• Third-Party Thursday is all about Jeff Goldblum

    Third-Party Thursday is all about Jeff Goldblum

    Breaking up Lore Collage helps me spread the love to third-party creators a bit more. They aren’t buried, instead featured. Podcasts, mapmakers, settings creators, expansions and more — there’s so much 5e stuff out there. These are my favorite discoveries of the week.

    Dark Dice inks Jeff Goldblum

    Dark Dice is a long running podcast that is part actual play, part radio play. Their latest season added Jeff Goldblum. Yes, the same Goldblum you’re thinking of already. It’s a huge get for the small podcast. The coverage included Deadline, Yahoo, and Polygon.

    io9 makes it seem like this pod just went from “hey maybe someday” to must listen. Goldblum embraces the game.

    I guess it’s time for me to give it some time. I’ve enjoyed the radio play stylings of Godsfall, so I’m ready for more as the radio nerd I used to be.

    Level Up Journeys

    The latest playtest from Level Up is dedicated to the exploration pillar of play. The expansion of just journeys is enormous, and a compelling addition to any table. The stories which inspired D&D include so much detail about journeys, your game shouldn’t cut those moments down to two sentences.

    Every wanderer needs a God

    Deven Rue makes more than maps. She seeds stories inspired by her maps. One of those latest seeds is a Goddess of Maps. The Wandering Mistress guides those who travel for any reason. Add the Mistress to your world and you gain a deity, a guild and several boons.

    Sirens: Battle of the Bards

    Satine Phoenix’s latest project is an entire setting dedicated to bards. Egg Embry interviews Phoenix and creative partner Jamison Stone about Sirens: Battle of the Bards.

    Combat Wheelchair pushback must stop

    When Sara Thompson released a combat wheelchair to increase representation in D&D it was a great thing. Opening up the worlds of D&D and fantasy to more people is good. But then the pushback started, and then that pushback went to obscene and dangerous levels.

    As always, maps

  • Lore Collage: Playdates in the Pandemic

    Lore Collage: Playdates in the Pandemic

    Signups for the official Virtual Weekend of May 8-10 remain open. Visit the Yawning Portal for more information.

    On Wednesdays Lore Collage will focus on public play as well as advice for DMs and players of D&D.

    Public Dungeons & Dragons

    Campbell County High School in Wyoming added a D&D club. No, the participants aren’t combatting Demogorgons and saving Star Mall.

    Pandemic D&D offers socialization

    Dicebreaker speaks to Game to Grow about how roleplaying games create social connection. Though the lack the campfire, usually, they are similar to the campfire tales of our ancestors.

    Advice for DMs

    This is old advice from Think DM, but it’s always good to review how to address problem players.

    Cutting Words doesn’t play well with the game as it is currently played. You only need to remove one line to improve the spell.

    What if dragons are just former adventurers transformed by their greed and avarice?

    As a fan of uprisings and rebellion fantasy, this entry about how to bring revolution to your campaign fueled my soul.

    Starting a homebrew campaign many DMs start with a continental map, but it’s much easier to start local, because that’s where your players start.

    If you think 5e skills don’t make sense, wait until you try to figure out how earlier editions handled skills.

    Advice for Players

    Want to play yourself? Melbourne University created an app that converts your face into the six attributes and a suggested class. It thinks I am a CE, Cleric with STR 15, DEX 9, CON 12, INT 9, WIS 15, CHA 9. Maybe. Probably not, as I haven’t been close to a STR 15 since my 20s.

    As always, maps

  • Lore Collage: Previewing the Mists of Ravenloft

    Lore Collage: Previewing the Mists of Ravenloft

    The biggest news related to D&D the tabletop game is the upcoming setting book Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. If all you know is Barovia, the new book is about to add many more varieties of horror to your table or video chat games. The Black Dice Society is the perfect stream to introduce you to some of them, but it’s more than that.

    On Tuesdays Lore Collage focuses on the D&D game of dice and paper.

    Previewing Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft

    The official intro to the full book includes thoughts from the designers.

    Lysa Penrose threaded snapshots from her advance copy over on Twitter.

    Polygon, Forbes, and SyFy each were given an in-depth advance preview of a non-Barovia Domain of Dread. With over 30 Domains available, you can craft the perfect story for your table, even if you have players who follow all of the previews out there. There are still undead, constructs, cosmic horrors, and more lurking behind every page.

    One of those Domains is Eberron’s Cyre, which disappeared after some kind of apocalypse during the Last War. Not only covered in Van Richten’s Guide, Cyre is also getting a deeper treatment from Keith Baker.

    https://twitter.com/InMyEberron/status/1388191448068198404

    The Yawning Portal remains open for this weekend’s virtual play. You can enter the mists and enjoy Ravenloft before the book comes out.

    Draconic Options Unearthed Arcana

    The survey is up to review the various Draconic races, feats, and spells in the April Unearthed Arcana. There were a bunch of intriguing ideas, but at this time they feature major changes to a PHB race, as well as one of my favorite little peoples. When I filled the survey out I suggested that these draconic races should follow the subrace format of other races, rather the confusing way orcs exist.

    Other news

    D&D helped make Hasbro a lot of money.

    As always, maps

  • Lore Collage: D&D movie begins filming

    Lore Collage: D&D movie begins filming

    Lore Collage is shifting to a regular posting schedule with the aggregation of links having a specific focus. With more and more press being generated by the game, past links posts would have several dozen items, which is just too much.

    That breakdown is;

    • Monday Movies and other franchise news.
    • Tuesday Tabletop – Official D&D games news and reviews.
    • Wednesday Playdates in Pandemic – library games, mainstream coverage of socialization via D&D, and advice for your table.
    • Thursday Third-party – promoting discovered homebrew and professional content
    • Friday – General geekery that I enjoy unrelated to D&D

    Dungeons and Dragons movie starts filming

    With the announced cast gathered in Ireland, filming began.

    20 minutes of Dark Alliance gameplay

    Dark Alliance looks like it is going to capture the hack-and-slash style that some tables prefer. Light on the roleplay, the heavy combat game fits a specific gaming niche. Gamerant likes Dark Alliance for those reasons.

    Rick and Morty versus D&D special release

    Not the boxed set, which isn’t part of my collection, this is the comics series featuring Rick and Morty with a Dungeons & Dragons twist. This special collector’s edition seems like a great gift for the right person (one of my earliest 5e players would dig it).

    Hasbro D&D adjacent news

    eOne, more well known for it’s movies (like D&D) and TV shows (like Grey’s Anatomy) is selling off its music assets for $385 million in cash.

    Fanattik and Hasbro are going to release collectibles and tchotchkes with Magic: The Gathering as well as D&D themes. You’ll see even more licensed stuff caring the themes of your favorite games.

    As always, maps

  • Adding Festivals, Holidays, and Birthdays to Your Game – the May Blog Carnival

    Adding Festivals, Holidays, and Birthdays to Your Game – the May Blog Carnival

    Fantasy literature is full of parties – Bilbo’s birthday, various fests appear in Robin Hood, lunar celebrations and so much more. Watching or reading celebration scenes helps connects these myths and fantasies to reality. Who doesn’t like a party? They also are a reminder that the times upon which Dungeons & Dragons are founded had a hundred holidays.

    All told, holiday leisure time in medieval England took up probably about one-third of the year. And the English were apparently working harder than their neighbors. The ancien règime in France is reported to have guaranteed fifty-two Sundays, ninety rest days, and thirty-eight holidays. In Spain, travelers noted that holidays totaled five months per year.

    Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today’s

    Within our games we can also capture these feelings of merriment, civic pride, religious faith, and family gathering. Not only can we, we should. The foundational literature demands it. Having characters and societies that are more than sword swinging, spell flinging battlers creates stories of greater emotional depth.

    Full Moon Storytelling is hosting this month's Blog Carnival because it is my birthday. What better way to celebrate my own aging than talking about D&D parties? Last month's blog carnival was hosted at Codex Anathema, and was all about powerful magic items and artifacts. The rest of 2021's blog carnivals can be found at Of Dice and Dragons.

    There are several ways that you can integrate these events into your campaigns. Whether they get a couple lines or are a couple sessions will be up to you and your tables.

    Fetch Quests

    This may be the easiest way to add a holiday to the start of your game. A cold open that involves a civic leader that needs the very specific item for the holiday in question gathers a group of specialists together in order to find the lost item.

    Maybe at the beginning the community is downhearted. Rather than party they have to head off into the wilds to search for very specific item. Their journey brings them out of the village. In that world they can discover the thing, bring it back home as heroes and the festival is now also a victory celebartion.

    Introducing New Culture

    Journeys to strange lands mean new discoveries. When the group arrives in an unfamiliar place have them encounter a festival unlike any they’ve seen before. This introduction to a new culture emphasizes the differences, in a way that is full of brightness, joy, and excitement (unless you choose something dour).

    By arriving at fest-time the group immediately knows how different the place is. Maybe if they have observational knowledge of the culture a history or culture check helps the character in question understand what is going on. Otherwise the group learns what’s going on by engaging with the worlds and cultures which you’ve created together.

    Change of Pace

    Between dungeons, dragons, orc wars, piracy, invasions by mindflayers, elemental cultists, the mists – what happens? Normal life. And normal life in the worlds of D&D is weird. But it’s also people who do things like celebrate birth, coming-of-age, weddings, coronations, harvests, solstices, equinoxes and more.

    Take those moments of normality to highlight the abnormality of your D&D world. The dichotomy of a party with the world-shaking events of a tier 3 or 4 adventure is potent. Those few moments of calmness and levity during a session may just be the ones that the table remembers later. Killing a 45th bandit isn’t a big deal. Giving the town kids the feather of an owlbear? That’s a moment!

    Victory Celebrations

    You’ve cleared the dungeon, slain the dragon, the forces of Gruumsh were held back, recovered the holy tooth of the founding family of the town, the heist was prevented, the heist was successful – however your adventure or campaign ends there must be a party, a big party.

    Maybe the characters are throw the party. Perhaps the queen calls the empire to celebrate. Imagine that you’ve save the world and the Old Gods convene the grandest fairies of the planes to reward you and the world for the success.

    Inspiration for Characters

    You can also spin things the other way. Search real world festivals and holidays and turn them into you own character concepts. Maybe your next Artificer is based the technomancers of Jingle Jangle. What Moon Druid isn’t dedicated to the thirteen full moons? Before you became a hero were you a carnival barker? Your next D&D character could be the expert marksman brought in as a ringer, or the strongest person in the world.

    Every birthday, holiday, or real world festival is an opportunity for character creation. So create. I’m certain that Awf’s birthday is coming up. Everyone’s favorite axe-wizard is going to party like the elf-raised dwarf he is – I don’t know what that means yet.

    How do you integrate festivals, holidays, and birthdays into your D&D games?

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