I’m not sure when the Stranger Things D&D Starter Set is due to hit the shelves of your FLGS in the UK. Imminently comes to mind. I’m pretty sure I saw May as a target date. But then again I may be getting that confused with the release date of the Ghosts of Saltmarsh source book.

If you are impatient (like me) and don’t mind paying the extra postage you can pick up a copy from Amazon.com. But before you do, have a look at the photos below, skim the words and then decide if that is something you should do if so inclined.

This isn’t a review. Let’s get that clear from the start. It’s more like an unboxing and thoughts/impressions about what I’m seeing. I got this yesterday! So there is not a chance in hell that I’ve played the adventure.

So in this rather spiffy box, that depicts one of the Stranger Things kids engaged with a demogorgan, you get the following:

• 6 dice (the usual one of each)
• 2 demogorgon minis, one has had paint applied to it)
• 5 Stranger Things character sheets (Level 3 characters)
• Rulebook
• Stranger Things Adventure

The demogorgon minis are nice. Made from a softer plastic than the normal hard plastic we are used to with minis these days. So there is a little give, or bendiness in them.

I don’t know why they didn’t just give us both models “painted”, and a wash applied to them both. What little paint there has been done on the “painted” model nearly goes unnoticed. I wouldn’t be making a big deal of what they did.

But I do like that they added these in.

The included rulebook is 43 pages compared to the 32 in the starter set. The main difference in page count being accounted for by an additional 2 appendixes. One for magic items and one for monster stats.

Where as in the starter set we only got spells for clerics and wizards, in this rulebook we bet spells for bards, clerics, paladins, rangers and wizards. Also at a brief glance I noticed that wizards don’t get the Dancing Lights cantrip in these rules. There may be other slight differences also. I do have a life (despite popular opinion).

It’s nice that the monster stats are in the rulebook and not in the adventure. It makes it a bit easier for the DM in my opinion not flicking around rule books. The adventure book can be open at the relevant place and have the monster stats to hand at the same time.

Each chapter has a photo from the series at the start. Which I like. It helps keep that theme of the show going which otherwise isn’t really needed. But it breaks up the pages and the text.

Ok let’s look at the adventure itself. WotC have gone to great lengths to make the included adventure “Hunt for the Thessalhydra” look like it was made straight from the notes of the 12/13 year old (or whatever age they are) in the show that created the adventure that they are playing. Right down to the included sketches and maps looking like they were hand drawn, and using a font that looks like handwriting.

I think they were really successful in doing that.

Back in the early nineties during the Twin Peaks crazy they released a book that was the Secret Diary of Laura Palmer. It was a paperback version of the diary found in the show. The immersion in that whole Twin Peaks universe, and trying to solve the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer went through the roof for me. There I was reading the actual diary in the show, looking for clues. It was almost a surreal experience at times when watching the show.

I’m wondering will fans of Stranger Things get a similar experience when they watch the show after having played the included adventure in this set? After all I believe this adventure is meant to be the same one played in the opening episode, and have the same character sheets.

I like the style of the adventure, it’s layout and how information is presented.

I do have one complaint about the maps. I know thematically what I’m asking for wouldn’t be needed. Because the youngster that created the adventure would know this. However considering that the audience for this set isn’t just experienced D&D players. But also fans of the show that may never have rolled a d20 before in their life, and may just be curious about this fun looking game they have seen played in their favourite tv show.

Couldn’t they have included a little legend (even if it’s in the rule book) that decodes the swiggles on the maps? How is a new player who is meant to be describing rooms and tunnels etc from the brief descriptions in the adventure and off the map itself know what the door symbol is? They might guess the stairs. But still let’s make life a bit easier for them.

Play wise I’d guess this adventure could take 2 or 3 sessions (assuming 2 or 3 hours a session) to complete. Depending on the group and the progress they make. I wouldn’t use this for a taster session one shot. Unless you want to leave the players hanging.

But it does look a fun adventure.

Another nit pick, and this really is. Having seen that WotC have made the move to including 2 d20’s in the Essential Kit, and I think that may also hold true for future products. It would have been a nice touch to have included a second here also.

Overall I love the presentation and theme. WotC have done a really great job. My criticism are very minor. I think any fan of the show will love this. But it must be remembered you are playing D&D from the show. If you want to actually play in a Stranger Things like world, and be the kids in the show fighting demons you will need another system like Tales from the Loop, or Kids on Bikes RPG – Strange Adventures in Small Towns. Or homebrew it using a generic system like Genesys or WOIN. The homebrew option requires a lot more effort. I’d be surprised if some-one hasn’t done a lot of the work in those systems already.

And yes I have plans for the demogorgon.

For people out there of a certain age (like myself) they will have fond memories of playing D&D in the 80’s and 90’s where their first adventures were the ones that came in the Basic and the Expert sets.

It’s possible to buy PDF’s of those adventures from DriveThruRPG. However to play with the current 5e rules, there would need to be a little bit of work done to allow you to play them.

That’s where Goodman Games comes in. They did some backroom deals, secret handshakes, a nod and a wink with WotC that has allowed them to not only reprint the original adventures from those two starter sets but update them as well.

Both books have a handful of pages that contain interviews and short essays with those involved in creating the original adventures.

These two editions are not small books, and are quite thick volumes, and heavy to boot also. My 92 year old Nan you takes all my deliveries struggled carrying them. I’m borderline happy with the paper stock used for the books. I think considering that these are not just reprints with updates to 5e, but also act as a loving tribute. I think a better quality paper could have been used.

I like the interviews at the start of each book. They are interesting, however not as incite full as I’d like.

Having both the original adventure (A couple of different versions/printings) and the updated to 5e version is nice. And a really nice touch is that for the 5e version there is additional content provided.

For me there is one draw back with these if you are actually planning to run the 5e version of these adventures. And I suppose also the classic version. There are player handouts included in the books. So to use these you need to photocopy them from the book, and do damage to the spine. I would have liked to see any player handouts, even the maps made available as a pdf on the publishers site. They have some pre-generated character sheets you can use. But not the thing that DM’s would find the most useful, and least damaging.

So what does this say to me about how the publisher sees these books being used. Are they expecting people to play these adventures or just look at them and leave them on the shelf as eye candy? The lack of the pdf almost makes me think the later.

But as walks down memory lane go for the long time adventurers then this is a great product (especially if in the mists of time your copy of the adventures got lost). With Goodman Games having done the heavy lifting for you it’s also a good excuse to relive those classic adventures both for old and new players using the 5e rules (unless you want to old school that is). For the new player it’s an opportunity to experience old school classic adventures and why you would need a 10 foot pole.

With the Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure book coming out this week in the UK (and for the rest of the world as well I would assume) and the imminent arrival of the Stranger Things Dungeons and Dragons Starter Set.

WotC are holding a big D&D weekend event currently over in the states to celebrate all things D&D and more importantly announce new and upcoming products for D&D.

But before I talk about that event and the announcements so far. Let me sell you on Ghosts of Saltmarsh and the Stranger Things Starter Set.

With Ghosts of Saltmarsh you get 3 classic first edition adventures plus 4 Dragon magazine adventures based in and around Saltmarsh updated to fifth edition. You also get “details on the port town of Saltmarsh, as well as plenty of hooks to kick-off each adventure.”

So you get everything here to run a nautical themed campaign to take adventurers from level 1 to 12.

Not only that there is more included! “The appendices also cover mechanics for ship-to-ship combat, new magic items, monsters, and more!” This bit is probably the bit I’ll use most for my first ever campaign as a DM.

Fans of the Netflix hit Stranger Things will have seen the kids of the show playing D&D in their bedroom/basement. Now WotC and Netflix have teamed up to allow you to play the very same adventure as the one in the show. Which they have kindly packaged up in a handy starter set that gives you basically everything you need to start playing D&D using the Stranger Thing Adventure, including 2 demogorgan minis.

A great way for fans of the show to be even more immersed in the show, and get into D&D.

Back to this big D&D weekend that’s going on.

So as I write this post D&D Live has been streaming on twitch live and then putting stuff up on YouTube afterwards.

Apart from watching famous, semi famous and internet famous people play D&D (which is a thing these days) we got some product announcements from WotC for D&D.

First up and the thing that has themed this live event is the big announcement of the new storyline for D&D.

Basically it boils down to the fact we get a new campaign book in September titled Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus.

This adventure sees adventurers descending to the first level of hell called Avernus, experience something called the Blood War that apparently is a war between demons and devils. It sounds interesting but the theme may make it hard for my good friend to play the campaign.

The campaign itself will cover adventurer levels 1 – 13 apparently.

There is also a dice set that will be coming out along side this. From the live stream it looks better than the Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica dice set. The box also turns into a dice tray for starters, plus there is a world map and other bits. But I’m sure WotC will put a premium price on this little dice set.

Next and this really got me excited. WotC are producing a follow up to the Starter Set! This set is called the Essentials Kit.

The box includes a 64-page rulebook that helps players create characters of levels 1 to 6. Classes you will be able to create from will be the cleric, fighter, rogue, wizard and the bard. “It also includes a new adventure written by Chris Perkins entitled Dragon of Icespire Peak, which contains enough adventure to bring a new D&D party from level 1 to 6. This adventure comes complete with a poster map of Phandalin (the adventure’s setting) and the surrounding environs, as well as an entire deck of magic items, conditions, quests, creatures, and so forth that appear in the adventure, as well as combat cheat sheets. A DM screen with brand-new art, as well as a set of “cherry lozenge red” dice, complete with two d20s and four d6s for rolling stats (and casting guiding bolt and making sneak attacks). “

I liked the look of this a lot. The new adventure excited me. I enjoyed The Lost Mines of Phandalin adventure included in the Starter Set. So to have more set in that area, brilliant. The poster map a long overdue omission from the Starter. The deck of cards, yes, amazing addition. The DM screen did look a bit flimsy on the stream. And will be interesting to see how information wise it compares with the DM Screen Reincarnated. It’s meant to be a generic screen that can be used with any campaign. And the dice with multiples of certain ones a nice touch.

I thought this bit about the adventure was interesting. “Notably, the adventure also includes a new “1-on-1 rules variant,” which transforms D&D into a single-player adventure with just you and your DM. By using “Sidekick Rules” first introduced in Unearthed Arcana, a single player can control their own character, plus one or several sidekicks. ” That’s right, 2 people can go through this campaign, one as the DM and the other as an adventurer with sidekicks. I wonder how many couples will buy this? Or just a couple of mates. This could be huge.

So in a way we now have the 5e versions of the Basic and Expert kits back from the early days. And I love how they seem to be such a great fit for each other. The Starter Set is all about getting to play as quick as possible and learn the basic rules. Whilst the Essentials is about from the looks of it creating your own characters and still learning the basics.

Both the Essentials and Descent into Avernus are out in September. But it does look like Target has an exclusive window for selling it from June. So I may or may not ask a mate in the US to pick a copy up for me and ship it over.

They did also announce a Rick and Morty Starter Set cross over that has little interest for me (although I know one person who will be excited by this news). Plus there was no release date either. On an aside this may be the first good Rick and Morty themed game to be released!

You can get better details HERE.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

Having covered Angrath in the previous post. It’s now time to look at creating his rival pirate captain Vraska.

I’ve not decided what the cause of the two pirates rivalry is yet. I think it will be one of the pieces from that legendary weapon. The idea of having an uneasy truce between the two rival captains also appeals to me.

Borrowing once more from the MtG lore for Ixalan the ship commanded by Vraska will be called The Belligerent.

Creating the Vraska npc is easier. I could have used the medusa stats from the Monster Manual. But the Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica goes one better and presents us with an Undercity Medusa that is a variant on the Monster Manual one. Vraska is one of these so it seems only right to use this stat block.

The thing I like about the MtG gorgan it explains why Vraska wasn’t turning everyone to stone with her gaze.

“The gaze of a medusa’s glowing eyes causes living tissue to petrify. The transformation is rapid, leaving the victim as a stone statue, usually frozen in a position of abject fear or agony- a fine trophy for the medusa’s macabre collection. The medusa must exert its will to effect this transformation, so the gaze of a surprised or friendly Ravnican medusa is harmless.”

That gets round the problem I had.

Weapon wise, I’d like to give Vraska a sword like the one in the pictures above. I’m going to call it as being like a longsword.

I also like the idea that when the players eventually get to Vraska’s base of operations that there is a garden of statues made up of people she has turned to stone.

So as you can see bringing Vraska into the campaign is a lot easier than Angrath.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

In the campaign I’m going to be running the players will be having run ins with pirates. It’s only logical considering this is a nautical, island hopping based campaign.

The first adventure has the party ending up on a beach, and discovering a cave that leads into a pirates den (is that the correct word? Maybe lair or hideout?).

The pirates will be made up of a motley bunch, humans, goblins, orcs, elves, Minotaur and Gorgon!

The plan is to have the party caught between two competing pirate captains. The first pirate captain is based on the MtG Planeswalker Angrath the Minotaur. The other being Vraska the medusa/gorgan Planeswalker. Both inspired by their pirate themed appearances from the Ixalan block.

This caught in the middle is not a major plot line, but an on going one that can be used to break up or give relief from the main plot threads.

In the first adventure the party won’t meet Angrath but they will hear of him. The pirates they meet will talk of this feared leader in hushed tones.

However I do need to create Angrath as an npc. I do have a miniature for him already. So what follows is a thought process I hit upon whilst having a soak in the bath (yep deal with that image).

For Angrath Minotaur Pirate I’ve decided to use the Minotaur stat block from the Monster Manual.

But this is Angrath, he’s a Planeswalker. He’s a pirate captain. He needs to be a bit more special. So let’s take some of the character race traits for Minotaurs from Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica where minotaurs a playable race. The horns is basically the same as Gore in the Monster Manual.

But the rest is some nice stuff to give Angrath, for Imposing Presence he’s going to have proficiency in Intimidation. It makes more sense for a pirate captain. You need to inspire that motley crew somehow.

In the art you see from MtG (above) Angrath has that flaming chain whip. It would be great to have Angrath to have one of those in the campaign. But how do I create and stat one of them?

Luckily I don’t have to. In the monster manual the Balor has just such a weapon, a flaming whip. That looks really good. So I’m going to borrow that.

The Balor also has multiattack.

I like adding that to Angrath. Ok he currently doesn’t have a longsword, but a great axe in the stat block for the Minotaur from the Monster Manual. But that’s neither here or there, he gets two attacks, one with the hand weapon and another with the whip.

The Balor has a longsword that also does lightning damage. I don’t want that bit. If I do go longsword (so his weapon matches the miniature) I’ll stat that out nearer the time and give it fire damage also so the sword has a similar property to that of the hammer in the pictures above.

Also from the Balor I’m going to give Angrath damage immunity to fire damage.

I’m not going to give Angrath any spells despite his Planeswalker origins. I don’t think it fits in with how I see Angrath. Although if I was going to give him spells they would be fire related.

And looking up the lore of Angrath online we will borrow the name of his pirate ship for our own use and call his ship the Devil’s Chains.

So that’s my Angrath Pirate Captain for my campaign. Next up the rival Vraska.

“Anytime you are out numbered the odds are stacked against you.” Sage advice from Matthew Colville to his players.

I was watching one of the Geek and Sundry RPG lite advice videos on YouTube where Santine Phoenix interviews Mr Colville about planning encounters. When he dropped this nugget of advice that he gives his players at the start of a session.

In the video he does briefly explain why this is the case, using terms such as action economy, and the chances to hit as the reasons why.

So what now follows is an attempt to explain as best I can Matts reasoning behind that statement based on his comments in that video and also another video of his about dice and probabilities.

I apologise now if the following seems confused and incoherent.

D&D uses a 20 sided die or d20 to determine if you are successful when attempting to do anything, like for instance hit an enemy.

The probability of rolling any single number, for example a 5, is 1 in 20, assuming that the die is a fair die.

So to roll any number on a d20 we have a 5% chance of rolling it.

In D&D we are not rolling for a single number but a number that is equal to or greater than a target number, like an armour class of an enemy.

So the probability of rolling a 13 or higher is worked out by adding the probabilities of rolling all of the numbers together.

Let’s look at a creature that has an AC of 13. Well I’ve just shown that we have a 40% chance of getting 13 or higher when we roll a die. Which means we would fail to hit our enemy most of the time. That’s not fun.

But what I haven’t accounted for are any modifiers that can be applied. Let’s assume I’m attacking with a sword that gives me a +3 modifier. So instead of having to roll 13 or higher to hit, all of a sudden I need to roll 10 or higher.

Which using similar math to above means that to hit an AC of 13 I’d have a 55% probability of hitting. I am now more likely to hit than miss. Now that’s more fun. And the bigger that modifier is the more likely I am to hit.

Now we jump to the action economy part. And we are specifically looking at combat here.

On a turn a player and enemy can do basically 3 things, with players getting a bonus action as well under certain conditions, that monsters rarely get. Plus a reaction. So players can have between 3-5 actions, while monsters get 3-4.

But in reality that translates to 1-3 actions that players can use to do damage, and 1-2 actions for monsters.

So as you can see on a 1v1 match up, the player has more chances of success at doing damage. And therefore the “advantage” and more likely to kill the monster before the monster kills them.

Any encounter that has equal numbers or less monsters than the party size means that the party has the advantage. They have more actions, and the greater chances to succeed doing damage.

But as soon as the monsters start to out number the party. The number of actions and those opportunities to hit start to sway in favour of the monsters.

So that’s why a group of goblins may not seem dangerous to a party. But they have more opportunities to do damage. More chances of success. And therefore the upper hand. Whilst the same holds true if they knock out/kill a party member.

And that is my understanding of the thinking behind that statement. Obviously there is a lot of mistakes above, and I’ve not explained bits enough. Put your corrections in the comments below.