Dragonlance D&D Game Blog

It was actually the evening of the Swagfest when the party put their plan in motion... Even though I'm the DM, I have to admit, I'm not sure what exactly they were trying to accomplish. They didn't actually try to break the assassin out of jail, but instead tried to distract the guard while Theo sneaked upstairs to steal her confiscated stuff. Theo got caught in the building on his first attempt, but was successful on the second. Meanwhile, Hunter was talking to Jesswin (the assassin) and mentioned where he was staying at (in front of the guard on duty). The next day, the guard showed up and not only found Hunter and Theo in the same inn, but also found Arti wearing Jesswin's cloak and gloves... needless to say, all three were rounded up and taken to jail. The party tried telling the guards some story about buying stolen goods, but the tail was a little too unbelievable (given their proximity to the stolen items only the night before when they were in guard custody), an...

Here's another great link: http://www.emass-web.com/index.htm Here you can create dynamic character sheets choosing from a bunch of blocks to include in the sheet... and once you make your selection, it builds a PDF file for you to keep and reuse as needed. What I really like is the customizable spell lists. I can select what sources I want to include (just PHB, or do I include BoVD spells as well ?) and what type of caster I am and then... BAM! I got a PDF of spells by level. The spell descriptions are brief, "just the facts", but also include page refs for the full details. It's not meant to replace PHB, or SC, but I think it does make running spell casters a bit easier. See for yourself and let me know if you agree...

After returning to town, the party went to their friend Lucky Forefinger and sold most of the treasure they recovered, not to mention reimbursing Herrick Mendon's local agent for the cost of the lost horse and wagon. Then they spent a couple of weeks training. Hunter spent his time training with a human male named Davyn. While still a young man, Davyn was quite skillful about woodland matters as well as wielding a bow. Occasionally, he would make references to an elven brother... Theodonis spent his time training with a dwarven thief named Lynn. Lynn was far from the stereotypical dour dwarf; his personal belief was that life was meant to be siezed and enjoyed to the fullest! Arti spent his time training with his mentor, Browyn the Red, learning new spells and expanding his formidable knowledge in various areas. By the time they were all done training, the city of Flotsam was preparing for the annual event known as Swagfest, a local holiday that commemorates the great sea raid of D...

... waking up the next day, the party continued exploring this ancient underground complex, now recently the home of marauding kobolds. Heading back into the row of jail cells, Arti was interested in exploring the one empty cell from the other day. He determined that there was a magical effect in part of the room, but couldn't tell just what it did. Testing the area on himself, he started suffering as though he were splashed with acid until he left that area. At this point the party went all the way back to the large "trash room" and continued down the other corridor. They came across a statue embedded in the wall that looked similar to one they had previously seen. Before they had a chance to investigate further, several quick moving kobolds raced down a hall and began attacking. The fight was swift but after a few rounds of steel and magic, the kobolds were defeated. The party was now able to concentrate on the statue and noticed that this new statue was more menacing l...

First in a series of posts on some of my favorite links for D&D. The Hypertext d20 SRD This is without a doubt one of the most useful links I have. I've just recently gotten back into the DM's chair (and my first time running a lengthly 3.5 game) and I find this site useful for so many reasons. The encounter calculator alone is worth this link being at the top of any DM's list, but the hyperlinked SRD content is also valuable when you need to look up a spell, feat, or almost anything else. Granted, not everything in the D&D Core Books is in the SRD, but there's enough to satisfy most of your needs, and if you keep up on what didn't make it to the SRD, you shoudn't get too frustrated when you can't find it there.

... so the party was able to follow the track marks deeper into the forest. They tethered their horse and wagon before venturing further. After a short trip, the found the tracks going into thick overgrowth. Clearing away the camouflage, they found the remains of what looked like part of an old room built into the hillside. Inside was a heavy, engraved door (that soon turned out to be a false door) and statues on either wall. The door showed what looked like a skeletal man cradling a sick and dying man while feeding him some liquid. It was clear from the engraving that the skeletal figure was not causing, but trying to easy the dying man's pain. The statues on one side appeared to be the skeletal man, while the opposite statue looked like the dying man. After searching the room and trying to figure out where the tracks had gone, Hunter got the smart idea to pour liquid down the throat of the statue representing the dying man. The liquid affected a buoyant mechanism in the statue an...

It had been a couple of weeks since we finished up the first adventure (real life schedules getting in the way) and now we were about to start the next one. In between sessions we exchanged some emails to deal with the treasure, cost of training (they were both now level 2) and some other mundane matters. The party was still in possession of a book ("The Way of the Unspeakable One") that no one could comprehend, and some ceremonial swords cult members had on them (some were sold for coin). The original job that they were hired to do was to deliver some papers to Herrick Mendon, a merchant who worked out of Flotsam and Dun Eamon (aka The Grey Citadel), so they still had that task to complete. Before they could do that, an agent for Herrick approached them with an offer. Delay your trip to Dun Eamon for a few weeks and escort a special item to The Grey Citadel along with the papers, for an additional few. The PCs agreed as they didn't have anything else pressing at the mome...

With the PCs back on ship and the Eye of the Sea Dragon in their possession, only one task remained... to return the gem and Captain Fletcher's bones to the Temple of the Pirate God... As the ship sailed into Flotsam and the PCs got to see construction on a nearby island of a large building (they would later learn it will be a massive lighthouse for the port city). At the docks they saw all manner of ships from elven and minotaur ships, to merchant vessels from all around the continent dropping off and taking on passengers and cargo. The ghostly Captain Fletcher gave the PCs directions to the Temple and promptly disappeared, so as not to frighten the general populace. When the party arrived at the Temple of the Pirate God, they found the ghost of Captain Fletcher already there and talking to his old friend, Peg-Leg Peligro, commonly known these days as Father Pete, head of the church. He was glad for the return of the missing item and thanked the party for their great efforts. Lea...

In between the previous session and this one, not only did the missing player drop out, but so did another player (leaving us with only one player), who also happened to be the host. He had a great space for playing... sorry to lose that space. So I suspended the game until we could get some players. Out of the several who seemed interested, only one actually made it to the point of creating a character... The next session would soon be on. Since the session was going to begin with the PCs on the boat to the island, I did a little retcon and said that Theo (the new character) was always on the ship, the dwarf (who had never actually played) was never there, and the mage (who did take part in the first session) was staying behind to guard the ship. So now we had a half-elf ranger, a kender rogue, and I added in one of the pirates (named Royan) to help explore the sea devils lair as an NPC "fighter" I controlled. Once on the island, they already knew from the ghost of Captain ...

If you haven't heard, an animated version of the first Dragonlance book, Dragons of Autumn Twilight is coming out on DVD later this year. Here's the first trailer:

Ok ... so last time I left off with the characters having just fought off some crazed pirates from a derelict ship. The PCs never tried to figure out just what was going on here, so I may end up trying to tie this scene into something larger later in the campaign. That night the ranger saw a distant light getting closer and closer and clearly heading in their direction. As the light got closer, the ranger (Hunter is the character name) saw the ghostly image of a man walking on the water. Hunter waited to see what the ghost wanted and watched as it "walked" into the bottom of the ship and levitate up through the floors to reach topside. Quickly the elven mage , Hunter, and the ship captain (named Jonas Grumby , btw ) talked to the ghostly image of a dead pirate who sought out the PCs to help free his soul and end his undead state. Captain Fletcher needed the PCs to retrieve an item (a gem known as the Eye of the Sea Dragon) and return it to the Temple of the Pirate God in the ...

Note: This is the second time I ran this module. The first group fell apart before completing the module and I chose to rerun the beginning again with a second group. (I'll add some commentary about differences from the first and second group where notable) For the first session, the party consisted of: (Silvenesti) Elven Mage Half-Elf Ranger (We were supposed to have dwarven fighter, but that player didn't show up and dropped out before actually playing) The group started out in the city of Solace (well know from the original Dragonlance novels). I didn't worry too much about why they were there, but they were all recruited by a business man to take some documents (a trade agreement) by boat to a merchant working out of the city of Dun Eamon and Flotsam. The agreement was, at this point, just the catalyst to move people from A to B. (But there might be further advs that involve either of these business men or the agreement in general... I always like to keep my options ope...

I know I was going to write about the first game session, but I also want to touch a bit on the campaign, in some broad strokes. First, I always like to think of D&D in terms of campaigns, there's a beginning (typically characters at 1st level), and a series of adventures. Some are directly connected to a longer plot, some are just one-and-done adventures, and others seemingly have no connection, but in the end turn out to be related to the main plot. I came up with this idea long before shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and X-Files, but I see them as great examples of what I try to do in my games. They were great at doing long arcs as well as one-shot eps that had no real connection to the over-all plot. For my games, I typically work backward. I usually know the climax adventure (which is never a 1st level adv) and then work at filling in the advs that would lead a party from 1st level to the level and location of the beginning of the finale. I'll use published mods fro...

I know I've commented on the trials and tribulations of trying to get players for the D&D game I've just started, but I'm still amazed at all the ways players (or in this case potential players) wig out on me. This time, and it appears to be happening concurrently among three different potential people (which is not to say that they are not fully formed people, though that may be the case here) have all seemingly vanished, in a move that would make David Copperfield jealous. All I had to do with each of these people is say "When can we get together to make a character?" It turns out those seemingly innocuous words have more effect than a dozen "Power Word, Kill" spells to render certain people non-existant (at least to me). Oh well, at least I have three players (as of today), and a forth session already lined up... Next Time: A (previous) game session report

I've been trying to get a D&D game started for a while now (at least 6 months). I thought it would be a easy as posting a quick message and then watching the offers just pour in. I suspect that this comes from the same delusional place in a man's mind that tells him online dating is easy. Well it's not, in fact online dating is a snap compared to getting a game started. With online dating all you're trying to do is get one person to meet you for a cup of coffee... one-time, 30 minutes. Trying to get a game started is like trying to juggle a baseball, golf ball, bowling ball, and a puppy! Here's some of the highlights (or lowlights) of trying to get started: I'd have 1 or 2 people interested, but I'd lose them before getting a 3rd or 4th. I had a couple of people interested, but when I tried to find out what days worked for them, no one would commit to even one day a week. One time I had 3 ready for a game, which ended up being two. We meet once to make c...

Hey, this is going to be a blog about a Dungeons and Dragons game I started running a little while ago. The first couple of entries will try and get up to spend and then I hope to post one or more entries after each game session.