One of the most popular questions I get is “How do I start to play D&D?” In the Before Times I would invite people to join in my World of the Everflow campaign with fully half of the more than a dozen participants in that game being new to Dungeons & Dragons. Now, with the explosion of digital and remote play I tend to guide people towards the Adventurer’s League. The robust program from Wizards of the Coast just had a major shift.
As someone who builds most of their characters via DnDBeyond the looser rules help. There was not a simple toggle to limit to the PHB+1 rule on/off, so to make an AL character I had to think through which book a spell, background, feat, race, subclass all showed up in. The digital era makes the +1 rule a touch obsolete. A character built on Beyond or any VTT will have all of its abilities publicly facing the DM.
Sometimes you go to bed thinking ‘self tomorrow’s story is already written.’ Then you wake up and major news breaks as Wizards of the Coast is teasing a product announcement for Tuesday. Before we get into that, and the movie news, let’s review what Full Moon Storytelling had for you last week. There was a review of what the site is all about and a post related to this month’s Blog Carnival as the history of the Everflow was made public for the first time.
Let’s get into the news, which leads off with the Dungeons & Dragons movie from Paramount and eOne, again.
The teaser from Wizards of the Coast doesn’t announce a release date, but thanks to online retailers we know that the product announcement is Feb 23 for a book coming out on May 18 – a great birthday gift for me.
Guess we’ll all be heavily online this week as we learn just where in the demiplanes of Ravenloft we’ll be going. This will be the second book with a Ravenloft theme, the first time that Wizards of the Coast returns to a non-Forgotten Realms setting for a second book in 5th edition. The most recent Unearthed Arcana featured mechanics for three horror-based races as well.
Avoid Total Party Kills by giving the players the types of tips that their characters would already notice.
Playing D&D in Civic Spaces During the Pandemic
Madison, WI public libraries are hosting D&D, as well as expanding their other tabletop gaming content. Their games use DnDBeyond and a video conference softward. This makes a lot of sense, as Madison is one of the birthplaces of the game.
Up bright & early for today's stroll through the capital: a tour of Roman London. We shall walk the line of the city walls, and then visit the sites of its vanished monuments. (The archaeological sites, alas, will be shut, but there is always the imagination…) #Londiniumpic.twitter.com/SpIiLrxwqK
The Font of Two Paths, the Two-Headed Spring, Pool of Life, Lake of Wonder — the Everflow. This supernatural gift from Quar is the result of the last action of gods who turned their backs on Kin. The Lake of Wonder has two exits, a thing that shouldn’t ever, ever happen when making maps. This wasn’t because of Quar, but instead due to the people who wanted to spread these waters as far as possible. The Font of Two Paths is as much a study of Quar as it is of the ingenuity of his church.
Telse and its immediate surroundings. Map developed using the beta of Hex All Things by Fantastic Maps
In the land of Kin the time of creation of the Everflow started one of the popular calendars. This day is known, only due to the Church of Quar (in actuality it is the date when the first Bishop took the Church from religion to merchant guild and non-national power).
The modern era, 21-26 Post Awakening (PA), the Everflow has a few mechanical benefits. This is true in a world where common magic is merely cantrips and the kinship between beasts. A vial of Everflow, attainable in many markets in Telse and through the rest of Kin only at the Church of Quar, works as three uses of a Potion of Healing. In this world it takes only a Bonus Action to consume a use. Taking all three at once is an Action, and also removes a level of Exhaustion. Again, magic is quite rare, so this healing power has created the potency and power of the Church, which profits off of controlling the Source.
Make up new items or stat up those from myth, describe places where lost items can be found or quests set by the gods for those who wish to “borrow” item for an important task, what artifacts would your campaign villain seek? What is the craftsman of the gods working on?
When the Western Wildes were controlled by the Empire of Sheljar the Church’s influence was so strong that Telse remained a mostly-independent city, though the defenses of Telse and Upper Telse were provided by Sheljar as the mighty empire controlled all lands around the lake town.
This power dynamic shifted at the Fall of Sheljar. As the Necromancer took power in the bog city the other cities in the west earned their freedoms, for the most part.
Telse, Mira, Qin and the other cities near the Everflow and its two rivers.
Sheljar then sat empty as people fled the Tunneling Nightmares and the Night Peoples.
Mira is a port city in the north, with some influence over Fort Ooshar.
Qin is the city of guilds in the south.
The Ferments are a region of hot springs, alcohol, homesteads, and vibrant independence.
Bell’an’aur is the community of mines and glass blowing.
But Telse and Upper Telse remain influential. Bishop Ollium maintains power through the wealth of the church — both in the masses of gold and the healing powers of the Everflow. His church-shops are scattered in all kingdoms (Crinth, Azsel, Kirtin, Daoud, and even Mehmd in the dry east). Though smaller than Qin and Mira, Telse’s gift from the gods, an everflowing fountain of healing water that fills a lake with large locks controlling outflow towards both Mira and Qin.
This gift changed the world. Due to the corruption inherent in the People of Love (humans, halflings, goliaths — the Kin) a gift of healing created a church more powerful than nations, able to control who lives and dies, able to topple dynasties.
In times legendary, Quar expected his gift to be a lasting connection created through generous health, as the Font never runs dry everyone would benefit. The flawed god of life did not expect the flaws of man to control this ability.
Other worlds may have mighty boons from the divine that shake the land, or summon kaiju, or protect cities. In the World of the Everflow the minor gift of healing created a non-national empire, a form of currency, and a town that now has a large refugee populace fleeing the Fall of Sheljar or the cursed magicks now entering the Western Wildes — and dragons.
No matter how large or small an artifact of the gods is it will change your world. The Waters of the Everflow did so much more than a god intended.
It comes with just a single question. What if? What if I started a new blog? What if we talked about fantasy fiction? What if the stories told coincided with a role-playing game? What if I set myself back two decades and cracked open Dungeons & Dragons again?
Every storyteller needs their tools – a good mug, a notebook (or netbook), a satchel for tokens and memories and a block of cheese maybe some sausage, and a trusty sword.
What if the themes were strong adult subject matter that made for gritty tales of life, death and heroism? What if magic was real? And the gods could talk, but then they stopped?
What if the continents were small, the peoples plentiful and not all human? What if humans didn’t believe in magic because it had disappeared in the only continent they know? How about making it so they are defined more by their cultures than by their phenotype?
Have they stopped believing in themselves, in their gods? Do they see good and evil? How?
Is there slavery? Why? Is there nobility? Can someone be both?
These questions and the cascade of answers start to form more questions. It’s a nearly infinite series of responses. World building, particularly the creation of a world that breathes, is hard. Crafting a world-space that can withstand episodic gaming is harder.
Take chunks at a time. That’s what Full Moon Storytelling will be. Small chunks of content for use in a campaign setting, built around a custom set of rules adapted from 5th edition D&D, but with accompanying tales. If the setting says “The Necromancer is just someone trying to be good” there will be a story that explains how that happened.
As The Worthing Saga took a novella and broke out portions into branch stories, Full Moon Storytelling takes a campaign setting, rule set and crafts micro-fiction, short stories, plotless narrations and episodic adventures within the World of the Everflow.
Maybe that’s where we start, not with a character, but with a story about a fountain that flows from a cliff and diverts along two paths – the Font of Two Paths, the Two-Headed Spring, Pool of Life, Lake of Wonder. The Everflow influences the western peninsula of Kin, is clearly unnatural and …
This is Full Moon Storytelling. It’s a way to share writing, writing process and to think aloud, while words spring forth from tiny digits. Things will happen live, in front of you. Process will be as important as output. Creation is play. Come, join me at this fire under a full moon with clear sky as we look up through trees staring towards the open world of wonder, knowing that behind those trees at your back is whatever reality you can imagine.
Inspiration is everywhere, and anywhere. Read a story about mushroom bricks? Add mushroom bricks to your world. Read a story about how dinosaurs weren’t actually as fast as people think? Adjust their speeds. Everything is prep — even a cold spell and winter storm that hits 1/3 of the country. That should help inform your Rime of the Frostmaiden sessions.
Let’s get into the news, which leads off with the Dungeons & Dragons movie from Paramount and eOne.
Official D&D Products Releases and Reviews
Dungeons & Dragons Movie News
Michelle Rodriguez and Justice Smith are joining Chris Pine in the D&D movie project from Paramount and eOne/Hasbro. Most of the news around this is bare-bones, but one thing stick out — Rodriguez and Pine are both already part of multi-billion dollar franchises (Fast & Furious, Avatar, Star Trek, Wonder Woman/DCU). The aim on this project is huge. There is no indicator that the studios are just floating the movie as a possible success. They are targeting the type of success that creates new sub-studios and genre defying popularity. Vulture thinks they may just have a chance.
Two new video series look to guide first-time players through the experience.
Yawning Portal Games Sign Up Opens for February
Looking for a game and can’t find one locally during the pandemic? The Yawning Portal hosts Adventurer’s League games and original adventures once a month with official virtual D&D. Their doors are back open.
As someone who grew up in the 80s, with a mom who bought into the Satanic Panic, I will never get used to libraries and community centers hosting D&D for the general public.
Laney decided it would be best to host the session on Zoom. He says he will also utilize tools and resources from the website dndbeyond.com, which can help new players with character creation and help him manage the games. He also contacted Wizards of the Coast, the publisher for Dungeons and Dragons, who said they are proud to support library and school D&D groups. The publisher donated digital copies of all published Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition sourcebook.
Ocean City Public Libraries in New Jersey are hosting both middle school and high school D&D sessions. If you’re ever in Ocean City, check out their beach. My grandad worked on some of the building design.
Dungeons & Dragons & Mainstream
GameRant wants D&D to have an official VTT. For me this would be an error that forces homogenization. Just like every home table in the pre-pandemic varied, so should the virtual tables around which we gather. Some DMs work best with a video camera and story without any specific mechanics tied to the digital world. Others may like a complete customizable virtual game that approaches video game levels of detail. Find the one that is best for your group and use it.
The Dungeons & Dragons cartoon of the 80s was too short lived. If you miss it, or need to know what it is Boing Boing has your write up, and shared this video.
This may help you understand Passive Perception, Passive Investigation, and Passive Insight. The potential for making Passive versions of all of these the default is something I’m still considering.
Passive perception is the most prevalent passive skill in the rules. This makes sense. It’s something that you can’t stop doing without impairment.
So, it’s definitely passive. But, when does it become active? We can think of all sorts of examples:
Squinting or shading your eyes to see through glaring light.
Cupping your hand to your ear to listen for noise.
Closing your eyes to savor a tasty morsel.
Drawing a deep breath to discern a scent.
These techniques allow us to focus our perception specifically. But, we already have a word for actively using our senses to deduce information. It’s called investigation.
Perception and investigation are the passive and active sides of the same coin. They’re…
They can be disgusting. There are times that I’ve called them the rats of the vegetable world — they are not vegetables. In our games we can use mushrooms as food.
What dungeon bound civilization hasn’t used fields of mushrooms for sustenance? Every time Drow, Dueger, Svirfneblin, and the rest raise shrooms. It’s part of the lore. Bioluminescent fungus and molds can be used for lighting as well.
These tropes are common in Dungeons & Dragons.
But you should also use mushrooms to build things. This is happening in the real world, but as bricks. Sure, that works in D&D. It makes a lot of sense for certain cultures.
Expand on that idea.
Who lives inside the shrooms like the Smurfs did. Or do your fey hide from the rain underneath a little cap.
What secret assassin group searches for a specific fungus for their signature poison? What apothecary makes a healing tisane out of mycelium and molds? Which street vendor took the meals of the underdark and turned them into handheld pastries stuffed with minced mushrooms and aged cheese making a name for themselves in the lighted world?
Everything you experience — eat, read, watch, listen to, encounter — can inspire you to add a little bit to your gameworld or character.
You might be able to outrun a Tyrannosaurus Rex, if you’re a peak athlete. Keep note of that. You almost certainly can outmaneuver them. Those are the key takeaways that Wired wants you to have after reading “How to Outrun a Dinosaur.“
There’s a lot more depth in there for a game designer, homebrewer, or storyteller.
Three years ago the biologist Myriam Hirt, who studies animal movement at the German Centre for Biodiversity Research, asked a seemingly simple question: Why is it that the biggest, most powerful animals—the whales, elephants, and rhinoceroses—are not the fastest, while the smallest—the mice, minnows, and millipedes—are some of the slowest? Is the implication that there is an optimum size for speed?
The answer, Hirt found, is yes. If you were designing an animal for speed, that animal should weigh approximately 200 pounds. A bit heavier for a swimmer, and a bit lighter for a flyer.
The speed of 50 might make sense if the primary time in D&D that speed is used is to determine distance running. But it is not. Speed most frequently comes up in combats in six-second chunks of time. Beasts and Monstrosities with high speeds should be the ones that accelerate and burst forward — cheetahs, lions, and Deltadromeus. Even the velociraptor should be average-to-athletic human sprint speed-ish.
That also brings up a key point. A D&D character is supposed to represent, in general, above average athletes. There’s no direct tie-in between Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution and speed. Most races get a 30, some get a 25, rare ones get 35, and even rarer are the few that fly or swim.
There are three things we should do with the knowledge from that Wired article;
Centerline most speeds to better represent reality in non-magical creatures.
Add line in the description that addresses distance traveled by unencumbered and encumbered beasts of burden.
Create a quick and easy way to avoid getting run down by a dinosaur.
That last bullet doesn’t take a lot of work. When in a chase scene use opposed Dexterity checks (Acrobatics or Athletics or Sports could apply) when the chaser is within Reach of the chasee. A success would permit an attack/shove/grapple, if the action economy makes sense. If not, let the chasee take half their movement as a reaction as long as they are able to, and do, significantly change direction.
Any creature that has magical influence on their speed can operate as normal.
Before we dive into the news around the net, let’s review what you may have missed from Full Moon Storytelling. There’s some awesome tools to create NPC character art. Using those the post about Thoumas, the Swarmkeeper of Terriers, now has art. You should also check out Ginny Di’s recommendations to make virtual D&D suck less. Every recommendation is also valid for your business meetings.
Let’s get on with the news around Dungeons & Dragons and the other stuff that geeks like us enjoy.
They also just fixed three more of the features from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.
Heroes’ Feast
The Shepherd Gazette gets in on the Heroes’ Feast review action. This is a fun little story for a smaller paper to cover. Stuff magazine in New Zealand also covers the 3rd most popular cookbook of 2020.
Dragonlance Art
Advice for Dungeons & Dragons Payers and DMs
Think DM thinks that the language about surprise can be simplified by bringing back Surprise Rounds and/or using the Surprise Condition.
It can be hard to find schedule a full table for D&D, even if everything is virtual. Kobold Press is jumping on the duets (D&D with just a Player and a DM) bandwagon.
What happens when you combine a pirate from the early modern Middle East with D&D? Add Piri Reis to your game.
Playing D&D in Civic Spaces During the Pandemic
As someone who grew up in the 80s, with a mom who bought into the Satanic Panic, I will never get used to libraries and community centers hosting D&D for the general public.
I’m all for more Wakanda. Ryan Coogler is going to give us a limited series when he’s done with Black Panther 2.
As Always, Maps
Dungeon Alchemist is creating amazing fantasy interiors. These isometric maps are perfect for a quick tavern, castle, or other building you need. Yes, I’ve signed up to be notified when the Kickstarter goes live.
Everyone needs an icy villa map to help you pass time during the icy winter.
Christian Oesch’s DM Heroes page throws together a handful of racial/lineage options with descriptions that are not centered on combat. Additionally there are suggestions on how to connect them to each other.
Veklani Skandalor
Female Dwarf Cobbler – If it doesn’t kill you…
Veklani’s suggested traits are;
Features
70 years old (young adult) 4′2″ (128cm) Normal voice Speaks about themself in 3rd person.
Traits
Never changes their facial expression. Hates the government. Is happy because of a recent dream.
Story
Asks the party to help their become a cult leader. Wants to kill Erag Ambershard
Other
Prays to Dugmaren Brightmantle, god of discovery (CG)
If you don’t have time to custom craft a handful of minor NPCs just in case, this tool does wonders. It also can be a handy tool to get quick art for your PC, though you’ll need to spend time tuning the various sliders and such. Reroll, Hero Forge and others might be better for that.
Quick art for your characters, whether player or DM controlled, helps with immersion and inspiration. Find those tools that help you and your group enjoy the game most.
