Dragonlance D&D Game Blog

After the events of the last session , the PCs made their way back to the town of Saltmarsh. As an extra reward for rescuing and returning Oswald and Humbert Fastralli, their father, Conte Fastralli, held a private dinner in their honor at The Silver Raven, one of the nicest restaurants and gentelmen's clubs in the city. Also at the dinner was Pinch, a private agent of the Fastralli family who also had done the family great service, though neither Pinch, nor the Fastralli clan were willing to elaborate on just what Pinch had done for the Fastralli's. Before the dessert course, Conte Fastralli and his sons were called away on business by one of his attendants, but bid everyone else to stay and enjoy to restaurant's hospitality on him Later, while everyone was enjoying a creme pastry dish with a heated chocolate drink, there was a mild commotion from one of the upstairs rooms. Hoskin Lashti, the owner of The Silver Raven, went to investigate. A short time afterward, he sh...

For this week's post, I wanted to share a cornucopia of links, all D&D related, but in wildly different areas. First, up: Video Games If you were a fan of the old SSI D&D games from the 80s, like Pool of Radiance and Eye of the Beholder, GOG (Good Old Games) has laboriously tracked down the rights owners, bought the game rights, and are in the process of updating the code for modern computers. You can read more about their efforts here: http://www.pcgamer.com/how-gog-rescued-13-forgotten-realms-games-from-licensing-hell/ Next Up: Digital Comics DriveThruComics has recently made available a number of D&D comics in digital format. The back catalog is extensive enough to include the old DC comics (including the Dragonlance comics I previously reviewed and the Forgotten Realms comics) from the 80's, to newer D&D comics, including the wonderful 2010 series (set in the 4e realm of the Nentir Vale). Other offerings include: Ianto's Tomb - a Dark Sun...

My GenCon experience this year was in some was very different from previous years, in other ways much the same, and overall a wonderful time. As I think I tweeted during the con, "if you're not smiling at GenCon, you're doing something wrong", and I firmly believe that. Wed (Day 0) - Day 0 was a bit different this year than in years past. Instead of driving out to the con, I actually flew out. Due to a airline issue a few months ago, I had a voucher for the cost of one flight, good for only one year. This was about the only time I would be able to use it, so it was an easy choice. While flying to GenCon means you get there relatively quick from the East Coast, it also meant that I wasn't driving out with my long time con-buddy. To make up for the lack of pre-con adventure in the car ride out, I finally started reading Playing at the World by Jon Peterson about the early days of wargames that preceded D&D as well as the history of D&D as well. I...

I recent saw the following article about frogs and spiders Tiny frogs and giant spiders: the best of friends It seems in some environments, the two will develop symbiotic relationships where the frogs control the threats against the spider's eggs and the spider provides protection to the frog from other predators as well as food remains for the frog. It got me thinking that in dungeon design, I've often limited monster pairings, like goblins and ogres, kobolds and dragons, based on intelligent monsters that can communicate and knowingly set up a social contract based on mutual benefit. As observed, theses mutual relationships can develop among a variety of animals, from pilot fish and sharks , to certain birds and crocodiles . How can you use this in your game? Well, first, it allows you to explain why certain animals are in such close proximity without one having wiped out the other, an issue often cited as a problem of poor dungeon design. Second, it offers a way to...

Awhile ago, I noted that at D&D Adventure League tables that I ran, few of the players had never had DMs who used the new Inspiration mechanic from 5th Edition. Worse, in games I played as a player, none of the DMs used the mechanic, which I think is great way to help encourage roleplaying at any D&D table (from AL to home games). To try and turn the tide, I wrote a little article about it for the D&D Adventure League website, which you can check out here: http://dndadventurersleague.org/a-little-inspiration/ I hope you check it out and feel free to leave any feedback (good or bad) on the official website (You can leave feedback here, but more people will probably see your comments there).

Recently during my weekly D&D game, I had my players tracking an NPC in a city with the purpose of abducting and getting information out of him about a greater villain they sought. The only known location the NPC could be found was a local brothel he frequented on a regular schedule. Since I didn't have any brothel maps in my collection, it was off to the Internet. I thought this was going to be a fruitless search, when what to my wandering eyes should appear? An article on a former brothel for sale, complete with a floor plan of the building. Jackpot! Since I wasn't planning on combat in the brothel, I didn't bother to make a battle map out of the floor plan, but I did have it on hand for reference as the PCs scouted out the interior of the building, as they checked out this room or that. Anything on the map that was modern, I just changed to some other type of room, or left the door locked. In case you need such a building in your own game (for whatever reas...

If you're a Dragonlance fan, and a Dungeons and Dragons 5E fan, you'll definitely want to take a look at the recent Unearthed Arcana article on the Wizard's site. This new article series on the site presents unofficial rules, or rules in development for the game. This recent article goes by the unassuming title of "Waterborne Adventures", but for the Dragonlance fan should be "Rise of the Minotaur" since the article presents, for the first time, rules for minotaur PCs. In addition to the minotaur race, it also includes a Mariner fighting style, along with some goodies for rogues and sorcerers. One of the things I enjoyed most about the article were the sidebars where the designers gave their behind the scenes commentary about what they were accomplishing, and how to apply the same principles to other race or monster modifications. Since its only a 5 page article, it's a quick read, and well worth the time, Dragonlance fan or not.

In our previous two project posts, we looked at building chairs and tables (and benches) . In this part, we'll build on the previous two articles and look at ways we can dress up those tables with a bit more detail to really help bring a scene to life. And the best part is, Lego has already done most of the work for you. Let's get started... Imagine the PCs come in to a bar/inn and look around. You can set up a couple of tables, each with something on the table to hint at what the NPCs are up to and maybe how the PCs might approach them. If the NPCs are drinking out of mugs or goblets then the PCs might want to buy the next round. But if the NPCs are playing cards (and winning or loosing money) then the PCs might want to join the game. If there's a big feast going on, complete with various meats and breads, laid out on nice dinnerware, then those might the kind of people willing to hire the PCs. And lastly, you ca...

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...

A couple of months ago there was a pair of competing Kickstarter projects, one from UpWorks and another similar themed one from Miniature Building Authority . Sadly, through no fault of the projects competing against each other, the UpWorks project went belly up . But today I'm happy to report on two Kickstarter projects currently running that are so complementary that backing one almost necessitates backing the other. First up was a nice little Kickstarter project called Tavern Dungeon Decor . This KS gives you a bunch of accessories and dressing for any number of public places, like taverns, temples, or libraries, just to name a few. The KS provides everything from a variety of chairs and tables, to bookshelves, books, plates of hot food, and even a bunch of seated patrons to dress up your city based encounters. What the KS doesn't provide are the walls or rooms for said buildings. And that's where the second KS comes in. This is the latest Dwarven Forge Kickstarter...

Another year, and another fiasco trying to get a GenCon hotel room. This year, they claimed to have a new solution (read, untested) that was supposed to alleviate the issues of last years mess. Sad to say, all it did was create a whole new set of issues for people. I'm sure you can read all the gory details elsewhere, but here's my story: I got my 4-day badge on Saturday, with no issues, not that I've ever heard of any issues getting badges. According to the website, I was to come back to the housing page around noon (I was on the page 15 minutes early) and at noon, I would be assigned a time to be able to get in to housing. I was assigned a 15 minute wait time, and figured I was pretty lucky. It would be the last time I would think that... The page had a nice countdown clock and as soon as the time passed, the Reservation button was active. As soon as I clicked on that button, I got an error message. STATUS : ERROR StatusID : 3 GUID : 14b0354fcdf:-70ee48 ERROR ...

You might think it's a bit early to start thinking of GenCon--unless you work for GenCon, who probably starts working on the next GenCon the day or so after the last one ends--but there are a couple of important dates just around the corner and some important notices. First off, this year GenCon is a bit earlier than before, running from (Thur) July 30 to (Sun) Aug 2. If it's your first trip to the con, consider getting on site that Wed. Each year more and more official and unofficial events keep popping up the day prior to the actual con. Along with the change in dates for the actual con, a couple of other dates have moved up. Badge registration starts on Friday January 23 and Hotel Booking starts Sun January 25 at noon. The Hotel Booking date is very important because if you want to get a room close to the Con (1-2) blocks, you need to get in the queue as fast as possible. Last year, the prime locations all booked up in less than 20 minutes. GenCon promises more informa...