Dragonlance D&D Game Blog

With the lack of D&D 5e modules currently out on the market, I find myself running more older edition modules, and convert the creatures up to the latest version. Two new websites I've recently come across help greatly with the problems and issues that come out of conversions. First, why the new Monster Manual is a great resource of your 5e game, and chock full of all the classic monsters you could be looking for, not everything from past editions is in the book (nor could it be, without ending up looking like the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary. So if you're older edition module calls for a creature not yet stated in 5e terms, or you have your eye set on a particular monster from an old favorite book, what can you do? With that in mind, I offer the following web page: http://brentnewhall.com/games/1e5e.html Here, the author has set up a nifty little utility for converting 1e and 3e monsters into their 5e equivalents. Fill out a few fields and you get a eas...

Another GenCon is over, and so it's time for me to do a little recap of how this year was the best year yet (and it was). Day Zero (Wed) First off, I had planned to do daily updates of my experiences at the con, but that didn't happen. I ended up with either too many late night games, or too many early morning events to find the time. Maybe next year I'll at least be better about live tweeting during various events. Anyway... I got into Indy on the Wednesday before the con, around early afternoon. The drive in (shared by me and one of my oldest friends from Philly) was nice, but once again we missed a crucial turn off onto the downtown roads and had to take a slight shortcut. The problem seems to be with my GPS not being up to date with the current traffic pattern of the area. I mention this only because this is the third year in a row that we drove to Indy, and this was the third time in a row that we missed the same exit. Sadly, a large part of the reason for wan...

It's been awhile since my last post, so it's only fitting that this post is really just a continuation of the last one. Seems that while there were a number of reprints in 2012, in 2013 we can look forward to even more, including core reprints for 2e ( Players , DM , and MM ), supporting books for previous editions, including UA for 1e, and Spell and Magic Compendiums for 3e. On top of those options, next year will also see legendary modules, like the S series and the A series getting hardback reprints for the first time ever. The A series hardback will also include a new prequel module, A0 - Danger at Darkshelf Quarry. What I find interesting is that the A0 module will first be appearing in D&D Next format at Winter Fantasy in January of next year. Just goes to show how easily compatible next seems to be with earlier editions. But the most interesting product to me on the Amazon schedule for next year is Storm Over Baldur's Gate: Sundering Adventure 1 . With...

This isn't going to be a post about how the subtleties of being a really good DM, or player, have vanished in the modern day. No, this post is actually about the lost art of D&D.  Literally. It turns out that back in the early days of TSR, when they were developing and designing all those great classic books, the company had a policy of not returning art originals back to the artists. Compounding the issue, at some point TSR threw away classic art from a number of highly revered books and modules. But there is the next best thing. Artists Jeff Dee and Diesel LaForce are currently organizing Kickstarter campaigns to recreate art from various books, included the 1e version of Deities and Demigods. If you're interested, here are links to their respective pages where you can sign up to be a patron and get some nifty items for your contributions that would make great art for your gaming room! Jeff Dee Kickstarter page . Diesel LaForce Kickstarter page .

This summer one of the new D&D products coming out will be a new Starter Set, another in a long line of attempts to help bring in new blood to our favorite hobby. But this time I wonder if the goal is to bring in new players to the D&D fold, or bring BACK old players. Cover art for the new starter set doesn't have any of the art treatment we've seen for 4E products and instead, features a cover that doesn't just hearken back to a previous edition, but in fact is a direct swipe of an earlier product. Compare below, the art for the new starter set and the art for a 1e set. New Starter Set Previous Basic Rules Cover Other than the product title and the company logo, it's exactly the same. I'll be interested to hear how this product does and how many old school players just might pick up the dice once again.

In the first edition Dragonlance Adventures handbook, pcs on Krynn could only be a max of 18th level? The rules stated that if a character went beyond 18th, the PC would leave Krynn for some other realm. I always figured this was an attempt to keep power levels somewhat under control, as opposed to Greyhawk (and later the Forgotten Realms) where plenty of NPCs exceeded 25+