The players receive a distress signal from a powerful spacefaring civilization, the Orlaxians, who have been attacked and are on the brink of destruction. The Orlaxians have lost the war to the powerful army of the Xaryxian Empire and are seeking help to find and retrieve an ancient artifact that
Campaign Diary The Red Wedding at the Arena of Blood I thought I would give you an update on the big kids’ table. We recently completed the official Spelljammer: Light of Xaryxis campaign. While it was very much a rail road adventure. We had some deviations from the adventure as
This adventure is designed for 1 to 5 characters of 1st to 10th level. It is a “find and escort home” adventure with heavy role play and exploration. There are two combat encounters with the option to add random encounters during travel. The Backstory, Snow White Upside Down Rose Red,
A Christmas Themed, Family-Friendly D&D Adventure This adventure is intended for up to 1 to 5 characters of 1st to 15th level. This adventure relies heavily on exploration, role-playing, and problem-solving and has several opportunities for combat. This is a dungeon exploration quest. Numerous random encounters are available in addition
What if I told you that a 6-year-old could learn to play Dungeons and Dragons? Before we get into how, let’s look at some of the most frequently asked questions about kids and D&D. Is there a kid version of Dungeons and Dragons?Yes. DMingDad has developed a kids’ version of
It’s a Turky Hunt! Kind of… The fall harvest festival is in full swing. Unfortunately, the annual Cockitrice migration has shifted from its normal course and several towns and farms are in their path. Normally a Cockatrice bite wouldn’t be such a bad thing, just 24 hours of being petrified.
The Hook: Word has reached you from a nearby village that the new owner of the keep is a vampire and the castle grounds are guarded by werewolves. The next full moon is only three days away and the village elders fear things may get ulgy. The mayor promises 100
This item appears as a simple brown paper bag, lunch box, leather pouch, or container of similar design. The Bottomless bag of food can produce enough food to feed 10 people 3 meals per day. The type and quality of food vary based on the rarity of the item. Bottomless
This Labor Day themed adventure is for the older kids… The Hook: Stopping at the Frogsmead Inn & Tavern for some well-earned rest, you find the main room full of tables, but no guests. Seeing you enter, a heavy-set dwarven woman behind the bar welcomes you with a drink and
Ahhh… the annual celebration of the inventor of Dungeons & Dragons. Okay, one of the two creators. To celebrate this day DMingDad is putting out a Gyagax-themed adventure. Credit to DMingMom for the idea. This game is for more experienced players. Still family-friendly, but the one-shot characters are complicated to
UPDATED New players often ask me if they need to purchase miniatures to play Dungeons & Dragons. The short answer is no. I recommend against new players and groups with children using official D&D miniatures for multiple reasons. If you really want to use mini’s with younger players, try using
It’s Fathers Day and I am taking the day off, but fear not the family got together and came up with some adventure inspiration for you!
A Family-Friendly D&D Adventure for 1 to 5 Players This adventure is intended for up to 5 characters of 1st to 4th level. This adventure relies heavily on exploration, role-playing, and problem-solving and has several opportunities for combat. This is an escort quest with overland travel and multiple skill challenges.
The legend of Knox start the night she was dropped off at Humphry’s door with a note…The baby’s cursed. She’s your problem now.
Don’t bother unpacking. Caleb is missing. A couple of boys came to tell me he chased a goblin into the woods. They have a two-hour headstart on us.
The elven council has decreed that the Mount Mono volcano is a protected phoenix nesting ground, but they need the player characters’ help.
DM Tip: Less Dice Can Be More Fun… Face it, all those dice can be intimidating. Roll a d20 for this and a 3d6 for that and 2d8 for the other thing… don’t forget to roll 3d4 and add 3 for … UGH! Kids love rolling those dice, but it
Wonderous Iten, Very Rare, Requires AttunementHit Points (60) Fly Like the Wind: The cloak grants its wearer a flight speed of 40 feet. Move Like the Wind: While wearing this cloak, the wearer has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks. Smother: The cloak can make a melee Weapon Attack: +5 to
The twin Dwarven smiths Kutchek and Gore forged these swords and poured their hearts and soles into them, literally. These scimitars are sentient weapons. Their names are Kutchek and Gore. Their personalities are boisterous and their humor cunningly crude. Twin Scimitars – melee weapon (martial, sword)Legendary (unique), Requires Attunement (single slot)
Campaign Diary: Act 3 Wrap Up Wow, it seems unreal that we have been playing the same game for five years now. The players have grown up alongside their characters. So much has changed, but a lot remains the same. I will try to get more of the campaign diaries
Campaign Diary Part 24 The Ruins of Alderwach, Session 4 With the party reunited (kind of) in the lower level storage area adjacent to the underground river, the group devised a plan to use some strategically placed castings of dispel magic. This allowed Brilgar and Lilith to pull other party
Where Are You DMingDad? He folks! I know it has been a while since I posted anything. Thanks for all the messages checking in on me. Everything is fine here, but I thought it was a good idea to check in with everyone. While everyone in our home has remained
Search the wiods for the witches’ tower where the princess and heir to the throw of our neighboring kingdom has been imprisoned since she was a young girl. It’s said that the tower is guarded by an evil dragon.
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 spend about 2 to 3 hours preparing an adventure. I
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
