Tag: player tools (Page 2 of 3)

How I Take Session Notes

September 28, 2020 / Fen / 0 Comments

Session notes help you remember what happened in previous sessions! Even a week between games can blur some of the details, and longer breaks even more so. Taking notes is an optional thing you can do to help your memory out! They can help you roleplay, and your DM will appreciate it too.

I’ve been taking notes since I started playing D&D. Over time, I’ve found a process that works for me. These notes help me remember what’s going on over a long campaign, and it helps me keep track of NPC and organization names.

So, I’m going to share my way of recording session happenings. I have a few ways that I’ve found helpful for different aspects of the game:

Taking notes during a session
Typing up recaps after a session
Keeping a campaign timeline
Writing an in-character journal

Looking at UA: Feats

August 3, 2020 / Fen / 0 Comments

July’s Unearthed Arcana introduces a variety of new feats for player characters. Feats are an optional mechanic in D&D. When you level up and get an Ability Score Increase, you can choose to instead take a feat. It’s up to your Dungeon Master whether your campaign will use these. Feats can help you customize your character according to your vision for them.

Let’s take a look at these new feats!

Updates to the Centaur and Minotaur in Mythic Odysseys of Theros

June 15, 2020 / Fen / 0 Comments

Mythic Odysseys of Theros, a D&D sourcebook for the world of Theros, is available digitally now!

Theros is a world from Magic: The Gathering.This is the second time we’ve seen a Magic world brought to D&D, with Ravnica being the first. Mythic Odysseys of Theros introduces a world inspired by Greek mythology, where heroic champions strive against the bonds of destiny.

In this book are options for players to create humans, centaurs, leonin, minotaurs, satyrs, and tritons as playable characters. The human options are the same as in the Player’s Handbook, while the triton mechanics are as they appear in Volo’s Guide to Monsters (though the flavor is different). The satyr and leonin options are unique to Theros.

This post will take a look at the centaur and minotaur character options. Both of these appeared in a previous Unearthed Arcana article, so let’s take a look and see what’s changed!

Changing Your Character After Starting a Campaign

August 5, 2019 / Fen / 0 Comments

The nature of Dungeons & Dragons—and the nature of anything that includes improvisation—is that your ideas will not survive first contact with the game. That’s okay! That’s part of what makes the game unpredictable and exciting.

And as you play, you may find yourself needing to/wanting to change your character. What do you do then?

Looking at the D&D Essentials Kit

July 22, 2019 / Fen / 0 Comments

Last month, the D&D Essentials Kit started to appear in Targets around the U.S. It’s priced at $24.99, and it will be exclusive to Target until September 3^rd.

Now that I’ve got my hands on it, let’s take a look!

4 Saltmarsh PCs Ready for Adventure

June 17, 2019 / Fen / 0 Comments

I’ve been reading through Ghosts of Saltmarsh this week! The book presents seven adventures, among them The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. You can run these adventures independent of one another, or you can string them all together in a campaign centering on the nautical town of Saltmarsh. To that end, the book offers information on how to work the Player’s Handbook backgrounds into the setting as well as four new backgrounds players can take.

This post presents four character sketches you can use for your Saltmarsh campaign. Each character has one of the four new backgrounds from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. You can use these as character inspiration or as NPCs.

A picture of faceted or shattered glass with a multicolored light behind it. White text over the image reads "Your Character's Expectations"

Character Development: Your Character’s Expectations

April 1, 2019 / Fen / 0 Comments

How does your character see the world—and what do they expect from it?

Our reactions are influenced by our expectations. What are your character’s expectations?

A colorful abstract painting using blue, orange, purple, and yellow on different canvas edges. In white text is the blog post's title, "Flavoring Your Character's Actions in D&D"

“Flavoring” Your Character’s Actions

March 25, 2019 / Fen / 0 Comments

With just a few words of description, you can make your character’s class abilities unique from other characters of that class, without changing any of the mechanics. Personalizing your character in this way can emphasize that your character is a creation all your own!

Trinkets in Dungeons & Dragons

March 1, 2019 / Fen / 0 Comments

If you crack the Player’s Handbook open to about halfway through, you’ll find the Trinkets page—a full-page spread d100 table of a bunch of strange items. The accompanying text reads:

When you make your character, you can roll once on the Trinkets table to gain a trinket, a simple item lightly touched by mystery. The DM might also use this table. It can help stock a room in a dungeon or fill a creature’s pockets.
Player’s handbook, chapter 5

Do you use trinkets in your game?

Tips for Playing a Martial Character

February 4, 2019 / Fen / 0 Comments

It’s fun to mix it up sometimes and play a class you’ve never played before! On the other hand, delving into an unfamiliar class can also be intimidating. On Friday, I posted about playing a spellcaster. Here’s the counterpart—playing a non-spellcasting class when you’ve never done it before!

Obviously this isn’t as much my strong suit, so I talked to my husband + Dungeon Master, who’s played a lot more of the martial classes than I have. These tips are some of the things we talked about!