One bard's take on D&D and other things
We’ve completed the session zero and have scheduled the first session of the new campaign I’ve been working on!
Moving forward, these posts will be called “Roguelike Recap” and will discuss the sessions of the campaign.
For now, let’s talk about the session zero!
Continue readingWhile my introduction to D&D was in-person, most of my D&D experience has been online. There are many different tools out there for online play! So far, though, I’ve preferred a pretty simple approach that uses Discord for sessions and campaign organization.
In this post, I’ll talk about different ways I’ve used Discord as a Dungeon Master.
Continue readingLast week, Wizards of the Coast announced a new upcoming D&D book: Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons. It looks like this book will have fun options for players and juicy lore for Dungeon Masters! Let’s look at what we know about this upcoming book.
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“Under raging storm clouds, a lone figure stands silhouetted against the ancient walls of Castle Ravenloft. The vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich stares down a sheer cliff at the village below. A cold, bitter wind spins dead leaves about him, billowing his cape in the darkness.
Lightning splits the clouds overhead, casting stark white light across him. Strahd turns to the sky, revealing the angular muscles of his face and hands. He has a look of power — and of madness. His once handsome face is contorted by a tragedy darker than the night itself.
Rumbling thunder pounds the castle spires. The wind’s howling increases as Strahd turns his gaze back to the village. Far below, yet not beyond his ken, a party of adventurers has just entered his domain. Strahd’s face forms a twisted smile as his dark plan unfolds. He knew they were coming, and he knows why they have come — all according to his plan. He, the master of Ravenloft, will attend to them.
Another lightning flash rips through the darkness, its thunder echoing through the castle’s towers. But Strahd is gone. Only the howling of the wind — or perhaps a lone wolf — fills the midnight air. The master of Ravenloft is having guests for dinner. And you are invited.” –Curse of Strahd, Chapter 1, “Introduction”
So begins Wizard of the Coast’s Ravenloft adventure. Curse of Strahd and its predecessors are popular adventures for a number of reasons. One of them, I think, is the dark, gothic atmosphere.
By “atmosphere,” I’m referring to what English classes call “mood.” Mood is how creators establish a certain feeling and aesthetic in their stories. As You Like It, Hamlet, and Julius Caesar have different atmospheres, even though Shakespeare wrote all of them. Audiences of shows like One Tree Hill experience feelings different from watching The Office.
And you can use this tool in your campaigns, too! I’m going to go a bit English-major to talk about it, so let’s throw some definitions in here.
The playtest is complete! I’m collecting feedback this weekend and will start building out the rest of the campaign. Let’s talk about the playtest!
I’m writing a homebrew campaign in the style of a Hades-esque roguelike. I’m playtesting it with my group before I run it for real! These posts talk about my experience making a campaign like this from the ground up.
Continue readingDungeons & Dragons is the game I started with and the game I’ll always enjoy. You can do a lot of things with the system to make the game that’s the most fun for you and your players.
D&D is one of the most popular tabletop role-playing games, but there are many other options as well! We can learn a lot from playing other TTRPGs. This post discusses how you can pull inspiration from other games to help improve your game.
Continue readingThe upcoming Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft is just around the corner, with a release coming later in May! Wizards of the Coast have already sent out some advance copies, and many of these recipients have graciously shared some snippets. For example, we can now see the table of contents for the book!
In this post, I’ll talk through what we can expect to see once Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft hits the shelves later this month.
Continue readingWe did the first session of our two-part playtest this weekend! Let’s talk about how it went!
I’m writing a homebrew campaign in the style of a Hades-esque roguelike. I’m playtesting it with my group before I run it for real! These posts talk about my experience making a campaign like this from the ground up.
Continue readingMy first playtest deadline is coming up at the end of this month, and I still have plenty of work to do! But I’ve made good progress so far.
I’m writing a homebrew campaign in the style of a Hades-esque roguelike. I’m going to playtest it with my group before I finalize it and run it for real! These posts talk about my experience making a campaign from scratch. The last homebrew campaign I ran was much more improvisational than this. But D&D 5e isn’t made to fit this campaign idea right out of the box, so there’s some design work I need to do beforehand!
Continue readingWell, it’s only been about four weeks since I finished Curse of Strahd, and I’m already putting work into a new campaign. Truthfully, I’ve been tinkering away at this during the weeks leading up to the final CoS session. Now I have time to put some serious work into it!
I’ll be writing about my progress and process as I write this new homebrew campaign! First, let’s talk about the ideas behind it and what I need to do (and why) to playtest it with my group.
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