You don’t have to be a map maker to make adequate maps for gaming. A map can be as simple as showing the relative relationship between distance and location of the important elements. Even putting a few words on a page can be a map.
Take the word map of the Six Kingdoms. It shows the relative locations and rough distances between the various kingdoms, their major cities and the other lands that interact in the World of the Everflow.
Word maps can also represent a homestead, village or neighborhoods of a city.
Any player can take a quick glance and know what each location is and what they connect to within the compound. More thorough descriptions in a blog post and in the character’s notes, but these quick notecards reminds us of Spinebloom Farms at the table.
Fort Ooshar is a bridge-town that turned into a fortress when Sheljar fell to the Necromancer. This quick sketch lays out the neighborhoods of the bridge-town, the gates, the fields and the nearby hills.
Yes, a better mapmaker would be better. My favorites are Deven Rue and Dyson Logos. I support both via Patreon and use their works in my games.
But sometimes I want something that is unique to my world. That leaves me with my lack of art. I then build a word map.
Keys to making a quick word map.
Decide on the central space
Build outward using relative distance to represent a unit of time
Include evocative names, especially when in tight focus
If building a dungeon, point crawl or town having connective tissue — this can be a road, river, or other path
Leave yourself space to build details and add discoveries
Doing this as a player
Old school D&D involved at least one player making highly detailed maps. But a word map may be all that’s necessary to prevent your party from getting lost. Using a room-and-halls word map by the player helps represent how the characters think.
In essence you are channeling the concept of ‘turn left after the big red barn, go over Herringbone Bridge, take the third path’ into a simplistic drawing.
These are quick, simple and can be done on a 3-by-5 card or as a sketch in something as simple as Paint, Slides, Canva or even in a Spreadsheet (the Six Kingdoms started as a spreadsheet).
One of the special powers of the word map is that they’re quick. You don’t need to search for anything. It’s a sketch that can be done in a few seconds.
Whether as a player or a DM this tool can help you understand your fantasy world better than without a map at all.
D&D and its variants are often referred to as “combat simulations” or “tactical combat games” or “dungeon crawling miniature games” in a somewhat dismissive way that seeks to reduce the other things that players have their characters do during sessions and campaigns.
These mostly heroic characters do have a lot of combat support. A vast majority of the rules support violence portrayed in what is now six-second rounds. Combat’s scenes in 5th edition are done in expanded time taking many real minutes for less than thirty seconds of cinematic action.
But combat is not all of modern Dungeons & Dragons. Other pillars are supported.
The three main pillars of D&D play are social interaction, exploration, and combat.
Social interaction in the modern game is mostly done in scenes lasting a few minutes. These scenes take place in real time at the table. Ritual spells do not make sense in the context of social interaction because of the nature of social interaction. Other spell casting is less frequent than in combat, while it can still fit. The main engine of social interaction within the rules are skills (Charisma, Wisdom and Intelligence) and a light dusting of feature from class, archetype, feat or species.
Taking a longer period of time, historically measured in ten-minute chunks, is Exploration. This is abstracted in an opposite fashion from Combat in that where combat sees time expanded, Exploration compresses it. Some, but not all travel makes sense as exploration. Rituals are frequently used. Spells are common. Certain spells and features may make classic exploration challenges meaningless (Goodberry or Find & Remove Traps). But Exploration, the delve into dungeons, the searching the wildes, the entry to a wondrous temple or the site of a majestic floating city is and always will be a part of the D&D genre.
Between the 2014 core books, and Xanathar’s there are 37 sometimes overlapping options for what can be done with Downtime. The 2024 core books and the Forgotten Realms expansions add many Bastion and Crafting options onto this.
Most downtime choices are measured in weeks, though small projects are within days. These scenes are time-compressed frequently taking only a roll or two per character to resolve as weeks, months, maybe even seasons pass. In film, TV and books the montage is how downtime is presented. Pick your favorite heroic montage — we’ll get back to it.
Every class supports downtime activities in some capacity, especially with the 2024 ruleset adding on Bastions. Skill challenges, as adopted to 5e by some homebrewers, make sense as resolution systems for downtime, exploration and sometimes social events.
But downtime is often viewed by players and DMs as accounting, boring academics, spreadsheet management.
Even the name is boring.
Downtime has a branding problem
Stories and adventures are an assembly of beats, eventually leading to rising action, climax and resolution. There are sometimes downbeats, setback.
Downbeats.
Who wants downbeats? Who wants downtime.
Even how downtime is presented, either by name or by style of play (Bastions and Crafting), it is shown as an appendage with little support. Downtime is a thing to rush past, not to enjoy.
A Bastion offers a character temporary refuge from the dangerous world of adventuring, and it provides opportunities for a character to craft magic items, conduct research, harvest poisons, build ships, and carry out a range of other activities.
They do want the ability to craft magic items, research mysteries, harvest fantastic elements, carouse, gamble, set sail across an astral sea, or plot the overthrow of a corrupt regime.
Those are all upbeats, not downtime.
Downtime also a massive part of the game
Acquisitions Inc combines D&D and modern franchise capitalism for fun. It contains franchise rules. It also lists every one of the 2014 options in downtime at its point of publication.
These choices are things heroes do!
The options above belong at your table. At some tables the options in Dragon Heist, Acq Inc, Tasha’s (Group Patrons), Strixhaven (schooling) and other official and unofficial books expand your campaign in ways that make sense too.
Think of your favorite montage scenes in your personal Appendix N. Do they involve plotting the overthrow of a corrupt leader? Do they involve building a guild? Do they involve carousing to gain information? Do they involve long study to craft a previously unknown spell? Do you have a favorite montage that includes sowing rumors? Or mayhap one that involves training for new skills? You probably have one where the heroes prepare for a test of skill, chance or magic?
In traditional D&D that’s downtime.
In the fiction these things advance the plot and add excitement.
making intelligent, secret plans, often to deceive others
behaviour or activities that involve making clever secret plans intended to deceive people
In British English schemes aren’t necessarily deceptive or secret. They are plots and advancements, plans and procedures. They are the many days, weeks, months processes.
Both versions work for modern D&D, but the American concept of intelligent, secret plans especially fits my preferred themes.
Why Scheming? Other considerations
Concerns – while this captured the idea of the character being in charge of things it felt less involved in the plot and continued the ‘set aside’ concept of Downtime.
Occupations – but who wants to do work? That’s spreadsheet life, not plot advancement and fantastic discoveries.
Rejuvenation – is wonderful for healing, but poor for plot advancement and heroic actions over time.
Strategic play – this conveys the proper tone and your schemes should be strategic while other pillars are tactical.
Schemes involve rising action by heroes and antiheroes to get ready for the messy work that needs doing. Schemes are active plots and machinations (maybe that belongs above). Sometimes they are down notes, sometimes they are upbeats. They build rising action.
Unifying disparate subsystems into Scheming
Oracles ready to provide advice after a sacred rite (Photo by Dave Clark)
Crafting, Bastions, Franchises, Group Patrons, Schooling, Carousing, Sacred rites, Grand rituals, Research, Business operations, Running a faction, Guild matters, Training militias, Communal defense, Grand voyages ….
The list goes on.
When these are schemes they are multi-check montages where failure matters and the results fuel the story. They either help or hinder a character or party on their quest. They take time.
Whatever you take to calling downtime (and do include Bastions and Crafting when appropriate for your campaign) you need to unify this set of systems together.
Describe the quest with the amount before the pace of action changes again. Set the expectation that there is time to Scheme.
Players describe their goals using the above activities or a combination thereof to achieve that goal within the amount of time (measure in weeks).
Narrate the results of the actions. These may require skill checks, use of various features or cooperation in the party. If there isn’t meaningful failure there is not a check unless extraordinary success matters. Use an odd number of checks (3 or 5 are best) mimicking skill challenges or use group checks if everyone is cooperating. Or combine the two.
Move on from the Scheme into action with a faster pace taking note of how much time passed and what that means for those that oppose the group.
If that resolution system feels familiar it is because it is the basic rhythm of play at the table, while capturing the montage and compressed time nature of a Scheme.
It’s not a scheme if the activities are passive. It’s not a scheme if it doesn’t advance a quest or plot. It’s not a scheme if it is fast. It’s not a scheme if it is tactical.
Frankly it’s not worth doing at the table if the activity is passive and/or doesn’t advance the quest
Schemes are strategic, long-term, montage-y activities that advance the action fitting a rising narrative building the eventual heroes towards a climax. They should not be the climax, nor the resolution. A denouement can be a scheme as it preps for the next campaign.
Ways to add Schemes to common campaign types
Try working in schemes into your campaign. Use a timehop that creates challenges because the enemy is building a grand army. The timehop also gives the heroes time to train a militia (as in Wheel of Time).
In a heist adventure use a scheme as the way to collect the necessary materials or information, setting up the background before the strike on the location (as the Crows in Shadow & Bone).
Maybe the scheme is to collect a group of allies to help the party cross a perilous ocean or astral sea, commissioning a ship and its crew (as in One Piece).
Play a scheme at your table inspired by the fictions that inspire your D&D.
Professionals fail all the time — in roleplaying games, in elite athletics, in special operations, in life.
The idea that they shouldn’t miss in a game is built on a foundation of water, not even sand.
There are still some valid reasons that one wouldn’t roll to hit, but they have nothing to do with professionalism.
Matt Colville on Mastering Dungeons
In a recent edition of Mastering Dungeons Matt Colville talked extensively about the business of RPGs. It’s a wonderful listen.
Something stood out to me though.
“You’re professionals; you shouldn’t roll to hit.”
Now, the idea of not rolling to hit is part of Colville’s quite intentional design. I’m certain he’s said it before and will say it again. There are reasons in games to not roll to hit.
Let’s break down the idea of professionals not needing to roll to hit.
Elite Failure
Elites fail regularly. They fail when contested. They fail when on their own. Failure at elite levels may not be as common as for us normal people, but it happens.
This is true for the real, actual elites, not those mere professionals. My personal history is blessed to experience a few elites in fashions that many do not.
Special operations
Assigned to 5th Special Forces as a peacetime soldier my Army days were defined by the Quiet Professionals — the Green Berets. Working alongside these masters in warfare I saw failure every single day.
On the range those trained to be snipers, an uncontested contest in gaming terms, missed. There are reasons for each miss, but missing happened.
When soldiers, even in highly trained units such as the Special Forces, go to war they miss even more. The human brain does not like to kill things, plus there is chaos all around you. Errors happen. They always will.
Elite failure isn’t limited to elite warfare.
High-level sports
Leaving 5th Group I decided I wanted nothing to do with my high school dreams or hard journalism. I turned to sports. During that era I worked as a producer for the Sonics broadcasting network, baseball’s best postgame show, as an on-air analyst for soccer and founded Sounder at Heart.
At the field and court level I’ve watched Ichiro, Ken Griffey Jr., Gary Payton, Michael Jordan, Megan Rapinoe, Kasey Keller and many others.
The list of these Hall of Fame talents failing would be immense.
But let’s use hard numbers.
Ichiro is the best contact hitter of the modern era. The ten-time All Star and MVP had a batting average on balls in play forty points higher than his contemporaries, but it was still only .338.
Failure among the elite is regular and normal. They roll to hit and fail.
Business
Pick your favorite business leader and their success rate is higher than average, but whether its Howard Schultz launching a magazine, or Steve Jobs launching NeXT, or Warren Buffet investing in a shoe company, they fail too.
Gaming reasons to not roll to hit
So professionals do miss. Elites miss.
Are there good reasons to not roll to hit? Yes, absolutely, as part of intentional design choices for a style of play that has nothing to do with professionalism of the character
Hit points vs meat points
The long standing D&D debate about hit points being more than meat points can be ignored here. Games developing to-hit rolling or direct-to-damage techniques do not need to burden them with Gygax’s decisions.
Direct-to-damage rolling is excellent when hit points are, as in D&D, a symbol of morale, luck, fortitude, energy and more than merely meat. Since every attempt to physically damage an opponent wears away at those elements you don’t necessarily need to roll to hit. Missing still costs luck, energy, mental health and morale.
The meat of the opponent can be damaged eventually, even without rolling to hit.
Speed of play
Colville did this in MCDM monster design for his 5e books — minions and the like can be hit easily. And then eliminated easily. This speeds up the action at the table and mimics narratives from movies, TV, video games within role playing games. Slicing and dicing through waves of small threats feels great. Having that take only a few moments rather than many minutes is good.
Additionally in games like Draw Steel, with extensive tactical choices being a goal, eliminating a set of rolling helps speed gameplay up. This is a wise and intentional design choice that amplifies the other intent of bundling morale with meat.
This supports the designer’s desires for their game — and need not be connected to reality or even lore.
A wrong justification, with the right idea
Professionalism in the real-world elite activities includes failure. Even the arts that inspire our gaming include failure. Black Widow misses. Skywalkers miss. Robin Hood misses.
Designers should embrace failure when missing, because Ichiro, Rapinoe, every special forces soldier, every business leader, every legendary hero misses.
And when they do design away the miss they should do so with intent that supports their game, no matter what reality and lore suggest. Just as Colville’s done in Draw Steel.
They’re different from novels, short stories, comics, theater, movies, and most other forms of storytelling. That does not remove the tale being told nor the concept of story.
If anything they are most similar to communal storytelling around a campfire and improv dramas. For the most part roleplaying games are communal events with a group.
How did I bump into this well-worn debate? Via a recent thread on EN World, the rare bright spot in RPG discourse.
My response there focused mostly on the story and plot aspects, and the power of having more voices (something rare in written fiction, but common in other forms of storytelling).
There are people who are not good authors, nor good directors, nor good actors who are good roleplayers/gamemasters/etc. By leaning into the ways that community, plot and play-to-find-out work the creation displays, maybe even demands, story emerges.
Sometimes conventional Western storytelling formats can lean into the things that make the emergent and divergent story that happens in RPGs. This can be magical — because it shows how all story is really a reflection of point of view, or in our hobby — spotlight.
RPGs-as-story feel messy when considered through a lens of a literature class or mainstream television.
But, stories are quite messy
Two people can read the same story, watch the same film, listen to the same podcast and come away with different meanings, see different main plots even.
To me, RPGs are stories in the way that campfire tales are. They involve a lot of wandering, forgotten threads, lack firm outlines and are at their best when the tale is woven through multiple voices providing input.
Can they be a traditional novel after the campaign? Absolutely! But during the telling of the tale they are similar to writers who don’t edit as they go or a director who over films alternative concepts that aren’t on the script.
One of the more thrilling things about RPGs is that it is an ensemble cast of both PCs and recurring NPCs. Together they’re important, but the tale and spotlight as to who is most important can easily shift. Use any of them as the point of view to change the story as you understand it. Each can be vital.
The messiness is the fun part of RPGs as story.
The messiness is what helps me discover tales I cannot tell on my own. That’s part of the power of the table and broad casts in ensemble stories.
You think you’ve seen stories like this before, so you can guess what’s going to happen. Who’s important and who isn’t, but that’s because you’re trapped in your POV. – later – When you file people away as sidekicks you don’t realize their importance to the story, and this story belongs to a lot more people than you think. Where to shelve a book, it’s not a little thing. You’re telling the world what to value. Who to value.
From The Magicians, Side Effect (S4, E7).
RPGs are very much like that.
They remove your assumptions. You don’t know what’s going to happen. The POV constantly shifts and the importance of the broader cast shifts constantly.
From RPGs-as-Story we learn what and who to value by including others.
This post will not contain spoilers for Season 5 because I haven’t yet watched Season 5 of Stranger Things, though I do know it features more Dungeons & Dragons than Seaons 2-4 combined.
If you were to go into Target this fall you’d see a massive Stranger Things display somewhere in the store. Part of that display would feature the D&D boxed set Welcome to the Hellfire Club, which is a continuation of Eddie’s D&D campaign. It felt late, because Eddie isn’t part of season 5.
It was not late.
Welcome to the Hellfire Club sold out at Target. It sold out on Amazon. A light informal survey of local-to-me stores have it as sold out. The physical boxed set can still be ordered on DnDBeyond.
Sure, that could be a lack of ambition from Wizards of the Coast by not manufacturing enough of the sets.
It’s much more likely that the heavy lean back into D&D by Stranger Things Season 5 drove more desire for D&D the game than previous seasons, Critical Role and Baldur’s Gate 3. BG3’s drive of interest into D&D is hard to quantify, but has an extended window over several years.
Google Trends can show you.
Search trends for Stranger Things
Here are the four adjacent media and D&D
Stranger Things is more popular than the others by far.
D&D, the game, had its biggest boom from the movie, but…
Stranger Things Season 5 nearly matches D&D: Honor Among Thieves
There’s one major difference — lack of tie-in gaming products.
Rime of the Frostmaiden contained a single adventure related to the movie. There was a boutique NPC download related to the movie, but nothing like the amazing boxed set Stranger Things got. Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus was barely related to the video game and its release timing was horrible.
Nothing sold out because of Honor Among Thieves, the best D&D marketing in the history of the game, because D&D wasn’t run as a franchise system with business units failing to talk to each other.
Both the current starter set and Welcome to the Hellfire Club are selling out.
What’s that mean for us Dungeon Masters?
Be welcoming to new and returning players.
Reduce house rules when they join you.
Talk about the intent of your table and what type of play you focus on .
Be familiar with the most popular products.
Help teach your current players to DM.
See if local cafes, libraries, schools, pubs, etc need DMs.
We are responsible for growing this glorious hobby. Thanks to the Creative Commons, various SRDs, the eternal nature of homebrewing and the thousands of other roleplaying games there is always something that’s right for someone.
Find what’s right for your family, your friends and your community.
People are interested. It’s up to you to be the reason they stay interested.
It’s incredibly difficult to capture what D&D can be in 30 or 60 seconds. That may be part of why the latest advert for the Starter Set, Heroes of the Borderlands is 75 seconds.
That’s also a short amount of time.
My sessions are typically three hours. We’ve played nearly a dozen campaigns in 5th edition from 2014 to the present averaging a game session every other week for the past 11 years.
Critical Role plays closer to four hours on average with the main campaign playing about 40 sessions a year over that same stretch.
How do you introduce the layers of play, the layers of friendship and the depth of potential in a minute?
Wizards of the Coast did that by showing a generation of players who said yes to adventure in the 90s and now play with their kids.
Saying that first “yes” to playing D&D
The people who introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons way back in the 80s introduced me to science fiction, to creative writing, to journalism and debate.
Later the second group I played with introduced to the concept of joining the Army, anime/comic books, writing my own game, and British comedy because we played Twilight:2000, Albedo, TMNT, Synnibarr, MERPS and of course D&D.
Saying yes to Vampire: The Masquerade helped me during language school, when the stresses of required success were overwhelming and I needed an escape from the combination Army-university life.
A year later saying yes to D&D with another nerd in 5th Special Forces Group helped me be myself while being all I could be and more. Those duet sessions created an escape and creative outlet.
Then I stopped.
Saying yes later
As my soccer blog matured and jobs came-and-went 5th edition D&D came out. I didn’t have a group. I hadn’t played in two decades except for those dozen or so sessions with a combat medic.
But, I was intrigued.
I asked my friends who wrote with me, who edited, who advised a small soccer blog as we grew.
Those first sessions of 5e included grand friends who helped each other learn the new system, remember our pasts and tell tales of glory through fellowship.
Those campaigns tuckered out and then ceased due to a wonderful job opportunity and then the pandemic.
Yes during covid
My last yes to adventure was when one of those friends asked me to DM again. During the pandemic I’d stopped running sessions. I still played, but online play and my DMing style don’t get along. I tried it once, in an actual play.
This yes meant getting a new group together. The old groups had scattered. Unlike the characters in that D&D advert I’ve never managed to maintain a group across decades. Not even my brother who was part of that first yes still plays.
This yes has our group playing in public, right in front of other people who don’t know what D&D is. We played with strangers who became friends. We introduced others to the game.
Marketing D&D
Saying yes to playing role playing games took me a lot of places.
And in 75 seconds the marketing team behind D&D reminded me of all of that. Taking us backwards on a journey of glory, of watching a child grow up, of a pregnant woman playing the game and a group of friends who stick together from 1995 to the present is brilliant.
Where will yes take you?
To the Caves of Chaos and The Ferments. To rolling d20s at a brewery and getting on stage at a security event. To Krynn, to Theros, to Sigil, to Exandria, to Trinyvale, to The Strix, to Wagadu, to al-Qadim, to Grim Hollow, to Drakenheim, to Midgard, to Obojima, to Eberron, to the darkest crypts and the glorious eternal afterlife, from dragons to halflings.
But mostly it will take you on a journey of friendship and discovery of the stories that you are unable to tell yourself.
That’s what saying yes does — it opens you up to things beyond what is contained within your own being.
Somewhat overshadowed by the release of several high-fantasy systems not based in 5e D&D is that Wizards of the Coast has two starter sets, a two-book/three-pdf Forgotten Realms set, and Eberron expansion coming out from September through the holidays.
Additionally, other 5e systems inspired by D&D are also cranking right now.
There’s a plethora of choice, right as genre TV’s most D&D related property is coming back — Stranger Things season 5 releases Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s in the U.S. Several of the early monsters based on Dungeons & Dragons are making a comeback.
Your normie (non-RPG) friends may be interested in the game again thanks to the combination of product releases, the Mighty Nein release, Stranger Things and the general zeitgeist around being big heroes with power in a world where that feels missing.
What game or books are the right system for them right now?
If you read Full Moon Storytelling it is likely that you are a DM/GM. It’s also likely that you lean towards 5e D&D. That will be the focus, with a small discussion of the other systems capturing attention (million dollar+ Kickstarters and the like).
Are you the GM/DM?
Go with what you like best, what fits your world, and be welcoming. Cut back on house rules and homebrew, at first, as the people who are new to the game can be overwhelmed with normal rule sets that can stretch to 1,000 pages.
Fold the new invitees into your world by asking them what they enjoy about high fantasy roleplaying. Finding out what your table’s Appendix N always helps, but it is the most helpful knowing what someone new (or returning from long ago) to the hobby wants.
If they want something simple, but familiar like the D&D of the 80s, but modern there are a few routes. Sticking with 2014 5e one can still get the older starter sets from Target or Amazon. Dragons of Strormwreck Isle is under $16 at Target online, and some physical stores may have it. Check with your local gaming store to see if they are offloading old product.
You can also intro them to 2014 via Kobold Press Tales of the Valiant Starter Set. It is under $14 at the time of publishing. The primary differences between Wizards of the Coast 2014 D&D and Tales of the Valiant lies in Tales having character creation that separates nature and nurture, luck replacing inspiration and the insertion of unique abilities on every monster.
I’d recommend Tales of the Valiant over 2014 D&D because of those changes, even if it doesn’t have the branding your friends expect. It also comes with minis! If Stormwreck Isle is 5.1 5e, ToV is probably 5.3.
Stranger Things: Welcome to the Hellfire Club
Maybe your friends didn’t get into D&D from Stranger Things season 1, or 2, or 3, or 4. Or maybe they did, but didn’t have the time, energy or mental space to play the game.
Welcome to the Hellfire Club uses Wizards of the Coast’s modern take on starter sets — lots of tokens, handouts, cards and a written approach that blurs the line between board game and roleplaying game.
modern take on starter sets — lots of tokens, handouts, cards
The presentation includes a look that borrows from 80s nostalgia as expected. The four adventure books include trade dress that would make Gary Gygax and TSR proud.
This is the second starter set built out of Stranger Things by Wizards of the Coast. Both lean heavily into using the voice of the character from the show that was the featured DM, lean into the mythology of the TV show with its ‘not quite D&D monsters, but monsters that middle/high schoolers would think are D&D monsters.’
The first Stranger Things set was rather linear in nature, which fit the times and works fairly well for people newer to roleplaying. Welcome to the Hellfire Club uses 2024 5e D&D rules.
D&D Starter Set: Heroes of the Borderlands
Similar to Stranger Things pulling out 80s nostalgia to pull people into its world, Wizards of the Coast uses Dungeons & Dragons most popular adventure from the foundational period to inspire its new general purpose Starter Set.
Keep on the Borderlands is now Heroes of the Borderlands, with three adventures. Using 2024 5e D&D’s rules, card-based character creation, tokens and maps, the intent of Heroes is to again bridge that gap between board game night and RPG night.
Because it is 2024’s rules rather than 1974s, the set is massive. Those three little folios that could fit in a small lunchbox are gone. Instead Heroes has more than 400 cards and tokens, a quick start, a set of rules, and three adventures.
The game of D&D is simultaneously more complex and more approachable than it was in the 70s and 80s. Being a more pervasive part of the culture is part of that. Also the decades of exposure to computer RPGs changes how one approaches teaching the game.
Forgotten Realms expansions
A massive two-book, three-digital book expansion coming with the brilliant marketing around “The Realms will know your name” these books aren’t necessarily great for first timers to tabletop roleplaying, unless…
You know people who were heavy into the lore of Baldur’s Gate 3 and/or D&D: Honor Among Thieves and/or the once dominant fantasy novels set in the Realms. Those legends exist within the expansion, but the point of D&D and RPGs in general is to tell your story.
Only dive into this if you are being joined by people who absolutely love those non-tabletop versions of the Forgotten Realms. These expansions include 50 micro-adventures that fit an on-the-fly DM rather well (similar to those in the 2024 DMG).
Those playing with your classic group you need little guidance. If you are using the 2024 D&D rules, or at a table that permits a broad swath of 5e rules, the expansion is handy if you want to borrow factions, subclasses, new species and nuggets of lore to insert into your homebrew.
In total the Realms expansions add about 30% more character creation options while dramatically expanding the story through the lore expansions.
Eberron: Forge of the Artificer
High fantasy doesn’t have to take place in a world that’s pseudo medieval/Renaissance and Euro coded.
It can also include pervasive magic, spread widely among the populace in a world that echoes tropes related to early Industrialization with great Houses, lightning rails, elemental airships and a ‘war to end all wars.’
That’s Eberron.
Forge of the Artificer is a lightweight updated to the setting originally invented by Keith Baker.
Don’t get Forge of the Artificer unless you already have Rising from the Last War or you really want to have the magitech Artificers at your table or you are a completionist. I’ll be getting it for the first two reasons. I’m currently playing a goblin Artificer.
The Artificer in Forge is updated for 2024 with a brand new subclass as well. From what was in the Unearthed Arcana developing this coming version of the Artificer it looks to have the quality of life improvements I would expect.
Other RPGs
LevelUp
LevelUp is built on the 5.1 5e chassis, but advances it. This does make it a more complex version of high fantasy role playing. Some of the greatest improvements come from expanding the social and exploration pillars. This helps tell a wider variety of stories. Like every offshoot of D&D from the 5e era it separates nature and nurture.
There’s now a Starter Set available. Yes, it has tokens and multiple adventure, because that’s what modern starter sets do. EN Publishing’s Starter Set is an excellent way to try on a different version of the game you already know.
Cosmere RPG
If you enjoy Brandon Sanderson’s writing you might enjoy the Cosmere RPG. It is not based on 5e. It is the highest earning RPG kickstarter of all time.
Cosmere is beautiful, complex and the most extensive lore heavy game upon release likely ever.
Draw Steel
While not the level of Kickstarter success of Cosmere, Draw Steel was still a massive earner. The design team from MCDM is mostly people who produced wonderful 5e products, but are now releasing a system that emphasizes combat (tactical, heroic, cinematic) even more than D&D. The rules are crafted so that the feeling of conflicts is a reminder of watching a movie or TV show’s fight scenes.
Daggerheart
If Draw Steel is inspired by D&D, but wanting to be more combat, Daggerheart is inspired by D&D, but wanting to empower more story. Like Draw Steel and Cosmere, Daggerheart is a wholly new system. Most simply defined there is a Hope/Fear mechanic attached to the double-dice roll of players. Additionally it covers more ground about how to communally create the worlds and social interaction. Coming from Critical Role’s Darrington Press Daggerheart is designed to showcase the types of stories Critical Role excelled at.
Similar to Cosmere and D&D there is a wealth of media associated with it already — with more coming from the media arm of what was once a D&D actual play, but is now a multimedia company.
There are plenty of other games too — listing them all is foolhardy. Pathfinder and Starfinder, Legend of the Ring, Warhammer, Shadowdark and the list could go on.
But the zeitgeist right now seems to be focused on 2024 D&D versus a few upstarts with million dollar or more crowdfunding campaigns all coming out in the second half of 2025.
Over the past decade the 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons grew three main offshoots from its original 2014 release by Wizards of the Coast. These three trunks are all now in the Creative Commons thanks to Kobold Press’s announcement this week.
A5e is the Systems Reference Document for LevelUp, from EN Publishing. This branch of 5e places much greater emphasis on social and exploration, while also being a more complex combat engine. It’s “advanced” 5e.
2024 D&D by Wizards of the Coast (the 5.2.1 SRD) is an evolution of the most popular version of the game in history. It adds minor layers of complexity, and removes most bioessentialism.
Now, Black Flag, the SRD for Tales of the Valiant is also in the Commons under the CC BY 4.0. The primary changes within Black Flag are replacing Inspiration with Luck, adding Dread and similar to A5e uses both nature and nurture to define an upbringing.
All three modern offshoots add a unique element to every monster. Rather than have merely have bigger numbers, monsters do something different — a Commoner in Black Flag has Angry Mob, while in A5e Commoners have a Stone (they can also be a Group) and in 5.2.1 they have Training.
What can a DM/GM/designer do with all four in the same license?
I am not a lawyer. Nor am I your lawyer. Use an actual lawyer if you have questions and are publishing for money.
Read all relevant SRDs as well as their related FAQs.
Find the place you want fiddle with and become an expert at that before you try to be an expert at everything.
At your home table, borrow liberally from every system. If you don’t find yourself handing out 2014 Inspiration and don’t like 2024 D&D’s mechanical implementation, use Luck from Black Flag. Use everyone’s monsters — they’re balanced enough for the elastic system that is 5e — your players will have fun interacting with different commoners doing different things.
Maybe you’re thinking “that’s nice advice Dave, but what are you going to do?”
Each of the main trunks of 5e do something different from the 2014 version of the game. That’s good! Your table can use a Background from any of the modern versions and there will be no balance issues. That means dozens of more origin stories for your heroes.
For myself it means my eternal project becomes a simple project. A few dozen new Backgrounds with methodology to fit in all four trunks of 5e.
Custom Backgrounds for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons
This week the Tinker is my most popular Background. Tuning it for each version of 5e doesn’t take much.
2014 5e by WotC
It’s already released, but the key point is the feature “I Can Fix It.” The feature helps in exploration situations, mostly, as it means the Tinker will usually have a way to MacGyver there way through a problem even if they don’t have the proper supplies.
2024 5e by WotC
If you leave Ability Score Improvements within the Background rather than have them float the Tinker would choose between Dexterity, Intelligence and Charisma.
Connections – Tinkers might know a caravanserai, an innkeeper, a ferien, a smith, a group of bandits, a sergeant from a warring nation, a local farmer, a maker of fine meed, a faerie that’s a cheesemonger.
Memento – Tinker memento options could include a letter from home, a chapbook of poetry, a metal they’ve never been able to bend or smelt, a strap of leather from their first failed project, the stein from their favorite inn, or a book of cantrips though they don’t know any.
Adventures and Advancement – A Tinker who repaired a notable authority’s broken item may be granted a writ of access granting the Tinker expertise on Persuasion rolls.
Feature – same as the original on Full Moon Storytelling.
Now, these examples are quick looks at a future project that will include the score of Backgrounds already on the site, plus the four Everflow specific Backgrounds that didn’t get their own entry. And more as my reading expands.
With four versions of 5e available in the Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) how will you create for your table?
It’s also a space full of unpublished drafts. I wouldn’t want to see what drafts I lost when Sounder at Heart left SB Nation. I can still check what SaH has of mine in drafts, but I don’t dare check that. I recently checked my work drafts and even there I have unpublished drafts. Here there are unpublished drafts.
Anyway, I have to blog.
But also I let things get in the way of publishing. Which is frustrating.
It does mean that I don’t need to shave the yak like my friend, but sometimes, maybe I need a bit of a reset. That’s a part of what Lore Collage is. It compels me to write more. Even if I don’t think my words are worthy — I press publish.
While most of my role-play is centered around 5e and similar systems, I like the Ennies as a way to keep me aware of new systems, creators and aids. The 2025 nominee list includes two products I’ve already used (DungeonScrawl and Hero Forge Kitbashing).
If you live in the Puget Sound and Columbia Basins you don’t need to worry about the tiny earthquake swarms under Tahoma. If you are creating a fantasy world, add earthquake swarms as a natural hazard, make them big. See how the characters react to things they cannot fight. Then make them fight an earthquake swarms.
Making Enemies is the next book from The Monsters Know What They’re Doing creator Keith Amman. The way Keith approaches lore based in the short story of a stat block makes me excited to see what he does when he’s teaching me how to make the stat blocks.
Creating an RPG is hard. It takes either an immense amount of talent or a network of people. It probably takes both. PJ Coffey gets into the details of all the tasks that go into publishing a work. I’ve worked with PJ on two of their projects.
A few weeks ago I spoke at a risk intelligence conference about using role playing games as a teaching aid for non practitioners. My search algorithm is working. Both Rascal News and Military.com put out stories that will be part of my next work presentation on the same subject.
There’s always more to learn about sports, and I’m already trying to figure out how to insert tuj lub into my D&D games — I’m big about that too.
Kobold Press has a deal on shipping right now. I’m looking at the Labyrinth Worldbook. It is full of ideas I can borrow into the World of the Everflow. Which would be funny since as a backer for Tales of the Valiant I pitched the World of the Everflow to be included.
Handily, SlyFlourish has a review up.
Creating
Alignment is too simple. Personality traits, ideals, bonds and flaws is too complex. Use short form personality instead — 2-6 words that describe your character.
