Dragonlance D&D Game Blog

In previous posts, I've mentioned how much I like and use minis, and various other props at my gaming table. Along with all those props are the battlefields they stand on. I currently use a number of different options depending on the need. First and foremost is my trusty erasable battle mat. There are plenty to choose from, but I tend to like Flip-Mats from Paizo. These mats allow you to use dry erase, wet erase, and (according their literature), even permanent marker and still remove it when you are done. On side of the Flip-Mats usually has a specific scene, like a forest crossing, a dungeon, or a town square, while the other side is sometimes a simple color pattern, like dark gray for the dungeon stone, like gray for paved city, or green for forest. Since I'm in the middle of running a lengthy dungeon crawl, I have the handy dark gray mat in the DM kit. The nice part about the scene specific side of the battle mat is that there is usually enough detail to get any D...

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 .

In his recent Dragon magazine editorial , Chris Perkins talks about many of WotC's older campaign settings. In particular he sites the Dragonlance Chronicles as the "most iconic D&D story". However, he then goes on to assert that the Dragonlance setting is hamstrung by that fact that it only has one story to tell (the aforementioned Chronicles). I disagree wholeheartedly with Mr. Perkins' viewpoint. Dragonlance supported a huge number of books and even today there are many fans still wishing for more content about this world. Furthermore, Mr. Perkins asserts that after the world spanning War of the Lance storyline, everything else feels subpar. I would ask then, based on that same premise, if the Forgotten Realms were rendered moot after their epic world spanning Avatar Trilogy, or Horde Invasion? Where he sees the end of story potential in the Dragonlance setting with the War of the Lance, I would say that the War opened up vast areas for epic stories fo...

While I was working the company booth at an industry convention, I noticed folks walking this way and that (rarely stopping at our booth), all with the various goodie bags they picked up from the other vendors at the show. Between failed attempts at using the force to compel folks to visit our station ("This is the booth you're looking for"), I started thinking about GenCon (and how it couldn't get here soon enough!). Thinking about the con made me realize two important thinks: Pre-reg starts this weekend! That's right. If you're planning to go, you can pre-reg starting this Sun at noon. Pre-reg saves you a couple of bucks and is of course the first step to booking a room as well as events. I need to start training! That's also right. If you've been to GC before you know the layout is massive, and the reports are that it will be even more spread out this year, with more nearby hotels serving as the site for various games and seminars. In orde...

As a follow up to my previous post, "Let Your Campaign Talk to You" , I've been thinking about new ways to approach developing character backgrounds, and looking at various techniques from literature and television. Rather than what I suspect is the standard approach, that of drafting the background and incidental details all at once, and typically before even the first game session has taken place, what I'm now envisioning is a process where the character background grows organically over time. In this new approach, players should at the time of the first game session, know the basics, what's readily apparent from their character sheets, but details beyond that can be left somewhat vague and filled in over time. This could be something as minor as character details, or something as major as character motivations and goals. In the past I might have a character background that states that "Johnny" is the oldest of 5 siblings. But in this new appro...

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...

My typical progression for a campaign may be little unusual. In the beginning, when the PCs are newly minted 1st level characters that have just been created by their players, I run adventures that don't tie too closely into any character's background. The reason for this is two fold. At lower levels, simply put, characters may not survive. I never go out of my way to kill a character, but to quote the villainous Leland from Needful Things "these things happen". Secondly, I want to leave things open in case the player decides "this character blows" and wants to play something else. Replacing characters is much easier to do when said character has no integral connection to the overall campaign. When it's established in the first session that these six noobs are destined to save the world, it's a little hard later on shoehorning in a new character--like the convoluted solution on Charmed when the "Power of Three" needed a new Third af...