Wandering DMs

Dan & Paul chat with Matt Finch, creator of Swords & Wizardry, about his Revised Tome of Adventure Design!

Tome of Adventure Design is a comprehensive, start-to-finish resource for designing fantasy adventures for your favorite tabletop role-playing game. It is system neutral, and can be used with virtually any fantasy game. This book includes random generation tables for almost every step of the design process: locations, villainous plots, designing new monsters, and bizarre environments in strange, unknown planes of existence. Thousands of micro-prompts in the margins add additional brainstorming power to the process, and the book is filled with design advice from award-winning author Matt Finch.

"It’s over 300 pages of randomly selected jolts to the brain. In the introduction, Finch states that the point of incorporating randomness into your adventure writing is “to deliver cryptic results designed to shock the reader’s creativity into filling in the gaps” … Let me emphasize his use of the word “shock” in that passage. It’s perfect. The moment when two, three, or more nonsensical, fragmentary, contradictory notions gel into a coherent and fresh idea is shocking. It’s revelatory. It’s magical. And it’s inspiring…" Steve Winter, Designer & Contributor, Dungeons & Dragons for TSR and Wizards of the Coast

• Get the Revised Tome of Adventure Design here
• And see the completed Kickstarter page here

Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the pros and cons of every edition from the 1974 Original D&D little brown books to cutting-edge releases for 5E D&D today, we broadcast live on YouTube and Twitch so we can take viewer questions and comments on the topic of the day. Live every Sunday at 1 PM Eastern time.

Paul & Dan chat about bases for player characters in D&D -- strongholds, ships, taverns, houses, and more!

European-style castles originated in the 9th and 10th centuries, after the fall of the Carolingian Empire resulted in its territory being divided among individual lords and princes. These nobles built castles to control the area immediately surrounding them and the castles were both offensive and defensive structures; they provided a base from which raids could be launched as well as offered protection from enemies. Although their military origins are often emphasized in castle studies, the structures also served as centers of administration and symbols of power. Urban castles were used to control the local populace and important travel routes, and rural castles were often situated near features that were integral to life in the community, such as mills, fertile land, or a water source.

Due to the lord's presence in a castle, it was a center of administration from where he controlled his lands. He relied on the support of those below him, as without the support of his more powerful tenants a lord could expect his power to be undermined. Successful lords regularly held court with those immediately below them on the social scale, but absentees could expect to find their influence weakened. Larger lordships could be vast, and it would be impractical for a lord to visit all his properties regularly, so deputies were appointed. This especially applied to royalty, who sometimes owned land in different countries.

• Watch Dan play the 1993 D&D Stronghold game
• Read Dan's blog on late-era Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser

Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the pros and cons of every edition from the 1974 Original D&D little brown books to cutting-edge releases for 5E D&D today, we broadcast live on YouTube and Twitch so we can take viewer questions and comments on the topic of the day. Live every Sunday at 1 PM Eastern time.

This description uses material from the Wikipedia article "Castle", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

Dan & Paul turn a critical eye to the new One D&D (6E) rules draft on the Expert Class group: Rogues, Rangers, and Bards!

In August 2022, Wizards announced that the next phase of major changes for Dungeons & Dragons would occur under the One D&D initiative which includes a public playtest of the next version of Dungeons & Dragons. Revised editions of the Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master's Guide are scheduled to be released in 2024. The first public playtest, Unearthed Arcana: Character Origins, was released on D&D Beyond on August 18. Samantha Nelson, for Polygon, commented that public playtest material should not be "considered final". Nelson wrote that spells are now grouped by "arcane, divine, or primal" power sources – terms that were previously used in 4th edition's magic system. Xavier Johnson, for Dot eSports, and Christian Hoffer, for Comicbook.com, both highlighted that this playtest release updates the critical roll mechanic to an automatic success or failure if a roll is natural 20 or 1, respectively. Hoffer wrote that the "backwards compatible" One D&D release proposes "significant changes to backgrounds and races, two of the core building blocks when creating player characters. The rules also introduce several new backgrounds, new tiefling variants, and a brand new race […]. Most notably, the proposed rules shift Ability Score Increases from being a racial trait to a Background trait".

In the October 2022 Unearthed Arcana rules draft, the D&D designers unveil the idea of "Class Groups" -- familiar to 1E players as the Primary Classes -- and give details on the revised Rogue, Ranger, and Bard classes. Plus a new shuffle in the Rules Glossary for how the core mechanics work. Are these changes good or bad, from the perspective of veteran old-school players?

• See the new website & video for One D&D here
• Read Dan's blog on the classes in 1E Unearthed Arcana here

Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the pros and cons of every edition from the 1974 Original D&D little brown books to cutting-edge releases for 5E D&D today, we broadcast live on YouTube and Twitch so we can take viewer questions and comments on the topic of the day. Live every Sunday at 1 PM Eastern time.

This description uses material from the Wikipedia article "Editions of Dungeons & Dragons", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

Dan & Paul chat with Griffith Morgan about the new upcoming Kickstarter for the Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg!

In 1971, Greg Svenson and his friends took part in the very first dungeon adventure game, Blackmoor, created by their friend, Dave Arneson. Then, in the summer of 1973, as Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax worked to complete the manuscript for Dungeons & Dragons, Greg was given a play-test copy of this novel new game. He used these rules to create his own adventure dungeon, The Dungeons of Tonisborg.

One day, Greg loaned his maps to a friend to make copies. An unexpected disaster struck: the maps, stowed in an old magazine, were thrown away. All ten original map levels of Greg's epic mega-dungeon were thought lost forever. This lost map set came to be known as The Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg among the "Blackmoor Bunch."

Thirty-five years later, during the making of the documentary film, Secrets of Blackmoor, a mysterious set of photocopied dungeon maps was unearthed. D. H. Boggs emailed copies to Greg Svenson, who instantly recognized his own handwriting, declaring that these old photocopies were indeed copies of his original Tonisborg Dungeon. Now published with extensive background information, The Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg is not like any RPG Game Module you've ever encountered before.

Read more on the Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg here

Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the pros and cons of every edition from the 1974 Original D&D little brown books to cutting-edge releases for 5E D&D today, we broadcast live on YouTube and Twitch so we can take viewer questions and comments on the topic of the day. Live every Sunday at 1 PM Eastern time.

Thumbnail images courtesy of Craiyon.

Dan chats with Alyssa Faden, mapmaker extraordinaire, about her projects mapping the worlds of Greyhawk and the rest of the D&D cosmos!

Alyssa has been a professional cartographer and GenCon panelist since 2012. Her clientele includes Monte Cook Games, Kobold Press, Profantasy Software, Gygax Magazine, Golden Goblin Press, and Frog God Games. Her style is unique and self-taught, with influences from the lovely ink work of such greats as Jeff Laubenstein and Jeff Easley. And she's a long time Blue/Red box gamer with a passion for tabletop gaming and game mastering, and these decades of imagination and storytelling come through in her artwork.

Her passion (and the thing she's best known for) is incredibly detailed, insane, hand-drawn maps. Be they cities and towns, nautical ship deck plans, or the sprawling Tegel Manor drawn at massive 14'x12' — her hallmark is and will always be incredible detail and personality.

• Check out Alyssa's website here
• And watch Alyssa mapping live on her YouTube channel

Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the pros and cons of every edition from the 1974 Original D&D little brown books to cutting-edge releases for 5E D&D today, we broadcast live on YouTube and Twitch so we can take viewer questions and comments on the topic of the day. Live every Sunday at 1 PM Eastern time.

Paul & Dan chat about slimes, molds, oozes, and deadly gelatinous horrors in D&D. Gross!

Slime mold or slime mould is an informal name given to several kinds of unrelated eukaryotic organisms with a life cycle that includes a free-living single-celled stage and the formation of spores. Spores are often produced in macroscopic multicellular or multinucleate fruiting bodies which may be formed through aggregation or fusion. Slime molds were formerly classified as fungi but are no longer considered part of that kingdom. Although not forming a single monophyletic clade, they are grouped within the paraphyletic group, Protista.

More than 900 species of slime mold occur globally. Their common name refers to part of some of these organisms' life cycles where they can appear as gelatinous "slime". This is mostly seen with the Myxogastria, which are the only macroscopic slime molds. Most slime molds are smaller than a few centimetres, but some species may reach sizes up to several square metres and masses up to 20 kilograms.

They feed on microorganisms that live in any type of dead plant material. They contribute to the decomposition of dead vegetation, and feed on bacteria and fungi. For this reason, slime molds are usually found in soil, lawns, and on the forest floor, commonly on deciduous logs. In tropical areas they are also common on inflorescences and fruits, and in aerial situations (e.g., in the canopy of trees). In urban areas, they are found on mulch or in the leaf mold in rain gutters, and also grow in air conditioners, especially when the drain is blocked.

The "clean-up crew" of slimes, oozes, molds, and deadly puddings appear at the end of the monster roster in Original D&D (1974), and arguably are the only new creation type not found in classic mythology of Tolkien. Why do they get so much mindshare? Why were they important to Gygax & company at the outset? And how can you best use them in your games today?

Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the pros and cons of every edition from the 1974 Original D&D little brown books to cutting-edge releases for 5E D&D today, we broadcast live on YouTube and Twitch so we can take viewer questions and comments on the topic of the day. Live every Sunday at 1 PM Eastern time.

This description uses material from the Wikipedia article "Slime mold", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

Dan & Paul chat about the state of languages in D&D and other fantasy RPGs.

Tolkien was of the opinion that the invention of an artistic language in order to be convincing and pleasing must include not only the language's historical development, but also the history of its speakers, and especially the mythology associated with both the language and the speakers. It was this idea that an "Elvish language" must be associated with a complex history and mythology of the Elves that was at the core of the development of Tolkien's legendarium.

Tolkien wrote in one of his letters -- "what I think is a primary 'fact' about my work, that it is all of a piece, and fundamentally linguistic in inspiration. … It is not a 'hobby', in the sense of something quite different from one's work, taken up as a relief-outlet. The invention of languages is the foundation. The 'stories' were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse. To me a name comes first and the story follows. I should have preferred to write in 'Elvish'. But, of course, such a work as The Lord of the Rings has been edited and only as much 'language' has been left in as I thought would be stomached by readers. (I now find that many would have liked more.) … It is to me, anyway, largely an essay in 'linguistic aesthetic', as I sometimes say to people who ask me 'what is it all about'."

While the Elvish languages remained at the center of Tolkien's attention, the requirements of the narratives associated with Middle-earth also necessitated the development at least superficially of the languages of other races, especially of Dwarves and Men, but also the Black Speech designed by Sauron, the main antagonist in The Lord of the Rings. This latter language was designed to be the ostensible antithesis of the ideal of an artistic language pursued with the development of Quenya, the Black Speech representing a dystopian parody of an international auxiliary language just as Sauron's rule over the Orcs is a dystopian parody of a totalitarian state.

Flowing from Tolkien's primary interest, the need to handle various languages has long been a key part of D&D and other fantasy games. Does D&D do a good job at it? How can it be improved?

Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the pros and cons of every edition from the 1974 Original D&D little brown books to cutting-edge releases for 5E D&D today, we broadcast live on YouTube and Twitch so we can take viewer questions and comments on the topic of the day. Live every Sunday at 1 PM Eastern time.

This description uses material from the Wikipedia article "Languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

Paul & Dan assess the information so far on the next edition of D&D after 5E.

In August 2022, Wizards announced that the next phase of major changes for Dungeons & Dragons would occur under the One D&D initiative which includes a public playtest of the next version of Dungeons & Dragons. Revised editions of the Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master's Guide are scheduled to be released in 2024. The first public playtest, Unearthed Arcana: Character Origins, was released on D&D Beyond on August 18. Samantha Nelson, for Polygon, commented that public playtest material should not be "considered final". Nelson wrote that spells are now grouped by "arcane, divine, or primal" power sources – terms that were previously used in 4th edition's magic system. Xavier Johnson, for Dot eSports, and Christian Hoffer, for Comicbook.com, both highlighted that this playtest release updates the critical roll mechanic to an automatic success or failure if a roll is natural 20 or 1, respectively.Hoffer wrote that the "backwards compatible" One D&D release proposes "significant changes to backgrounds and races, two of the core building blocks when creating player characters. The rules also introduce several new backgrounds, new tiefling variants, and a brand new race […]. Most notably, the proposed rules shift Ability Score Increases from being a racial trait to a Background trait".

What do you think of these proposed ideas for the edition of D&D to come after 5E? Would you be more or less likely to play the game? And do they threaten to erase old-school play, or support it?

• See the new website & video for One D&D here
• Read Dan's comparison with the 5E announcement here

Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the pros and cons of every edition from the 1974 Original D&D little brown books to cutting-edge releases for 5E D&D today, we broadcast live on YouTube and Twitch so we can take viewer questions and comments on the topic of the day. Live every Sunday at 1 PM Eastern time.

This description uses material from the Wikipedia article "Editions of Dungeons & Dragons", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

Dan & Paul survey the different options across the years for D&D PC ability score generation.

Which is best for your D&D game? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Dan & Paul get into the nitty-gritty in this episode.

In original D&D, ability scores were determined by "roll[ing] three six-sided dice in order to rate each [character] as to various abilities". This had a significant impact on later character creations as "certain classes could only be taken up by characters with the right combination of statistics. As a result, players often" re-rolled characters until they ended up with the combination of ability scores they desired. The point buy system was originally added as an optional ruleset in the second edition supplement Player's Option: Skills & Powers (1995) and while it is "largely incompatible with most of the other books released for AD&D second edition" it still "proved very popular among fans". "A point system to ensure total player control over the character's attributes while at the same time limiting just how powerful the character could become […] [was] formalized in the third edition".

There are now several methods of determining a character's initial ability scores during character creation:

• Rolling dice (3d6): This is the standard method for the original edition. For each ability score, the player rolls 3d6, and adds the values, resulting in scores ranging from three to eighteen, averaging between 10 and 11.
• Rolling dice (4d6, keep 3): This is the standard method since 1st edition AD&D. For each ability score, the player rolls 4d6, and adds the three highest values, resulting in scores ranging from three to eighteen, skewed towards higher numbers, averaging 12.2446, though the most probable result is 13.
• Predetermined array of scores: Each player uses the same set of numbers, choosing which ability score to apply them to.
• Point buy: In the point buy system, a player has a certain number of points to spend on ability scores, and each score has a certain point cost affixed to it, where higher scores cost more points than lower ones.

Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the pros and cons of every edition from the 1974 Original D&D little brown books to cutting-edge releases for 5E D&D today, we broadcast live on YouTube and Twitch so we can take viewer questions and comments on the topic of the day. Live every Sunday at 1 PM Eastern time.

This description uses material from the Wikipedia article "Dungeons & Dragons gameplay", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

Paul & Dan chat with Jason Morningstar, creator of Fiasco, Desperation, and other great RPGs.

Jason Morningstar is an American indie role-playing game designer, publishing mostly through Bully Pulpit Games. Morningstar's games often lack a Game Master and are often set in situations that quickly go unfortunately for the player characters. Grey Ranks (2007), for example, is about doomed child soldiers in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, and Fiasco (2009) is about impulsive crooks pulling heists that are sure to go terribly wrong. With these two games, Morningstar became the only named person to have won the Diana Jones award twice as of 2013. Morningstar also works with academia and industry, consulting on using games for teaching and learning in education, with a focus on health sciences.

Now, Jason's newest production provides "games of survival horror, often without the survival". Desperation is the engine that powers two unique and chilling experiences, built on the same dark tone

Find out more about Jason Morningstar's Desperation game here

Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the pros and cons of every edition from the 1974 Original D&D little brown books to cutting-edge releases for 5E D&D today, we broadcast live on YouTube and Twitch so we can take viewer questions and comments on the topic of the day. Live every Sunday at 1 PM Eastern time.