Dragonlance D&D Game Blog

Last post , I talked about rediscovering an older 2nd edition product, and how, after re-reading it, found it's almost as useful today as it was back then. After that realization, I decided to go back and dig up the companion product to Dungeons of Mystery, Cities of Mystery and give it a second look. Cities of Mystery actually came out before Dungeons of Mystery, but I didn't buy this when it first came out, so these reviews are actually in purchase order, not release order. Turns out Cities is, like Dungeons, almost as useful now as before. Of the 64 pages of content, the only useless material is the few monster stats the book provides in the City Adventures section, and that's only because they are in 2e format. The other 99.8% of the book is just as relevant today. Like Dungeons, this book provides a top down look at cities, from such broad ranged topics as where to locate them, to what types of governments and rulers run the city. This is great if you have no idea...

I was going through some old gaming materials, part of my 2e collect, and came across the remains of this little gem: Dungeons of Mystery. This was one of a number of products that came out in the second edition days to help facilitate using miniatures in your game. This set focused on dungeons (not surprisingly) and provided a number of dungeon themed maps that could be flipped and turned and pieced together in different ways to make each time you used the maps unique. The product, a skinny boxset,  typical of many other similar 2e releases, also included fold-up cardboard rooms that you could use to build out a dungeon lair. The set did come with a variety of room sizes, and a few other flourishes, like stairs and an alter set up for key encounters. Also there were "doors" that you could attach to the fold-up walls anywhere to show where the door would be for a given room. I remember building out some, or maybe even all, of the "rooms", but these were real...

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...

Kender were created for the Dragonlance setting as a replacement for halfings. Tracy Hickman didn't like the idea of a race of thieves (as halfings were thought of at the time) and wanted something different. Harold Johnson, another designer on the Dragonlance project, suggested the idea of them being driven by curiousity instead of greed. In the 2nd edition source book, Halflings and Gnomes, kender are referenced as an example of convergent evolution, as they arose to "fill the gap" of halfings on this one world. In addition to Kender, there are also Kendar in the subterranean realm of Chorane near the south pole, Marak Kender on the content of Taladas, and even half-kender. In the Demiplane of Dread known as Ravenloft, there are also kender vampires (which had abilities that were different from the "standard" vampire of 2nd edition).

I've used a variation of the following rule for a number of years, almost since I started DMing... aaalllll the way back in 2nd edition (when the game was still called AD&D!) Normal Rule: PCs die when their hit points reach -10 House Rule: PCs die when their hit points reach -10 + CON bonus The upside is that most characters now probably last a round or two longer. Particular weak characters could expire sooner, but at least there's a logical relationship on a PCs heartiness and how long before they die. Back in second edition, my rule was a bit different. A PC would die at -CON value. It probably had a more beneficial effect, since I recall most of the PCs having a con value in the 12-16 range. Interestingly, years later I found this post on Monte Cook's website with his house rules on death and dying . Seems he uses -CON for death in his 3e games, along with a modification to the unconscious below zero rule. Lastly, it'll be interesting to see what D&D 4t...