The first time I played D&D my brother, the Dungeon Master, did the math for me. Later, when I was ready to start serving as the dungeon master for my kids we had dndbeyond. The character creator on dndbeyond does a great job of bringing together information from across the Players Handbook into one easy to use location. Since the web app is doing the math for the player, it’s easy to select various different options and see how the changes ripple through the system and result in different bonuses to the characters. It wasn’t until late last year when I was getting ready for Tales of the Valiant that I had to do character creation manually. (Kobold press does not maintain an automated character creation app) It took a LOT longer (as does leveling up), but I think it’s worth doing it at least once. (If not making it your default)

Once the party was back on the ship after the events with the mermaids they let Hal know that dragonfire is needed to melt the adamantine on the star. Hal consults his charts and they head towards the Archipelago where Lux lives. The since the adventurers have the star, the Blackrift compass points towards them. Many Blackrift ships approach and they’re boarded. They fight a Far Elf Lunar Monk and 2 Link Acolytes. Before more enemies can board, Aurora arrives and incinerates the ship nearest them. They end the battle and Aurora lands on the deck of the ship.

The only constant in the universe is change and so of course I should come to tabletop roleplaying games right when there’s a big shift. Dungeons and Dragons 5e came out in 2014, but I didn’t know that when I picked it up about 2 years ago at the behest of my kids. And it was D&D instead of Pathfinder because that’s what my brother had introduced them to at Christmas the year before. As soon as I spend a bunch of money on the big three source books (Players Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide) they decide to revamp the game in 2024. Perhaps learning the (right? wrong?) lesson from D&D 3.5, they don’t christen this new version as 5.5e. The publisher, Wizards of the Coast, goes to great lengths to say that the game is both backwards and forwards compatible. That is, old adventures will work with new 2024 characters. New adventures (or at least recently published ones) will work with 2014 characters and monsters. Somehow in all that chaos I also found and became interested in Kobold Press’ Tales of the Valiant. Tales of the Valiant is a fork (in the free and open source sense of the word) of the 5e system. For now it remains highly compatible with D&D 2024. The forks may eventually diverge, making Tales of the Valiant the Pathfinder (which split off from D&D 3.5) of this generation. (The fork happened because of the OGL license scandal of 2023 when Wizards of the Coast attempted to change the terms of the deal. What I found interesting is that there was a certain feeling in the air - either among the players or the developers - that led to a lot of convergent evolution in both D&D 5.5e and ToV despite the ways in which they are different. (quick disclaimer to say that this isn’t a post about which is better or which you should play, just what I’ve noticed is different)

After dealing with the lich and the leviathan, the characters find themselves alone on the ocean. They sail on in the direction the compass directs. Eventually they reach a point where the compass is going in circles like it did when the leviathan was near. Everyone looks over the edge, but only Hazel and Amelia have the prior knowledge to recognize that they are above some merfolk architecture. They sail in the direction of the merfolk architecture, but are dragged a mile back by water elementals.

Introduction

When we got to this trilogy, we had already played every other trilogy in the DnD Adventure Club world. We’d mostly, but not entirely, gone through the adventures in order. DnD Adventure Club provides some very awesome, simplified, pre-created character sheets. Back when we played the introductory adventure (which is referenced in this trilogy) the GM guidance was to have one or more of the players be an orphan raised by Baba (I don’t remember if it’s explicitly mentioned before this trilogy that this is Baba Yaga of Russia lore, but we figured it out at some point). The kids looked at the backstories of the characters they chose, and it didn’t really fit with any of them, but they chose to have Sasha (Scarlett’s character) have spent some time in the orphanage that Baba runs at the outskirts of the Tumbledowns.

It wasn’t that long ago that I wrote a blog post reflecting on being the family dungeon master for the past year. So I’m going to try and avoid repeating too much of what I wrote there. At the time that I wrote it, I wasn’t considering making tabletop gaming one of the topics I reflect on at the end of the year. However, it has become a pretty large part of my leisure and it may continue to grow in the amount of my free time that it takes up. I think, for this year, I will divide my post according to campaign. We’ll see what makes sense next year.

This was our second non-kiddie Dungeons and Dragons 5e campaign after Humblewood. As it says on the tin, this is a very dungeon-focused adventure. I reviewed the first 3 adventures from the point of view of the Dungeon Master a while back. This is a session recap of the adventure as experienced by the players. If you’re not a DM, but someone who might play, there are spoilers below!

Note: we didn’t play in a VTT, I’m just using it to illustrate some key moments from each session.

Last year running the Humblewood campaign setting for my kids was the experience that really leveled up my skills as game master / dungeon master. I previously made a commentary post after the first session This post collects the session notes as well as my commentary on those session notes. Spoilers ahead if you plan to be a player in a Humblewood campaign (rather than GM/DM).

Session 1

Meadowfen

Player Character backstories

Minla

Minla was a normal Jerbeen in a big, happy family. Until a band of vulpin raiders came and, while plundering Minla’s family, killed her entire family.

Spend enough time on the internet, (especially /r/dnd or /r/dndbeyond) and you’ll come away feeling like TTRGPs are over, Wizards of the Coast is ruining your childhood, and a million other negative thoughts. But as I was watching the latest promotional video from Wizards of the Coast for the “2024” Monster Manual, I realized that the hobby is in the midst of a creative spurt. So I wanted to write this short post to share some joy as we start 2025.

Let’s take a look at the latest die or dice from the Dice Envy Advent Calendar.

It’s the last 2 days of the calendar plus some images of all the sets together and some final thoughts on the Dice Envy Advent Calendar.