dungeons & dragons

I've lost most of my interest in WotC releases but this upcoming book from Jon Peterson focused on OD&D's original documents and context is catnip to history buffs like myself. It's pretty pricey though, may wait to pick it up on sale or secondhand.

Ben Milton's latest newsletter linked to this cool webpage that attempts to supply every monster from 2e D&D, from every official source, including modules, setting supplements and magazine articles. I'm a big fan of 2e's Monstrous Compendiums, which often had good, evocative art and sections...

Occasionally I look to see what's coming up from MIT Press in their game design and history series and I just spotted that Jon Peterson's Playing at the World will be getting an updated, two volume release. Peterson has said that the reason the first, excellent book didn't get released by an...

It must really be true that everything old is new again, because apparently WotC has commissioned a whole bunch of tie-in novels - adult novels - for this summer. Not only the finale of the latest Dragonlance trilogy, but also stand-alones showing off the Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer (!) and...

Link: https://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2023/12/thirteen-tips-for-running-planescape.html Planescape is one of my favorite campaign settings. It was a breath of fresh air when it came out in 1994, contradicting the more traditional Tolkien influenced ones already published. The...

Blog Link: https://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2023/12/101-dark-sun-adventure-hooks.html Dark Sun is a deeply underappreciated gameline and the fact that Hasbro has decided not to continue the setting is a great disappointment. It was a planetary romance akin to Barsoom at its most...

A thread to talk about your favorite D&D novels and recommendations across the lines. I did some articles on this and thought I'd share them while other people share their favorites. Link: https://beforewegoblog.com/ten-recommended-classic-dungeons-and-dragons-novels/ I have to admit that...

This is revisionist history. Old school D&D explicitly had balanced encounters, and called them dungeon levels. Each level lower you had progressively more difficult encounters. Challenge ratings were introduced in 3rd Edition along with the 'Back to the Dungeon' motto, and just tied it to party...

I asked this on Mastodon this morning but this is plainly a different audience. Do you think D&D (which comprises 60%+) of the hobby is a gateway to other games or is it a giant, bloated tick draining increasing money into a shareholder black hole? (Yes these are extreme views. Middling views...

Today Wizards of the Coast on DnD Beyond released an article called OGLs, SRDs, & One D&D. It talks about Wizards plans for a new version of the OGL. The recap the OGL stands for the Open Game License. According to Creative Commons, an open license means the content is free to use how you want...

https://booknest.eu/reviews/charles/2396-dangerousgames "Never argue with an idiot. You'll never convince the idiot that you're correct, and bystanders won't be able to tell who's who." - Mark Twain This is a deeply frustrating book for me because I wanted to...

On a more lore-related question: how do you guys use Archdemons and Archdevils? Because with evil gods, do they not seem redundant? Are they gods themselves of evil or just essentially, big Planar Bosses stealing souls for their own amusement/power? Can they grant spells? What are their...

We all have a bunch of opinions on 5th Edition and its various changes and releases. However, I thought it might be interesting to do a post collecting the thoughts on the lore changes to all of the various settings that have trickled down (and I do mean trickled). This is a thread where you can...

Just posted about this here but then I realized it is worthy of its own thread. Goodman Games is republishing Jennell Jaquays' classic dungeon adventurr Dark Tower for Dungeon Crawl Claasics and 5e D&D. Great to see that the Judges Guild classics will not be left OOP for modernday players and...

Jon Peterson is sure to piss off many a self-declared internet expert on the hobby's history with this one me thinks. Will be interesting to see the more rabid Gygax and Arneson partisans weeping and gnashing their teeth as several sacred cows are slaughtered. I am such a huge nerd as this...

So I discuss The City of Greyhawk and Skullport city supplements a bit here. More recently I really dig Fever-Dreaming Marlinko from Hydra Cooperative. I'm a sucker for a good city supplement, may wallet may regret me asking but what are your favourite city supplements?

Really cool for rpg history nerds.

I continue to covert over some of the tables I made with Inspiration Pad Pro into Javascript. This time it is the Grenade Scatter tables from the DMG and the NPC Personae Table. Enjoy! Advanced Edition Tables

So Ive been off and on playing in my first 5th edition campaign, The Curse of Strahd, which didn't enamour me to the 5th edition system, but seems fine enough as a campaign. Ravenloft was one of those settings for D&D I always enjoyed the idea of, but never got the chance to play in (the closest...

So in case you didn't know for some reason there is a rock musical version of Dragonlance from Russia. The full stage version with subs is now up on YT, if you can make it through the whole thing you're made of sterner stuff than me. I'm an unabashed DL fan but this is a bit much. So does...