Category: World Building

World Building is such an important part of any D&D campaign. These articles help a GM build their own world to play in.

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Five 1st-Level Spells In D&D Better Than Magic Missile

5 First Level Spells In D&D Better Than Magic Missile

In Dungeons & Dragons, wizards always seem to go for the flashy, damage-inducing spells.

But there are other spells that are way more effective (in various situation), and I feel, are way better than those flashy spells.

I want to try and expand your thinking when it comes to choosing your wizard’s spells. Or, to help you make do with the ones you randomly rolled.

I have broken this up into three editions of the game – OSE (Basic), D&D3e, and D&D5e – listing five from each edition.

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Cultural Weapons – Dwarven Fighting Dagger

Cultural Weapons – Dwarven Fighting Daggers

This is the first of an on-going series I am writing for the blog on cultural weapons. These will feature a twist on regular weapons in D&D or brand new ones. 

Mountain Dwarves usually fight in their often cramped tunnels and chambers that make up the mountain dwarven empire under the Dragonspine Mountain. 

Due to these cramped conditions, mountain dwarves often use spears, shortswords, daggers, and crossbows (as opposed to giant axes and warhammers their surface cousins tend to use). 

One of these weapons is the Dwarven Fighting Dagger. 

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Encounter Table Design For DnD

I have written about how good Dungeons & Dragons random encounter tables are before, both in this blog and in issue 7 of my zine. 

In this post I want to respond in a way to a video I watched where the host was explaining how bell-curve random tables are not truly random and shouldn’t be used. A single die with a way to roll higher than the max would be better. 

I both agree and disagree with this notion. 

It all comes down to what you want to get out of the table and what area in your campaign world the table is for. 

Let’s dive into it. 

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Monster Stat Blocks – A New Layout

Monster Stat Blocks - A New Layout

Monster stat blocks are an essential part of the Dungeons & Dragons game.

They let the GM know a lot about the monster – at least they should.

What they tend to end up like is a combat block, rather than a monster stat block, focusing on combat-orientated information.

Helpful in combat, but not very complete, given the characters may want to parley or interact with the creature in other ways.

What I have developed is a modular monster stat block that will give GMs the information they need – at a glance – to run the monster in any situation. 

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D&3 Podcast Episode 1 – WorldBuilding

Podcast

This is the first “fireside chat” podcast that I have put together and includes Ian from Black Dragon Games and Jon from Tale of the Manticore.

Featuring music by Squadda Bambino, as well as myself, Ian, and Jon answering D&D questions from the Twitter and Facebook TTRPG communities.

The theme was WorldBuilding and we managed to answer over a dozen question over an hour.

Listen and let us know what you think in the comments below, or on my Twitter.

Chat Breakdown

0:40 Introductions

1:45 Ian talks about playtesting his home campaign world, Bhakashal, and the  D&D rules that go along with it

4:45 How Ian from Balck Dragon Games organises his multiple campaigns

7:50 Question: How to get started – start big or small? Questions from Alexthe MapMaker, Saxious, and NolaBert.

21:30 Free material to help you run your games.

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