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Merric Blackman

3 Feb, 9 tweets, 1 min read

My group are fighting on top of Yester Hill. The scale on the map is 1 square = 50 feet, which means the closest enemy is about 300 feet away, and others are 500+ feet away. It's a new experience for the characters!

Spot the tokens!

While the party wait for the enemies get into range, the wizard keeps attacking a statue depicting Strahd.

Ireena is *very* approving of the wizard. Is this a lovely romance starting?

From the distant foes comes the cry "Destroy the desecrators!"

Wizard: "Oh, that's actually pretty accurate!"

The bard is now singing, mocking the druids: "When the devil burns, and there's nothing you can do about it..."

I really want to see if the cleric's spiritual weapon spell runs out before the enemy reach them....

DM: "You can see a shiny axe on the ground!"
Wizard: "ooh!"
Wizard's player: "Oh, wait! I'm playing a wizard this campaign, not a dwarf cleric!"

Evil Druids: "Strahd will make you pay for your sins!"
Party: "You're too far away! What was that again?"
Evil Druids: "We can't hear you! What did you say?"
...taunting at range.

Ireena: "Those berserkers are getting very close!"
Wizard: "I agree. Let's run. The bard can hold them off!"
Bard: "What???"

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More from @MerricB

Merric Blackman

@MerricB

5 Feb

If you have an ability in a game that has a chance of eliminating you from the game if you use it, what does that then do to the game?

What does it do to the enjoyment of the other participants?

Older board games were very fond of player elimination - where you could stop playing the game when your position was overrun. And these could be LONG games. Consider Diplomacy, which could be an 8 hour game where players were progressively eliminated.

And that meant that a person might set aside their afternoon and evening for playing this game, but then WASN'T playing for hours.

Read 14 tweets

Merric Blackman

@MerricB

4 Feb

In previous adventures (about 15+ years ago), the characters failed to stop the necromancer in Feast of Goblyns, and another player character became an important person in the Great Kingdom. #greyhawk #dnd

(I placed Feast of Goblyns in a west county of the Great Kingdom).

It's about 30 years later in the campaign world, and the current characters are about to visit the Court of the Overking. Some of the players played those previous adventures.

Read 5 tweets

Merric Blackman

@MerricB

5 Jul 20

If you're interested in giving earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons a try, I suggest you *also* get a copy of the 1981 Basic Rules, which may have the clearest explanation of some of the procedures those games follow.

Things like the procedures for exploration and combat are described much more clearly there than in OD&D or AD&D. You can then replace them with systems you like better, but it should give you a better feeling for the game. And the Expert rules add in wilderness travel.

I tend to like AD&D more than B/X due to the way it handles character classes, but I found the Basic rules invaluable in understanding the game.

Read 5 tweets

Merric Blackman

@MerricB

26 Feb 20

In the early days of Dungeons & Dragons, players rolled to determine their ability scores. On 3d6. In order. Certain classes were only available to those with good rolls. #dnd

Note that in the earliest form of D&D, high ability scores did very little. High Str, Int or Wis? That only gave a bonus to XP earned, and only if you were of that class. No bonus to hit or damage from high Strength, for instance! #dnd

As the game developed - and with the release of the "Greyhawk" supplement - ability scores rose in prominence. And, as they did, alternative methods of generating them were needed. I've got a feeling characters with below average stats didn't survive long - if even played! #dnd

Read 18 tweets

Merric Blackman

@MerricB

21 Feb 19

Non-player characters are tricky to describe in an adventure. Consider the following: What do they want? How do they react to PC requests and other interaction? How do they respond to trickery, diplomacy, intimidation or violence? #dnd

Just as with encounter, a one-size-fits-all format doesn't work for NPCs. Change how they're presented in response to how they're used. If you have someone giving you a quest, it's a different format to a NPC-as-villain, or a NPC-as-reluctant-ally! Write differently! #dnd

The more freedom players have with their actions, the more attention you need to pay to detailing NPC reactions. If the PCs are given the goal of "discover from Bob who the traitor is", consider how Bob reacts to various actions and detail them. #dnd

Read 13 tweets

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