When I finished my review of Beowulf: Age of Heroes, I started following Handiwork Games for any future news about their projects. In doing so, I came across their Patreon, Handimonsters. This patreon publishes multiple monthly monsters for members, so I decided to check it out. No, I’m not obsessed with D&D monsters. Why would you say that, and no,
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There has been a lot of talk about WOTC’s 5th Edition d20 OGL, and the suitability of the framework for various roleplaying games. Some of this revolves around the “d20 Glut” that happened around the time that Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 was released. If you weren’t around for that, or weren’t paying attention to RPG news, effectively, many, many games
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What day is today? Its Unearthed Arcana release day, an irregular holiday that strikes when you least expect it! What is the subject of today’s UA? Draconic Options. When I first saw this, I was wondering if this was going to be a “second pass” on the draconic themed subclasses we got a few months ago. That isn’t the case,
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Some of my earliest fantasy touchstones were the stories of King Arthur and his knights that my sisters would read to me at night. The idea of an evil knight that stands for everything wrong in the world caught my imagination early. In my young mind, an evil knight specifically sworn to oppose everything good was a great villain. Yes,
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Backgrounds in D&D 5e are one of those rules elements that I love, and that I feel don’t have the impact that I wish they would. I’m always excited to see new backgrounds, but new backgrounds, when utilizing the standard rules associated with them, don’t really end up doing anything more than what they have in the past. The best
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For anyone following the MCDM experiment in D&D 5e content that is the PDF magazine Arcadia, you may remember that issue number three is where MCDM is planning on stopping and taking a breath and deciding where to go next. Don’t look now, but we are at issue number three, and given that the magazine is at its “contemplation point,”
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Way back during the d20 boom, Green Ronin released a system that utilized the d20 SRD, but in a way similar to what they had with Mutants and Masterminds. It was a d20 level-based system, but it didn’t use hit points, and realigned the concept of classes into three broad archetypes. To go along with this game system, the Blue
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Ready to creep into the deepest chamber of the dungeon, where the most dangerous of all denizens is lurking, plotting and sending out their tendrils to degrade the world around it? Have a good idea how to design that deepest chamber? That’s what Fantastic Lairs is attempting to solve for D&D 5e game masters. Fantastic Lairs is a product that
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Once again, James Intracaso was kind enough to share the current issue of Arcadia, the D&D 5e magazine published by Matt Colville’s MCDM, with me. Let this be my disclaimer, I received a review copy, but after the last issue, I’m glad I have the opportunity to see how the magazine develops in the second issue. Atlas of Arcadia The
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I feel like it was just yesterday when all the Unearthed Arcanas said “2020,” and it was literally the only good thing to contain the numbers 2020. But, low, what rises from the ashes of such a cursed year? A new Unearthed Arcana, clothed in burial shrouds, carrying with it predation, curses, and unlife. That’s a fitting follow up to
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