After four years, 53 episodes, and over 200 hours of gaming, we closed the book on our Obsidian Frontier campaign for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Begun as one of two playtest campaigns for 5th Edition, we had so much fun with the campaign — and the game — that we transitioned from “playtest” to “ongoing” campaign … Read more
My Waterdeep: Dragon Heist campaign kicks off in October. Anyone who’s played Dungeons & Dragons for any length of time has likely heard of Waterdeep, the famous “City of Splendors” in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. The nearby megadungeon of Undermountain is equally legendary. Even the Blackrazor Guild (my Sunday group and diehard Greyhawkers), know of Waterdeep and it’s dungeon, which served … Read more
The Gamer Working Group, my lunchtime gaming crew, is restarting this month with Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (Amazon), Wizards of the Coast’s new urban adventure set in the City of Splendors. It’s my first full-time campaign set in the Forgotten Realms, WotC’s signature campaign setting. Historically my group played in the World of Greyhawk, which has … Read more
Bennies in Savage Worlds, without a doubt. Players typically start with three bennies, which they can spend to re-roll checks and soak damage. Having three bennies at any given time means that players are comfortable with spending them and still having a reserve. I don’t have a problem with people hoarding bennies because I’m liberal … Read more
It varies greatly based on the game we are playing and the campaign I’m running. Typically at the start of a campaign I’ll set out to find art that either matches my vision or helps inspire me. This is particularly helpful when launching non-fantasy game as it helps people grok the tone, atmosphere, and/or vibe … Read more
As a group we’ve become more tolerant of non-standard character concepts, especially when it comes to the World of Greyhawk. When our Dungeons & Dragons campaign started 20 years ago, we were diehard devotees of Greyhawk canon (there is a reason, after all, why the biggest Greyhawk fan website is called Canonfire). We had holy wars over whether you … Read more
There was once a Blackrazor redshirt named Zilanderan. A strange man, Zilanderan claimed to be part of a larger, near-infinite multiverse of alternate realities. He’d excitedly talk about how this multiverse interacted with this, the Prime Material Plane, boring his cohorts to tears until something happened to break the tension. Alas, the eccentric warrior-mage was … Read more
It’s a toss up between Forceful Truth and Zilanderan … but I want to write about Zilanderan for “Wildest Character Concept” for Day 12 so Forceful Truth it is. A few years ago another player in my lunchtime gaming group took on the dungeon mastering role because he wanted to try out a still-mystifying Dungeons … Read more
Inspired by the novel Ready Player One, I offered to run my friends through the legendary module Tomb of Horrors. Converted to Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition as part of Tales from the Yawning Portal (Amazon), the module promises a lethal challenge for players both new and old. My gaming group last took a run … Read more
February’s RPG Blog Carnival topic is “Time Marches On”. Hosted by Daemons & Deathrays, the topic looks at the role of time in role-playing campaigns. Time’s very much at the heart of our two ongoing D&D 5th Edition campaigns. The campaigns were created as bookends for our 10+ year Blackrazor Guild campaign. The campaign took … Read more