This year, SBotLL is taking a break in December! After the November 30th session (good squad getting back together!), we won’t be having regular sessions until the new year. This will give our DM a break from weekly campaign prep, and players won’t have to worry about squeezing D&D into their holiday schedules.
Tag: DM talk (Page 10 of 11)
Like many D&D players, I was introduced to the game through a combination of word-of-mouth and through an actual-play show. This is a time where many D&D campaigns are streamed and recorded for anyone to watch, and that’s pretty crazy! There’s Critical Role, Dice, Camera, Action, and so many more.
Watching one of these shows is a great way to improve as a player and a DM. Watching others really helped me as I started (and continue to learn) Dungeon Mastering! So, I highly recommend finding a show you like to watch—you have plenty of options. And, of course, you can learn from the players and DMs you already know.
First impressions mean a lot! So, how your D&D party gets together can flavor the tone of their interactions for a while. A lot of people want to avoid the traditional “you all meet in a tavern” method. But, after experiencing and running a few other methods, I think I get why taverns are an effective way to bring the party together. Continue reading
The rules of D&D are meant to function for many different groups and individuals. They give a Dungeon Master guidance in adjudicating questions in case of unexpected circumstances. But sometimes, what’s written doesn’t quite work the way it should, or the way we feel like it should.
Of course, DMs have the freedom to alter the rules of the game as it suits their table. The Dungeon Master’s Guide has a whole chapter dedicated to optional rules variants and creating your own items/spells/monsters. So, if something’s not working, you can feel free to tinker with it until it does.
For example, let’s look at the Lucky feat.
In July 2017, WotC posted an Unearthed Arcana article called “Greyhawk Initiative.” Greyhawk Initiative takes cues from previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons to rework 5e’s initiative system.
Okay, so we tried a social system, here’s how it went!
Last Saturday, I ran a playtest session where we also tried out a social system I had written up. The session was an event in Sigil where the adventurers needed to find out who could provide them with information and equipment to traverse the Shadowfell. There were three players, and I had made nine NPCs who could potentially help or hinder their efforts. Let’s talk about what happened.
As a DM, I’ve created custom (homebrew) magic items and spell-like effects. I’ve also worked with my husband to tinker with the psionic class last year. But right now, I’m working on a slightly larger homebrew project on my own!
Hey, I finally got to start a Curse of Strahd campaign! I’ve been wanting to run one ever since I picked up the adventure a couple years back. I’m excited that enough of my friends were interested in playing to actually get a party together, and I’m hopeful that this will be a fun campaign for everyone (I’m also nervous, but that’s normal—I just need to put that nervous energy into making the experience great for my players).
What’s Curse of Strahd, then?
This is a book published by Wizards of the Coast that contains an adventure module based on the original I6 Ravenloft adventure. Adventurers must contend with one of D&D’s most iconic villains, the vampire Strahd von Zarovich, as they seek a way out of the misty lands of Barovia.
The adventurers have a lot of freedom to run around and explore this gothic land, and there are many secrets to uncover.
Speaking of adventurers…
Don’t split the party: an oft-repeated maxim in D&D groups. Whether as a guideline or hard rule, the sentence gets thrown around frequently when it comes to tabletop advice! And not without good reason, I think. There are a lot of perfectly good reasons to keep the party together, either as a DM or as a player.
When the party is split, depending on your situation, the individual members can find themselves at a disadvantage.
In combat, front-line fighters need the support of back-line combatants, and vice-versa. Challenge Ratings (CR) of monsters assumes a party of around four PCs, and fewer characters means fewer hits. Your support characters can’t heal or buff other characters when those characters are missing, and there’s more pressure to deal damage when you’re one of two instead of one of five.
This extends outside combat, as well. Dungeons & Dragons assumes that you’re working with a group of diverse individuals, each possessing certain abilities and filling a certain “niche,” so to speak. And I’m not just talking about parties that have a traditional composition, either! Each player character has their own backstory that gives them a unique connection to the campaign world.
Even broader than that, each class and subclass give a character abilities unlike any other character in the party. The pact of the fiend warlock interacts with the world differently from the evocation wizard or the battlemaster fighter. They have different tools in their toolboxes– spells, proficiencies, equipment, even.
I prefer keeping the party together. But, sometimes stuff happens, and it makes more sense in-fiction for the party to split off from each other for a while.
I got started playing D&D in person, but that quickly changed as I returned to college out-of-state.
I like the opportunity to play in person. It’s a lot easier to pick up on the group’s energy, and body language and tone of voice come across a lot better across the table. It’s easy to engage with each other without distractions.
But in my experience, it’s not exactly a choice of online versus in person. Your group might be spread across the corners of the world (or just too far away to drive), or you find a group online to begin with. Online play presents a few challenges that just aren’t a factor when you can inhabit the same physical space all together.
This is the case if all of your group tunes in from separate locations, or your group is a mix of in person and video calling-in.