After our longest hiatus ever, time for the final episode of our current D&D campaign. The players fought the Big Bad in October and then my new job and everything put the game on hold until tonight when we can finish officially.
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Why yes, I'm spending my Friday night learning about higher dimensional geometry for the purposes of D&D worldbuilding. Why? What do you do with your Fridays?
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Two amazing quotes from tonight's D&D session:
"You deal with your mother, we'll deal with the dead dragon"
"This is where the Vietnam hippy in the van took us."
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Last Night's D&D
[Disclosure: I work for Wizards of the Coast, but I have loved D&D long before I started there.]
For last night's D&D session, it was only 2 of the players and me. They are just beginning a bit of a dungeon crawl so having them do it with that few people didn't seem great. So I came up with a new idea.
For those who don't know, my current campaign is a homebrew Magic school set in "modern day" Seattle. The school is called Syelbed, and it positions the Seattle Underground as the hub for the "multiversian" activity in the city.
When we don't have a full crew, we've done a worldbuilding session or two as a group. We hang out and usually I just lob out ideas or questions to see what we come up with. One session we delved into the supernatural Las Vegas in this campaign world.
During that session, we came up with the Luxor hotel had been created by a sect of mothmen seeking to summon their deity.
Also, the Hoover dam is actually a massive concrete pour to seal in a magical evil TBD.
So my idea for last night was a little different. I mentally compared it to Sim City 4's 'My Sim' mode, where you could walk on the streets in your city. I'd put them somewhere in the world and they'd build characters and do a quasi playthrough as we built the locale.
So I put them in Rio de Janeiro. For their characters I said, you can be whatever you want but your characters have to have a connection. And between your characters you have 15 levels to divide. They could do 8/7 or 9/6 or 10/5 etc. They ended up doing 11 & 4.
I made up a magical gang that strives to control all magic in South America, the 'galera,' and the plot hook for this would be that they were on the run from them. As we went we decided that while the galera had a long reach, but Chile would be largely out of their reach.
So the duo are on the run, trying to get from Rio to somewhere in Chile. With that premise we came up with some NPCs & other world building ephemera. It was fun and it's a setup which is primed for us to pull in other people in the future. We'll see where it goes!
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Inject tonight's D&D session into my veins. So much fun, intrigue, confusion, and anxiety given to my players... chefs kiss
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The D&D group I play in is about to start Curse of Strahd from level 1. My rolls were 16, 16, 16, 15, 14, and 4. Obviously going to keep it, planning Dragonborn cleric and making him of the lineage of Themberchaud with a 4 Dex. Debating on what domain to go. #wotcstaff
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3/21 Note
It's been a while since I did a handwritten note on the blog. I wrote this last night while laying in bed in the afterglow of D&D with friends.
(Disclosure: I remain employed by Wizards of the Coast, makers of D&D)
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After a bad night's sleep and an emotionally draining day I was very tempted to cancel tonight's D&D session. No one in the group would have blamed me. But I also knew that playing D&D, even as tired as I am, was exactly what my soul needed tonight. And I was right. So glad we played and are getting our new campaign off the ground.
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Random note as I rewatch West Wing this week. Sam Seaborn references having gone to a D&D camp.
Season 3, Ep. 13 - The Two Bartlets. In this episode Sam has to deal with the conspiracy minded Bob Engler, who is convinced of aliens and government cover ups of them.
Bob Engler: A little piece of land called Area 51, my friend.
Sam Seaborn: This is Dungeons & Dragons camp all over again. .... We tested U-2 planes at Area 51.
Reminder: I work for Wizards of the Coast, makers of D&D.
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Disclaimer: I work for Wizards of the Coast and worked on this project.
And I am incredibly proud. Lots of cool stuff announced today and our fans have a lot of cool stuff to look forward to.
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Did some shopping at the used bookstore tonight
Disclaimer: I work for Wizards of the Coast, makers of Dungeons & Dragons.
We met some friends for dinner, and while we waited for our table to be ready we went next door to Half Price Books. Found some gems. They had more 2nd edition adventures but I only grabbed these two. The handbooks are a little beat up, but I'm thrilled to pick them up. I'm still looking for Player Handbooks from 2nd edition.
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Disclaimer: I work for Wizards of the Coast, maker of Dungeons & Dragons.
That said - I am so excited for this movie.
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A very cool Tomb of Horrors D&D leg tattoo
[Disclaimer: I work for the makers of Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast.]
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Today is day 3 of 3 back-to-back-to-back days of D&D. Sunday we finished a two-year campaign for 'Tyranny of Dragons.' Monday I DMed for my office game, which plays roughly monthly, and it was our third session. Today I'll DM the 66th session in my 'main' D&D campaign as they are entering the home stretch of that campaign.
I've had a lot of fun these three days, but the truth is that this is a lot of D&D and I can't say I prefer it to, say, having a free evening with Katie.
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Volo as my DMing Aid
(Reminder, I work for Wizards of the Coast, maker of Dungeons & Dragons.)
Tonight I used my Surface Duo 2 as my primary device for DMing. I ended up having my laptop open because I needed to call a remote friend into the game via Discord and I ended up using it for ease of following dice rolls by the group on D&D Beyond, but I didn't strictly need it. I have the D&D Beyond app and could alternate it on screen with notes to follow the rolls.
I am really happy with it and it is definitely going to be my default setup moving forward for DMing.
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Love this new Phone lockscreen
Credit for the picture, found on Reddit. I can't find it now, once I do, I'll link it.
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I guested on DragonTalk, discussing World Building
(Disclaimer: I work for Wizards of the Coast, makers of D&D)
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I guested on DragonTalk, discussing World Building
(Disclaimer: I work for Wizards of the Coast, makers of D&D)
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I guested on DragonTalk, the D&D podcast at work
I recently sat down with my coworker and friend Shelly Mazzanoble and discussed DMing and World Building for D&D. The episode I was on just dropped if you would like to go listen to it.
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I guested on DragonTalk, the D&D podcast at work
I recently sat down with my coworker and friend Shelly Mazzanoble and discussed DMing and World Building for D&D. The episode I was on just dropped if you would like to go listen to it.
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