Dragonlance D&D Game Blog

This sheet is great for a simple game where you've already decided to drop skills and feats out of the game (certainly doable in 5e). There is a small corner with a few helpful hints, but the white text on light purple background might be hard to read when printed. I was recently asked by a friend if I knew of any versions of the Character Sheet for D&D 5e geared toward kids. Seems he's teaching his children the game, and I applaud him for creating the next generation of D&D gamers. I've also been thinking of starting to teach my son, and maybe a few other kids the game, so I began looking around for alternate versions of the classic 5e Character Sheet that could be used with new players or kid players. I found a few that all seem to have some merit, so let me present my findings and you can decide for yourself. Some small, simplified sheets (not just for kids): The first is this nice simple sheet . The sheet has some color coding. It's a great she...

For obvious reasons, as I sit here to write a new blog post, the first in well over a year, I'm reminded of that classic rock song by the amazing band Boston It has been a long time, and a lot has been happening, some of it even worth writing about (at least I think so). The biggest event of the year was my regular visit to GenCon. As usual, the "Best Four Days in Gaming" did not fail to disappoint. As had happened before, this time I was on my own for the convention. Typically, when I go with friends, we usually try to play some games together, meet up for meals, and congregate for late night gaming. With none of that on hand this time, I took advantage of all the freedom to do a few new things. For past GenCon reports, check out these previous posts One of things I do to make GenCon fun and unique for me each year is to mix up what I do, and this year was no different. I did this in a couple of ways. One was to play a new game. This time I was able to g...

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...

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).

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.

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...

Seems tis the season for projects to go belly up. Last week the UpWorks KS was shutdown, with a note saying that it would probably never be revived.  This week is word that Dungeonscape, the Dungeons and Dragons 5e online toolset from Trapdoor Technologies, was cancelled by Wizards of the Coast, and that the existing beta would be shut down shortly. Dungeonscape, originally announced as Project Morningstar, seemed to be on track for a 2014, or early 2015 release, and while they only had a character creator available for the beta, the application had received high praise from those who used it. Prior to this announcement, there was no indication that the project was in any jeopardy of being released.  This marks yet another failure of Wizards to release software in a timely manner for their table top games going all the way back to second edition. Second edition software, released manny years after the hardback edition of the rules, was plagued with content bugs and included a ...

It seems it's been a while since Dungeons and Dragons 5e came out, which means it's a good time to round up some links you may or may not be aware of. Basic Rules Your first and most important link is here: http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules?x=dnd/basicrules Here you can get the latest version of the free Basic rules. Don't know what the Basic rules are? Basic is a free PDF which contains a subset of the rules from the 5e PHB. There's all the core rules need to create characters, advance those characters all the way up to 20th level, and everything you need for roleplaying and combat. So then, what's the difference between Basic and the PHB? The PHB has more--more race options, more class options, more spells, and finally PHB is the only place for the optional feat system, and rules on multiclassing. It represents a great way to let anyone try D&D for no money down, as you can use the Basic rules to create a dwarf fighter, or human ro...

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...

In case you missed it, WoTC confirmed Monday one of it's worst kept secrets, that they are hard at work on a new edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Read about it here from CNN, or here from Forbes. The announcement was also carried by the New York Times and EN World. This new edition, cleverly referred to at the moment as just "D&D Next", seems to have a very daunting mandate, to re-unite the various splinters of the D&D community that have grown out of a dissatisfaction with the 4e rule set. We now have not only groups that still cling to old rule sets (like Basic, 1e, 2e, etc), but also active supporters on emerging edition variants, including Pathfinder and the OSRIC branch of D&D. I've tried to take some time to distill my thoughts on what I think would be needed for a successful next edition of D&D, beyond things like Vancian magic and Digital Support - WoTC needs a digital publishing plan, and they've needed it for the last few years. P...