As a Dungeon Master, there's nothing quite as enticing as the prospect of molding a lesser-known city into a stage for unforgettable adventures. In 2019, I found myself drawn to the city of Vathirond, tucked away in far eastern Breeland, on the fringes of Eberron's haunting Mournlands. With the Brey River's southern bank underfoot and the specter of the Gray Mist as a backdrop, Vathirond was an irresistible canvas for my homebrew campaign. Yet, as fate would have it, our journey through this enigmatic city was cut short due to the COVID pandemic. Now, after a couple of years, I've dusted off my notes and decided to share them with the world. Whether you're a seasoned Dungeon Master or a curious reader, I hope you find these glimpses into Vathirond - the city on the edge of the Mournlands - as fascinating as I did while crafting them.
In the diverse world of Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TTRPGs), the progression system you choose can significantly influence the way your campaign unfolds. In 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), two popular methods of character progression exist: Experience Points (XP) and Milestone Advancement. While Milestone Advancement has its merits, I am here to make a case for XP, an often overlooked, but immensely beneficial system.
Recently, DMDavid posed a fascinating question on Twitter about the origins of the Astral and Ethereal Planes in the early editions of Dungeons and Dragons (DnD). As a devoted Tabletop Roleplaying Game enthusiast, I’d like to delve into this intriguing query and shed some light on the cultural and historical influences that shaped these iconic facets of the game.
Introducing a lasting injury system in Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition can greatly enhance the depth and realism of your adventures. Combat, a cornerstone of the game, gains significant weight as each encounter carries potential long-term consequences. This system not only makes every decision in battle consequential but also turns health into a crucial resource that demands thoughtful management, adding a layer of strategic complexity.
As fans of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, we’re always excited to see what new playtest material the developers come up with. Recently, there’s been a proposed change to how wizards scribe spells into their spellbooks that has stirred up some debate in the D&D community. The change involves introducing a spell called “Scribe Spell” to handle the scribing process, a concept that harkens back to an earlier spell called “Write” from the first edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. In this blog post, we’ll dive into the history of these spells, their potential purpose in the 5th edition, and whether they add value or just unnecessary complexity to the game.
Injuries in Dungeons & Dragons are important for two reasons: they add realism to the game and they can be used to add humor. By making injuries last longer, it gives the players a sense of realism and danger that they may not feel if they simply healed back up to full hit points after every battle. It also allows for some interesting role-playing opportunities, such as a character with a permanent limp trying to negotiate a difficult terrain. Finally, it can be fun to see how creative the players can be in dealing with their injuries and add depth to a game.
Mini-games can be fun distraction for your players in any TTRPG campaign. Downtime or social sessions can create a lot of opportunities for this in your game. With the release of The Wild Beyond the Witchlight adventure, players have asking about mini-games to use. So I thought I’d share the rules for my simple mini-game for Darts.
Exciting journeys in 5th edition engage the party and give them meaningful actions as part of the adventure. Last week I posted Perilous Journey’s Part 1, which turns travel into a series of encounters like any other dungeon. This week, I’ll look at defining some ways that party members can take meaningful actions during journeys. These Journey Actions provide gameplay for the travel experience, as well as create dependencies between members of the party.
Perilous journeys are a mainstay of fantasy literature and adventure, yet 5e provides little game play in the way of travel and discovery. This is primarily because the system focuses on encounters per day, which limits long form narrative game elements. First, the long rest reset means encounters or delays seem little more than annoying distractions. Second, characters have little in the way of meaningful game play to engage them in travel. or interact with one another. These rules present a few simple modifications to add some game play spice back into your journeys to help make the exploration pillar exciting again.
Earlier in the week I posted some rules for Gritty Healing & Survival in 5e. These work for group looking for that kind of long-term resource management and play. However, it leaves a bit of a gap when it comes to healing spells and magic. In fact, most gritty mechanics suffer from the problem of setting up a system for persistent injuries, then introduce magic that lets you skip past it. Also, it suffers from the problem of turning the cleric into the heal-bot for a party, making sit out of the action during encounters to heal everyone later. So having some way to align the leaning mechanic with the core idea of recovery as a central design principle is important. Without it, you end up with the same effect as healing overnight but force the healing PC to burn all their resources and sit most encounters out.