Sticking to dungeon roles #Blapril2020

GamingSF

Over the last few months I’ve been running a whole lot of dungeons in World of Warcraft Classic and Retail and in Dungeons & Dragons Online. Most MMORPGs use the trinity system or some precursor or variant thereof. In WoW and DDO characters can be built, depending on their class, to be a tank, healer or damage dealer. In WoW I play healers more than any other role, though I have enough alts to have various options depending on the group make-up for a given dungeon run.

Dealing the damage

My main in WoW Classic is a Holy Paladin, a healer. His role in any dungeon is to heal the tank, heal other characters and to buff and otherwise help the group to win through challenges. I sometimes try and do some damage, or use the seal & judge combos to bring some utility like self-healing or mana-regen to a…

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D&D Wrath of the Immortals: The Geography of Mystara’s Cataclysm

Wayne's Books

Wrath of the Immortals (1992) is one of the lesser-known core D&D box sets, I’d reckon. It was published as an integral part of Dungeons & Dragons’ short-lived “Challenger Series” phase, the most familiar being the D&D Rules Cyclopedia (1991).

Wrath of the Immortals was the successor to the capstone of the beloved BECMI D&D series, the Immortals box set

D&D Rules Cyclopedia hardcover and WotI together replaced the 5 BECMI D&D box sets

WotI’s first book (“Codex of the Immortals”) replaces the Immortal Rules (1986), updating the way Immortals are treated in the D&D game (their powers, hierarchy, interaction with mortals, etc.) and includes a section of Artifacts, as well as some new monsters. The second booklet, The “Immortal’s Fury”, is a campaign saga which redefines the World of Mystara over the years AC1004 to AC 1009.

This wasn’t a simple replacement of course. TSR – and to be…

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“My” D&D – Classic 1981 B/X

Dyson's Dodecahedron

There’s obviously a lot of nostalgia wrapped up in the Old School Gaming scene – I mean, I openly admit that the reason I prefer Top Secret over Top Secret / SI is almost 100% nostalgia (it pains me to admit that just about everything in SI runs better than the original).

For a lot of the OSR scene, we play our “original” edition of D&D – that game that was our breakthrough into the world of D&D and in most cases into RPGs as a whole.

My favourite edition of D&D (hands down) is the 1981 B/X set. It is 100% my jam. It is so open and refreshing even now. And I think that’s the feeling that I associate with it because by the time it came out I had been “stuck” playing AD&D1e with all the rules from the books for two years. I was introduced to…

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Three hundred and seventy-seven days later…

Even Now

Even checks out her favorite spot in Keep on the Borderlands.

GAH, has it really been more than A YEAR since the last time I blogged?!

*checks date of last post* It has. Oh my.

Like hopefully most of you, I’ve been sheltering in place for the last… month or so? After a week of staying home, the days all start to run together. I’m very lucky that The Guy can 100% work from home and that we’re fine on his salary while I temporarily have no income; it just wasn’t worth the risk and stress of me continuing to go out to work. So I feel extremely fortunate that we have everything we need, and this is giving us more time to spend together and do things we like to do but don’t always have time for… like play DDO!  😀

I’ve been focusing mainly on hardcore…

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DMs Guild Review – Masque of the Red Death Player’s Guide

RogueWatson

A review copy of “Masque of the Red Death Player’s Guide” was provided by the publisher. Find more DMs Guild Reviews on my website and YouTube channel.

Support my work by using affiliate links for shopping and pledging via Patreon.

Designed by: Jeremy Forbing, Anthony Joyce, BJ Hensley

Had I read Masque of the Red Death Player’s Guide before reviewing Red Jack, I would have had a much better understanding of Gothic Earth. The 100+ page rulebook effectively adapts D&D 5e’s rules into the late 19th century supernatural setting, providing new classes, archetypes, weapons and rules into an extremely well-produced and organized book.

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Top Tens: 10 more favorite Atari 2600 games

Bio Break

Ten years ago, I posted a list of 10 of my favorite Atari 2600 games. It’s a system that I grew up with as a kid, and since we didn’t have an NES, it was the dominating console in our house in the 1980s. So we ended up with a lot of games for it, and after doing some nostalgia trawling the other day, I realized that there were plenty of other favorites I wanted to add. So here goes, another list of 10 games that I liked — whether or not they were classics!

1. Dark Cavern (1983)

If you got sick of eating pellets and running from ghosts in Pac-Man, it was time to slam in Dark Caverns to go on the offensive. Basically, you get a guy who’s running around a maze blasting robots with his gun (the robots can shoot back), and every six bullets…

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Interactive objects in dungeons are great #Blapril2020

GamingSF

I’ve written before about interactive objects in MMORPGs, a feature I wish more games made use of to a greater extent. Dungeons & Dragons Online has so many different ways in which your characters can interact with the environment, whether through collectable objective-related things, dungeon progression objects such as traps and levers or just loot giving objects such as the barrels, crates and chests.

Our trio of adventurers have recently made a first foray into Ravenloft Castle in DDO, and the castle instance is crammed with interactive objects and NPCs, alongside the many fights and a rather maze-like multi-levelled layout. It’s a masterful piece of dungeon design.

I should have taken that level of bard…

Instances that only consist of pretty backgrounds, trash packs and boss fights are a wasted opportunity to give players a richer play experience. Having things to look for other than just the red name of…

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3 Way to Improvise as a DM in D&D

The Nerdd

One of the first tips you’ll receive when asking for advice on being a Dungeon Master (or Game Master for other TtRPGs) is to improv. However, what does it mean to improvise? Well, in my experience, there are three different ways to improvise when it comes to DMing. I’ll start with the simplest way that you have to do, no matter what, and go into more complex ways as we continue.

Responding to Players

It doesn’t matter how much you prepare a session, or if the adventure is a pre-written module made by professionals. Your players will ask/do something that you can’t possibly prepare for.

Trying to find the culprit of a crime? Your druid might Speak with Plants and ask the bushes who they saw. No where will you find information on what that bush saw, or what it will say.

If you find a market, your players might…

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Gurtelrose Cavern

Dyson's Dodecahedron

This natural cave in the base of the rock of Middenheim is almost exactly where the bodies of the poor are thrown down from the the city above. It should come as no surprise then that it became the lair of a necromancer.

Gurtelrose Cavern

I’ve been running a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campaign for almost two years now, and we are approaching the climax of “Power Behind the Throne” which is set in Middenheim. When exploring this cavern inhabited by the remains of the dread necromancer Gurtelrose, I wanted to be able to describe the cave much more like a real cave, with much more variable geometry than shown on a traditional map. I kept it generally game-friendly by including a dirt floor that had built up over the rougher cave sections over the years. The stairs to the upper section on the left also made for a memorable encounter…

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Raids week 170

Micki's Delirium

I am again a week behind on the raid post. Raids 170 were Tuesday March 14, Wednesday March 15 and Saturday March 18.

Here is a quick run down.

Tuesday

1. Project Nemesis LN

I decided I wanted to start doing practice runs of this raid to let ppl try different roles and get more comfortable switching roles as needed. I made this decision a few hours before posting, put it in the calendar and then decided to run a sharn quest or two while waiting for joiners. Interest was low and the two joiners I got early got tired of waiting and left. After 1.5 h I had enough joiners to do the run. I spent a good long while talking through the roles before the raids. Loot: 64 nemesis runes, 25 threads of fate and The Zarash’ak Ward.

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