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Yeah, I'm DMing tabletop now for the first time in over a decade, and the mini thing is pretty hard to come at. I've got a load of old prepainted minis from the 3e era, so i can cover a lot of the bases for most routine combats, but the price point for more specialised stuff is kinda daunting...

Honestly, I'm not so sure? The vast vast majority of kickstarters seem to get delivered. Late, usually, but they get there within a not-ludicrous timeframe (and honestly, anyone backing a KS probably should factor in a reasonable 'inevitable time overrun' buffer, especially if any physical...

The Factions and Threats section of this book is utterly great, and anyone writing a setting book (including WotC, who did something very similar in Eberron and promptly forgot about it) could be well advised to read and learn from. Normally when i read a setting book that I like, I'm...

There hasn’t been a WotC in literal decades that wasn’t just a branch of Hasbro that stuck a different logo on its products and did its social media with a different Twitter handle. I started up a new D&D group recently. It’s going well so far! Four out of six of the group have only ever known...

Yeah, it leaves most of the domain decisions up to the DM, there’s nothing prescribed. Although it does explicitly state that the adventure and world setting are built on the assumption that the abrahamic god is the only god. Some 5e domains like Death and maybe Trickery seem like a stretch, but...

From memory (i could be wrong here), they didn't really grasp that nettle, instead just basically assuming that full plate exists with its PHB stats, but that it's made of something other than metal. Purely a cosmetic change. I found it a bit unsatisfying, but I don't entire blame them. The...

First session of the new campaign! Dragonlance, stealing the early bits of Shadow of the Dragon Queen then heading off in an entirely different direction. PCs meeting each other, roleplaying out the paladin getting his holy calling, fighting some draconians, meeting a few NPCs, saving some and...

Presumably, given he's been at WotC, he's got a pretty good idea what 5.5 will look like, so he's probably able to be ahead of the curve with making anything he does compatible with the new core books.

Is what you really need strong continuity rather than a strong villain then? Candlekeep is a strongly location-driven adventure. PCs hang around the place the majority of the campaign, get invested in recurring NPCs etc. I suppose the key to a good campaign is emotional involvement, and...

I suppose the classic structure for using a recurring villain in a narrative where protagonists are expected to advance in capability, is Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy. First act, when they encounter him, early on when he can easily crush them, he doesn't even really pay much...

Urgh. This is going to be more stupidity and unpleasantness, isn't it? I wouldn't be at all surprised if this product isn't just loaded with nasty caricatures and personal attacks against his enemies. Like that time that V:tM writer stuck a child molester character in one of their products...

So here's a question. What published previous-edition campaigns do this best? What are the classics that get it right? Which ones set up the best villain, have the villain most central, and keep the PCs involved with (or aware of) the villain all the way through? It's not an easy thing to...

This was one of the big problems i had with SotDQ. Lord Soth is all over the cover art, and has something of a presence through the campaign, but you never get to speak to him, and because he's a big marketable canon character with a canon history and destiny, the adventure doesn't want to...

Pfft, the only TRUE Emperor has four arms... Yeah, it's mostly been the Horus Heresy stuff that's kept me interested in the setting in recent years. I don't play the miniatures game but i read the novels, but I've been leaving a lot of the 'current day' stuff unread - and that's quite aside...

Funny how perspectives differ. I've lost a lot of my love for the setting over the past few years, with the whole primaris thing and the return of the loyalist Primarchs. Dreadful lore written for nakedly venal commercial purposes. 40k is so big and sprawling that there's still stuff I enjoy...

Yeah, it’s a fascinating and incredibly busy era of history. Quite aside from the Austenian and Napoleonic stuff, you’ve got 1812, you’ve got the British Industrial Revolution and all the associated upheavals like enclosures and the Luddite movement, the highland clearances are still going on...

Reaching the audience is the key, as you say. There's been a few attempts in that direction. Good Society is probably the most successful, and that's entirely designed around telling Austenian stories. It's still very niche as a seller though - they had to run a second kickstarter a couple...

To be honest though, if I’ve got the means to punch a 100 foot long hole in something, I’m going to use it directly on the monster rather than playing complicated games with polymorph!

I’m pretty sure he’s written young adult books before, so he’s likely not completely locked in to hard-R grimdark stuff.

He can legitimately write. I loved the Shadow Campaigns books, even though the final one in the series didn't quite stick the landing. I'll be buying this book cos of his name attached to it, for what it's worth.