Search results

Why do I love D&D? The wonderful art The magic of the old Dragon, Dungeon, Dungeoneer and early White Dwarf magazines The friends I’ve made over 46 years of playing The miniature figures I’ve painted Teaching my grandkids to play The wonder of my very first game The old Swords & Spells battles...

Keep on the Borderlands carries so many great memories for me, so it’s definitely my favourite intro adventure. I’ve even been running it intermittently as a “stand in” if someone is absent from our regular group. Phandelver is great IMO: I ran it for my wife and two grandchildren and they...

So true! And thank you for the wonderful memories inspired by that piece of art.

You could consider grouping Goblin, Bugbear and Hobgoblin into a single language?

Sadly, I can’t help with an answer but my DM used the ones from the old Dragon magazine as the Witches of Marmon in his Wilderlands campaign in around 1981 and our party got absolutely smashed (near TPK) and we were around level 10 and pretty well equipped. Still scares me today!

One of the most memorable wizards I ever DM-ed was named Jantin Foord, who called himself “Destroyer of Worlds” and whose battlecry/catchphrase was “ fireball the bastards!” So, yeah, fireball gets my vote. ( and shout out to Richard who played him)

I was 13. It was 1976 and a lad from the year above asked my friend, Phil and I if we wanted to play this new game from America, called Dungeons and Dragons.

1 Modrons are the most boring, worse and irritating monsters ever designed for the game. 2 Greyhawk is so much better than Forgotten Realms

Being islands, your Zealandia has a lot of sea surrounding it. A chance to put in at least one undersea race; maybe cetacean-based with dolphins and orcas?

The Sassanians, who ruled what’s is now Iran in the C3rd to C7th CE, are often thought to have deployed chained units of slave soldiers as human shields. Most historians consider this unlikely, and that the word “chained” is more likely to be a reference towards a form of unit organisation. So...

On the subject of pubs and directions, anyone ever play Pub Legs? Doesn’t work on motorways (interstates to our US friends) but great on long journeys on A roads. Driver is pub 1, first passenger pub 2, second passenger pub 3 etc, returning to driver to restart the count. You get a point for...

When I studied Medieval history, there was a real fear of world-ending catastrophe as the CE year 1000 approached; a bit like the “Millenium Bug” of the late 1990s, but with divine wrath, demons, angels, floods etc. Obviously it didn’t happen but I have toyed with a campaign set in a not-Europe...

If it was up to me, I’d suggest WOTC contact @Steampunkette and work out a deal to publish her Sins of the Scorpion Age setting. It’s well-developed, tested in actual play and has all the flavours of Swords & Sorcery, but fully inclusive for all. Playing in the setting is a fantastic privilege.

My friend and I were 13 and a lad from the year above in school had the White Box set. It was late in 1976. The older lad, Dave, asked Phil and I to play a game after school and we were hooked. Phil played a magic user called Amroth, I played a fighter called Aelric. We both got the box set...

In August 1648, Cromwell’s Government was somewhat occupied with mopping up the Second Civil War, so the returning privateer could probably get away with landing their loot and dispersing it.

Started with the white box set in 1976 as a kid. For me, OSR-affection isn’t really about the rules as such. I know that sounds a bit counter-intuitive, but I can just as happily play 5e rules. What I’m after is the nostalgia of the actual adventures and the feel of exploring dusty and musty...

I guess books are the obvious ones, so Tolkien, Howard and myriad others loom large as inspirations. I played a lot of rugby, so a similar sense of teamwork to @dave2008 in that respect. I had a pretty tough upbringing, combined with the punk scene of the late 1970s, this makes social justice...

Talking of Scottish legends that could apply to your game, Sawney Bean is a late C16th legend, but if he and Agnes Douglas (allegedly a witch) had 12+ children, a descendant could easily figure in the game, as could the site of the sea cave near Girvan. Similarly, Black Shuck, the devil dog of...

French emigres from an ancient noble family, fleeing the Revolution in France, bring with them a relic, long held in the cellars below their chateau; the skull’s upper jaw has distended canine teeth. At midnight, the chime of the church bell in the village of Hartsdown strikes 13 notes. Yet the...

A fashionable spa town in the Southeast, where the waters, emerging from untold depths below the earth, are more than they seem. A pavilion in a coastal resort, built by the Prince Regent, in an eastern style, whose staff are devotees of the Goddess of Death. Psychic memories of the fear of...