

It didn't seem so at the time, but one of the smartest decisions the D&D designers made recently was to remove ASIs from character race and instead make them free-floating. (They really should complete the job and just build them into ability score generation more generally, or indeed just drop them, but that's another rant.) The net effect of this was to make race a largely unimportant decision, which seems counter-productive, but was actually very wise.

The thing is, in D&D the choice of class is, by an order of magnitude, the most important decision that will be made for the character. (If multiclassing is used, the choice of classes has that distinction, but that's pretty much hair-splitting.) What that means is that traditionally players will choose their class first, and then build everything else to fit that choice - and since the ASIs were by far the most valuable part of race design, that meant choosing the race for the best ASIs for the class. You'd see lots of elven rogues, but no orcish wizards.

By removing the ASIs from class, they made the choice of race very much a "free hit" - players were suddenly free to choose any race that they felt was interesting, without having to worry that the choice would compromise the effectiveness of their character.

(And that, incidentally, is why the decision to move the ASIs to backgrounds, and indeed to tie backgrounds to feats, is so terrible - the choice of background was until recently another "free hit" because the package of stuff was relatively trivial. But by tying it to two important things, they've now made the choice extremely important. Or, again, they would have had they not also made backgrounds entirely customisable, and thus binned any and all value they have.)

The lesson here is to be careful about making decisions 'important', because doing so has a perverse effect of reducing variety - players will make the most important decision first, and then make all the other important decisions to reinforce that.

Level Up

About a year ago I backed a Kickstarter for "Level Up" - a take on an 'advanced 5e' by En Publishing. I finally finished reading through the PDFs this week. Some thoughts:

This may be one of the best games I'll never run. Level Up has some really nice features that probably make it an improvement over 5e, but it's also a step more complicated when 5e is pretty much at the upper limit of what I'm interested in running now. Besides, if I were to get the chance to run anything else, I'd go for something distinctly different - Firefly, or Star Trek, maybe.

I really like this method of buying into the game: back one Kickstarter to an appropriate level, receive a package of the books, and then that's essentially all there is. That sort of one-and-done is now really appealing, especially given my increasing disdain for supplements.

I backed this at a PDF level. I suspect that is now very much the future - I have sorely limited space for (or interest in) physical books any more, while other electronic formats are utterly useless to me. But PDFs are ideal.

And I think, actually, that is that. I had planned a longer, more in-depth review, but don't think that really aids anything. This is recommended for people who like 5e but would like it to be a bit more crunchy, in depth, and detailed, and is very much not recommended for anyone who fundamentally doesn't like 5e.

A Close Call

The second session of the "Isles of Dread" saw some truly disastrous dice rolling leading to the party coming within a whisker of a Total Party Kill. Which, I must admit, would have been highly amusing given the amount of preparation that I'd done for the campaign!

As it happened, three of the PCs found themselves unconscious and bleeding out, while the fourth was given the opportunity to surrender. Fortunately, that last man standing was one of the more rational members of the party, and so they were marched back to their cells and disaster was averted.

Which leaves me with a big and tricky question: what now?

And We're Off!

The first session of the "Isles of Dread" campaign was this afternoon... and it was very nearly the last. The characters are now well advanced in their escape from the elven larder, and may have bitten off more than they can chew - certainly, a few better rolls from me and they'd have been in real trouble.

But it's going well - fun times.

One thing I do need to be wary of is that, now that the players know what they're doing, things are just running much faster than they were previously. Which means that the several months worth of material I had prepared may not last quite as long as I had thought. And it means I really need to get that final part of the adventure, and the maps, and the handouts, put together quickly!

Where is the Dragon in This Campaign?

Looking back at my recent campaigns, I've noticed something: "Isles of Dread" has exactly one dragon encounter, "Mists of Lamordia" had exactly one dragon encounter, "Lost Mine of Phandelver" and then "Storm King's Thunder" had exactly one dragon encounter (though there was another we never got to). "A Quest for Memory" had two, but that was something of an outlier.

In other words, it looks very much like my pattern is that a campaign will have one, and usually only one, dragon encounter.

Which is no bad thing - having identified the pattern there are options for dealing with it: either I can consciously mix it up by having lots of dragons in one campaign and none in another, or I could embrace the pattern and consciously build campaigns with that singular encounter - in which case, the question becomes "where is the dragon this time?"

And I find myself liking that approach, so I'm thinking I might go that way...

Stalled Again

I'm now partway through writing Part Four of the "Isles of Dread" adventure/campaign. I'm about 6500 words, and 22 encounter areas, from the end. And once again I'm stalled.

The problem this time is that I just don't have a firm vision of what this part of the adventure should look like. For Parts Two and Three, and even moreso Part One, I had a very clear image of many of the beats that I'd wanted to hit. But with Part Four, other than the need to bring things to a conclusion and wrap everything up, I just don't have that vision.

That's not surprising, I guess. Endings are just hard.

On the plus side, I do have one plan for how to force things forward - I know that there should be about 15 encounters in those 22 encounter areas, so I can sensibly proceed by mapping out what those are, and then populating the rest...

The Customisation Step

One of the many things that I don't like about the One D&D playtest is that they've moved the Ability Score Increments from race to background - removing these from race is undeniably a good move, but moving them to background just replaces one weakness with another. (They've also added feats to the backgrounds, which also sucks, but it's a comparative act of genius, so I'll leave that for now.)

The upshot of this is that players will now choose their class and then look for the background that gives them the 'best' ASIs.

Except that they won't, because another of WotC's brainfarts is that backgrounds are entirely customisable, and therefore utterly meaningless. Basically, WotC's designers had a great idea, but couldn't maintain any confidence in their concept and therefore wrecked it. Backgrounds were great for all of 300 words before they were utterly destroyed.

The thing is, allowing customisation in character creation is, in fact, a really good thing. But they've been spectacularly awful in their implementation.

The way to do it is to make race, class, and background all fixed packages of stuff - you get what you get, and that's that. Then introduce a dedicated customisation step, where you can make a small number of adjustments and substitutions anywhere on the character sheet.

So that your dwarf can indeed swap stonecunning for improved darkvision; your Fighter can indeed be proficient in arcana; your Soldier can replace proficiency with land vehicles with air vehicles... but you can't have all of these things.

Coming to the End

The more I hear about the upcoming 5.5e, the less I find myself liking it. It seems they're going for loads of changes in areas of the game that don't need it, and I'd be extremely surprised to see them making the changes that actually are needed. A real shame.

It's also now looking increasingly like the Work Game will come to an end after the "Isles of Dread" campaign - it looks like we'll probably drop below having a quorum at some point in the campaign, at which point I will run it to its conclusion and then call a halt.

And there is no other gaming on the horizon, nor indeed any expectation that that will change.

2023 is looking to be the end of the road for me and RPGs. On the one hand, that's a shame. But on the other, a properly closed door can sometimes be a blessing.

Delay

Due to my recent bout of Covid, I wasn't able to start the "Isles of Dread" campaign this week. Indeed, due to a sequence of meetings, training courses, and other things, it turns out that we won't be able to get started until the middle of October. Which is unfortunate, but on the other hand should give me some time to complete writing the adventure (three parts done, the fourth underway), compile the maps, and generate the two player handouts.

But the major upshot is that I'm still not in a position to start reporting on how it's going.

My Precious Campaign

We had the character creation session for the "Isles of Dread" campaign on Thursday, with the first regular session this week... and I find, suddenly, that I don't really want to run it. The problem is that I've spent a lot of time and effort creating the campaign, and right now it's a perfect, shining campaign. And so it will remain, right up to the point where the players get started and mess it all up.

There's a name for this sort of thing, of course: "my precious campaign". It is, of course, an impulse I just have to work through and ignore - after all, the whole point of doing these things is so that they can be wrecked by having the players engage with them!

How Many Editions of D&D Are There?

With the announcement of the 2024 revision of 5e, we've had another go around of the Edition Wars kicking off, and one of the major battle grounds is simply the question of what constitutes an "edition". How many editions of D&D have their been, anyway?

The answer is astonishingly complex, due to changes in publisher, inconsistent use of the term "edition", and legal fictions. Plus, it's a really touchy subject for some people. So, let's have a look.

TSR Era

For legal reasons, TSR maintained the legal fiction that they published two completely separate games: the "Dungeons & Dragons" game created by Gygax and Arneson, and "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" created by Gygax alone. To a large extent that was a nonsense, of course, but it's something we have to deal with.

Dungeons & Dragons

There are four pretty clear delineations of D&D versions under TSR: OD&D (or 0e), Holmes basic, B/X, and BECMI. Adding one more wrinkle, the BECMI line culminated in the rules being republished in a new format: the "black box" and "Rules Cyclopedia". These didn't contain any rules changes, other than the incorporation of minor errata.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

The line here is fairly clear: there was 1st Edition and 2nd Edition.

The only wrinkle was that during the life of each edition TSR reissed the core rulebooks. In 1st Edition, the change amounted to new covers, with the interior being unchanged (except for minor errata), while in 2nd Edition there was an entirely new layout but no rules changes (again, except minor errata).

WotC Era

When Wizards of the Coast took over, they made final settlement with Dave Arneson, and consolidated everything back to one game: "Dungeons & Dragons". Since then, there have been five publishing 'events' of note:

3e

This one is pretty straightforward - a new edition that was entirely incompatible with the past, even moreso than at any time in the D&D/AD&D split.

3.5e

A revision that made comparitively minor changes to an awful lot of rules. Given the precedents of 1st -> 2nd Edition, this should have been considered a new edition, but WotC very clearly stated that it was no such thing.

4e (2008)

Again, this one is pretty straightforward - a new edition that was entirely incompatible with the past.

The one wrinkle with 4e, which will become important later, is that this edition saw much heavier use of "errata" than previously, to the point where the word 'errata' was being used incorrectly - a lot of the changes were outright revision. (Incidentally, that misuse of 'errata' began in 3.5e when they made a significant revision to the rules for polymorph, and continues in 5e. It was particularly egregious in 4e, but by no means confined to that edition.)

4e Essentials (2010)

This is where it gets really controversial. WotC put out a new set of rule books that coincided with the release of a major set of errata/revisions. However, these were backwards compatible in a way that 3.5e was not, meaning that they amounted to a set of new options for 4e play.

Once again, WotC were clear that this was not a new edition, with much more justification than in the case of 3.5e.

5e

Another simple one - a new edition that was entirely incompatible with the past.

So, How Many Were There?

The answer to that is that it depends on how you count:

Using the IP Owner Definition

If we accept that the IP owner of the time knew best, then the answer is pretty clear: 4 versions of D&D and 2 of AD&D under TSR, plus 3 editions under WotC: 9 in all.

Release of Replacement Core Rulebooks

If instead we assume a new edition comes with the release of new core rulebooks, and where the choice of which version to get matters (that is, excluding 1st Ed's "new cover" books - the complete lack of interior change means it doesn't matter a jot), then the answer is 13: 5 versions of D&D (including BB/RC) and 3 of AD&D (including the "black cover" 2nd Ed) under TSR, plus 5 versions under WotC. (Essentials is counted in this one, because a new player should rightly be guided to the new books.)

Rules Incompatibility

If we define rules incompatibility as "I probably need to update my character sheet", then the "Rules Cyclopedia" and "black cover" 2nd Ed books are excluded, as is Essentials. However the transition from 3e to 3.5e does count.

Under this measure there are 4 versions of D&D and 2 of AD&D under TSR, plus 4 versions of D&D under WotC: 10 in all.

What do I think?

My answer is 10 - I'm inclined to follow the "rules incompatibility" scheme, and think that 3.5e is incompatible enough to count as a new edition, but the move to Essentials does not. (I find the "it's just new options" argument compelling - that said, I detest the misuse of the word 'errata' that was, and still is, applied.) And neither the "Rules Cyclopedia" nor the "black cover" 2nd Edition books count.

And the 2024 Revision?

At this point it's hard to tell. It looks very much like the changes are much smaller than from 3e -> 4e, and smaller even than those from 3e -> 3.5e. However, they do look more extensive than those from 4e Classic to 4e Essentials.

So, this will clearly not be a new edition under the "IP Owner" scheme, will be a new edition under the "New Rulebooks" definition, and might be under the "Rules Incompatibility" scheme (which is the one I'm using).

I guess we'll see!

Thoughts on Writing "Isles of Dread"

I'm now well advanced in writing my upcoming campaign, and so I of course have some thoughts:

• Writing these things is hard! Just the routine of piling up words upon words is tough, and making it all interesting, ensuring it hangs together, and that things that get set up all pay off is a whole new level of tough. I do like to think I've done a good job, and that the outcome is somewhat comparable to "Lost Mine of Phandelver" (though that's comparable in the sense of "not as good as"). But it's definitely hard work.
• I keep finding myself caught between two stools: am I writing this for me to run it, or as a mock-product for some hypothetical group in the future. That's a bit of an issue, since the notes I need for myself are much less extensive than otherwise. I've tended mostly towards the mock-product side of things - if the campaign goes well then I may consider polishing it up and making it available somewhere.
• I really like this adventure format: a first part that starts somewhat in the middle of things, then introduce a home base, then a third part exploring a sandbox (with multiple micro entries, three one-or-two encounter areas, and four mini-adventures), and then a big adventure to bring the thing to its conclusion. That feels almost ideal for a 1-5 level mini-campaign, which is also ideal for my current group.
• I've been somewhat frustrated by some of the gaps in the array of available monsters - in particular as regards things like elves and dragonborn (the latter may feature in Fizban's, which I don't have). This has led to me generating rather more custom stat blocks than I'd really prefer. But that's okay - doing so have been a somewhat interesting experience in its own right.
• I really wish the guidance for building monsters, encounters, and adventures provided by the DMG was better. Frankly, that book has turned out to be a massive disappointment.

(Speaking of disappointments, it looks like we've lost one player and may lose another imminently. In which case the survival of the campaign as a whole is imperilled before we even start. Oh well.)

Lifestyle Brand

Over the past few years, D&D has exploded in popularity, to the extent that it is now considered a "lifestyle brand" by Hasbro. Sadly, this is a hugely mixed blessing.

It is no longer the case that the primary use for these various products is as game accessories. Instead, they exist primarily to look good on the tables of rich executives, to allow them to show off their Geek Chic credentials. They have no intention of actually playing the game; they have all of the gear...

The secondary use for these products, for those who want a little more from them, is as reading material. Like most cookbooks, they're still not really intended for use - for the most part they're selling an aspirational lifestyle. They're there to let kids dream of all the fantastical adventures they could have, if only they'd stop dreaming about them and actually start playing.

It's only then that we get to the question of actually using the products.

Even then, there's a very great disparity between players and DMs, which means that the majority of customers, even in this grouping, are mostly interested in new and exciting toys for their PCs - so new race and background options, new magic items, new spells.

All of which goes a very long way to explaining the art-heavy vacuity that is the new Spelljammer set.

The final thing to note is that the vast majority of players (and, therefore, customers) these days have no experience at all with any prior edition - even 4e.

Which means that the upcoming Dragonlance set is largely being aimed at kids of the 80s who were maybe vaguely aware of the name, probably never read the books and certainly wouldn't have been seen dead playing the game - and who are now buying for their grandkids.

Linking in the Characters

As I started on part three of the campaign, I suddenly found myself hitting a major snag - there's no really good reason for the PCs to go off exploring the other islands in the chain. Parts one and two are fairly straightforward in this manner, in that there are clearly some things that need to be done, and part four is the logical and obvious conclusion to it all. But part three is entirely, and indeed intentionally, skippable.

Which is something of a problem.

I have a partial solution, in that a couple of the elements in part two point to things in part three. But these are entirely skippable and besides, as I said, they're just a partial solution.

But, fortunately, there's a solution waiting for me to grab hold of.

Obviously, when the characters are created they'll generate a load of stuff: the usual ability scores, race, class, and so on; and the role-playing stuff as well, such as ideals, bonds, flaws, etc.

However, there are a couple of other things that can usefully be generated:

The players should, of course, be asked to come up with a name and a picture for their character.

They'll also be asked to come up with a reason why their character was on board the Far Horizon travelling to Equinox, and indeed why they were below decks immediately prior to the start of events.

But, finally, each character will be given a connection to the adventure - a lightweight hook to give them some interest in events beyond just "we happen to be here". This is similar to the personal quests I gave characters in the "Quest for Memory" campaign, albeit somewhat more lightweight. And, as an added bonus, they can all point to things in part three, thus giving the characters at least some reason to explore.

That's another partial solution, of course. But hopefully two such solutions should be enough.

What's In a Name?

I've concluded that some of the skills are poorly named, specifically the ones that are obviously and easily derived from a verb: perception, persuasion, deception, intimidate, investigation, and performance.

The problem is to do with action declaration. Ideally, the player should declare what they are trying to do and how they are trying to do it, whereupon the DM decides what roll (if any) they should make. But with those skills the process gets short-circuited: "I try to perceive my surroundings" is a valid action declaration, but it's nothing other than "I roll Perception" restated.

So I'm inclined to think that perception should be renamed to senses, while investigation should be renamed to something like inference.

Performance, meanwhile, I would remove and replace instead with proficiencies in the various styles of performance - most of these are already covered by tool proficiencies, so all that would needed added were things like oratory, song, and the like.

As for persuasion, intimidation, and deception, I've mentioned before that I would be inclined to remove these and instead use proficiencies in social groups (veterans, criminals, scholars...), thus spreading out the "talking to people" skills. Deception, intimidation, and persuasion then become different approaches one can take to social encounters, some of which will work better than others.

Isles of Dread: Ready to Risk a Beginning

As of now, I have completed my first draft of parts one and two of the "Isles of Dread" mini-campaign. They could both do with an additional pass, especially adding more information about terrain features, and they could also both do with the addition of the missing maps - as things stand, I could do with a main map of the islands, plus a handful of smaller maps for the individual adventure locations.

Part three is somewhat more involved, and part four is probably more involved still, so ideally I would like to be well advanced in writing these before starting the campaign proper. However, I think I'm now at a point where I might consider risking making a start on the campaign. If nothing else, if the pitch falls flat, I'd then know not to waste any more time on it.

The Dawn of the Fifth Edition of Mankind

In the run up to WotC's impending release of their vandalism update of Spelljammer, there was a discussion of potential inspirations for a campaign, and one of the replies was "Babylon 5". Having looked at this, there is clear inspiration there... but I think it actually runs the other way. There are some really significant similarities that are actually quite striking.

Some examples:

The Factions

• The Earth Alliance are, of course, just humans. No big deal.
• The Minbari are the elves. They have three castes: Religious (high), Worker (wood), and Warrior (drow), and most definitely fit that niche.
• The Centauri are dwarves, with the hair replacing the beards. Of note is that the ancient elven empire from Spelljammer has been reassigned to the Centauri here.
• The Narn are orcs. Initially perceived as the "bad guys" this proves not quite to be the case.
• The Vorlons are mind flayers. Just look at the ship designs!
• And the Shadows are Neogi - again, those ship designs are striking.

Other Similarities

• 2nd Edition featured a psioncist class, and so the Telepaths would be of that class, with a focus on the Telepathy, and sometimes Psychokinesis, disciplines. In 5e I guess they'd be Sorcerers of the nonexistent Psionic origin.
• Technomages are simply Mages, of course.
• There is a thri-kreen and a grell in season one. The former eventually drops out, mostly for budget reasons.
• I have no idea what the Rangers are supposed to represent.
• And, of course, alignment is a big deal, especially the Law vs Chaos axis.

What To Do With This

There are a couple of possibilities here. One option would simply be to recast the Babylon station as the Rock of Bral, install the same council there, and run the B5 plotline, or something like it, in Spelljammer.

Another option that suggests itself would be to raid the sourcebooks for the unlamented "Babylon 5" d20 game for adventure ideas. That's certainly appealing, since I've never found the opportunity to use those books.

Or, of course, you could simply re-do Crusade in Spelljammer. Indeed, in one of the special features for that series JMS specifically talks about bringing together a D&D party for the campaign, so the fit should be very good.

On the other hand, just about every attempt to revive Babylon 5 has, sadly, fallen flat and ultimately failed. Maybe the best thing to do, really, is to just leave it be.

Proposed House Rule: Scrolls for Everybody

File this one under "completely untested".

One notion I quite like is the idea that spell scrolls could be usable by all characters, not just those of the appropriate classes. So if the party has no Druid but finds a scroll of barkskin, it's not totally useless to them.

The idea here is therefore that any character who does not have the appropriate spell on their class list would be able to use the scroll to cast the spell. I should note that they are only able to use it to cast the spell, and not for other uses - the Wizard couldn't use a scroll to add Cleric spells to his spellbook.

As per the rules in the DMG for using a spell scroll, a character who is not normally be able to use a scroll would still need to make an ability check to do so. The DC would be 10 + the spell's level. The ability required for the check depends on the class that would use the spell, as shown in the table below; if the spell appears on multiple spell lists, the player may choose which ability to check.

Class	Ability
Bard, Paladin, Sorcerer, Warlock	Cha
Cleric, Druid, Ranger	Wis
Wizard	Int

On a success, the spell is cast normally. On a failure, the spell scroll is erased, but has no other effect. On a roll of a natural 1, a mishap may optionally occur (at the DM's discretion).

Additionally, because the character using the spell scroll is not proficient in the spells being used, the spell uses a lower save DC and attack roll modifier, as shown in the table below:

Spell Level	Spell DC	Attack Bonus
Cantrip, 1st, 2nd	11	+3
3rd, 4th	12	+4
5th, 6th	13	+5
7th, 8th	14	+6
9th	15	+7

How To: A Murder Mystery

For the past couple of weeks I have been noodling around a how-to process for creating a murder mystery adventure for D&D. I'm not going to bother with any great intro here: you want to create a murder mystery adventure, so here's a step by step guide:

Step One: Review PC Abilities

The very first thing to do is to review the PC abilities, or potential abilities. Ideally, you're going to want these to be useful but not immediately conclusive - if the PCs cast detect thoughts then they need to get something from it, but you don't really want it to immediately shine a "He Did It!" light on the villain.

This step is obviously easier when dealing with a specific set of PCs than a general set, but the process is much the same: go read up on the various spells and powers that might be accessed at the appropriate level, with particular focus on divination and enchantment spells and powers. This should be done first, as it will inform the various decisions made later.

Step Two: Start at the End

Now that you've grounded yourself in what the PCs are likely to do, you can build the mystery proper. And like with any good riddle, the thing to do is decide on the solution first and work backwards. So, who was your victim, who was your villain, and what happened when the latter killed the former?

There are three basic parts to this: means, motive, and opportunity:

The means are the way the villain killed his victim: how did he do it?

The motive is the reason: why did he do it? (Poirot is always sceptical of motive, and it is true that there's always something. However, when designing the adventure you probably need to know why.)

The opportunity is about timing: what allowed the villain to do it now? Or, when did he do it?

Once you've got those three, you can now work backwards through your investigation to get to the point where the PCs come in.

Step Three: Consider the "Dungeon"

Imagine for a moment a dungeon adventure: the PCs come into the entrance room, they then proceed from that room to the next, until they reach the BBEG and the adventure's end. A good dungeon will have multiple paths through, with options to shift from one path to another. A better dungeon will include various loops and twists. Ultimately, once you straighten out the map, you're likely to end up with something like this:

Now, instead of a dungeon, imagine that each room is a segment of the investigation (the PCs examne the body, the PCs question the doctor, etc), and each link between rooms is a clue pointing to another room.

And so you now have a "dungeon" where the PCs come in and they have various options for the investigation. Each of these then points to other avenues of investigation, and so on and so on, until the trail leads to the BBEG. And, ideally, you have multiple paths through the investigation, loops and twists, and so on.

The big difference here is that the PCs are considerably less constrained than in a dungeon, and may easily jump from one "room" to a completely unconnected one. But that's fine - the map here is used to verify that they can solve the thing, not to force a particular way of doing it.

Step Four: Build the Links

Now that you have a map, the next step is to determine which clues go where, and thus build the all-important links between the rooms. What is the clinching piece of information that identifes the ultimate killer, what points to where, and so on?

Here I advise bearing in mind the "three clue rule": for each conclusion you want the PCs to reach you'll need three clue - they'll miss one, misinterpret the second, and "get it" on the third. That's not an absolute rule, but extremely useful as a guideline.

Step Five: Populate the Challenges

The other thing to consider is that in most adventures the rooms have something in them to impede progress: monsters to fight, a trap to evade, and so on. The mystery should be no different - each time there should be something to do so that the whole thing remains engaging. There will be a mix here, including social challenges, sub-mysteries, and indeed combat, but they definitely need to be there!

And that, essentially, is that.

There is of course, more to consider when building the adventure:

• Don't make it too difficult! While Poirot and Holmes are able to put the whole thing together based on a couple of tiny details, they are only able to do so because the writer has control over exactly what information they have and how they interpret it. Your PCs don't have this advantage, so they'll need more. Pitching the difficulty is tricky, especially at first, but the players will enjoy a too-easy mystery a lot more than a too-difficult one.
• Include sub-mysteries. A classic blunder in D&D mysteries is to have a cast of helpful good-aligned characters and then one evil-aligned villain. This makes it really easy to find the bad guy: even if detect evil doesn't do it, all the players have to do is look for the one guy with something to hide. But in a good mystery everyone has something to hide, and many of these sub-mysteries will come out as a result.
• Don't forget the action. It is easy to build a mystery with a lovely intricate set of clues for the PCs to follow, let them go, and watch them puzzle it all out... and to forget to include any combat and so miss out on arguably the most important pillar of the game. Be sure to include some exciting action scenes: combat, chases, and the like, for the PCs to enjoy!
• Remember that you're trying to build a solvable crime, not a perfect one! When looking at how the murderer did the deed, consider also what went wrong: what did he forget to consider? What clues did he leave? What did the maid overhear? And how does the villain respond when some of this starts to come out? (This latter is especially useful, as it may well generate more clues for the PCs to follow up on - the hasty improvisations are never are carefully calculated!)

Good luck!

Group Backgrounds

Although the PHB has detailed rules on how to create a character, it pays very little attention to the need to build a party. This would take the form of advice on selecting different and complementary character classes, making sure all required skill sets are covered, and so on. Additionally, though, there could possibly be the concept of a "group background", which talks about how the party came together, the ties that bind them, and so on.

And, of course, the Inspiration system (or my side-dishes) make that fairly straightforward: just define the group background as an additional trait, and when the party works together especially well to reflect that grant all relevant members Inspiration. (It might also be worth introducing a Group Inspiration pool, allowing the group to bank a few Inspirations that any PC can then draw upon as needed.)

Way back in the  mists of time Dragon magazine published an article entitled "Keeping the Party Going" (issue 177). This gave several examples that might be useful as a starting point, although I do tend to think brewing up the relevant trait on a per-campaign basis may be better. Anyway, the examples were as follows:

• The deocentric party - all the characters follow a common deity.
• The town party - all the characters come from the same town, which is now threatened.
• The familial party - the characters are all related.
• The mercenary party - the characters are mercenaries who have been hired to do a job.
• The guild party - the characters are all members of the same guild (whether thieves or otherwise).
• The quest party - for whatever reason, the characters have all sworn to complete a common quest.
• The clan party - like the familial party, but a wider group.
• The chance-meeting party - because why not risk your life with random strangers?

An example of the trait associated with the party might be "You are all sworn to quest to recover the Holy Grail. When you work together and successfully uncover a clue to its location, you each gain Inspiration."

Loss of Momentum

Due to my holiday, I haven't worked on the new campaign for a little over a week. And, suddenly, I've lost all enthusiasm for the project. The momentum that had carried me this far has just gone.

Aaargh!

Still, not to worry - I'm reasonably sure that this is a blip and that things will improve shortly. If nothing else, I'll take a step away from the section I've been writing recently, and skip instead to Part Three. A whole new topic may well get things going again.

A Minor, but nice, Innovation

One of the things that I've done a couple of times, but that I see Critical Role do rather more often, is that when a PC strikes a "killing blow" the DM invites the player to describe how it is done. That doesn't have any rules impact, but it's a nice way to involve the players just a little bit more in the narrative of the game.

My inclination is to mostly limit this to the final opponent in a combat and/or the special 'boss' monster(s) (which may or may not be the same thing), but it's still a nice idea.

Putting Meat on the Bones

For both "The Mists of Lamordia" and "Quest for Memory", I started the campaign with the good intention of writing up what I wanted to do in a master document. This was supposed to be structured in several parts, with the crucibles neatly described, and so on and so forth. In both cases, I managed a handful of pages and then ran out of time, and once the campaign was actually going I never really got back to it.

With "Isles of Dread", I have now written more than I did for those two campaigns combined. I have part one fully fleshed out, and am proceeding rapidly into part two. (That said, I do need an editing pass on both - but hopefully not until I have at least completed part two.) The key thing that is missing, which I will add when time permits, is a map of the islands. And then some smaller maps of the key adventuring locales - I count four needed for the first two parts.

Given that I intend to run the campaign starting in September, and given that I'm well aware that I won't have time to work on it much after I start, the required rate is already quite punishing. But I'm feeling more confident of this campaign than either of the previous two, so that's a really good sign.

Fighting the 15-minute Adventuring Day: How the Rules Can Help

There's a perennial problem with D&D (especially since 3e) that the game rules tacitly encourage a particular style of play - go into an encounter at full strength, unload all your most powerful spells and powers, have the Cleric heal everyone, and then rest to regain full strength. The short form of this is the "15-minute Adventuring Day" (hereafter 15mAD).

There are a few problems with this style, from the point of view of realism, of characters behaving as they 'should', and so on. But for me the big one is balance, on two fronts:

• Some characters have a small number of very powerful limited-use powers, while others have a lot of weaker on-demand powers. The 15mAD strongly favours the former, who get to use all their big guns, and then impose the rest on the others, while the latter get to play second-fiddle and then serve as glorified bodyguards while the spellcasters rest.
• The game is designed assuming that characters will face multiple encounters between rests. The 15mAD removes this, meaning that encounters need to be rebalanced in a way that the game doesn't really support... and leaves DMs trying to do this all on their own.

Now, to a large extent this is a cultural issue - if the group agrees not to use the 15mAD, the problem goes away. But the problem with that is that it is quite clearly an optimal way to play, and so the PCs are agreeing to hinder themselves if they do this. And, of course, any agreement is liable to go out the window the moment things get really tough.

But there are things that the game could do to help this. A few suggestions:

• The first option is to have the 'adventuring clock' have stronger effects than at present - each time the PCs take a long rest, the enemy get some of the treasure away so that it can't be recovered, and they draft in more reinforcements. So taking the rest isn't as optimal as at present.
• Another is to make sure all characters have a mix of powers of the various types. Unfortunately, this was tried in 4e and found to be wanting, but at least part of that was presentational.
• But the major thing would be to build in some rules whereby there is strong incentive to go on for "one more encounter". That might take the form of increasing XP awards for each encounter after the first, or perhaps the use of an "escalation die" so that PCs become ever-more awesome as they go on. Or, indeed, characters could have some powers and abilities that only unlock after a certain number of encounters.

The basic principle there is that characters should face a dilemma: they can stop for a rest and regain X, or they can carry on and instead gain Y. And as long as both X and Y are desirable, that creates an interesting decision to be made. Which is very much a good thing.

About Elven Kings

As I've mentioned before, all elven cultures in my campaign are matriarchal. Additionally, elves have three very strict ranks: Workers, Lords and Ladies, and Queens. Workers maintain and defend the hive, Lords and Ladies are those elves most commonly encountered by others, and Queens are responsible for birthing and protecting the next generation.

As I've also mentioned before, there exists a mechanism by which young Ladies may be given a draught of ambrosia to be 'promoted' to the position of Queen. Such Queens are seldom as wise or as powerful as those born to the role, but the potential remains.

But that raises an obvious question: what happens if an elven Lord consumes such a draught?

My initial answer to that was "nothing", but having spent some time going through the recorded history of Terafa (which was written prior to the "all elves are matriarchal" decision), a better answer suggests itself.

My new answer is that if an elven Lord takes a draught of ambrosia they are promoted to become an elven King - a being possessed of all of the wisdom and might of an elven Queen. However, just as Queens have a single-minded obsession with birthing and protecting the future of the hive, so too do elven Kings become creatures of obsession... with universally tragic results.

Thus, many of the worst episodes of elven history have resulted from the rise of an elven King. On being promoted to that station, the king will almost invariably seize control of the hive, and will proceed to expand their influence significantly. This gives rise to the elven wars of enslavement against human and dwarven lands, it gives rise to the Unhuman Wars (in the Spelljammer setting), and so forth. In short, it is a bad thing.

Needless to say, elven society has a very strict taboo against elven Lords being given ambrosia. However, as is so often the case, they find it hard to dwell on the atrocities that result, which means that the 'why' is frequently forgotten. And for that reason, every millennium or so a new elven King inevitably rises. And with the Death of Queens some three hundred years ago, the time is now ripe...

The Quest for Memory - wrap-up

The "family" game came to an end last night, with the conclusion of a fight against the giant Duchess Brimskarda and her minions. Having defeated the giant, the party were able to enforce a parley, and from there a truce. This wrapped up the campaign in a mostly satisfactory way.

Some thoughts:

• As with "The Mists of Lamordia", this campaign went on too long, and was a victim of hugely erratic scheduling. Twice it was within a week of being cancelled.
• That said, this campaign went rather better than "The Mists of Lamordia" in the first act, pretty much as a direct result of the lesson learnt in that campaign. The key is to keep those XP awards racking up at a good rate, especially with short sessions.
• It's fairly clear that the notion of Crucibles is a good one, but the practice here wasn't great. They need to be a short sharp shock to really have their effect.
• Beyond that, pretty much everything I said about "The Mists of Lamordia" applies here, too - the structure was fine, the side dish was ideal, but the Tension Pool doesn't really work with remote gaming. And the reroll was essentially useless - after the first couple of levels I don't think people used it.

And that's basically that. A satisfying campaign but not one of the Great Campaigns, that didn't quite make it to the double-digit level range. I'm now done with remote gaming for the foreseeable future, and indeed done with gaming as a whole until (maybe) September, when I may kick of "The Isles of Dread" as a new 'work' campaign.

The Mists of Lamordia - wrap-up

My Ravenloft campaign, "The Mists of Lamordia" came to its end today with a grand battle against Adam and Victor Mordenheim. The PCs emerged victorious, but battered, bloodied, and with one fallen comrade (though raise dead fixed that). Three of our heroes then departed the realm of Ravenloft, returning to the barge to Luskan whence they came, while one elected to remain and assume the mantle of the new Dark Lord of Lamordia.

All in all, it was a good campaign, and it was an almost ideal finale today. So I'm very happy with that. I do, of course, have some thoughts:

• The campaign went on way too long - it was intended to run for about a year, started in October 2019, and finally ended today. It also dragged fairly seriously in the first act, where things seemed to take forever to get going.
• The campaign was also rather too lore heavy. Indeed, one player unofficially dropped out because by the time they were ready to rejoin things had just moved on so far that they couldn't keep up. Plus, even those players who did attend regularly found it difficult keeping it all square.
• The multi-act structure, however, was a very solid approach (not surprisingly - it also worked in "The Eberron Code"). Basically, for multi-year campaigns I'm inclined always to break it into chunks that can be treated as mini-campaigns with a fairly clean division between them. In fact, the more modular a campaign of this nature is, the better.
• This is the most satisfactory 5e campaign I've run (though "A Quest for Memory" comes quite close), but it most definitely is not one of my Great Campaigns. I didn't really expect that; I don't think the format or cadence really allows for such a thing.
• The Tarokka gimmick doesn't work.
• The new character sheet format is a distinct improvement over the old. However, I need to work up an inventory sheet for those characters who get too much stuff, and especially magic items, for the existing sheet.
• The tension pool doesn't really work with remote gaming. And the Inspiration token approach both doesn't really work with remote gaming and having it once per level also doesn't work in general. I'm inclined to drop both in future.
• The character secrets, and the side dish in general, worked very well. And the manner in which I've both been building encounters and assigning XP awards has been very good.

And I think that's everything. All in all, a very successful experience; but also I have plenty to chew over for the next little while. And in a couple of weeks we'll have another one of these for "A Quest for Memory".

Isles of Dread

It turns out that I have a new "next campaign" - I've been struck by an inspiration that has driven "Blades of the Desert" into second place. And, of course, when hit by such an idea it's a good idea to follow it up.

The campaign is one-part a follow up to the classic "X1: The Isle of Dread", one part "Lost", one part "The Lost World" (and similar). It starts with a shipwreck, then the establishment of a community, then an investigation, and then a long-delayed confrontation with the Others (whoever they might be).

As is so often the case with these things, I have a nice solid idea for how it can start, I have a fairly solid idea of how it can come to a satisfactory end, and I have a few of the bits for the middle. I just need to flesh out the rest of that midsection.

The other thing I need is a "side dish". I have a rough notion of what it could be, but not yet the full thing. It ties in to the Exploration pillar, and involves reconstructing some lore from the original inhabitants of the island.

(Hmm... a thought: perhaps this is one to have two smaller side dishes, one each for the Exploration and Interaction pillars? That would give a much more well-rounded campaign, so it could be of interest. Perhaps one for rebuilding that lore, and another for making peaceful contact with various groups?)

History Repeats

My "Storm King's Thunder" campaign came to a TPK while in the "Forge of the Fire Giants" chapter - essentially, the PCs got themselves into a situation where the enemies converged on their location, they'd cut off all their own escapes, and they were thus overwhelmed.

To bring "The Quest for Memory" to a premature but still satisfying end, I've decided to run one last adventure, and due to the circumstances of the campaign as it was when I made that decision, that means I'm again running "Forge of the Fire Giants".

The results thus far have been fairly astonishing - the PCs started by dealing with the village on the mountaintop, an encounter that ended in violence. Then they descended the elevator to the Forge itself. Proceeding one way, they discovered a fair amount about the area, before investigating the other.

Thus far, the description could apply to either party - the pattern was uncannily similar.

Where it diverges, and where it may diverge in a fairly crucial manner, is that one party then proceeded directly to facing a band of giants, while the other instead faced some hobgoblin minions of the giants, and then went on to face those giants. The upshot of that being that the second group may have left themselves an easy retreat that the first lacked.

But last week's session ended exactly where the penultimate session of the previous campaign did - the giants have been alerted to something being wrong, they're now rushing to investigate, and the PCs run the risk of being overmatched.

It will be really interesting to see what happens next. Especially as I'm hoping to conclude either in the next session or, failing that, the one after. Though, ideally, without a TPK!

Thoughts About Crucibles

As "The Mists of Lamordia" comes to its close, I have locked the PCs in to the final crucible, which will serve as the final adventure location of the campaign. We're now heading to the final showdown, with the next session potentially being the last.

Having had some more time to consider the matter, and having seen the crucibles play out in two campaigns now, I have a few thoughts:

• As I've mentioned once before, the crucibles need to be kept short - a session or two at most. They should also be fairly brutal, as the whole point is to challenge the PCs as they come to the end of one phase of the campaign.
• As a consequence of that, I'm inclined to suggest a crucible should comprise around 5-6 encounters, with those skewed a little more towards the top end of the challenge range.
• Because of the small number of encounters and the need to challenge the PCs, it should not be possible to take a long rest while in a crucible, nor indeed to retreat and then come back. Face the challenge, or fail!
• And having said that, I've just come up against some fairly serious resistance to that "no resting" approach - some players really don't like it!

About Good Races

One of the big issues in modern D&D is the question of 'evil' races, particularly orcs and drow. It is becoming increasingly unacceptable to portray any of these races as being evil, and to a large extent that's fair enough - if orcs are indeed just another humanoid race with free will (as opposed to Tolkien's orcs, who were neither), then you would expect the full range of alignments.

One of the problems with that, however, is that for the most part the evil races are set up in opposition to the good races - drow are, first and foremost, the opposite of the benign and playful elves, and so on.

I'm inclined to think that a big part of the solution to the problem of 'evil' races must therefore include a significant rethink of the 'good' races. If elves aren't the benign and playful creatures we're used to, the contrast can become much less problematic.

And that's no bad thing. D&D's elves basically suck, being one part Tolkien, one part imaginary girlfriend, and generally without character. I'm inclined to think they're much better to adopt Lennier's maxim, "We may sometimes look like you, but we are not you."

So, have the elves lean in to their fey origins, where even the Seelie court were dangerous to encounter. Lean in to Pratchett's portrayal in "Lords and Ladies". Lean into their dedication to protect the environment, even against a humanity that they see as inherently destructive. And that way, the drow are not so jarring.

Likewise, the dwarves can be creatures of grudge and obsession, and an inhumanly powerful work ethic. And thus the dvergar need not be "evil dwarves", they can be a part of dwarven society in good standing, but be those dwarves that the others think take it all a bit too far.

And so on.

Drow: An Alternate Take

I was mulling over the notion of an alternate "army list" structure for D&D - as I've mentioned before, way back in the day Alignment was essentially that structure (before it morphed into the cause of a million arguments), but actually Good vs Evil makes for a bad thematic conflict (since there's an obvious 'right' side). That being the case, I was pondering the major players in such a structure and how they'd fit together.

I started with the Elves and Dwarves, who are both considered 'good' races but which are nonetheless in opposition: Elves are associated with nature while Dwarves are associated with industry. And the 'obvious' notion would be that both these races would be considered allied with humans.

But...

What if it were Drow, not Elves, who were allied with humans?

Indeed, what if the ancient feud between Elves and Drow wasn't the classic "good vs evil" yawnfest, but instead something else?

Specifically, what if Elves (including Drow) were the first practitioners of Arcane magic, and it was the Drow who gifted the secrets of it to the first human wizards (in the manner of Prometheus and fire)? This caused a major schism in the elven race, leading to the drow being driven out and underground. (And Lolth, for her part, was cursed by Corellon with her current form, and so on and so forth.)

The upshot of this would be that elves then are not the exemplars of good that D&D seems relentlessly determined to portray them as, which can only be a good thing in my opinion. It also means that drow are probably not the exemplars of evil that they've similarly been typecast as - they're the losers in an ancient war that was actually not simply good vs evil.

It does have the advantage that drow can then retain most, if not all, of their current design - they remain subterranean elves, they can remain associated with spiders and the like (since, although many people have phobias, spiders aren't actually forces of evil), and so on.

It does mean that Lolth needs a new portfolio, and it does mean that both elven and drow society need overhauled from their previous depictions, but that's probably no bad thing.

(It isn't even necessarily the case that humans being allied with drow means that they must be opposed to elves, due to the way the web should be constructed. It's possible for one force to be allied with two others that are themselves opposed.)

All that said, I suspect this would require a whole new setting to be grafted into D&D, and I'm not inclined to change my minds about not using drow in my own campaigns, so...

A Big Fat Nope

Last week WotC announced a bunch of upcoming products, including Spelljammer. I must admit, I was very surprised to see this, as Spelljammer was always a very niche product, especially compared with Dark Sun, Ravenloft, or Planescape. Still, it was always a favourite, albeit very odd, setting and so something of immediate interest.

That interest was then ruthlessly stamped out. I have three issues:

They've adopted a new product format - three 64-page books in a slipcase. This means that this setting gets only 3/4 of the attention paid to Ravenloft, and 3/5 of that paid to Eberron. Given the need to introduce a whole raft of D&D physics, lots of ship types, vehicle combat rules, and a whole setting, that's just not enough. And when you also consider that one of those books is an adventure, it is even more punishing.

With the new format they're also significantly increasing the price. So, more money for less material? No thanks.

Truth be told, though, neither of those are deal-breakers - I would probably have arranged to get the set as a Christmas present or something. Unfortunately, they've also reimagined the setting, and my immediate reaction to the changes is a big fat "nope". And given the abject failure of "Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft", I'm not inclined to give the benefit of any doubt.

Which is all very disappointing. I've been very much a fan of Eberron, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, and Dark Sun. But of these, only Eberron has a 5e take that I've enjoyed, and that came about mostly by the expedient of not making any changes.

The Ends are Nigh

My return to the office has been scheduled, and LC's return to work is likewise scheduled, meaning that as of the end of May I'll have less free time (somehow!). As a consequence of that, I've started moving "The Quest for Memory" to its endgame - we'll run one final adventure and then need to call it a day.

Similarly, "The Mists of Lamordia" have come in to their endgame - the party are off to the Isle of Agony to confront Adam. Defeat the Dark Lord and they will have opened the triple lock, allowing them to escape Ravenloft and go home. If they want to, that is...

The upshot of that is that I now expect to bring both campaigns to and end in the next couple of weeks. Which will be good.

Blades in the Desert

I think I have my new campaign. Back when I was planning "The Mists of Lamordia" I put together the skeleton of a desert-based swashbuckling game, "Blades in the Desert". I'm inclined to dust that off, modify it quite a bit, and go from there.

Originally, the campaign was to be set in Calimsham, but I'm going to shift it out of the Realms entirely. Instead, the campaign will be set in an undefined desert region - that's something I need to work on.

The structure will more or less follow that of "Lost Mine of Phandelver" - an initial adventure, then some urban mini-quests, then some mini-quests in the larger environment, and then a finale against one of the big bads.

In terms of the "side dish" I'm going to focus the campaign on the factions, of which there will be seven - five 'normal' campaigns, one opposed to all the others, and the PCs acting as a wild-card. The factions are as follows:

• Acolytes of the Dark Tide: Currently the dominant faction, the cult of Olhydra, the Princess of Elemental Evil Water, holds a monopoly on the supply of clean water, and consequently have a stranglehold on temporal power. They are allied to the Silver River and the Foundation, and opposed by the Crocus and the Desert Angels.
• The Crocus: Rogues and swashbucklers dedicated to the service of princess Saffron, this somewhat wild faction is held at a distance by their patron for political reasons. They are allied to the Silver River and the Desert Angels, and opposed by the Acolytes of the Dark Tide and the Foundation.
• The Silver River: An alliance of merchants and traders. They are allied to the Acolytes of the Dark Tide and the Crocus, and opposed by the Foundation and the Desert Angels.
• The Desert Angels: A tribe of wemics obsessed with honour and battle, this nomadic group rarely ventures into the town but their influence extends everywhere. They are allied to the Crocus and the Foundation, and opposed by the Acolytes of the Dark Tide and the Silver River.
• The Foundation: Descendants of the dvergar who built the town, this faction controls much of the illicit activity in the region. They are allied to the Acolytes of the Dark Tide and the Crocus, and opposed by the Desert Angels and the Silver River.
• The Carrion Claws: A loose alliance of gnoll tribes, these fanatics serve Yeenoghu with unmatched zeal. They are opposed to all the other factions.

As a consequence of this, PCs will gain XP in the following ways:

• They will gain an award for each encounter completed. As always, it does not matter how an encounter is completed. A partial success will, as always, give a partial award.
• They will gain an award for each quest completed.
• They will gain a quarter award each time they change the balance of power between the factions. This should encourage them to seek out and engage with the factions.
• They will gain a quarter award each time they exhaust a temporary magic item (except a potion of healing). (Note that this is a larger award than in my current campaigns. I tend to think that's better.)

Of course, all of this assumes that there will actually be a next campaign!

The Challenge

Over on ENWorld, someone posted an interesting challenge to pick any three of the big 5e adventures, mash them together, and thus make a new campaign. I'm not doing that, but it did remind me of a previous, similar challenge I'd seen before to grab a random issue of Dragon magazine and see how much gameable material it can inspire.

My synthesis of these two ideas, then, is to grab a random issue of Dragon (110), a random issue of Dungeon (117), and a random issue of White Dwarf (231) and use those to populate a campaign.

The results have certainly been interesting - the issue of Dragon has given rise to a quest about a necromancer (and there's more, but I haven't stripped it yet), Dungeon has given me the notion of a literal criminal underworld for my setting (which will be a desert town constructed by enslaved Dvergar - their descendants now control that underworld), while White Dwarf is giving rise to all sorts of odd stuff (since it is unconnected to D&D, the inspiration is much more offbeat, which is definitely a good thing).

Also, I'm reasonably sure I have a notion for a campaign coming together...

The Other Precondition

If "The Mists of Lamordia" does indeed come to a satisfactory end by the end of June, I will consider running another campaign, after a sufficiently long break. That said, I have one other precondition for doing so: I need to come up with a campaign.

Right now, I have several half-baked ideas for a campaign, but nothing that immediately grabs me. I know I want something shorter in scope, something much more episodic, and also something low-level and easy to run. But I'm yet to hit on something that really inspires.

And that's what I need: a solid premise for a campaign that I want to run, plus a suitable "side dish" to both make the campaign stand out and also give the characters something to do beyond just killing things and taking their stuff.

Another Week of No Games

The session of "The Mists of Lamordia" intended for today was cancelled due to several no-shows, meaning that this is another week of no gaming. Because of several holidays, the next session is planned for the 28th of April.

Meanwhile, "A Quest for Memory" has missed several weeks including this week. We're scheduled for next week, and after that we're looking at the 20th of April.

All of which is unfortunate, but not disastrous. That said:

• I estimate that "The Mists of Lamordia" has about six sessions. I'm thinking that if we don't get though it by the end of June, that's a sign that the scheduling is just too difficult, and it's time to call a halt to the Work Game - that is, there won't be a next campaign.
• If "A Quest for Memory" doesn't resume by the end of April, I'm calling it a day on that one, too. I'm also thinking it's time to bring that towards the endgame, regardless.

A Thought About Halflings and Narnia

I was musing about halflings the other day, and one of the random thoughts that popped into my head is that they'd be an ideal way to model all the various animal-folk that populate the Narnia stories - Mr Beaver, Reepicheep, and so forth. Amongst other things, that would solve the perennial problem with strength scores and small characters, since so many animals are proportionately stronger than humans.

That said, I'm disinclined to change the depiction of halflings in Terafa at this stage (as I'm broadly happy with their story there), so I'm not entirely sure where, if ever, I would use this idea.

Another One for the List

A couple of weeks ago "The Mists of Lamordia" reached the milestone of 10th level. It's likely that this will be the final time the party levels up this campaign, though it's just about possible that they might once more. Either way, this means that this campaign can be added to the very small list of campaigns to reach double figures - and it's the first 5e campaign to make the list.

As a reminder, I believe there are now five campaigns in this category:

• There was a very old Dragonlance/Spelljammer 2nd Edition campaign that ran to 15th level.
• My first full 3e campaign made it to 12th level, I think.
• The highest level I've ever run to was "Shackled City" in 3.5e. The characters were 18th level in the final session, and would have reached 19th had we tallied the XP at the end.
• Also in 3.5e, "The Eberron Code" ended with the PCs at 15th level.
• And now, "The Mists of Lamordia" is a 5e campaign that has reached 10th level.

After the Mists Part

With "The Mists of Lamordia" coming to its end, I've started giving some thought as to what comes next. I must admit, I'm sorely tempted to call it a day at that - hang up the mantle of DM and walk away. But the players seem to be really keen to keep playing, so maybe...

Three  things are pretty clear though:

1. I'll be taking a lengthy break before starting the next campaign. Certainly until we're back in the office, and probably a good bit beyond that.
2. We could really do with some additional players!
3. The next campaign needs to be a good bit simpler, or at least more episodic, than either "The Mists of Lamordia" or even "Storm King's Thunder" - both of those campaigns just had too much lore and too many moving parts for players to keep it all straight.

Assuming we do play on, I have some stuff concerning character generation to put forward:

• We'll generate our own "standard array" during character generation - basically, we'll go around the table rolling 4d6-drop-lowest once each until we get 6 stats, and then everyone will have those to use.
• We'll need to expand the options of class and subclass quite a bit, allowing the Artificer and probably all the subclasses from Xanathar's and Tasha's. With the Bard and the Sorcerer, in particular, we've kind of done the PHB options to death.
• I'd really like each PC to have a different class this time! Having two FIghters in the first campaign and two Sorcerers in this has not been ideal.
• I'd also really like each player to choose a race they haven't used before (with the exception of human - that's always an option) and a class they haven't used before.

But none of that answers the biggest question: what to do? Something different, I feel, but what?

"Check for Traps"

Back in the day, the Thief class had an ability to Find/Remove Traps. As the name implies, this gave them a percentage chance to detect a trap, and then a similar chance to disable a trap once found. In 3e, this was generalised to a skill check, which by the time of 5e has become Perception.

Unfortunately, this approach has made the handling of traps, on both sides of the screen, really lazy - before opening a door, walking down a corridor, or whatever the PCs declare that the Rogue "checks for traps", the DM calls for the inevitable skill roll (and then another to remove the trap), and we're done.

And it's deadly boring, just slows the game down to deal with traps that are usually not there anyway, and then we move on.

As far as I can see, the answer to this was provided in "Xanathar's Guide to Everything". Unfortunately, after providing that answer the book largely shrugged its shoulders, left the implementation of that solution to the DM... and nothing much changed. Busy DM's, or at least I, just didn't have time to do things much differently, and the tools probably aren't going to be taken forward in 5.5e, which will probably tweak the PHB material but leave the DMG mostly alone. Which is annoying, but there it is.

The solution that they outlined was that 'simple' traps should basically look like spells - a short stat-block at the outset followed by a description of the effect. What they don't mention, although it is present in their sample traps, is that each trap should indicate what signs are available that show the presence of the trap - a tripwire, pressure plates, broken walls, etc etc.

The second part of the fix is that it should not be possible to "check for traps" - traps are too many and varied for that action to make sense anyway. Instead, the PC should simply be checking the door, corridor, or whatever. This then leads to the same Wisdom (Perception) roll as is currently the case.

However...

A successful roll should also not reveal that the character has found a trap. Instead, a successful roll reveals the appropriate signs that indicate the trap is there - it is down to the player to then deduce the presence of a trap from those (or, possibly, use an Investigation roll for more information).

(This also solves one of the big problems with Passive Perception - it will no longer defang many or all traps due to them being automatically detected, but will instead allow the character to merely spot those signs automically. Much more satisfying.)

The big problem, though, is that very few DMs really have the time (or, often, the expertise) to work through the details of building the telltale signs of the trap, work out how these connect to the larger mechanism, and integrating them into the adventure. It would be really great if there were a book, some sort of guide for Dungeon Masters, that ran through the process and then provided not just a handful, but actually dozens if not hundreds of examples of all levels...

Bloodied

One of my favourite rules from 4e, and one of the ones I was most sad to see go in 5e, was the Bloodied condition. This was basically a shorthand that indicated that the character or monster had been reduced to half hit points - it was also the point at which the creature was visibly weakened by the punishment that it had taken.

This is still a term I make extensive use of in my D&D games, as it remains useful.

But one of the things I particularly liked about the Bloodied condition, and something that is harder to build in on an ad hoc basis, was those few cases where Bloodied had an actual effect - perhaps a monster would lose access to some particular weapon when Bloodied (as an arm is severed)... or perhaps they become more powerful as they become more desperate. And, conversely, perhaps a monster enters a berserk rage when fighting an opponent that has become Bloodied.

I do like those effects, and I do try to build them into 'significant' monsters that I build. Anything to make combats, and especially longer combats, more than just a slog of hit point attrition!

Time to Split the DMG?

Back in 2015 I wrote a fairly glowing review of the 5e DMG. Since then my opinion has shifted fairly significantly - while it probably does remain the best out of the "main" DMGs of the various editions, I no longer consider it to be particularly good.

There are four major problems, IMO:

• There's too much wasted paper here. Only a couple of sections have ever seen actual use by me in nearly seven years, and I really can't see that changing.
• The section with the treasure tables and the magic items (one of the two I mentioned above) is fine, but really should be at the back of the book, not a random place in the middle.
• The other section to see significant use is that on creating monsters. Unfortunately, while it is useful, the actual method here is backwards - rather than building the monster and then working out CR it's much better to start with the CR and derive the stats from that, so that those stats are actually useable.
• The binding of the book is unacceptably crap.

Given that we're about to see a new edition with, presumably, a new DMG, I'm inclined to suggest a new approach:

Firstly, split the DMG into two separate works, one being an evergreen "how to be a Dungeon Master" title. This has the advantage of being system-agnostic and so doesn't need changed with each new edition - just discuss things like how to manage a table of players, how to run basic things like a turn structure, and so forth. (Of course, there are many places where this can be found online, and some of those resources are miles better than anything WotC is likely to produce. But D&D does need this material somewhere, so it does need to exist.)

Then, for the 'main' DMG, fill it up with loads of useful (and, crucially, gameable) material - in-depth discussions of different adventure types; templated structures for small, medium, and large adventures; campaign structures; worksheets for building monsters, treasure hoards, and the like; lots and lots of sample traps, hazards, and similar; treasures and magic items. Basically, forget most if not all of the wishy-washy "well, you could do this, or that, or the next thing" material that clogs up too many of these books, and pack it instead with material that is going to be used.

And if you can't find 300 pages worth of such material... well, maybe that's something to consider, too?

Streams and Rivers: The Peoples of Terafa

I've been gradually writing up my "Ultimates Version" of Terafa. It hasn't been going terribly well. However, I have managed to lock down the set of playable peoples in Terafa:

• Humans: Obviously.
• Dragonkin: The self-styled Last People, Dragonkin consider themselves the survivors of an ancient empire born from seven Progenitor dragons. Fleeing from an uncoming disaster, they chose the brightest and the best of their kind for the Return to the Egg, placing them in suspension for generations. Alas, they slept too long, and woke much reduced in numbers, pride, and power.
• Dwarves: Born in ancient times, dwarves have no memory of their oldest days. They were once an enslaved people, who woke in the depths of the Underdark with memories of skills but not of names. They then journeyed the bowels of the world to the surface. There are seven strata of dwarves, of which four are suitable for use as PCs: Hill, Mountain, Deep, and Sundered.
• Elves: An ancient but much-reduced people, elves are born of Queens and their consorts. They dwell in insular hives dotted around the world, constantly on the edge of extinction. There is effectively a single elven people.
• Gnomes and Goblins: Tricksters who once came from the Feywild, gnomes and goblins both deny it, but they are one people.
• Godborn: The aasimar and tielfings of Terafa are collectively known as Godborn. The youngest of all the peoples of Terafa, they first appeared in the Upheaval three centuries ago. Since then, each generation has been less numerous than the last, and so they are already a vanishing people.
• Halflings: There are four families of halflings wandering the roadways of Terafa. Though, as noted, these are indeed families rather than subraces.
• Half-elves: The children of parents of mixed elven and human heritage, half-elves can be found in both elven and human societies. They benefit from the traits of both their peoples, but never quite fit in with either.
• Half-orcs: In areas where human and orcish communities border one another half-orcs are sometimes spontaneously born to parents in either place. They may have mixed parentage, but more commonly have two human or two orcish parents. Half-orcs are prized in both communities, as they blend the strengths of both.

There are effectively two non-PHB races available in Terafa: Goblins (which can be found in "Eberron: Rising from the Last War") and Aasimar ("Volo's Guide to Monsters"). Ideally, I would also like to add some subraces - Deep and Sundered Dwarves, and one or two more suitable subraces for Elves. That said, given the upcoming changes in the new version of the rules, I'm disinclined to spend much time on that for now.

Can She Be Trusted?

One of the most interesting features of my "Mists of Lamordia" campaign is that the PCs have a patron, Rebecca Van Richten, of distinctly uncertain motives. She has been nothing but helpful to the PCs, but they also know that she's been lying to them, and fairly extensively at that. So there have been several discussions about just how far they should trust her.

She has now fallen out of the campaign permanently (we're getting to the endgame), so I'm now free to elaborate...

One of the conceits I've taken for 'my' version of Ravenloft is that the realm exists in a strange time loop - every hundred years of so the setting resets back to where it was. But it's an imperfect reset, in that some things remain from where they were, some characters remember what has gone before with varying levels of accuracy, and some things are moved around.

And so it is with Rebecca Van Richten - in this iteration she was born Rebecca Van Buren, fell into the orbit of Rudolph, he was warned away by her family, and then following a great trauma she became convinced that she was in fact the niece of the famous monster hunter. In previous iterations she has always been in his orbit, filling many roles: rival, lover, student, wife...

The consequence of this is that Rebecca could have been trusted about everything except the details of her own identity and family. She could have been a great help to the PCs. But because her story just didn't add up, they didn't avail themselves of that aid, and have to face the endgame blind.

And that is probably the single thing that I am best pleased with in the whole campaign - the players spent a fair amount of time teasing out that thread, genuinely did uncover almost all of the key details, and then made the interesting choice of how far to trust her. The fact that they made the 'wrong' choice is a feature, not a bug.

Actually, Scrap That

A few months ago I posted a fair amount about a new take on dark elves (which I called ælves). I've now decided to abandon that - I don't think there's anything much wrong with it, but I also don't think it matters. Better just for those evil elves to simply be... evil elves.

In terms of game mechanics, my view is a fairly simple one: when creating an elven character, simply use any subrace that seems appropriate. (I do wish the mechanics of drow were rather different - but I expect that's coming in 5.5e anyway, so no matter.)

My Character Sheet in Review

About two years ago I put together a new character sheet for my D&D games. It has now seen use in two campaigns. I have some thoughts:

Broadly speaking, the character sheet does the job I want from it, and I do think it's an improvement over the official sheet.

The auto-calculations seem to be working well. I have found, and fixed, a few errors. But only a few.

The split spell sheet works really well. I still feel that there's a problem with Clerics, Druids, and Paladins having too many spells, but that's a problem with the game, not the sheet. Moving the spellcasting traits onto that third sheet also works well.

What I could do with, however, is a couple of overflow sheets - one for an expanded inventory (notably including more space for magic item descriptions, and one for general notes of various sorts. Putting those together shouldn't be too tough, though the challenge may lie in tying them into an existing sheet mid-campaign.

One thing that really amuses me is that I deliberately removed the box for Inspiration in favour of giving out a token for that purpose at level-up. This works really well in face-to-face games, but is frankly a bit of a disaster when gaming online. Heh.

I should probably get the Starter Set characters changed over to the new character sheets. If I use those again (and I may), they would be better in this format.

Empty Thrones

I've been musing a little on the D&D cosmology, and come to a conclusion: when using the official cosmology (as when running in a published setting), I'm going to take the view that the gods are missing.

Canonically, the Outer Planes contain the kingdoms and dwelling places of the gods. That will still be the case for me: the kingdoms are there, the citadels and fortresses are there, the whole thing is minded by a cadre of divine servitors of various forms...

But the gods are simply absent.

If asked, those divine servitors will be all too happy to explain, but will then promptly change the subject. It won't even be a refusal to answer - they'll pretty much forget the question, and never quite be able to answer it. It will just be one of those mysteries that can't really be grasped.

None of this actually affects much of anything - it will still be possible to interact with avatars, and aspects, and even the idea of gods. But no summoning can actually manifest the actual god, there's no way to approach, or even find, them. They're just... missing.

With regard to Clerics, this gives rise to another slight mystery, since they still get their spells, and they only get them in the name of those gods. This, again, can't be satisfactorily answered, since the spells are actually provided by divine intermediaries... but if any of them decide to stop serving their masters and grant spells in their own name, that's a rebellion that fundamentally alters their nature, and they lose the ability to grant those spells forever.

The End of Falkirk RPG

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Falkirk RPG site is set to shut down imminently. This marks the end of an era, and the demise of my fourth gaming group.

I started the Falkirk RPG Meetup shortly after buying my flat in Falkirk (a mere three years after moving to the town), having become increasingly despondent about the state of my previous gaming group - we had dropped to four members, with a quorum of four, meaning that if any one of us couldn't make it the game didn't happen... and one of the four of us couldn't make it almost every week.

Falkirk RPG was a moderate success at first, with four people attending the first meeting, and then a much bigger success soon thereafter as it started to snowball. At its peak I think it had 40 members and half a dozen active games.

Alas, that peak couldn't last, and with Falkirk RPG the slip started when Brindy moved away. That, coupled with my own move to Livingston, largely signalled the end of my involvement in the group. The remaining games increasingly moved their activity away from the site, and it really became quite moribund.

And then Covid brought the death-knell - the games either shifted entirely online, and so away from the site, or they went onto a so-far permanent hiatus. And that was that.

Still, I always prefer to remember the good times, and for Falkirk RPG they were many - I ran two memorable D&D campaigns, "On Tracks of Lightning" and "The Eberron Code", a Star Wars d20 campaign of some note, "Imperial Fist", and many "Firefly: the Lost Episodes" games. Falkirk RPG was also the host to my Christmas Games, of which "Memoirs of a Companion" was the best. And finally, two of my most enjoyable one-shots: the World of Darkness game "Ultraviolet: Code-500" and the Star Wars "Mirror Universe" game.

Good times, and I'm sad to see it end. But it is time, alas.