THAC0 with Advantage

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D is the recursive program that we’re still running to solve for a perfect campaign.

In some fantasy stories, everything is steeped in myth and magic, and anything that distracts from those themes detracts from the story. But that’s not every fantasy story. For decades, pulp heroes could just as easily wield a sword as a laser pistol. Sometimes it’s worth it to see the looks on your player’s faces when the dragon they’ve been hunting is actually a cyborg with laser vision. Today we’re going to talk about when and how to include science fiction in your D&D campaigns

There have been several adventures over the years that have blended fantasy and sci-fi, but one that doesn’t get referenced as much as Expedition to the Barrier Peaks or City of the Gods is the 1997 adventure Tale of the Comet. Eventually the PCs head to a science fiction setting to defeat the final villain. There are rules for converting characters to the Alternity game system, the science fiction RPG TSR was just beginning to launch. The final boss is an evil AI that ruined the world by stealing all of the art and writing in the culture that created it. Or, maybe it destroyed every living being on the planet with drones. I can’t keep that straight. 

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D still acts first in all of our rounds of gaming.

Imagine a table full of gamers. Each one of them has a character with multiple options available to them. Now think of all of those characters in the same scene with a giants, a dragon, and a band of ogres. How do you keep all of those characters straight and make sure that everyone gets to take their turn? We roll for initiative, and let the dice tell us who gets to take what turn and when. We’ll explore how 5e D&D works, as well as variations that exist in the game.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition may have some of the most confusing rules surrounding initiative and combat rounds. Most people that have played multiple editions of D&D are familiar with the idea of a surprise round, but AD&D 1e didn’t actually have a surprise round, it actually had a process for determining the number of segments lost to surprise, and the only actions that could be used against the surprised characters are actions that took the same or fewer segments as the segments lost to surprise. Apparently it’s usually not a surprise that someone with a great sword is going to attack you.

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D is the crucible that trained us in the tabletop RPG disciplines.

We’ve looked at the kind of background details you can add to divine and arcane spellcasting characters, and what questions you should ask about your setting when adding these details. It’s easy to assume that characters like fighters and rogues don’t need these kinds of details on the origins of their abilities, but martial character backgrounds can still add a wealth of details to your game setting. Shields high, we’re charging into martial character backgrounds!

The AD&D 1e barbarian couldn’t rage, an ability that didn’t appear until D&D 3e. Dragon Magazine #133 did introduce a 1e Berserker class, meant for NPCs. These Berserkers had a rage feature similar to what we now think of for Barbarians, except that the Berserker couldn’t stop raging early, meaning they might start walloping their allies. A Berserker also couldn’t enter a rage voluntarily, but had a percentage chance to rage in stressful situations. You wouldn’t like them when they’re angry.

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D is the patron to whom we swore allegiance to get our powers.

In the Great Wheel cosmological system, the souls are tortured by two separate yet equally important groups. The demons who improvise destruction, and the devils, who prosecute long term plans. These are their definitions. In other words, we’re going to talk about the differences between demons and devils, and if you need there to be a difference in your D&D game.

Devils are younger than their chaotic evil cousins, as they weren’t introduced until the AD&D 1e Monster Manual in 1977. Not long after, in Dragon Magazine #28, the article The Politics of Hell was published. This is mainly notable because it has Satan’s stats in it–did the Satanic Panic start because Satan has a -8 armor class, 333 hit points, and can only be hit by +3 or better weapons? Maybe that got cut from the 1985 60 Minutes interview with Gary Gygax.

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D has called us to be its heralds.

Do the gods in your campaign look down upon the game board of the world, moving their followers into and out of conflict like the Olympians in Clash of the Titans? Do your characters lament that, or embrace it? Was your character called to service, or did they join the clergy on their own? We’re going to explore the divine and how it informs your D&D character.

The AD&D 1e rulebook Deities & Demigods was the first D&D product that provided details about gods, supernatural planes of existence, and concepts underlying the cleric class. The first printing of the book contains Moorcock’s Melnibonean gods as well as creatures from the Cthulhu Mythos. Urban Legend says that TSR didn’t realize they couldn’t use those characters, but the truth is, between the first and second printing, newcomers Chaosium started producing Call of Cthulhu and the Stormbringer RPG. TSR could have kept those sections in the book, but they had to credit Chaosium. Eventually TSR decided they didn’t want to advertise for another RPG company, and cut the content, publishing the shorter work as Legend and Lore. Now, if you want to talk about IP that TSR used that they didn’t have the rights to use, just ask the Tolkien estate about that.

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D is an evil spell put on us that made us shun our friend when Blackleaf died.

Arcane magic can reign down destruction, create something from nothing, and bend the rules of the multiverse. But how often do you think about the means by which your character harnessed that power? Do you believe in a grand theory of magic, or is magic a mystery even to you? We’re going to look at how to work more magical roleplaying details into your arcane caster player character.

The first official D&D glimpse the public got of the Forgotten Realms was in Dragon Magazine #62, in the first installment of Ed Greenwood’s Pages from the Mages. Instead of just publishing articles with new AD&D spells, the articles described specific spellbooks, their history, the wizards that owned the spellbooks,  and what was contained within them, including the new spells. Greenwood’s motivation for publishing the articles? He wanted to give his NPCs new spells, and he thought it would be fairer to his players if an editor accepted them into a professional publication.

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D is the bag of snacks at the back of the shelf that you thought you already ate.

No matter how long it is between our game sessions, its easy to lose track of what was going on the last time you played. Even though we want to get caught up, no one wants to wait 15 minutes for the GM to read the previous session into the record. We’re going to look at the best way to balance recapping your last session  with having enough momentum to hit the ground running.

The displacer beast is one of the most iconic of D&D monsters, and even appeared in Honor Among Thieves, looking damn cool. The displacer beast isn’t in the 5e SRD, meaning that D&D products not made by WotC can’t use them. Ironically, the displacer beast was inspired by Coeurl, an alien hunting cat with tentacles on its shoulders, that appears in A.E. Von Vogt’s story “Black Destroyer,” in July of 1939. Couerl tracked down the crew of a spaceship one by one, killing them, until it gets tricked into going into an escape pod where it gets shot into space. So the displacer beast came from the same inspiration as the xenomorphs from Aliens. But displacer beast kittens are still cuter than facehuggers.

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D is a phoenix that just keeps rising from the ashes.

Last year was a roller coaster ride for all things Dungeons & Dragons. The year started with breaking a 23 year old promise with the OGL, a reversal that saw the 5e SRD added to creative commons, the release of the Dungeons & Dragons movie, the excitement of the 2024 anniversary year plans, and the sudden, sobering stop of the December layoffs from Hasbro. We take a look at this tumultuous year and what it means for the game and the brand.

The setting that is currently called Mystara started off as the Known World. Lawrence Schick and Tom Moldvay created the setting as a shared world that multiple gamers could contribute to, for their home games. When the BX edition of D&D came out, Schick and Moldvay were told that the Greyhawk setting was reserved for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons only. That’s when the Known World became known to D&D players, as it became the backdrop of the BX, and later BECMI D&D adventures. When Basic D&D was phased out of existence so TSR could focus on only developing AD&D 2nd Edition, the Known World was renamed Mystara, and was ported to AD&D. Unfortunately, modern gamers haven’t been exposed to the Known World, which is ironic, considering they have been exposed to the Forgotten Realms.

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D taught us when to bring the snacks.

Ang and Jared discuss Beer & Pretzels versus Wine & Cheese, and it’s not just what they’re having for the holidays. Come with us on this episode of THAC0 with Advantage as we explore different play styles in D&D, from casual and cathartic to engaging and exacting.

Auril’s Blesstide is a floating holiday in the Forgotten Realms, where people in Waterdeep dress in white and don’t eat hot food, to appease the Frost Maiden in hopes of a mild winter. The Wonders of Gond was a holiday randomly determined by the church of the Wonderbringer in which they encouraged people by making gadgets and toys to hand out to people to brighten their spirits. Wintershield is the first day of the year, where people gather to discuss the previous year, look at maps, and talk about politics. This is how you know the Forgotten Realms is a fantasy world, because no one thinks explicitly talking about politics on purpose during the holidays is a good idea. 

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D is what taught us our RPG manners.

This episode is all about being a better player. Ang and Jared talk about their past trials with rough players and what they believe helps be a better player at the DnD table. Let us know what you think are some quality traits to bring to the table and any tips you might have for being a better player.

Now that we’ve seen Sigil in D&D 5e, it’s interesting to take a look back on the history of the city and how entrenched it is in D&D lore. It didn’t appear in the AD&D 1st edition Manual of the Planes, but was the focal point of the 2nd edition AD&D Planescape campaign. AD&D 2e ends with Vecna attempting to enter Sigil and vaguely causing the Great Wheel to break into a multiverse. This led to different D&D campaign settings having distinct planar cosmologies, such as the Great Tree arrangement of the Forgotten Realms. We don’t get to see Sigil in 3rd edition, but are instead introduced to another planar metropolis, Union. While a lot of people think of D&D 4e as being the “oddball” of modern D&D, Sigil shows up in the Dungeon Masters Guide II as a location for Paragon Level play. We haven’t seen Union since the Epic Level Handbook, and Sigil showed up in the D&D 5e Dungeon Masters Guide even before the Planescape campaign setting was released. If you made it through all of that, you can now comment on how our esteemed narrator pronounced Sigil after all of those references.