Where to Begin

(AOA1-1 The Worth of a Slave)

Good news! Wizards of the Coast has allowed the campaign admins to share the Ashes of Athas campaign adventures (20 adventures organized into 7 chapters). To order the adventures, just send me a PM with your e-mail address. We can't begin to describe how glad we are to be able to share the campaign with you!

Now, back to the purpose of this blog series. I wanted to review each adventure from a design perspective, sharing some insight into how the adventure was created, highlighting areas where we tried new things, and sharing what we learned in going from concept to draft to actual play. 

In the Beginning

Note: As with all parts of this blog series, there are spoilers within!

I've shared how the campaign started up both on ...

 

Ashes of Athas:
Looking Back on the Dark Sun Organized Play Campaign

On March 1st Mike Shea (operating the site Sly Flourish) invited me to chat about the Dark Sun organized play campaign called Ashes of Athas. You can watch our chat here.

I was also fortunate to be on the Misdirected Mark Podcast #48, where I chatted about Winter Fantasy and the conclusion of the Ashes of Athas campaign.

The campaign spanned 7 Chapters, 20 adventures, 84 hours of play time, and a ton of sleepless nights as Chad Brown, Derek Guder, and I worked to create the campaign. Now that it has concluded, I would like to take some time to discuss a few of the individual adventures and the approach we took to design and develop them.

I thought I might start by asking whether there are any particular encounters...

The Lazy Dungeon Master

A book by Mike Shea (Sly Flourish)

Mike Shea, known by the name of Sly Flourish, has written the above book. This is his third book targeted at helping DMs. You can find an excellent summary of the book and an interview here on The Id DM's site.

I have to admit I was a bit skeptical of this book when Mike first told me about it and asked me some DM preparation questions. I'm of the mindset that preparation is important and even that over-preparation may be important for DMs to help them try things and improve. Also, I felt like I personally liked preparation.

As I traded e-mails with Mike and later in reading this book I came to realize two reasons why this book was really useful for me. First, I need ways to find more hours in a day. There is a lot I do to prepare...

Classic Adventures: Converting Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh to D&D Next

Update: You can now purchase a pdf of this adventure!


Last time I focused on character relationships as a way to make a classic adventure more interesting. I also shared my notes on how I converted the end of Temple of Elemental Evil's moathouse into D&D Next format.

I want to more specifically cover how we can easily take a classic adventure and convert it to D&D Next. Recently I converted the classic U1, Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, for use in D&D Next. How easy was this? It took me 30 minutes while I was in the passenger seat of a car!

Oh, and before I go further, it is worth mentioning that Wizards recently released some ideas on extending Caves of Chaos after a party has done initial explorations.

Why Secret?

...

Interlude: Extending the Five Minute Workday

Legends & Lore discussed the Five Minute Workday, the concept that after a very short period of time (such as one battle), the players decide to rest again so as to regain all of their resources. I was pretty dissatisfied with the column, in part because I didn't understand what it was advocating. After reading it several times, it seems to say the following:

• WotC is working on the math of the game to ensure a solid foundation.
• The focus to achieve balance is shifting from the encounter (4E's innovation) to the adventuring day (of previous editions).
• The adventuring day is defined by a number of rounds of combat with a certain number of enemies.
• Hit Points are the tracking mechanism.
• DMs will be crystal clear on target rounds/day expected.

...

Interlude: D&D Next and the Digital Divide

"D&D Game Table. We've been showing this off at conventions and to the press these past few months, and it gets better and better each time I see a new build. This application will really fulfill our promise of D&D play 24/7" - Bill Slavicsek 6/9/2008

The original D&D Virtual Table Top

"Just to give you guys an idea, this took about five months and that included building the AT infrastructure from scratch (this is completely client code, vs the CB that has a distributed architecture) and implementing the MB. Next tools should be quicker" - Paolo Marcucci, 9/13/2011, after the often delayed online MB was released. (10 months later no new tools had been produced)

Offline Adventurer Tools. Note the four blank spots.

"While we appreciate the enthusiasm...

D&D Next and Classic Adventures:

Organizing the (Caves of) Chaos

Update: Wizards is now making pdfs available at D&D Classics. You can purchase pdf versions of the original B2, as well as a bundle of the Basic series of adventures!


Last time we mentioned that it is easy to convert classic adventures to D&D Next. We also talked at a high level about some of the shortcomings of old adventures and then went through the history of The Keep on the Borderlands. Thanks for the great feedback on that and earlier blogs!

This time I want to look at how we can use the D&D Next playtest packet to improve on classic adventures. The easiest way to do that is to look at Caves of Chaos. In later installments we can apply these lessons to other adventures.

Goals When Converting to D&D Next

Here are...

Interlude: D&D Next and Magic Items

A brief interlude to talk about the subject of today's Legend & Lore column: magic items. But, before that, please make sure to fill out the survey on editions, organized play, and where and how you play.

The evolution of magic items in D&D has been interesting. From Original D&D to Basic to AD&D to 2E, magic items were the domain of the Dungeon Master. The DM selected (or even rolled randomly) based on the types of creatures or level of dungeon involved. As a result, there was often a sense of mystery. If you didn't own the DMG and similar DM books, you didn't know all of the items available. And if the DM was at times rolling randomly, there was a chance you would get a really neat and sometimes powerful item.

Powerful, however, wasn't the same as in...

D&D Next and Classic Adventures:

Using Classics and the History Behind the (Caves of) Chaos

Today I want to start a series on how classic adventures can be used with D&D Next. With recent announcements suggesting that we won't get some additional playtest content for a while, this is hopefully useful. How deeply I delve into the subject will in part depend on your feedback. If this is useful, I'll keep the series going longer.

D&D Next: Gateway to the Past

One of the joys of D&D Next is that it translates really easily to previous editions. I have a vast collection of old adventures (and classics can be often had for $10 or less through your local gaming store or on E-Bay. Update: pdf versions of D&D material can now be found on D&D Classics.com!). Starting with 3E it became really...