Playing D&D 5e for FREE (2023 edition)

D&D, DM/GM Tips, RPG

I thought it was about time to update the links etc for how to play D&D 5e for free.

The only outlay you need to make is for some dice, pen/pencil and paper. Oh and for printing out some character sheets. Otherwise using an electronic device of some kind you can use everything else digitally.

First up you need the rules. Luckily WotC released the core rules to Creative Commons earlier in the year. Sadly it’s not all the classes, spells and monsters. But it’s a good chunk. So you need to get the D&D 5e SRD .

In a couple of weeks time Mike Shea aka Sly Flourish will be putting some of his Lazy DM stuff out under a Creative Commons license. And as Mike said on his live steam/podcast this week once out this could almost be considered the DM Guide for with the SRD.

However while you wait you can get the samples from one or two of the full products for free (which may have some over lap with the stuff that gets released under the Creative Commons).

So you can get a really useful sample of the Lazy DM companion, and Forge of Foes for free.

Using bits of these you can create your own adventures and monsters and never need to buy a thing. Yes really! Mike has videos on his YouTube channel where he shows these two documents in use. Well worth watching.

But if you are creating your own adventures you might need a map. Dyson Logos is the only place you need to go. He has hundreds of maps you can use in your own games for free. Plus if you watched one of those Mike Shea ol’ YouTube videos I mentioned earlier he uses a Dyson Logos map for the adventure he created using the extracts, and you get to see how to populate the dungeon.

But maybe you want some free monsters, etc to drop in your adventures made by a publisher. You know cut down on the work you have to do. Well Kobold Press have your back.

Kobold Press have a lot of their stuff under the OGL, which you can get here. I personally prefer the Kobold Press monsters to the WotC stuff.

A great free first adventure to try is the The Delian Tomb by Matt Colville.

You can get free blank character sheets here. The link also has some pregenerated characters to.

Now Mr Shea also has some free adventures and pregenerated character sheets that are samples of his various books, Fantastic Locations, Fantastic Adventures, Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot, and Fantastic Lairs. You’ll find the download links on pages I link to.

I hope folks find this useful, and get to try D&D 5e for free (if they have the dice already).

Early Present To Myself

Advanced Wars, Advanced Wars 1+2 Re-boot Camp, gameboy, nintendo, switch, video games

This weekend saw the much anticipated release of Advanced Wars 1&2 Re-boot Camp on the Nintendo Switch.

I love Advanced Wars.

I’ve played it since it first came out in 2002 on my GBA.

21 years since I first played it!

Wow.

I love the classic PC RTS Dune 2, and Command and Conquer. So when I heard about Advanced Wars and though not a RTS but turn based I still needed to get it.

2002 saw me commuting between Farnborough and Surbiton on the train. So portable gaming with my GBA (that was later replaced by a GBA SP) was a way to pass the commute. And probably at that point in my life the main opportunity I had to game.

I loved Advanced Wars. I was an instant fan.

The turn based mechanic worked perfectly on the hand held GBA. The graphics were cartoony and worked really well on the small screen. The cut scenes and pop up characters were drawn in a cartoon anime art style. A style that matched the bright tone of the game perfectly.

I can’t remember the music. However that would be due to me playing the game without the sound on. Something I did all the time back then.

There was a story. But I don’t remember any of it. That’s not a reflection of the game at all. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since I played the game.

I don’t remember finishing the game. But I did get a fair way into the game. I think I was pretty close to completing it.

It should come as no surprise that I got the follow up to Advanced Wars, Advanced Wars Black Hole Rising when it was released in 2003. Which was more of the same.

Obviously by the time Advanced Wars Dual Strike came out on the DS in 2006 I too had moved on to the latest Nintendo handheld. Although continuing the story of the previous two instalments that were on the GBA. Dual Strike introduced new features that made use of the dual screens of the DS.

I enjoyed playing the latest instalment of Advanced Wars. But looking back it doesn’t seem to have had as big an impact on me as the original GBA game.

The final Advanced Wars I played was its fourth and final portable outing Advanced Wars Dark Conflict in 2008.

Despite owning the final portable instalment of the series I don’t remember ever playing it. I think considering the events of 2008 and what a major upheaval to my personal circumstances they were. The fact I didn’t get to play Dark Conflict doesn’t surprise me.

I never did play the 2005 RTS spin off Battalion Wars on the GameCube. (I should try and pick a copy up.) Or the 2007 Wii Battalion Wars 2. I remember reading good things about Battalion Wars at the time. As I’ve already established I’m an RTS fan, so I think these versions would tick a lot of boxes for me, and that I’d enjoy them.

So here we are 21 years later with Advanced Wars finally hitting the latest Nintendo console. I feel with it’s release on the Switch the game has returned to its mobile roots!

If the title Advanced Wars 1&2 Re-boot Camp doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about the game, especially having played it before. Then I don’t know how more obvious they could have made it.

This release is an update of the original two GBA releases with the usual graphical improvements (I’m assuming) that goes along with it.

I love the tag line in the title of Re-boot Camp. It’s funny. Well I chuckled.

I’m going to take a little break from my Doom series of posts to play Advanced Wars, and give myself a chance to get the boardgame to the table some more.

Which means you’ll get at least one more Advanced Wars post.

Until then…

Out of the Shadowdark #1

one shot, post mortem, RPG, Shadowdark

Last night was my first ever time running a Shadowdark rpg session.

As I have said in the session planning posts we were using the adventure that comes with the free Quick Start Kit, The Scarlet Minotaur. Which meant naturally we were also using the rules that come in that kit. Sadly the full rules are in Backerkit limbo at the moment.

I had hoped I would have access to the pdf version of the full rule set by the time we played. But I knew it would be cutting it close.

Not having the full rule set did not stop us having fun.

Anyway like my D&D post mortems I will be looking at what worked, what didn’t during the session.

First off I have to say I love the mechanic for torches, where they last one hour real time. It does force the players to be a bit more focused in their discussions about what to do.

Related to that I think the always on initiative order also helped and made sure everyone got to do something and had their moment.

I did think I was going to have a tpk with the very first encounter with the party. One of the party made a loud noise in the very first room that when I rolled to see if an encounter occurred, it did. Then I rolled to see what the encounter was and it was a massive centipede. Although I did give the party 2 xp at the end of the combat, as I thought they had earnt it defeating a level 4 monster.

Luckily my rolls as the GM were not good, although I did get a couple of hits in. It was getting close for one of them.

And after that first encounter roll, I never rolled another encounter all evening!

It took a while for the wizard to get used to how spell casting worked. They felt they should be doing more than just casting magic missile. But as we discussed at the end of the session there is that push your luck element to casting magic. Where if you fail the casting check you lose the spell until you have rested. Plus there is the whole issue of the natural 1 and the negative things that can happen.

If you compare the GM area for the session to the one I have for D&D I’ve never played with so little gear. But it also means the rolls, etc were in the open.

It did help having a print out of the annotated level map to refer to, whilst I had an A3 copy of the map on the table for the players.

For me the jury is still out for the movement in combat. The close,near, and far. It kinda worked for me. I think it flowed better.

My cheat sheet was useful. I did find myself referring to it more than once. But thats not a surprise whilst using a new system and still getting to grips with it.

I would like a Shadowdark version of the monster and spell cards that Kelsey did for D&D 5e. I like these as a quick reference that way I’m not forever flicking between pages.

Overall we had fun, and another session to continue further into the dungeon is on the books.

Venturing into the Shadowdark #3

one shot, RPG, session planning, Shadowdark

In less than three hours (as I write this) I will be setting up and playing Shadowdark.

My current workload (marking assignments) has made me regret planning a mid week session. But we live and learn and I’m pretty sure I’ll repeat the mistake again and again.

Waiting for me at home will be a printout of the fourth and final monster sheet that Kelsey did for the Kickstarter. That arrived earlier in the day along with a load of other printing I had done.

I did finish a preliminary GM cheat sheet for Shadowdark last night. Which I’m hoping will be useful this evening. I’ll go more into that during the post mortem.

I’ve also printed out the annotated dungeon map from the Quick Start Kits GM guide for the adventure we are playing tonight. Which will be handy. Just a shame it’s not available as a single A3 image.

As I was grabbing my stuff together for this evening first thing (so I can just get home grab everything and shoot back out) it struck me just how minimalist this session will be.

There will be a photo (shared via Instagram) this evening. But this is going to be shocking. I’ll definitely make sure the photo is in the post mortem.

I did download last night the YouTube videos from the previous post so I can listen to them in the car on the drive to and from work. It’s a shame this stuff isn’t available as a podcast. But this is the next best thing. Just a little inconvenient getting it onto the phone.

I am about as ready as I can be. A tad nervous. But as long as we have fun.

Epic Game Night!

Game day, game night

Friday I had an awesome, nay EPIC afternoon and evening gaming.

Ben was hosting at his home in Kings Lynn. Which meant I had an excuse to pop in to see my friends and ex-colleagues at the Tesco Express I used to work at.

I miss working with them so much.

Charlene was at Ben’s when I got there.

We played a two player edition of Blokus whilst Ben set up Nidavellir.

I hadn’t played Blokus before and it had been on my list of games to try.

As a quick two player game I liked it a lot. We rattled out two games whilst Ben was setting up. Both of which I won.

Plus we played a family game called Blockness with Charlene’s daughter, and Ben’s daughter. I’d never heard of it, and it wasn’t listed on bgg!

Think a child friendly version of Tokyo Highway but without the dexterity element themed around the Loch Ness monster!

Ben’s daughter won whilst also smack talking her aunty.

Then it was on to a 3 player game of Nidavellir.

This was an interesting game I’d never played before. The main mechanics being set collection and bidding.

The game sees you bidding on each of three lots of cards to see who chooses first from that lot. You are also trying to upgrade the coins you are using for the bids to higher values as they obviously give you a better chance of picking first. But also are worth more points at the end as you add up the total of your coins to add to your score.

I quite enjoyed the game. Would definitely play again. Not sure about the long setup time.

We finished off the afternoons gaming with a 4 player game of Cat in the Box.

Another fun new to me trick taking game, which I sadly lost on the tiebreaker.

The main event of Fridays gaming was a four player (Ben, Marcin, Diego, and myself) all in epic variant of Dune Imperium.

Which basically means Dune Imperium with both expansions (Rise of Ix and Immortality) plus the epic variant rules (playing to 12 victory points, starting with an intrigue card, no conflict 1 card, 5 troops in the garrison). The epic variant rules setup can be found in the Rise of Ix expansion rule book.

Who played which leader

Yeah I played “Princess” Yuna Moritani once again. I guess I like her ability a lot. I should branch out and try a new leader next time.

For much of the game Ben was in the lead on the victory track.

He did like buying the Spice Must Flow cards to get a victory point for doing so. He got three that way. An interesting strategy.

To be fair Ben was doing amazing considering he had one less agent than the rest of us.

I even bought 3 tech tiles. I think this was the most I’ve bought in a game. Plus I bought both dreadnoughts. Another first.

Only one of us didn’t use their family atomics to reset the trade row. I did it to try and get a card that would help with the one I had that allowed me to graft a card from the trade row to it, then trash it afterwards. I was looking for solutions, which I luckily found.

This game went the full 10 rounds. Which had Ben leading for most of it, hitting the game end trigger of 12 points, and then getting a thirteenth.

However I managed to get a point off him, that was short lived for me as Marcin took a point off me. A point that helped Marcin grab the victory.

As you can see from the final scores below this was a pretty close game. It’s one of the things I love about the game.

This was also a very cut throat, competitive game. I’d expect no less from four hardened gamers.

I still don’t get why Marcin hates, that’s probably too strong a word, dislikes the intrigue cards that give a couple of victory points during the end game scoring. I agree that’s a massive amount of points in a game like Dune Imperium where the scores are so close. But I see that as a form of end game tension and a way to grab victory from defeat.

A great Fridays game with great friends.

“Hey, not too rough” #8

Doom, fps, nintendo, retro gaming, switch, video games

You can find all my previous posts in this project here if you are interested or need to catch up for some reason.

I really do find it shocking that I’ve written so much about this game. Or I haven’t really the game has acted as catalyst to talk about other stuff related to the game.

I’m hoping those that read these posts are enjoying them.

“Chop, chop, chop, a perfect killing machine” Alice Cooper, Chop, chop,chop

E2M7 Spawning Vats

There is a kind of xylophone flurry (I’m not a musician so don’t know the correct way to describe this) with the music as I start this level that catches me by surprise. At first I thought it was coming from the tv and the program I’m watching. It’s almost light, and whimsical. An interesting contrast to the slaughter taking place. I really like this change in tone. A quick google tells me this bit of music is called Waltz of the Demons.

I’ve not really talked about the music. Let’s face it you aren’t playing the game for its soundtrack. However only a fool would dismiss the importance of it.

The music can help set the tone, adds atmosphere, and can build tension.

A lot of the music in Doom is influenced by metal. It reflects the music tastes of the two Johns and the fast paced, peddle to the metal (pun intended) action of Doom itself. It’s as if the two were made for each other.

Which makes these more atmospheric pieces more impactful within the game for me.

I have to admit I’d love to have soundtrack on CD. But my Google skills are letting me down on this one.

E2M8 Tower of Babel

When a level starts by giving you a room full of boxes of rockets. You know nothing good is about to happen. And whatever it is you just might need lots of rockets to take it down.

I’m also not slow in picking up an earlier hint of something bad was on this level. Mutilated barons of hell hanging on doors is a pretty big clue something bigger and badder is ahead.

It’s time to meet the Cyberdemon. A monstrosity of hell that fires rockets. Whose metallic thuds as he stomps around the level are your clue of his whereabouts when you can’t see him.

Fire, run, hide. Repeat. Are the tactics of the hour.

I’m not counting the number of rockets I’ve fired in the general direction of the Cyberdemon. But it’s a lot. I’m having to resupply.

Eventually my final salvo of rockets brings the Cyberdemon to its knees.

Onwards to Hell itself…

Inferno

The third and final scenario of the series. I’m coming to the end of my original journey.

Although there are similarities to the last time I completed Doom up in County Durham. There is very little in common with the very first time I played the game.

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. A tired cliche for sure. But apt. A lot of life has happened over the thirty years since.

I’ve grown a lot. Something my ex-wife would probably disagree with. I am almost a different person.

Looking back I hardly recognise the person I was back in the early nineties.

I’m still trying to handle Dad’s death five years earlier. I don’t know it, or more likely not really acknowledging the signs that I’m depressed.

My only friends are work colleagues who I never socialised with, except on the odd pub crawl that the engineers had once in a while.

Being brutally honest I was a bit (understatement) of a dick back then too. Yeah a much bigger one than I am now. How much was fallout from Dad dying? It had to be some of it. But to be fair I was a dick before that (I owe a lot of people in my past apologies).

A lot of the stuff we did at work is now unacceptable and would have got all of us fired. It can’t just be dismissed as things were different then.

Thankfully the world was changing for the better around us.

Yes I’m ashamed of the person I was back then. I’m glad they no longer exist.

E3M1 Hell Keep

“I went down, down, down and the flames went higher” Johnny Cash, Ring of Fire

Thrown into the deep end against a couple of imps, and a cacodemon! All I have is my fists and a pistol. The fight hardly seems fair.

E3M2 Slough of Despair

I remember this level. Not the details. But the labyrinth of columns with marines, imps, cacodemons, and lost souls round every corner. Or it feels that way. Running around desperate for ammo of any kind.

The level makes very little sense until you look at the level map. It’s a hand!

Somehow I get through the level with the minimum of ammo. It’s a modern day miracle.

E3M3 Pandemonium

Wow some of the imagery on this level falls into dark shit.

There is no doubt where we are.

E3M4 House of Pain

I have a BFG!

Maybe I’d of gotten this weapon earlier if my secret room finding skills were better. I’ll never know unless I get better at finding those hidden rooms.

It one shots the baron of hell I release when I open the door to a room next to where I found the bfg.

Now I just need to make sure I keep it fuelled up ready for moments like this.

Onto the next level…

Am I back?

Commander, magic, MtG

“People Keep Asking If I’m Back, And I Haven’t Really Had An Answer. But Now, Yeah! I’m Thinking I’m Back!” John Wick

I think that quote kinda sums up where I am about MtG at the moment.

Well not exactly.

I’m only playing casual or kitchen table MtG.

No prerelease, no FNM, no store tournament, just games with friends and family.

The games with friends and family will be using precon decks, such as the challenger decks, game night kits, and starter kits.

All decks I can just throw in a bag and take to a game night, or planned MtG session. Where we grab a deck that grabs us and play.

That’s basically been the three times I’ve played MtG in the last couple of weeks.

It all started off teaching Dave and Clack MtG, then some games with Nath when I visited him, followed by an evening this week playing with Dave.

I had a blast playing again. I was reminded of what I love about playing the game besides the deckbuilding.

I love those moments the game gives where it all looks lost but somehow you hold in there, and manage to grab victory from the jaws of defeat. Dave had one of those in our last game on Wednesday.

Sometimes the cards hate you and you get mana screwed (or the opposite mana flooded). It happens. You shrug it off. Shuffle and start the next game.

I love the complexity. The incomplete information you play with. Not knowing what cards your opponent has, you have an idea the sort of cards they might have, but you don’t know for sure. Why have they left mana untapped? What do they have in their hand? Is it a counter spell or removal? Dare I play the card? The bluffing can be delicious.

Oh and that feeling of satisfaction when you pull off something cool.

As for the precons I’m enjoying playing the ones I have. The Game Night Kit is designed for this sort of play. It’s been great fun both times I used it with Nath and Dave. The one I got was the 2022 version. There is a 2019 edition to. It’s also designed as a multiplayer game, but I’ve not used it that way yet.

The challenger decks have been fun too. I have 3 pioneer decks (using archetypes I enjoy), plus a couple of the standard ones.

Plus the starter kits have been useful in this casual play. I have a couple of these. These decks I use like the old duel decks. They have been fun to play also.

I still have a couple of the CardKingdom battle decks. Which are great value. But may not be after shipping has been added on (just ordered a couple of decks, the shipping was ok). These are great fun to play also.

This casual approach to MtG is a lot lighter on the pocket, and just as much fun.

So yeah I’m back casually.

D&D Grp 2 Session 15 Planning #1

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

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

It’s that time again to start thinking, planning, and plotting for the next session.

I finally got my hands on a wooden box to home a certain infamous deck. I think this will make an intriguing prop for the players.

I want a bag for the deck of illusions. However I’ve not found one I like yet.

Another arrival as a quality of life thing as a DM is a card quiver. This is now the home of my npc, dungeon map, quest, taroka, condition, and encounter decks.

As the photo shows I’ve added one or two stickers to the case.

A Three-Dragon Ante deck also turned up. I think this will be an interesting prop for one or two sessions. I want to make taverns more interesting.

I need to finish my harvesting sheet (it’s two pages) for use at the next session. I’m sure they will want to harvest the basilisk, and the “Hamund’s Harvesting Handbook: A Complete Guide to Harvesting and Crafting in D&D 5e” has some great rules for doing this.

After that I need to look at crafting.

This next session the party will finally meet Rullus and his minions. I’ve not decided how it will play out. I still need to stat him out. Although his minions will be thugs.

Right time to end this post and play a little Doom for that mega series of hot air.

Grp2: When last we left our heroes… #14

D&D, D&D Grp2, post mortem, RPG, tabletop

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one. Don’t give in to temptation go read something else. Just say no to metagaming!

Over the course of this campaign we’ve had one founding player leave (personal reasons). Plus two new players join. With one of those briefly with us before our schedule got back on track and clashed with other stuff.

So we had space at the table for a new player.

Graham is a friend of Shane’s who he plays in another group with.

He’s playing a cleric sent to look after Jeb.

I think the session went well with Graham and looking forward to adventuring with him.

The session itself was once again wandering around the endless warrens looking for Rullus Hobb and his hostages.

The party awoke from their long rest to lizard folk holding the hostage Luke’s character Drenol and Grahams. This was the best I could come up with of introducing a new character to the game mid dungeon.

I think this could have been better. Especially if I’d made the game of Life or Death best of three for the freedom of the hostages.

I’ve tried not having this dungeon crawl be one where the players are fighting for every foot they explore. However I think the players are not enjoying the exploring side based on comments like “not more tunnels and doors”.

Despite that major drawback. I think using the Caves of Chaos map, alongside the dungeon encounters deck has worked well from a DM make it up as you go way.

The dungeon encounter cards have been interesting especially in seeing how the players react or interpret the cards encounter. Sometimes they read too much into the encounter and I’ve just rolled with it.

The big combat encounter at the end was a “swarm” of skeletons. However with the rogue character using psychic blades from a distance I decided to introduce a second threat (a basilisk) coming in behind the rogue.

The reason I went basilisk was because one of the encounter cards had one on, I had the 2D standee handy too.

I think it went ok. The basilisk did some damage. The rogue learnt hiding and throwing psychic blades is not always going to be safe.

Right I’ve got some prep to do for the next session.

“Hey, not too rough” #7

Doom, fps, nintendo, retro gaming, switch, video games

You can find all my previous posts in this project here if you are interested or need to catch up for some reason. I’ve written a lot of words now about the game so would totally understand you wanting to skip them.

Ok with that bit of housekeeping out the way it’s time to continue this meandering journey through playing Doom on the Nintendo Switch, it’s boardgame appearances, and some brief reflection.

E2M4 Deimos Lab

These later levels are certainly harder. I’m dying more often. Having to utilise the ol’ save game regularly tactic.

“Day and night, baby, night and day
All hell’s breakin’ loose” All hell’s breakin’ loose, KISS

Cacodemons are more frequent, as are Lost Souls. It’s not just the odd one, but groups of three or more. Last seen at the end of Knee Deep, Barons of Hell are now making a more regular appearance on a level.

Demons are being thrown at me in even bigger quantities. Portals are more frequent as a means to move around the map.

E2M5 Command Centre

The decor of the base is starting to get more corrupt and horrific. Evidence as if we needed it that hell was escaping into our world.

I love how a large carving of the Baron of Hell’s head in the walls foreshadows (or should that be warn?) of the immediate appearance of said being.

E2M6 Halls of the Damned

Getting my hands on a 2016 edition of Doom the board game was more eventful than it should have been.

The online retailer Boardgameguru had a copy which I ordered over a weekend. I knew they would not be sending the game straight away. They were at the end of a warehouse move.

Communication from the company said they would be business as normal that Monday.

I thought allow them a day or two to catch up with any orders. I should with a fair wind have the game by the following weekend.

However it did not arrive.

Another week passes and nothing.

So the following week I sent an email asking for an update. I was greeted by a wall of silence. Well no reply. A couple of days later I sent a follow up email. Still nothing. Not even tumble weed.

But that Friday afternoon I got a marketing email from them.

That infuriated me. It got my hackles up.

I replied to the marketing email with a blunt angry response.

Third time a charm. There was a reply this time.

Allegedly they are were unable to find any trace of my emails.

Apparently in the warehouse move they missed my order, and lost the only copy of the game!

I was given the option to wait for another copy to arrive (not likely for a seven year old game that is basically out of print) or have a refund.

I went the refund route.

But even that took a while to acknowledge. However eventually they did and a refund was issued.

While I was waiting for the refund to be done I posted on a boardgaming Facebook group looking for a second hand copy.

I got lucky. Within minutes some-one I had bought from before had a copy they were happy to sell to me.

That copy arrived whilst I was visiting Nathan.

Now I just need to get this edition to the table.

Another rarity I finished this level with 100% across the board.

This was a hard level. At times I just wanted to get to the exit.

But in doing so somehow I ended up finding and killing everything.