After yesterday’s train wreck for this hashtag thingy we are back for more. It’s just hard to turn away. We’ve got to see where this thing is going. No matter how ugly it gets.

So let’s get on with this mess…

Once our group starts up our campaign again after it’s 18 month plus hiatus due to world events shutting it down. After what I’m sure will be an over long catch up with each other, and finally a strong restart (step 4 of the way of the lazy DM) to the campaign, the party will have to navigate a wilderness to find a lost Dwarven mine.

I haven’t settled on a way to handle wilderness travel that I’m happy with yet.

In the DMG there are a couple of suggestions for handling it. Those being the travel montage or hour by hour. Neither grabs me.

So far I’ve tried a version of wilderness travel that is based on how it is handled in The One Ring. Which was fine but a bit of work is required in prep before hand.

I adapted what is basically a hex crawl from the WotC D&D published campaign The Tomb of Annihilation for sea travel. Which is basically wilderness but with lots of water. And that was ok too. But again I was not entirely happy with it.

I have two options I want to try for wilderness travel next.

The first is treating wilderness travel as a skill challenge. The idea for this came from a D&D Beyond scenario they did as part of the Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus series called Encounter of the Week: Detour Past Dragonspear.

The other approach I want to try is Pointcrawls. Which I first found out about from the legend that is Sly Flourish who talked about it in his Icewind Dale prep videos. Which then got it’s own video and blog post discussing in more detail what they were and how to create them.

Although the rules in the Dungeon Master’s Screen Wilderness Kit for journeys and chases look worth a try as well. I’m particularly drawn to the chase rules that look very combat like. I want to run a chase at some point (story allowing).

I’m not convinced I will ever find a way to handle wilderness travel that I’m entirely happy with. I’ll probably end up choosing one of the methods from above during the prep for a session, never doing the same one twice in a row. Although that list may be whittled down based on feedback from the group. After all they may not like one or more of the approaches.

Here we are with more free time on ours hands than we know what to do with.

What shall we do?

I know, read my latest ramblings on the latest theme for a hashtag thing.

Today’s theme can easily be linked with one of the later themes. But I will save that discussion for the later post.

Instead I’m going to briefly talk about what my players can trust me to do.

They can trust me to:

• Do my best to help them have a fun experience whilst at the table.
• Make sure they are in a safe supportive environment.
• Use their characters backstory to influence events in the campaign.
• Surprise them.
• That I have no clue where the campaign is going and I’m making it up as I go along.

Another day, another post for this hashtag.

Let’s do it…

Oh boy today’s a toughie. Mind you I haven’t found the last few themes that easy.

However today’s theme had me opening up Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft (VRGtR) and looking at one of the new backgrounds it introduces.

The backgrounds introduced in VRGtR are aimed at characters being used in horror adventures. But when I’m being a DM (hopefully soon) if a player said they wanted to use one of these new backgrounds despite our campaign not being horror themed I’d say “sure why not?“ Plus I wouldn’t rule out using some horror influences at some point in the campaign.

The new background that came to mind for this theme was Spirit Medium (chapter 1, page 31). So you can see where I went with the theme of medium.

I like the idea of a character that communes with the dead. Although the official background description says the players character had a fateful experience to cause them to believe that they are “aligned with spirits and can serve as a conduit for their insights and goals.” I also like the idea of this being something that is passed on from one generation to another. Plus that fateful experience could also apply and be the thing that triggers it in the players character so that they carry on the family tradition.

For inspiration I’d watch some of the shows and films in the collage below. (They are ones that came to mind first)

They give some interesting takes to use with the character. The out and out believer with powers. Or the unbeliever, possibly ex-medium now intent in debunking others as charlatans.

I particularly like The Deadzone inspiration. It has that fateful experience for explaining this ability. And like the main character as a plot to follow some person in power that they have come in contact with could be intent on unleashing an unspeakable horror of some sort on the world that they have to stop.

I also like that from a DM point of view that the communing with spirits is a great way to feed one or two secrets or adventure hooks to the party.

See ya tomorrow

Taking into account I started a day late, I’ve been doing this for a whole week now!

I’m not claiming to have written compelling content. In fact the last couple of posts have been below par.

Let’s get on with the show…

We are 18 months or so into that world event, which means our D&D campaign has been on hiatus for the duration.

I know that online play took off (probably an under statement) because of those events.

My main computing device is an iPad. Which meant that using established platforms like Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds along side something like Skype/Zoom/Discord to run a game is clunky and barely usable at best. Throw in that home life makes doing stuff online like this a lot harder without interruptions. It was an easy decision for me to just say we would pick up our campaign again in safer times.

Despite this one free online tool did grab my attention called owlbear.rodeo. It seems to have what I would want in something like this. First the price, it’s free. It’s light weight, it basically allows you to share a map and move tokens around on it. And that’s it. You can set up a fog of war on the map to hide sections from players. It’s browser based. So platform independent.

So if I was going to go the online route for playing I’d be using Discord and owlbear.rodeo.

I will say that the only streamed content I watch is the Sky Flourish session prep for his current campaign and his “preshow” D&D discussion/chat where he talks about current events in the world of D&D. Or the odd discussion Sly Flourish puts up with other content creators.

I find these helpful. Especially seeing Sly Flourish applying his way of the Lazy DM to a published campaign.

All I will say about streamed games is that I’m not a fan.

“I don’t know where I’m goin’
But I sure know where I’ve been… Here I go again, here I go again”

With today’s theme I could only think of one thing to do, a collage of my favourite species to play in a fantasy setting, hobbits/halfling/kender.

Heck folks have been doing this hashtag stuff for nearly a week now.

Here we go again with today’s theme…

I’m going to interpret today’s theme (over looking that it’s spelt wrong) as text that provides a mood or gives background information.

So in D&D terms we are talking about the boxed text in the published adventures.

For me a follower of the way of the lazy DM, less is more. I’m running what many would consider a homebrew campaign. So when I come to preparing the next session I don’t want to be spending hours writing text that may not even be needed. Let alone making sure it will hopefully keep the attention of the players when it is finally read out allowed.

By following Chapter 7: Develop Fantastic Locations of The Return of the Lazy DM, all I need to come up with during my prep for each potential location the players might visit is “an evocative name and the location’s aspects.”

The advice given is that the “name of the location should fire up
the imaginations of you and the players alike.” Whilst the location’s aspects “describe important, notable, or useful features of the location.”

An example from the Return of the Lazy DM for a fantastic location is the following: “The Bridge of Teeth: Narrow bridge of bone spanning a gorge; bones tied together with cracked and splitting leather and sinew; howling wind sounds like moaning”.

All we are aiming for is “having just need enough of a reminder to help you describe it to the players during the game.” I don’t know about you but the example fantastic location gives a lot of flavour and creates a vivid image of the location. Does the location description need to be any longer? Not in my opinion. I think it ticks all the boxes of the definition at the start of this post.

When our group finally returns to our campaign sometime in September (world events allowing) I’ll be following the steps Sly Flourish outlines in a post about applying the above to an existing dungeon map that I plan to use.

So there we have it flavour in an RPG doesn’t have to be paragraphs and paragraphs of text, it can be a sentence or two of text instead.

I’m impressing myself. So far so good that since starting a day late that I’m keeping up with the daily schedule of contributing to a hashtag.

Let’s do this thing…

The temptation to roll a d4 and randomly choose from the list was strong on this one.

But I’m going to stick it out and go with throne.

What comes to mind when I read the word throne? Power, royalty, politics, back stabbing, arranged marriages, wealth, court, subjects.

But it’s the fact the throne represents power that resonates the most with me.

No matter which system you play having your party being beholden to a powerful person is a great plot device to have.

How they come beholden can add to the backstory and give the party extra starting equipment, a base, maybe a vehicle of some sort. Or that powerful figure could be an adversary/nemesis.

Also during the campaign that powerful figure could be the driving force, reason the party undertake a quest. Maybe they have been asked to retrieve some valuable artifact as a way to repay their debt.

I know a loose interpretation of the theme, but at least I didn’t go the toilet route.

Day 4 of this thing.

I’ve been following the hashtag on Twitter and there are some impressive and thought provoking stuff being done. And then there is my stuff.

Let’s get the suffering out of the way…

Today’s theme was a toughie for me.

I’m a halfling, wizard, staff sort of person. Or if I’m shaking it up a halfling monk. But definitely a halfling.

In a cyberpunk setting I’d be a hacker most likely if I was a player and not running the game.

What I’m saying is I’m not up on weapons or playing characters that are reliant on weapons. Although I am intrigued by the prospect of players having to track their ammo usage in Twilight 2000, and how that will impact combat and the tactics used.

So I thought I would track down the amazing art created for the MtG D&D crossover set Adventures in the Forgotten Realm of some iconic D&D weapons.

WotC use some very talented artists, and seeing how they portray the weapons is interesting. I’m a fan of the art produced.

However I love the flavour text on the Great Axe card. It’s witty and goes so well with the art to tell a mini story of sorts.

Day 3 of this hash tag thing, and the second post on time! Two out of three ain’t bad.

Let’s jump into today’s theme and my thoughts inspired by it.

This theme was a no brainier for me. Only one thing came to mind and it was a book.

That book being The Monsters Know What They’re Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters by Keith Ammann.

The book “unpacks strategies, tactics, and motivations for creatures found in the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual.”

What I like about the book is that it allows you as a DM to make combat with the monsters feel “real” and unique. Almost giving them a personality. And hopefully stopping the encounters feeling samey. No more relying on two tactics of run away or fight to the death. Which is important to me. Not only am I keeping the players on their toes, but hopefully keeping things fresh, and authentic.

Obviously as the quotes dotted throughout the post point out, things change once a combat begins. You have to react to changing events known as the players. But that doesn’t make this book pointless. It makes it more important as it allows you to have the monsters react authentically to the unfolding situation. You basically have a framework to make decisions against.

The Monsters Know What They’re Doing can be bought either as a physical book, ebook, and audio book. Sadly I have all three versions of the book.

There is a sister book aimed at players called Live to Tell the Tale: Combat Tactics for Player Characters (only available as an ebook or physical). Which provides “beginning and intermediate D&D players the tools they need to fight back. Examining combat roles, class features, party composition, positioning, debilitating conditions, attacking combinations, action economy, and the ever-important consideration of the best ways to run away”.

I can’t speak for this book as I don’t own it. I did point my players in its direction, I have no idea if any of them bought a copy. I hope they did.

Then this December we get a follow up to the original tome called MOAR! Monsters Know What They’re Doing. This new book “analyzes the likely combat behaviors of more than 100 new enemies found in Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes.” Like the original it is available in the same formats. Amazon is taking pre-orders now. Which I have taken advantage of.

In the meantime there is a blog that you can go to as well by the author. Click HERE to read it.

Day 2 already?!

Well it’s hardly unexpected considering the day 1 catch up post that just went up.

Ok let’s get on with the main reason you are here, today’s theme for #RPGaDAY2021…

I enjoyed creating my first ever dungeon map the pirates lair for my homebrew D&D campaign. It was used in the very first session. As were my first ever town/village maps in the second session. I’ve not given up creating my own maps. I just decided to work smarter!

By smarter I mean using other peoples hard work to lessen the work load I have to do. Below are some of the giants shoulders I stand on when it comes to maps.

A good source of maps to use in your own adventures is the Dyson Logos blog. He has a load of maps on there that a free to use (non-commercially). You can get even more by supporting him on Patreon.

Sly Flourish (who along with Matt Colville I mention all the time) talked about having a go to map that you could use at a moments notice for those unexpected moments thrown at you by the players.

I’ve used town/city maps from published adventures (something Matt Colville suggested in a video). I used the map for Alhaster (from an old Dragon magazine issue) as Mintarn in my campaign.

I keep the Lazy Dungeon Masters Workbook handy because it has 10 generic map locations that can be used in any campaign. I’ve used the docks map for a session, and had another couple lined up if the players followed particular plot hooks.

I have a couple of the Battle Map books (a fantasy one and a cyberpunk one) that I can use. These are generic enough that they can be used with any system. Always handy to have a round.

Map & Dice Playing Cards, and the Deck of Many Dungeons are great for generating dungeons on the fly. Especially if you don’t have the go to map to hand.

I also have a couple of maps of real life locations that are local to me to hand also. In my home town there are some underground tunnels in the town, and an underground part of the “castle” (more town house) known as the vaults (iirc). I thought these would be fun to use in a campaign at some point.

Plus in the DMG Appendix C: Maps you have maps you can use! There are also 7 monster lair maps in Volo’s Guide to Monsters.

I like that what I have above allows me to save time when preparing for a session. But that also if the session goes off in an unexpected direction that it doesn’t matter because I can cover it with at least one of the above.