Divining the Dice

WoTC’s DMs Guild concept is a great resource for both players and DM’s alike. Not only can abundant home-brew and official content be found, but it is also a great place to turn your hard work into some reasonable pocket money. New Classes, subclasses, races, maps, encounters, items, backgrounds, spells, npc’s, adventures and one shots can all be found on the site for free or being sold. My Experiences... At the beginning of this year with a bunch of spare time and some creative inspiration, I set about creating a campaign to play with my family. I prepared the story, town, NPC’s and other important information into a document with similar formatting and layout to other D&D products. After finishing the first 3 parts and uploading them to DMs Guild ( check out my stuff here ), I continued working hard on creating the rest of the campaign and a bunch of other content for the next 4 months. I formatted edited and tested my content and then uploaded it to the Guild. Unfortunatel...

Creating detailed and nuanced characters has recently become much easier thanks to Xanathar’s Guide to Everything’s , This is Your Life section. However if you are looking for some alternatives, or perhaps are new to D&D, I have a few suggestions to get your next PC off the paper and into their first adventure. For New Players For new players I strongly suggest picking your favourite character from a movie, book or TV show, as this provides a great framework for your characters back-story, attitudes and personalities. This may seem like a silly idea as it could be difficult applying a template to the selection of available classes and races, but I will provide some examples. Ultimately you will find that almost any conceivable character can be converted to a D&D PC. Firstly, Mulan everyone’s favourite female warrior. Take the human race (possibly variant to access find familiar through the magic initiate feat). The charlatan background can provide access to the dis...

D&D does a pretty good job of applying a rule set to a fabricated reality. Although the current system ignores much of the nitty gritty of previous versions, it envelops most basic issues likely to arise. Now before I delve any further, I would like to address the fact that I realise that 4e 3.5e and pathfinder do cover a few of the topics I’m about to cover. The reason for this post however isn’t about making new rules or showing where 5e is lacking. Its more about incorporating a level of realism and logic that is missing in some things. Combat Clumsiness Your paladin fighting with all his pack, bedroll, barrel, 4 warhammers, 3 chain mails and a dog still attached? He must be having a hard time keeping balance!  Characters that don’t clearly state that they have, to the best of their ability, prepared for combat should be at some sort of disadvantage. This could be in the form of maybe a -2 to AC or at the least a hampered movement of some variety. This could be seen...

There’s a delicate balance when it comes to the tabletop in terms of personality, character interaction and ensuring everyone has a good time. Although the DM is often looked towards to ensure everyone’s character gets a chance in the lime light, I believe the responsibility also lies at the feet of each person at the table, especially people who find themselves leading the rest of the party. Within a group there will often be dominate personalities and some more submissive ones. People with dominate personalities often are quick to step up to social interaction encounters and also don’t mind throwing their weight around in all other aspects of the game. This provides them with an unbalanced majority of “air time” leaving others feeling disenfranchised or ignored. Some players are fine to sit back and just enjoy the experience regardless, yet others can become frustrated and will sometimes leave the group or game. In a few of my recent games there has been one such person in...

Combat can be a little dull from time to time, especially when there isn’t a lot thematically or mechanically going on. The rounds can start to drag and it becomes hard as a DM to continue to create awesome mental images of a raging fight, when it’s just roll after roll. In an attempt to spice things up slightly, I have implemented a system in my games to try to create further interest and add mechanical fun to regular combats. It’s a simple system that can be imposed both on the players and the NPC’s and doesn’t add any real additional work to the group. I call it the Called Shot Method . The system works as follows, if you’re fighting a Bugbear with the standard 16AC and you are able to roll 5 over his AC, you can call wher on his body you would like to strike. Then based on the damage rolled, from lowest to max, the severity of the effects is calculated.  If you rolled a 5 or 6 on a D6 then the effect may be crippling. If you rolled a 1 it may just have grazed the i...

When it comes to skill checks such as investigation or arcana, a lot can ride on getting a reasonable roll of the die. Nothing is more frustrating than having a nice juicy +6 (at low levels) in a skill, to then roll below a 5 on the dice and learn or gain nothing. This can even cause problems for DM’s who would like to progress a plot, but has it hinging on the correct DC being reached. I think part of the system creates dissolution and disappointment in players (especially unlucky ones such as myself), so I have devised an alternative based loosely of the idea of “passive” skill levels. Within the PHB and DMG passive abilities are only mentioned in regards to Perception and Investigation (under the Observant Feat). However it could be assumed that the ideas of passive scores could be applied to all skills, especially ones a character is proficient in. Now I’m not going to say that the using passive scores for everything is a great idea, because rolling the dice is fun....

Creating homebrew content can be tiresome, especially when it comes to inventing new and unique tropes for campaigns or quest arcs. Other brilliant minds have suggested using movie and TV show plots as a framework for your own campaign ideas (see T the writer’s story on “Spoony the bard” ). Although this is a great and easy way to structure such a story arc, I would like to offer another alternative.... History!! Wait!!! Before you all stop reading and reminiscing about the most boring subject in your middle years education, just remember that history is often stranger than fiction. I’m going to lay out a few ideas to get you all started and very soon I’m sure you will begin to see the genius of this concept. Bonus round information: While using this method you are actually getting the huge benefit of learning history whilst creating unique content :O, I know this probably isn’t going to be enough to sway some people but still....   The rough foundation of the Roman Em...

As a DM or player, boss fights really need to bring something unique and challenging that regular combat does not. Most tackle this issue by using powerful and unique creatures from the Monster Manual at the end of particular adventure or campaign arcs. Doing so however, often leads to predictable scenarios and all too often simple whack a mole style combats, with everyone standing around attacking each other.  This is perfectly acceptable, but in the spirit of raising the bar, I would like to discuss a few additional options for boss fights to encourage more engaging and strategic play.  First, the boss is the boss for a reason. There should be something “magical” or powerful about them that separates him or her from their regular underlings. This doesn’t have to be the typical options like a magical item or overpowered stats. These encounters often take place in a fantasy setting with rules usually constructed for the players, as a game master you can break the rul...

Hi, I'm Nick. I'm married, have 2 small kids, a full time job and an unquenchable thirst for tabletop role playing games. Dungeons and Dragons is a relatively new hobby for me, although it is one I have spent arguably the most time on. The journey started just over a year ago now and although this by no means qualifies me as a professional, I'd like to think I've gained some critical insight which may be interesting to share. I want to approach this in a series, that isn't necessarily exclusive to only Dungeon Masters or Players, but to anyone who also enjoys this wonderful activity. I want to tackle some of the more obvious issues I regular face as both a player and a DM but, I don't want to rehash issues that other podcasts, videos or blogs have covered to death. I would also like to touch on some fun topics like arc's (both character and campaign), ideas and inspiration. Ultimately though, this is all about my love for such a great system and concept wh...