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
“It’s In a Book” is the theme for December 2017’s RPG Blog Carnival. Books — and the libraries that hold them — drove the later half of our Obsidian Frontier campaign, leading us to explore the written word in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting. It began with the players. After 30-odd chapters in the campaign, we’d hit a natural … Read more
Odothar Bronzearm is my human battlemaster, my favorite fighter since my first-ever Dungeons & Dragons character “Battle Axe”, and the culmination of a years-long quest for a tactical warrior. Though my favorite class is wizard, I’ve played my share of fighters over the years though most of them were multi-classed (fighter/wizard, fighter/cleric, etc.). Looking back, what I wanted … Read more
Xanathar’s Guide to Everything arrived in my mailbox last week, bringing with it a cornucopia of goodness for Dungeons & Dragons. My only complaint about the book so far is I can’t read the entire thing simultaneously. As expected the Xanathar’s Guide (Amazon) includes a ton of content that originated in Wizards of the Coast’s Unearthed Arcana columns. It’s been edited and … Read more
Nuke(m)Con 2017 is a week away and I’m scrambling to pull together my events. My gaming group’s homegrown convention is being held September 27-30 at a friends house. We expect 10-12 people to attend over the course of the weekend, but any given slot will likely have 5-6. I’m running three games: Dungeons & Dragons, … Read more
My gaming group, the Blackrazor Guild, formed in 1996. Over the last 20 years we’ve created hundreds of Dungeons & Dragons characters and at least a good two dozen of those reached the left heights of “high level” adventuring. These characters spanned multiple editions of the game, but the most iconic started in 2nd Edition and were … Read more