Tag: Dungeon and Dragons

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DungeonDraft – An affordable map-maker

If you’re looking for an affordable map-making tool for RPGs suitable for use with a VTT a good contender is DungeonDraft which comes for an affordable $19.99 which weighs in around €20.

While it doesn’t offer the same rich variety in terms of assets out of the box as say for example Inkarnate. There are many free assets available for it on CartographyAssets which closes the asset gap quite quickly.

The fact that it’s a once off payment rather than an ongoing subscription means it quickly pays for itself. Can recommend enough if you’re looking to create quick maps for VTT sessions. Added to which there is nice integration with Foundry VTT if that’s your thing.

Here’s two examples of maps I’ve recently used in RPG game made only using the default installed assets.

The Blacksmiths Shop

The Blacksmiths Shop

A section of a village the party recently visited showing the local Blacksmiths store and accommodation. The store having a open stall window at the front with the smithy to side and family quarters behind.

The Old Watchtower

The Old Watchtower

A point of interest the adventures had to explore was a recently abandoned watchtower and the mysterious cavern linked to it below. Where the recent disappearances of villagers connected in some way to its sudden abandonment? Probably not.

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Paizo announces Open RPG License

Things are moving apace in the RPG space, with multiple publishing companies announcing moves away from the Wizards owned OGL.

But the most significant development so far is the announcement today by Paizo of a new open license by them for use by the wider RPG community. The contents of the announcement is below.

Paizo Open RPG License Announcement

https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6si7v?Paizo-Announces-SystemNeutral-Open-RPG-License

  • Their site is currently getting overwhelmed by the interest for the license.
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DnD Carnage – Open Games License 1.1

Unless you have been living under a rock, you’ll have to be aware of the turmoil within role-playing games community over Hazbo/Wizards of the Coast attempting to revoke the OGL 1.0a license which has been used for 20 or so years.

And replace it with one which is closed (in spite of the name) and also performs a serious land-grab of third-party IP at the same time as looking to milk everyone they can.

Naturally this hasn’t gone down to well 🙂

The following video gives a good run-down on the situation along with providing a link to the revised license.

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Keep on the Borderlands – Maps

We’re currently playing through the Keep on the Borderlands on our weekly DnD sessions.
As such in preparation for some possible encounters which the party might have I’ve knocked up some simple maps we can use in the VTT we’re using.

These are shown below, maybe they’ll be of use to others.

The Stone Hovel – A mysterious hut in the forest.
The Forgotten Portal – An ancient inactive(?) portal.
Pit of Demise – A place of evil in the woods.

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Humble Bundle – Pathfinder

If you’re new into role-playing games, then this is a pretty good deal.
The core rulebooks for both Pathfinder and Starfinder for around a fifteen euro.

Pathfinder itself comes from Dungeons and Dragons, being a port from DnD 3.5, though the second edition is move away from that original starting point.

The basic concepts remain similar between the two games with similar races, classes and mechanics.


https://www.humblebundle.com/books/give-gift-pathfinder-starfinder-paizo-books

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Which D&D version to play

Here’s a good video I recently got recommended describing the various versions of Dungeons & Dragons, along with the advantages/disadvantages they have and similar alternatives available.

Which D&D Edition Should You Play?
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Bad DnD Art

I’ve been playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons with a group for friends for the last year or so.

Starting with the starter campaign “Dragon of Icespire Peak”, followed by the first half of “Out of the Abyss” and then into one of smaller campaigns while the players level enough to tackle either the second part of the Abyss.

For the start of the sessions I’ve taken to capturing what happened previously in image form.

Allow me to present in crude pictorial format our story so far.

Life was hard in Gracklstugh
A final dash for freedom
The hero returns
The Miracle Of Phandalin
Say it isn’t so
I’m sure it will all work out

I know what you’re thinking… breathtaking.

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Welcome to 1980s

One of the nice side effects of the lockdowns has been that I’ve had the opportunity to get back into playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Over the last year some friends and myself have been playing weekly and we’ve made our way through the introductory campaign “Dragon of Icespire Peak”.

Having successfully completed the afore mention campaign an interest in meeting the Drow and hence we moved onto playing “Out the Abyss”.

A few months later the party has escaped their captors (at least for now) and find themselves in a position to return to the surface.

Assuming they do return topside and don’t fancy returning to the Underdark, the plan was to allow them to work their way though the “Dungeon of the Mad Mage” which would give a nice change of pace.

It’s more a straight forward dungeon crawl in classic DnD sense, much like the old Red-Box Basic DnD set I got in long long ago.

Which got me thinking maybe now is a good time to revisit “The Keep on the Borderland” one of the starting modules which was released with the Basic Set.

I remember pouring over the original module all those years ago, so getting a chance to revisit it all these years later to really appealing.