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So you've decided to play this game called Dungeons & Dragons. But, perhaps after some experience with the game, you've decided you don't like dungeons. I feel like I see this a lot in various online discussions and I find it unusual to take a stance against the very thing the game was seemingly...

Two wizards, a rogue, and a ranger delve into the dungeon, seeking to capture the wizard Bargle who lay somewhere within. Exploring carefully, they find an ogre sleeping in an oversized, ramshackle bed, under which the PCs spy a bearskin bag full of something they presume is treasure. The...

My fellow characters and I are exploring a lost city buried beneath the sands of a vast desert. Shortly into our first foray, we come across a well-appointed dining chamber and its occupant, a friendly and immaculately dressed fellow who invites us to partake of refreshment. He is joined by...

I'm running a classic dungeon crawl for two separate groups in separate games right now. It's fun to see how each group overcomes the same challenges. They're all 3rd level. The first group TPKed on Thursday night. In the upper dungeon, they encountered a kobold guard post similar to one they...

Last night, I'm kicking butt and taking names with my fighter/warlock in the dungeon. We're taking the fight to a faction therein that has given us some trouble in the past. Now it ends! My shtick, of course, is to drop a hex on someone, then either eldritch blast them or hit them repeatedly...

Unbeknownst to an unarmored character and despite the DM's sufficient telegraphing, they touched a chest that has been smeared with a dangerous contact poison. The DM describes the greasy feel of the poison and asks for a Constitution saving throw. "Wait just a minute!" exclaims the player. "I...

After three days of sea travel, the 3rd-level party made it to an island and made their way into the mountains to look for a hidden pirate treasure. They moved into the mountain hex and I rolled for a random encounter - a bulette. I describe the area as having a lot of holes in the ground as...

In tonight's session, the party pushed through the remaining distance in their boat to some submerged ruins about 18 hours from town, desperate to recover a magic item said to be there before a dangerous cult gets their hands on it. At the upper level of the ruins, they did battle with some...

When you've played D&D long enough in my view, the exciting bits are the ones you don't see very often. Tonight, we got to see a cleric casting good ol' gentle repose on the party's dead sorcerer. We were a bit split up when many sarcophagi opened, belching forth over a half-dozen ghasts and...

I'm putting together an upcoming campaign that will based on some D&D 3.Xe adventure materials. So I'm thinking what I might do is implement some house rules and other things to make it feel slightly more like D&D 3.Xe than a regular D&D 5e game. I certainly don't want it to play like D&D 3.Xe...

The adventurers enter a chamber, about 30 feet square, with a single chest in the middle of the room. There is nothing in the chamber that suggests anything weird is going on - it's pretty nondescript. The cleric's player, suspicious the chest might be a mimic, decides to cast toll the dead on...

In our Rime of the Frostmaiden game, my figure skater folk hero rogue, Icewind Dale - a nod to Chaz Michael Michaels from Blades of Glory - has been failing a lot the last couple sessions due to just terrible rolls. He's even botching the stuff he's normally very good at. Reg Dunlop, the party's...

Five years or so ago, I ran a game for some WotC forum regulars including @Bawylie via text on Roll20 with the goal of creating a transcript of actual play. (I thought example play was sorely lacking in the new edition.) At the time, I received a number of comments and messages that indicated...

A situation arose in our Saltmarsh game last week and I'm curious to hear what you would do about it. I'll try to be somewhat vague so as to avoid spoilers, but be advised that some stuff might be given away in this thread. Anyway, here's what happened: While playing one of the Saltmarsh...

@clearstream recently had a couple of threads on this topic. One of the DMs in my secret cabal decided to give it a try for a dungeon crawl called "Dugholdeep." I will be playing in this game which starts in a couple weeks. It's 3d6 for stats in order, but one random stat can be replaced by a...

I could use some help from the community to identify good monsters I can reskin into humanoid psionic-using NPCs. I don't want to spend a lot of time creating unique monsters and would prefer to just tweak and use existing stat blocks with some cosmetic changes or maybe minor mechanics changes...

The DMG has a section on Tables Rules, which it defines as rules for how the game is played at your particular table. When I run a game, I provide a list of these rules appropriate to the campaign in the campaign forum and make sure that all players have read and agreed to them prior to play. If...

Plenty of players will ask the DM if they can make an ability check or, in some cases, just make the check unprompted. "Can I make an Insight check to see if he's lying?" a player might ask. Or "I roll Perception - Natty 20, what do I get?" While that's not strictly speaking supported by the...

I have assembled a pool of a dozen players who are ready to tackle Dead in Thay, which I'm running as a one-off adventure not connected to a larger campaign. The players are creating and posting their characters now. Any given session will have 4 (minimum) to 5 (maximum) players. The player pool...

THE COLD OPEN The adventurers rush up the steep stairs, dashing heedlessly through rubble choking the landing. Behind them, the roper's strength-sapping tendrils flail in the darkness, reaching around the corner. The Underdark hunter, drawn from its slumber in the depths below, creeps nearer...