Campaign Diary Part 23 The Ruins of Alderwach, Session 3 So, this session was adults only so, there was a bit more progress than usual, despite this being the first time in over a year that some of the players had been able to make it to the table (COVID-19).
Campaign Diary Part 22 The Ruins of Alderwach, Session 2 In this session, we focused on the half of the party that had run deeper into the dungeon: Foodie, Brilgar, and Lilith (the kids). The other players are scheduled for Session Three (the grown-ups). After waiting for several tense minutes,
Campaign Diary Part 21 The Ruins of Alderwach, Session 1 After arriving and making their way up the mountain to the entrance, our band of intrepid heroes faced a series of magical traps (glyphs of warding). After some trial and error, the party found that the glyphs were set to
The Impact of COVID-19 on Our Game I am not even sure where to start with this one. I have had several messages come through the “reviews” on our blog asking about how COVID has impacted us. Some people want to know why I stopped posting for several months, while
DMing Prep How much should I prep for a session? This is a hard question to answer, but I have a short story that illustrates how a tiny amount of prep can go a very long way. In general, I will spend about 2 to 3 hours preparing an adventure.
DMingDad Campaign Diary (part 20?) Okay, this is WAY out of order and a major spoiler alert. This campaign diary comes from when the characters were 10th level. We have been playing the same campaign for several years with the same characters. Flash Backstory Lilith, the gold dragon sorcerer, was
DMingDad Campaign Diary (part 1) You asked for this…so you deserve what you get (evil smirk intended). This is not my standard blogging format, more of a stream of memory with occasional interruptions by players and maybe their characters. This is the first installment in a campaign diary that recaps a
Playing Dungeons & Dragons With ADHD This blog post was inspired by Rin. Thanks for taking the time to reach out to me. ADHD can be very frustrating. It’s sometimes difficult to feel “normal” because it seems like other people have it so easy or that things just come naturally
Brilgar’s Force Rain Level: 5Class: Wizard, Warlock, SorcererRange: 150 ftArea: 30 ft radius (cyldendar)Components: V, S, M*Duration: Up to 1 minute with concentrationSchool: ConjurationSave: Dex save at spell casters’ DC for 1/2 damage on saveDamage/Effect: Variable – 3d6 (table A) + 3d6 (table B) per combat round + 1d4+1 per
Flight of the Kipir (Kipine) A Family-friendly Halloween Themed Adventure This is a Halloween themed family-friendly adventure for D&D 5e. This adventure relies on role play, exploration, problem-solving. There are opportunities for combat due to random encounters of the Kipine or at the end of the adventure if the characters
D&D Homebrew Items: Pradler’s Portable Room When a Portable Hole Just Won’t Do… The portable room is actually made up of two magical items, which must be used together for the room to be accessible. The first is a tiny model door and the second is a gold key. When
A Single Feather A family-friendly adventure for characters 1st to 4th levels This adventure is intended for up to 4 characters of 1st to 4th level. This adventure relies on role play, exploration, problem-solving and a skill challenge. There is the opportunity for combat at several stages of the adventure.
BBEG: Big Bad Evil Guy Creation Making a compelling and memorable villain can be difficult, especially when DMing for younger players. Let’s take a few minutes to build a BBEG so you can see how it works. The Dungeon Master’s Guide provides some quick NPC creation tables for you to
Dungeon Crawls and Exploration in D&D 5e This is going to be a short how-to post on how to DM mega dungeons and wilderness exploration. I have participated as both a player and a DM in many dungeon crawls and wilderness exploration adventures. Many of them have been horrible slog
Simplifying Dungeons & Dragons So, you watched a bunch of videos on YouTube and now you are even more confused than ever about how Dungeons & Dragons works. You feel like you have to memorize over a thousand pages of rules and then there is all of the roleplaying, world
D&D Homebrew Items: Ring of Wishes (Cursed) Rare Item, requires attunement. This ring of wishes does not use charges, it is powered by the life force of the user. The act of casting the first wish attunes this ring to the user, bonding it to the user for life. Only
Tracking Initiative in Dungeons & Dragons So, you watched a bunch of videos on YouTube and found lots of really complicated ways to track initiative in Dungeons & Dragons. Many of them require buying some plastic flag pole or printing character mini-sheets to hang on your DM screen. Others methods
Tracking Spell Points in Dungeons & Dragons So, your player wants to play a spell caster, but they still have problems keeping track of hit points. This could prove to be very challenging for both the player and the DM. Maybe you have players that are more interested in the
Role Playing with ADHD Kids This week I want to talk about playing Dungeons & Dragons with ADHD players. Our weekly game has grown to the point we have three rotating groups and we will soon move the gaming venue to accommodate more players. As the group has grown we
Pinterest and Dungeons & Dragons Maps, Character Art, and Homebrew Content Pinterest is a goldmine for Dungeons & Dragons players and dungeon masters alike. The D&D community is both extremely creative and generous. Here are a few ways you can use Pinterest to find and organize content for your game.
Removing Death from Dungeons & Dragons Making a more family-friendly adventure. As a parent, I can tell you that I find it more than a little disturbing listening to kids talk about how they killed some bad guy or evil monster with a gleam in their eye as they describe
Beauty and The Beast A family-friendly adventure for characters 1st to 4th levels This adventure is intended for up to 4 characters of 1st to 4th level. This adventure relies on role play, exploration, problem-solving and a skill challenge. There is the opportunity for combat at several stages of the
Skeleton Dance A family-friendly adventure for characters 1st to 4th levels This adventure is intended for up to 4 characters of 1st to 4th level. This adventure relies on role play, exploration and problem-solving. There is the opportunity for combat or creative avoidance of combat at the end of the
Dryad Needs a Home A family-friendly D&D adventure for charaters 1st to 4th level This adventure is intended for up to 4 characters of 1st to 4th level. This adventure relies heavily on exploration, role-playing, and has ample opportunity for combat. This is a wilderness survival adventure (i.e. hex crawl)
Family-Friendly D&D Miniatures – Part 2 So, the kids wanted to try playing D&D with miniatures. Our oldest is in his teens, but our youngest players are still in third grade. In an effort to keep the games family-friendly, we started looking for game tokens in our extensive collection of
PseudoDragon Roundup This adventure is intended for up to 4 characters of 1st to 4th level. This adventure relies heavily on exploration and role-playing with major combat at the finally. This is a wilderness survival adventure with a race/chase to save the pseudodragon mating grounds from poachers. Numerous random encounters
Dungeons & Dragons Race: Human Humans are the youngest of the common races, late to arrive on the world scene and short-lived in comparison to dwarves, elves, and dragons. Perhaps it is because of their shorter lives that they strive to achieve as much as they can in the years
Paladin: Cursed Warrior D&D 5E Sub-class by Charles Holzler Great evil has touched your mind, body and soul. Seeing the darkness first hand, you have sworn to protect the light from the evil below; in so doing you seek to overcome the darkness that has tainted your soul. The Cursed
Role Playing with Kids Part 2 Having spoken with other DM’s that play with young players, I thought it might be to expand on my previous post, Role Playing with Kids. Here are a few things that seem to crop up in our conversations. Ego and Speaking Out of Turn
Cities of South ErtaA Homebrew Realm for Dungeons & Dragons You can think of Pereta as a combination of the world of Harry Potter, the sci-fi series Warehouse 13 and Stargate. The setting is medieval and divided into realms of high magic and low magic. For more information about Pereta,
Al-mi’raj (AKA Bunnycorn) The following is collected from numerous official and less than official sources and topped with a little DMingDad homebrew spice. Enjoy. The al-mi’raj is a Chaotic Neutral and intelligent rabbit. “Al-mi’raj” apparently means “experiment 72” in Gnome, suggesting that this creature was made by tinker gnomes. That
A Dungeons & Dragons Easter Adventure A family-friendly D&D adventure for characters of 1st to 5th level This is an adventure suitable for any level character. It relies on investigation, exploration and role playing to solve the mystery of the missing eggs. The player characters are awakened by the innkeeper
Introduction to Pereta A Homebrew Realm for Dungeons & Dragons There are a number of well documented worlds and realms for Dungeons & Dragons. As a dungeon master and player, I appreciate all of the work that goes into building a world for your games. With the greatest respect to
Magic Items in Dungeons & Dragons One of the most enjoyable moments in playing Dungeons & Dragons is when a player character receives a magical item. As a DM, part of my job is to make sure the magic items that players receive don’t break the game or make them
Family Friendly D&D Adventure: Troll Bridge Based on the old fairytale, this adventure turns an old story trope on its head. This adventure can be adapted for any age or level characters. Joacob Potter, the mayor of the small village of Homlin, is offering a reward of 500 gold pieces
Alignment in Dungeons & Dragons 5e Before I delve into alignments for D&D 5e, lets first take a moment to acknowledge that alignment is one of the many controversial aspects of D&D and it is one of the primary reasons many parents object to the game. In short, any game
Amun-re’s Speech from TSR’s Module I3 Pharoah Well here it is, our first YourTube video. As you should know by now, DM’ing for family is one of my great pleasures in life. I don’t usually use pre-made modules, but this one was one of my favorites when I was a
D&D Homebrew Items: Everclean Boots Boots from a forgotten age, when magic was common and used in everyday life. A huge cache of these boots was found in the far western lands, near the ruined city Kalas. The boots have two magical properties that make them highly sought after. They
Oslanann College of the Bard at Alestria University of Adventuring Inspiring others through stirring words and music requires raw talent honed by training. At Oslanann’s College of the Bard, students learn to shape magic as well as opinion. True bards are rare in the world. Not every minstrel, jester or
Dungeons & Dragons Adventure: Manny Gets a Pet Manny, the manticore guardian of the castle, has requested the player characters retrieve a valuable and rare giant rabbit and two giant rats from Bolger, the halfling. Goblins have been harassing Bolger in an attempt to steal her livestock. Before Bolger will
