DnD For the Kids

Some thoughts on the One D&D play test thus far.  So, Wizards of the Coast announced that One D&D, an edition that continues the already functional legacy of Fifth Edition with some minor rules tweaks would be the next iteration of Dungeons & Dragons.  The D&D community at large took in the news and began prognosticating about what broken systems from Fifth Edition might fall under the scalpel.  Maybe they'll get rid of short rests... Maybe they'll clean up the whole use this ability once per long rest / per day vs. number of times equal to proficiency bonus mess.  Maybe they'll get rid of the whole use of the word "race" in the rules... Maybe they'll streamline the whole character background thing to make it easier / less complicated for new players. We were all wrong. Instead, the play test documents have focused on rules that most players never considered broken or lacking while adding in new levels of complexity. It has taken optional syste...

Yes, it has been a long time since I have posted. I’m a teacher, and summer vacation is a schedule disruption. I don’t know what that means for other teachers, but for me it means I have a whole lot more work to do than during the school year and none of it allots time for me to sit in front of a computer and bang out a blog post. Summer is when I work on all the projects my wife has for me to do around the house and farm and for the catering business. Yes, we live on a farm, but I don’t farm it. We run a venue in the middle of all the farming. Nonetheless, there is a lot of work to do. This fall, I started connecting my class to another teacher's to make an integrated STEM experience, so that's keeping me busy. Did I mention my wife is due in November, and I'm a 46-year-old man with no kitchen in my mid-renovation farmhouse about to have a newborn?  Also, my regular D&D sessions get all messed up during the summer because of family vacations, varying custody schedules ...

My most read post on this blog thus far has not been about getting kids into D&D but rather how I made my Waterdeep Dragon Heist kit . This was an artsy-craftsy, "How did he do that?" kind of post. It all started when I posted a photo of my table in the Dungeons & Dads group on Facebook. I had a lot of folks asking where I got my stuff. I put forward my best attempt at a how-to post for design artifacts for my Waterdeep Dragon Heist game. I love making stuff for may games, and had a great time putting that post together. At the time, I was just a guy trying to live the Beadle & Grimm's lifestyle on a Dollar Tree budget. I also noted that if my readers had more money than time, Beadle & Grimm was the way to go. It turns out that may or may not be the case. B&G & NFTs Now with talk going around about the Beadle & Grimm's owners jumping on the Blockchain Bandwagon, maybe you want to live the Beadle Grimm Lifestyle without the guilt of su...

Wizards of the Coast does not determine your fun. This is a sentiment that I've heard Mike Shea (aka Slyflourish ) share multiple times. I wanted to start today's post with it because it informs much of what I will be saying today.  Where is this coming from? I recently read an article entitled " Spelljammed ", by Graeme Barber  (which is a very good read, by the way) on the recommendation of Sam, the Educational DM . In the article, Graeme lays out the main problems with Spelljammer from a game design and thematic perspective. The main issues presented were: The supplement lacked sound mechanics, with an example of the lack of rules for things like ship-to-ship combat. The setting had serious tonal inconsistencies: some aspects being campy while others were heavy & deadly serious. The "facts" of the setting had a serious lack of impact on / coherency in the other settings. The lore was inconsistent or contradictory. I'm not here to argue any of thes...

I wanted to follow up on my recent post about homebrew hacks with some practical and free resources that you can apply today to create your own Gygaxian / Westmarches style campaign for your kids or students. I’m going to focus much more on materials and resources in this post than on theory and technique. I will link to some great articles and videos to cover theory and technique. This post was inspired by a recent video by Professor Dungeon Master and his son over on the Dungeoncraft channel. That video was inspired by a recent video by Questing Beast about time keeping in your campaign. For your convenience, I've embedded the Dungeoncraft video here: On the off chance that the above video didn’t give you a good handle on what this kind of campaign is, here’s the original source of this term, Ben Robbins explaining in detail. The Setting & Your Home Base I talked a lot in my previous post in this series on creating your homebrew setting. I’m not going to rehash all of tha...

Recently, RPG Match on Twitter posed the following question in of of their prolific polls:      Clearly, the majority of the 1,627 participants felt that, "Yes, they definitely should." I found this question interesting enough to blog about for the following reasons: I've run into this question on many occasions and have dealt with it inconsistently.  I DM mostly for kids, which makes one feel like a mean bully for vetoing anything. The reactions seen in the replies were as visceral as one would expect from Twitter, but quite thought provoking.  In thinking about this question, preparing to engage the poll myself, and considering my past actions and self-reflection on this topic, I came up with a rule of thumb to guide our approach to this that I believe answers a lot of the replies I saw. There are great arguments to be made for and against vetoing character ideas, but as it is with most things, the real answer is somewhere in the middle. Why not veto characte...