Regular Play

Four months have passed since we began playing 5e D&D on Roll20. It has been an interesting process. Those first awkward moments trying to learn how to find anything through the interface, let alone roll a dice have morphed into pretty sophisticated use of all the system has to offer. It has been a process, but it has been fun.
There are several facets of the experience that are noteworthy. For years, we have spoken of the need to play more often. With Roll20 we have been able to play four or five sessions of one campaign, and three more in a second. Eight sessions in 16 weeks you say... not a great percentage... On the face, the numbers are deceptive. There are vacations, concerts, moving, and general coordination of schedules involved that have influenced the whole. We have forced this situation upon ourselves, and fought to make it more regular. While it took time to get into a rhythm, it has paid off in allowing us to play more in these few months than we can usually find in the course of a year. It is a great way to get together when distance keeps you separate.
Another advantage of playing regularly shows in the flow of play once engaged. Some weeks we've been able to play consecutively, others have been after a week or two of inactivity. Those can take 30 minutes or more to get everyone together, get settled, and remember where we left off. When you only allot two hours a week for play, that is a significant loss. Playing regularly helps keep everyone engaged in the game, and able to spring back into the gameplay quickly.
It is also helpful in terms of role playing. Each encounter allows the nuances of the character to emerge, and regular play lets you find that playable element and develop it consistently. This is an interesting and critical part of the game. We've often fallen into pretty narrow types with our characters because of the infrequent game sessions we have, and it has been jarring at times to break out of that routine. At times we've been able to play in consecutive weeks, and the out of combat moments have blossomed into some more memorable actions and sessions as a result. It has allowed for better interaction within the party as well.
There is a weird dynamic within any D&D game, and one of the aspects of this is that each session can take on the personality of one of the players. Even when you try to account for this by designing elements to focus on one character, it is often another that steps out to dominate that moment. It is a fascinating part of the interplay within the game. I've found that the more fractured the scheduling, the more disparate these moments become. With longer breaks, it is more difficult for everyone to fall into character. When there is better continuity of play, the party dynamic rises on the individual styles and provides a more balanced, harmonic session.
I'm looking forward to learning more from continuing to play in this fashion, and hope to add further insight as it comes.

Begin Again

Two years into the new edition, and we've reached a sort of balance. I didn't realize it had been so long since my last post, but interestingly, it came just as the first campaign sourcebook, Princes of the Apocalypse, was being released (this doesn't include the two part starter setting released in concert with the rulebooks, The Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and The Rise of Tiamet). At this time, the fourth since then has just come out, Storm King's Thunder. There has been a dramatic shift in that time within the game, particularly the last six months.
On the other hand, many of the initial criticisms of the game still hold true, and in a sad twist, have returned to that point from a more evolved platform. There were nice strides from the company following Princes, with fairly regular releases on the website covering rules, variant gaming elements, and profiles of the game. They also began producing a "monthly" webzine, Dragon (about 10 per year), that gathers the website pieces and pads them with longer pieces of fiction, art and commentary. Unfortunately, the last few months have seen a return to an empty, static site.
Let's focus on the positive. In March, they released The Curse of Strahd to great acclaim. A popular module from the old days, the reboot came with the usual publicity, but seemed to touch an extra nerve, sending an energetic charge through the D&D community that reaped rich dividends. Everyone was talking about the setting, and looking forward to its release. But the game changer came with a more subtle opening. Dice, Camera, Action! was an official play-through of the Strahd campaign live on Twitch.tv. After a few sluggish sessions finding their way, and adjusting to the form, the game took off, drawing huge weekly viewers, and spawning many similar games. Roll20 began an Adventurers League series that showcased that form and the virtual tabletop Roll20 offers. Matt Mercer was brought into the fold to promote the new giant campaign, Acquisitions Inc. added a series. There was a time in the summer where I was watching a D&D game played online 4 nights of the week!
Most importantly, I made the decision to play online! I've been toying with Roll20 since 2013, and with their series, I was finally able to mount the learning curve and begin setting up encounters. It was never difficult, but time made me tentative. This summer, I thought, we're only going to start if someone just does it. We're playing on this date in this campaign. It worked! It has been a learning process, and we're still trying to find a regular time, but the game works, and with each session, the ease of the process grows.
It is an exciting new world for D&D with online streaming and gameplay, and will be fascinating in the coming months to see how it continues to expand and grow.

Defending the Stronghold

This week has been crazy, and no one has prepared anything for game night. Do we call everything off? No, you keep it simple and make the best of the time you have.

The biggest trouble with trying to make something up off the cuff is finding a way to provide something interesting and creative. Usually, preparing an adventure involves drawing out a map, placing defenses and traps, and at least mentally anticipating how the monsters will react defensively, regardless of how much you actually write down. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking takes time and relies on thoughtful preparation. So how can you make something quick that still delivers?

Put the characters on the defensive. Generally, most adventures involve the PCs tracking monsters to their lair, overcoming their defenses and carting off the loot. For a change, bring the monsters to the PCs, and make them do the defensive preparation and strategy as the game plays.

Defend the Stronghold - The stronghold doesn't need to be a fully plotted castle with moat overlooking a broad countryside, it can be an abandoned cabin in the woods, a knoll in the forest, or anything similar. The key to the situation is that they are the defenders. They need to assess the situation, choose a defensible position, and ration their resources to withstand the assault. My suggestion is that they defend themselves through the night or day, long enough to provide multiple sallies against them, but some period with a definite ending. This will help in parsing resources.

One beauty of this setup is that it allows players to see some of what goes into designing an adventure, and possibly inspires them to create their own to DM.

Another benefit is that since the situation will be more challenging to process, the monsters themselves can be very generic. Run some orcs and goblins at them, maybe some wolves, or a bear. With three or four basic fights, you'll have enough to take up an evening, and keep everyone entertained. Instead of time between encounters taking characters from town to town, up mountain paths, or so on, they can spend time healing, making forays into the woods for firewood or water, searching outlying buildings for lost supplies, healing potions, or a better spot to defend. It might be worth loosening some of the rules about long rests to allow an extra healing, or spell recovery. I suppose you could say they were defending for a longer time with fewer attacks per day.

This is a "lite" encounter night, so there is more to gain from relaxing time constraints in order to get a few hours of play in than being a stickler for going "by the book" and sending everyone home because you have nothing prepared, or the first two fights exhaust the party's resources. Let the creativity and non-combat elements of play come from this risk, and give them options in scavenging to make up for what they need.

Forests and Trees

It bothers me that WOTC doesn't seem to understand that D&D is a game and not a marketing contest. The closest they seem to come to providing content is when they have a new product to hawk. "Let's talk about the white dragon... oh, you can buy these miniatures of it soon!"
They have created a workable game system, and I like it. I don't think I'm alone in that. So why can't they generate some actual content for it?
Where is the reincarnated Dragon or Dungeon? Weren't they put in suspended animation last year about this time until the new system was out and they could reemerge in some form?
The Eberron content they added recently did offer a useful insight into magic item creation, particularly scrolls and potions. It may be the only useful item in the document, but it offers a way to handle those concerns. The DMG suggests magic item creation of the most common magic items takes 100 GP worth of time and money, with a spell caster able to contribute 25 GP of effort per 8 hour day. So a Scroll of Magic Missile takes 32 hours over four days and costs 100 GP to create? Yet once that is accomplished, another spell caster can spend 2 hours and 50 GP to scribble it into their spell book, with the time a result of figuring out the original caster's shorthand. This is a flawed system.
In Eberron, apparently, a certain class of wizard is able to expend a spell slot and spend 10 minutes creating a potion at 2nd level, and the same at 3rd level to produce a scroll. This is offered as a "path" available to spell casters.
Frankly, this is something that should be available to all spell casters automatically (at least, the primary casters - clerics, wizards, sorcerers, and druids - warlock powers are derived from their pact, and paladins, rangers, and eldritch knights are primarily fighters).

Starting Simply

Developing an Adventure

Stage 1: Paint with a broad stroke - This is more about the world around the adventure. Is it a dungeon crawl? An outdoor adventure? Something urban? What is threatening the world? Pirates? Orcs?

Stage 2: Identify key plot points you want to develop further - River piracy, a missing artifact, rivals in a power struggle

Stage 3: Connect the dots to create structure - The Drow are behind the piracy on the river, and have stepped up activity of late. Merchants are in an uproar. Now an attack in the market has brought forces into the open. You need to find the Drow hideout and battle their network of evil. Meanwhile, the dead are stirring in the outlying towns. It has riled the Drow, but what is the connection.

Stage 4: Add non-combat details for color and skill checks - gather information at the market, maybe a bridge is out, etc.

Stage 5: Add “random” elements for variety - a Cave Bear wanders across your path, a Blue Dragon swoops down to threaten you. This is good in particular because it shows characters there are times it is better to avoid an encounter than embrace it.

Its in the details

I finally picked up a copy of The Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and have been reading it and play testing the opening encounters. I'm glad I waited until now to do so. Two further quick points before I elaborate. We've been able to play several sessions over the holidays, with my brother serving as DM. I also finished putting together a first level adventure that I'm eager to run.
So what is the connection? It's in the details. The details of DMing that is. I like the elements that are in place with The Hoard of the Dragon Queen, but it is not very DM-friendly. The first encounter is set up with a read-aloud paragraph followed by a few lines of text identifying the running woman, suggesting that if you don't interfere, they'll assume you are with them and kill the family, then adding that if you are successful, you should go in "x" direction. It then says you need to defeat 3 more groups of raiders to reach the keep safely. The next paragraph starts referring to future missions.
I feel like they are missing something, and something big. I know they want to reduce dependence on grid-play, but this is extreme. Spells still have range, the first fight is against Kobolds, who get pack attack features when an ally is within 5' of their enemy, and characters still get move actions with fixed values for movement, so you can't remove these things entirely and still play the game.
I like the fact that they've created a quick-playing combat system. It is fun to use, and the quick resolution keeps everyone at the table focused on the matter at hand. In all honesty, it would have been enough for me if they'd said, "the alley is 50' ahead of you, and you can see the keep looming over you on the right several blocks away." Instead, they say "you see 8 Kobolds attacking 5 villagers, if you do nothing the villagers die, if you kill the Kobolds, go to the Keep."
The Lost Mine of Phandelver introductory module has the same issue. They write the encounters directly into the flow of descriptive text for the module. This forces you to constantly pick at columns of text to glean the nuggets you need at any given time. I would prefer a callout box listing the encounter information for easy reference (# monsters, attack bonuses, damage, defenses, special abilities or actions they may take, location).
With our home-spun campaign, the biggest hurdle to jump has been introducing and resolving non-combat situations. We've been playing for nearly 35 years, but without much regularity for the last 20. Part of this has come from getting busy with other things in life, part of it the decline at periods over that time of the game itself, and partly the evolution of the game into something that leant itself well to one-off battles. We stopped playing non-combat scenarios, and forgot how to have them flow well. There is a good deal of rust on our cogs, and it showed.
You could tell, however, that he had done a lot of testing and tinkering with battle groups to find an interesting balance that could be met well. But as the adventure rolled on, it began to feel too crafted, too one-dimensional. My brother has always been adept at creating parties of monsters that make for interesting and dynamic combat, but they hold the line too closely. Every battle starts to look the same, every encounter is a slight variation of the same 3 or 4 monsters mix.
Comparing them to my own dungeon, I am that much more eager to run it. Hopefully, I have found a good balance between detail and story. I've created a crypt, with several undead types in it, as well as various underground vermin and detritus. For each room I've included not just what inhabits it, but how they might react or respond to intrusion, how they might interact with rooms around them, as well as triggering elements for traps or ambush, etc. There are places that reveal more info to characters making successful skill checks.
When I finished, I was unsure if what I had was really worth running. I threw much of it together before the DMG came out, maybe a third before the Monster Manual. I chose a crypt as a throw-back to first edition because I started before the Players' Handbook came out. It was a hodgepodge of elements, cobbled together to fit a game system I could only hint at parts of. But in retrospect, comparing actual play with another DM to official "direction" from Wizards, I think it is actually pretty good.
And I think the value for it lies in the details.

D&D Lite

I was looking over old edition information today, and lamenting how little there is with the new site and the new edition. It seems to me that there are two elements that attract me to playing the game. One is the appeal of developing a world, and characters, then playing them through. This element is grand and detailed, and requires thought and preparation and features an ongoing storyline. It fits very well with what they're trying to do with the new game… but that is the part that is fun and comes easily to me.
The second attraction of play is the actual gameplay itself - the monsters, the dice rolls, the action, and finding treasure. This element doesn't need great preparation, the fun of it comes from the action of play, and the improv, not from the plot as such. We're talking about the difference between Castle and Monty Python. Both are funny and interesting, and socially relevant, but they fill very different roles in comedy. Castle features recurring characters and themes, has plot and overarching storylines that cover multiple episodes and seasons. Monty Python is absurd skit comedy, often falling apart structurally within a skit. Still, there is chaotic thread holding it together against all logic.
Dungeons and Dragons needs both pieces to make a treasurable whole. There are times you just want to come home and play, without worrying about motivations and backgrounds, how you get to the ruins, or why red and white dragons are in the same mountain pass. This is D&D Lite.
Third edition understood this extremely well, and was a golden age of production. Fourth edition incorporated it into the structure of the game, and failed miserably by trying to make it the whole game. Fifth edition seems to work much better because it recasts the focus of the game to the overarching story elements. Where it falls short is in the backlash against the shortcomings of 4e, and the absence of Lite elements.
As long time gamers and world builders, we are very comfortable with making maps, creating towns and trade, and building politics and culture. For not having done it in many years, there is a fair amount of rust to shake off before it feels natural again, but it's something we're familiar with. What we need, what is missing, are the instant options for game play that populated the Wizards site for third edition.
What is needed are maps, settings, quick encounters in town, and on the trail that can be plugged into long-range campaign arcs as needed. I think other missing elements include wandering monster tables, and random encounter tables. These offer quick ways to pull together an encounter for quick play or to fill out a thin adventure. I find it easy to come up with broad strokes to sculpt encounters, but more difficult to populate every room, every area. I like to roll dice to choose monsters, then tweak them in order to fit the plan I have.