Dungeons & Dragons – Co-Geeking

Narrative Combat for Dungeons & Dragons

November 24, 2025November 23, 2025ErikLeave a comment

Part of the appeal of Dungeons & Dragons as a tabletop role-playing game is that it provides a robust and detailed set of rules for paying out fantasy fights, from smashing your way through pesky goblins to assaulting the lair of an evil dragon. You can see the tabletop war games in D&D‘s roots when you have a table full of figurines maneuvering and trading blows. Unfortunately, that same detailed set of rules for combat also means that fights tend to drag. Everyone who’s played the game knows how one large combat can eat up an entire gaming session, leaving little room for character development or story progression. That’s where narrative combat comes in.

Narrative combat is an alternative to the full combat rules that lets you as a DM challenge your players and put them in danger while also speeding up the action so you can move on with the game and make room for other activities. You might not want to use it all the time, but it is a useful technique for getting your party through an encounter that is meant to build the story more than to present a tactical challenge.

Narrative combat is a battle-focused version of an old D&D standby: the skills challenge. Instead of making attacks or casting spells by the usual combat rules, players declare what their characters are attempting to do in order to win the fight. The DM (or the DM and players working together) decide on an appropriate skill check or other d20 roll for the action. When the players have scored enough victories on the skill checks, they win the battle. Failed skill checks bring consequences.

Preparing the encounter

As a DM, you need to prepare for a narrative combat, just like you need to prepare for a traditional combat, but in a different way.

First of all, make sure that the encounter you’re planning is appropriate for narrative combat. This method isn’t well suited to encounters that could potentially be deadly for the adventuring party. It serves to speed up combat, but that comes at the expense of characters not getting to use their full suite of abilities, and most gaming groups won’t be happy about seeing a character die just because they didn’t have the chance to use an ability that could have saved them. If an encounter is meant to push your players’ character to their limits, it’s better to opt for traditional combat.

Once you’ve decided to make a fight narrative rather than traditional, describe the encounter in narrative terms, laying out what role it plays in your story. How would you describe this event in a novel or a screenplay? Think about not just the monsters your characters will face but their motivations, goals, and personalities. Instead of “One Vampire Spawn (CR5) and five Skeletons (CR 1/4),” try describing your scene something like: “A recently-turned vampire spawn, drunk with her newfound powers, gathers her own minions from the ancient dead of a nearby graveyard, and ambushes the party as they journey toward their next destination, hoping for an easy kill to add to her subservient throng.”

Next, you need to make three mechanical decisions which will determine the difficulty of the encounter:

Number of successes needed to complete the encounter
DC for the encounter’s skill checks
Consequences of failure

The number of successes required to complete the encounter determines how long the encounter will take to play out. The more successes required, the more opportunities for failure and consequences. I recommend making the number of required successes a multiple of the number of player characters involved.

Encounter difficulty	Multiplier
Trivial	1x
Easy	2x
Average	3x
Challenging	4x
Hard	5x

I don’t recommend going above 5x; at that point, you may not be saving much time over just running a regular encounter. If you are planning for a longer encounter, it’s also a good idea to plan for a few changes in the fight after a certain number of successes to give your players new problems to think about—the monsters change tactics, reinforcements show up, a sudden snowstorm hits, parts of the floor give way, etc.

Our example encounter with a Vampire Spawn and Skeletons could be a significant challenge to a novice adventuring group, warranting a multiplier of 4x or 5x, but to an experienced group this encounter would be more of a speed bump, a way of alerting the players to the presence of a larger threat lurking in the shadows without putting their characters in much danger. For such an encounter, I would choose a multiplier of 1x or 2x.

The DC for the skill checks is the most direct way of setting the difficulty of the encounter. If you have a specific set of monsters for your encounter, you can use the average of their ACs. For our example above, Vampire Spawn has an AC of 16 and Skeleton has 14. Five Skeletons and one Vampire Spawn have an average AC of 14.3, which you can round down to 14. Feel free to tweak the DC if it doesn’t feel right for your encounter; you might decide that the Vampire Spawn’s control makes the Skeletons more coordinated than mindless undead usually are and bump the DC up to 15.

If you don’t have a specific set of monsters in mind to check the AC of, here’s a guide for choosing an appropriate DC.

Party level	Trivial	Easy	Average	Challenging	Hard
1 to 4	10	12	14	16	18
5 to 8	11	13	15	17	19
9 to 12	12	14	16	18	20
13 to 16	13	15	17	19	21
17 to 20	14	16	18	20	22

Finally, you need to decide the consequences of a failed roll. The easiest and most obvious one is to do damage to the character whose attempt failed, but the circumstances of your story might suggest other possibilities, such as losing vital resources or reputation with the local community.

To determine the amount of damage a failure should cost, if you have a specific set of monsters in mind, you can again use an average of one round’s damage from their standard attacks. A Vampire Spawn’s Claw attack does 8 damage on average (2d4+3), and it can use the attack twice, making a total of 16. A Skeleton’s Shortsword attack does 6 average damage (1d6+3). Our example monsters therefore have an overall average damage of 7.6, rounded up to 8. You can just use the average damage, or to keep some of the fun of rolling, you can make it 2d4+3, 1d6+4, 1d8+3, or something else that gives the same average.

Instead of doing damage as a consequence in the example encounter, you might instead decide that characters who fail fall victim to the Vampire Spawn’s bite and must make a Charisma save (same DC as the encounter overall) or temporarily fall under the villain’s sway, telepathically revealing information that the spawn’s Vampire Lord will later use against the party. Play into the story of the encounter; if a good alternative to damage for a consequence presents itself, use it!

If you don’t have a specific set of monsters in mind for your encounter, just look for one at the appropriate CR and use its basic attack damage. The whole point of narrative combat is to reduce the amount of time it takes to play out an encounter, so don’t make things more difficult for yourself than you need to.

Playing the encounter

As the encounter begins, give the players a narrative description of how the combat begins. Again, imagine you are narrating a novel or setting the scene in a screenplay.

“As you walk through the heavily-shadowed avenues of the decrepit graveyard, slow, shambling movements in the undergrowth on your left catch your eye. Everyone make a Perception check… Those of you who failed the check are distracted by the movements of five skeletons lumbering out of the thicket on the left, but those who succeeded realize that the skeletons are a diversion and prepare yourselves to face the sudden attack of a red-eyed, sharp-fanged shape that lunges out of the sepulcher on your right, reaching for you with her sharp, talon-like hands!”

Once you’ve given your players the set-up, it’s now time for them to act. Your players narrate how their characters engage with the challenge in front of them. There are no rounds or turns in narrative combat, just contributions to the story. If your players are good at making room for each other, you can just invite everyone to contribute a story moment whenever they feel moved to. If you think it’s better to impose some order on who talks when, you can go around the table one at a time, or have them roll for initiative. The monsters do not get a turn of their own; they only get a chance to hurt the player characters when characters fail a check.

Players describe their character’s acts not in terms of game mechanics but as if narrating a story. Their options are limited only by their imagination and the constraints of what you as DM are willing to accept. Instead of “I use my bonus action to rage and my action to attack with my axe,” a player might say, “I yell my warcry and charge into the thick of the enemy, hacking furiously away,” or “I slip into the shadows waiting for a chance to strike at an enemy when their back is turned,” or “I open my senses to the currents of magic in this area and try to disrupt the monsters’ sources of power.” A character’s act might be something closely tied to their abilities, but they can also be more creative, such as “I create a distraction on one edge of the fight to set up my allies for a better shot,” or “I help the innocent townsfolk caught in the middle of the fight get to safety.”

Players have a lot of leeway in describing how their characters engage in the battle, as long as they play fair. No one gets to just say “I kill all the monsters and save the day single-handedly.” As DM you can always say no to a poorly-thought-out or bad-faith act, but it’s also good to let the players have agency to shape the story of the fight themselves. If someone wants to push the monsters onto uneven ground, impersonate an enemy leader and confuse them with conflicting orders, or start an avalanche, as long as it’s something their character could reasonably pull off in the circumstances, go with it and let the fight evolve accordingly.

Once a player has described their character’s contribution to the story, pick an appropriate skill for them to roll. You can do this yourself as DM, or collaborate with the player on picking something that plays to their strengths. In place of a skill roll, you might also use an attack roll, or even a saving throw if it seems appropriate (“I raise my shield hurl myself into the line of fire to take the brunt of the attack so it doesn’t hit any innocent bystanders” could merit a Constitution save, for example).

For a character fighting in the front lines, a weapon attack may be the best roll, but look for opportunities to call for other skills like Athletics (like tackling and grappling with an opponent), Acrobatics (nimbly jumping from tree branch to tree branch to stay ahead of a pursuing enemy), Perception (watching enemy movements and calling out their maneuvers to one’s allies), or Insight (analyzing the enemy’s tactical plan and devising an effective counter-strategy). Characters relying on magic can always roll a skill relevant to their particular variety of magic such as Arcana (wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks), Religion (paladins, and clerics), Nature (druids), or Performance (bards), but consider also using magic as a bluff to distract the enemy (Deception or Intimidation) or to create hazards in the field of battle (Survival). If a player uses a spell or other special ability of their character’s, or if they come up with a particularly original or interesting twist in the story, let them roll with advantage.

If the roll succeeds, mark down a success for the party; if it fails, the character in question suffers the consequences. A player who takes damage has the opportunity to mitigate that damage in any way they could in regular combat, like the resistance granted by a barbarian’s Rage or a ranger casting Absorb Elements.

When the party has scored enough successes to complete the encounter, narrate how the remaining monsters flee or are destroyed. Then the characters can lick their wounds, and the adventuring day continues.

Employing narrative combat effectively

There are advantages to using narrative combat in place of full combat. There are also times when it’s not a good choice.

Pros of narrative combat

It’s quicker than traditional combat. It can be a good way of dealing with encounters that are of little mechanical threat to the party but contribute to the ongoing story.
It makes much less work for the DM—no tracking monster abilities or hit points, just the party’s successes.
It keeps the action with the players. There are no separate monster turns.
It encourages creativity and storytelling, which can be rewarding for a group that likes those aspects of play more than the hard tactical thinking of traditional combat.

Cons of narrative combat

It takes time to explain to a group of players who haven’t tried it before, and may be confusing to players used to the routines of regular combat.
It sacrifices detail for speed, sometimes leading to results that could feel unsatisfying—will a wizard player casting Fireball feel good about having the same effect on the outcome of the battle that a fighter using Action Surge does?
When confronting a particularly dangerous or important enemy, players may be unhappy about not having their full range of combat options open. Narrative combat is not a good choice for such fights.

Narrative combat is a useful tool to have at your disposal as a DM, but make sure your players understand how it works, and know when to use it and when not to. It’s a good thing to introduce to new players in a short, trivial encounter that poses no real risk so that they can learn how to play it without the pressure of a dangerous fight. Once your players know how to do it, though, it can save time for more exploration, role-playing, social encounters, plot advancement, and other fun things.

Images: Algorithmically generated images made with Night Cafe: A winter battle, Temple ambush, The untouched armory

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A Homebrew Alchemy System for Dungeons & Dragons

July 15, 2024July 16, 2024Erik

In one of the Dungeons & Dragons games I DM for, there is a player who is very into the idea of gathering herbs and brewing magic potions. The base game as written doesn’t have much in the way of rules for alchemy, so we’ve just been winging it for the better part of a year. That worked, but it wasn’t as satisfying as either of us would like, so I finally sat down and brewed up a set of rules for herb-gathering and alchemy. Here’s what we’re playing with now. Feel free to use this or adapt it, if it seems like it might be a fun addition to your own games.

Alchemy

An alchemical system for Dungeons & Dragons, 5th edition.

Harvesting herbs

To collect herbs, you must be in an environment where wild plants grow. The DM will determine whether there is anything available for you to gather. Specific environments may give you advantage or disadvantage to your roll, at the DM’s discretion. Gathering herbs takes an hour.

Roll a Nature check to see whether you successfully collect herbs and how much. If you have an Herbalism kit and the proficiency to use it, you may add your proficiency bonus to the roll

Once you have harvested an area, whether you successfully gathered herbs there or not, the plants need a month to regrow before you can harvest the same area again (unless they are affected by magic that causes plant growth).

Nature check	Herbs collected
Less than 11	None
11 – 15	1 batch
16 – 20	2 batches
21 – 25	3 batches
26 or more	4 batches

For each batch of herbs you collect, roll 1d6 to determine what type of herbs you find. (You can also choose to target a specific kind of herbs when you harvest. If you do, you make your harvesting roll at disadvantage, but all herbs you collect are of the kind you want.) Keep track of how many batches of herbs you have of each type.

1d6 roll	Herb type
1	bark
2	berries
3	fungi
4	leaves
5	roots
6	seeds

Making potions

To make potions, you must have enough herbs of the right types (1 batch of each type listed on the table below, unless the chart calls for more). Some potions require special ingredients, to be determined by the DM. Each brewing attempt consumes the given amount of herbs and takes one hour.

Roll an Arcana check to attempt to make each potion. If you have proficiency with Alchemist’s supplies, you may add your proficiency bonus to the roll. If you do not have alchemical equipment, you have disadvantage on the check. Whether the check succeeds or fails, the herbs are consumed. The DC for the check depends on the rarity of the potion you are trying to make:

Potion rarity	Arcana DC
Common	10
Uncommon	15
Rare	20
Very rare	25
Legendary	30

If you succeed on your Arcana check by 4 or less, you make 1 potion of the chosen type.
If you succeed on your Arcana check by 5 to 9, you make 1d4 potions of the chosen type.
If you succeed on your Arcana check by 10 or more, you make 1d6 potions of the chosen type.

(A DM might also allow a Medicine check in place of an Arcana check, or let proficiency with a Poisoner’s kit apply to the roll, depending on what kind of potions the character is brewing.)

Potion	Rarity	Herbs required
Antitoxin	Common	Bark, berries, seeds
Oil of Etherealness	Rare	Bark, leaves x3, roots
Oil of Sharpness	Very rare	Fungi x4, leaves x2, roots x2
Oil of Slipperiness	Uncommon	Bark, leaves, roots, seeds
Philter of Love	Uncommon	Berries, fungi, leaves, roots
Potion of Animal Friendship	Uncommon	Berries, leaves, roots, seeds
Potion of Clairvoyance	Rare	Fungi, leaves x2, roots x2
Potion of Climbing	Common	Bark, leaves, roots
Potion of Diminution	Rare	Fungi, leaves x3, roots
Potion of Flying	Very rare	Bark x2, leaves x4, roots x2
Potion of Gaseous Form	Rare	Bark, leaves 2x, roots, seeds
Potion of Giant Strength (Hill)	Uncommon	Bark, leaves 2x, roots
Potion of Giant Strength (Stone/Frost)	Rare	Bark 2x, leaves 2x, roots
Potion of Giant Strength (Fire)	Rare	Bark 2x, leaves 2x, roots
Potion of Giant Strength (Cloud)	Very rare	Bark 3x, leaves 3x, roots
Potion of Giant Strength (Storm)	Legendary	Bark 4x, leaves 4x, roots, special
Potion of Growth	Uncommon	Bark, leaves 2x, seeds
Potion of Healing	Common	Berries, leaves, seeds
Potion of Greater Healing	Uncommon	Berries 2x, leaves, seeds
Potion of Superior Healing	Rare	Berries 2x, leaves, seeds 2x
Potion of Supreme Healing	Very rare	Berries 3x, leaves 2x, seeds 2x
Potion of Heroism	Rare	Bark, berries, leaves, roots, seeds
Potion of Invisibility	Very rare	Leaves 3x, roots 2x, seeds
Potion of Invulnerability	Rare	Bark 2x, leaves, roots, seeds
Potion of Mind Reading	Rare	Fungi, leaves, roots 2x, seeds
Potion of Poison	Uncommon	Fungi 2x, roots, seeds
Potion of Resistance	Uncommon	Bark, berries, roots, seeds
Potion of Speed	Very rare	Fungi 2x, leaves 2x, roots 2x
Potion of Water Breathing	Uncommon	Bark, berries, leaves, roots
Restorative Ointment	Uncommon	Bark, berries, seeds 2x
Sovereign Glue	Legendary	Bark 2x, fungi, leaves 2x, roots 4x, special
Universal Solvent	Legendary	Berries, fungi 3x, leaves, seeds 2x, roots 2x, special

The table above includes only items listed in the Systems Reference Document released by Wizards of the Coast under Creative Commons. If you want to expand this table to include other potions and items, you can apply the following principles:

Determine how many ingredients the potion requires. The number of ingredients depends on the rarity of the potion.

Rarity	Ingredients
Common	3
Uncommon	4
Rare	5
Very rare	6 – 7
Legendary	9 plus a special ingredient

Determine which ingredients are needed. The table below gives some general suggestions, but feel free to choose whichever ones feel right for the potion in question.

Ingredient	Function
bark	protection, endurance
berries	healing, strength
fungi	harm, power
leaves	transformation, deception
roots	creation, discovery
seeds	restoration, growth

Images: Algorithmically generated images made with Night Cafe: alchemist’s workshop, forest, potion bottle

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Thoughts on Dungeons & Dragons: Rules and Options

June 12, 2023June 11, 2023Erik

Not long ago I found myself reflecting on my history playing Dungeons & Dragons. It’s been a bit of an odd road. I first started playing in the days of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in the late 80s, continuing on with the 2nd edition of AD&D in the 90s. I then had a break from the game until I started playing again with a group of friends in grad school in the mid-aughts. Version 3.5 of the game had come out by then, but we kept playing with the 2nd edition rules. I then had a long hiatus from D&D until 2021, when I started playing 5th edition.

In some senses, the long break from the game was good, since I lost a lot of gaming muscle memory in the meantime and didn’t have as much to fight against when learning the new edition. On the other hand, missing out on so much of the ongoing development of the game also meant having to make some big adjustments to my basic approach to running games when I started up again. I’ve been thinking for a while about how to put that shift into words, and I think I can sum it up best like this:

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was designed for people who like rules. 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons was designed for people who like options.

In AD&D, the rules spell out very clearly what a character can and cannot do. A DM’s job is to apply those rules consistently and fairly so that players can do their best to overcome challenges while staying within those rules. Fighters can’t be sneaky; that’s a Thief thing. Magic Users have to figure out their spells at the beginning of every day, then they have to make the best of their choices. Characters get XP from killing monsters and finding treasure; they’ll level up when they reach the right amount on the chart and not before.

In 5th edition, players have lots of options for how to approach any given challenge, and the rules have a lot of flexibility built into them to allow for alternative solutions. A DM’s job is to present the players with interesting challenges that push them to be creative. Fighters can be sneaky if they roll well on Stealth. Spellcasters have spell slots they can use for any spell they have prepared. A DM has options, too. You can use XP for leveling if you want, or you can just say: “You completed the adventure and saved the day. Everyone gets a level!”

Neither way of gaming is wrong. Some players thrive on the challenge of a tightly prescribed set of rules—chess hasn’t survived for thousands of years by being wacky and unpredictable. They want and enjoy a game with fixed parameters, where failure has a real cost and victory comes through precise tactical execution. That’s the gaming experience that AD&D delivers, but I’ve learned in the past couple years that it’s not the gaming experience I enjoy best. I’m happy with 5th edition’s flexibility and willingness to let players figure out their own ways of engaging with the challenges an adventure presents them with.

It used to be my job as DM to make my players play by the rules. Now it’s my job to make them make the most of their options. I like this way better, but that doesn’t the other way bad; it’s just a different way of playing.

Image by Erik Jensen

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Creatures Trailer and Final Trailer for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

March 31, 2023March 26, 2023Eppu

Paramount Pictures is trying to drum up interest for their D&D movie with a short creatures video and a final trailer.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves | Meet The Creatures (2023 Movie) by Paramount Pictures on YouTube

Clearly by creatures they really mean monsters. The big fish-like critter at the 4-5 second mark interests me most, because it’s the least media sexy and I can’t think of what it could be. Or why they’d include it! But I could’ve done without the brain monsters, though—urgh, blech.

The final trailer really sounds like a puff piece, though:

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves | Final Trailer (2023 Movie) by Paramount Pictures on YouTube

I’m perfectly willing to be entertained by a D&D movie that turns out to be better than my expectations, but “Best movie of the year”? Please.

More exciting is the 3-minute “Let the Games Begin” clip:

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves | Let the Games Begin Clip (2023 Movie) by Paramount Pictures on YouTube

That’s more like it, even if it doesn’t tell us why our intrepid adventurers end up on the arena, let alone competing with at least two other groups.

Looks like Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves opens today, if it already hasn’t in your neck of the woods. I really hope it’s at least a little good.

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

Second Trailer for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

February 3, 2023January 29, 2023Eppu

A brand-new trailer is out for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves!

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves | NEW Trailer (2023 Movie) by Paramount Pictures on YouTube

We’re not seeing much new plotwise, just some beefed-up scenes from the first trailer. Glimpses of the Red Wizards and the orifice are on par with the typical medieval-inspired D&D worlds, but WHAT ON EARTH is going on with that broomhead wall?!?

Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves Screencap House

The roof looks properly thatched, but I have serious doubts of the durability of the facade. There’s obviously plenty of timber available in this area of the world for framing the house with, so the little detail above the door must be decorative. Perhaps there wasn’t quite enough to do the whole outer wall? Or the straw is there for easy repairs?? The original builders blew all of their money on framing and had to make do for cladding???

Anyway, if a trailer commentary can be so easily stolen by funky set design, the question arises whether the trailer in question really did fulfil its function or not… I hope we’ll get another, better one before the release day.

According to IMDB, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is now expected on April 07, 2023, but the trailer still says “this March”, so go figure.

Image: screencap from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

To Crit or Not to Crit?

January 23, 2023November 5, 2022Erik

The next iteration of Dungeons & Dragons is in the works, titled One D&D. Proposed changes to rules and systems are being announced a little at at time. The first round of changes included some revisions to how critical successes work. These changes got a big reaction from the player base, and some elements of them were soon reverted. Still, it’s useful for players and dungeon masters alike to think about what criticals are for and how we use them in the game.

Crits

First, a quick primer on critical successes for anyone not familiar with the game. When a character attempts most anything in the game, whether it be trying to hit a monster with a sword, resist an evil sorcerer’s spell, track a band of Orcs through the wilderness, or persuade a suspicious guard to let them carry their weapons into the king’s hall, the player rolls a twenty-sided die. The number that comes up on the die, plus or minus some modifiers depending on the character’s skills and the situation, reflects how well the character pulled off what they were attempting. Unlike the confusing mechanics in some earlier versions of the game, in the current version of D&D, higher numbers are always better, which means the best roll you can get on the die in any situation is a 20.

Rolling a 20 on the die is known as a critical success, or a “crit.” In combat, a crit represents a lucky strike that hits a weak spot or catches the enemy off guard. A critical success on an attack roll can hit a target that would otherwise be mathematically impossible for the character to hit. For instance, if a character has a -1 modifier on their attack roll and the enemy they are fighting has an armor of 22, there is no roll on a twenty-sided die that, minus 1, equals or exceeds 22, but a natural 20 will always hit, even though 20-1 is only 19. The critical success overrides the normal math. Not only does a critical success in combat always hit, it also does extra damage to the target.

Combat crits

Critical hits in combat bring both positive and negative things to the game. The positive is that they allow for surprise. A character who rolls a natural 20 can pull off an attack that should be impossible or deal a foe an unexpectedly powerful wound. A monster that gets a critical hit can wound or even kill a character who thought they were invulnerable. For players who lean more into the storytelling aspect of the game, these moments of sudden reversal are great opportunities to describe how their character got a lucky shot at the dragon’s weak spot or play out how the party deals with losing a friend and companion. For players who are more interested in the game as a tactical simulation, the possibility of the unexpected adds variety and challenge to the game.

On the other hand, the surprise factor that crits bring to combat is also a negative. The unpredictability of combat has proven to be a problem in current D&D. When the amount of damage player characters and monsters can do to one another is unpredictable, it is hard to calibrate fights so that they present a challenge to the players without overwhelming them. Challenge rating (CR), the tool that is supposed to help DMs plan appropriately difficult fights, has proven to be both difficult to use and unreliable in its results. Crits make it harder for DMs to know how to challenge players without risking outright destroying the party.

The proposed rule changes in One D&D would have kept combat crits for players but made them less powerful while eliminating them entirely for monsters. Many players balked at this proposal, and their reaction led to its reversal. You can have your own house rules about combat crits, though, and many of us do. For instance, in my games I don’t allow monsters to do extra damage with critical hits. Player characters and monsters trading damage is the core of D&D combat, but just doing more damage is the most boring way a monster can threaten a PC. Instead, I try to give monsters interesting abilities that change the flow of battle and make the players rethink their tactics. A monster that can turn invisible, fly, emit a cloud of poison, attempt to control a PC’s mind, or heal an ally presents a more interesting challenge than one who just sometimes hits extra hard.

There were also some players who objected to the proposed rule changes because they didn’t like the idea that player characters would be less likely to be killed in combat. To these folks, I have some words from behind the DM screen: killing PCs is easy. Monsters can hit exactly as often and as hard as I want. I can add more and bigger monsters to the encounter at any time. Did the party come out of the fight alive? I can send in a swarm of angry owlbears before they have a chance to rest up or have the Arch-Demon Xrtplzqtsk cast an unbreakable killing curse on them for its dark amusement. Earthquake. Wildfire. Lightning strike. Rocks fall, everyone dies. Killing a PC is the easiest thing a DM can do.

The question is not whether you should have monster crits in your game, it’s why do you want to do more damage to your PCs and possibly kill them? Sometimes it is the right thing to do. Maybe it fits the story. Maybe the healer wants a chance to break out the big spells and be the hero. Maybe your players like the challenge of mastering the game’s mechanics and want the threat of character death as an incentive. Maybe your players are adrenaline junkies and get bored if they know their characters aren’t in real peril. All of these are perfectly good ways of playing the game if that’s how you like to play, but that’s a conversation to have around your own gaming table. If you’re bothered by the thought that people you don’t know in a game you’re not a part of might be less likely to have their characters die, that’d be a you problem, not a game design problem.

Non-combat crits

While the proposed changes to critical rolls in combat would have made the game more predictable, the changes to non-combat crits were meant to shake things up a bit. Under the current rules, there are no crits outside of combat. When a player is rolling for their character to pick a lock or identify ancient magical runes, a natural 20 is just a number. A clumsy character with a -1 modifier to their roll trying to pick a lock with a difficulty of 20 won’t succeed no matter what. A roll of 20 on the die just turns into a 19, which isn’t enough. Even a more skilled character with a +1 who rolls a 20 on the same task just succeeds; there’s no extra benefit like the bonus damage that comes with a combat crit.

Allowing crits outside of combat, whether by new rules or house rules, can have some interesting effects on the game. It encourages players to try things they might not otherwise try, since there’s always at least a 5% chance of success. An unexpected success in the non-combat parts of the game can be just as thrilling as getting in a critical hit in a fight. Good DMs and players can always invest as much emotion as they want into the game’s storytelling aspects, but it can help to have the mechanics of the game give some support to the idea that what your characters do off the battlefield can be as exciting as what they do on it.

Letting players roll crits outside of combat can lead to some problems, though. DMs already have to deal with a subtype of player who thinks that their character can do anything if they roll well enough, the ones who will argue that a natural 20 means they can seduce a volcano or pickpocket the scales off a dragon. Adopting the principle that a 20 succeeds on anything makes these sorts of interactions more difficult for everyone. The obvious solution is that players should only roll when the DM tells them to, and the DM shouldn’t let players roll for things that are impossible, but in practice that’s a hard rule to enforce. Players like rolling dice, and many are impulsive enough to go ahead and roll as soon as they announce what they are trying to do. It sucks to be the DM who has to tell your players that the 20 they just rolled doesn’t count, and it equally sucks to be the player who has to hear it.

There are also times when, as a DM, you want to let your players roll for something even if they have no chance of success. If one door in the dungeon has an unpickable lock that can only be opened with a magic key, you may want that discovery to unfold as part of the story, and if that’s the only door you won’t let the rogue roll to pick, it calls more attention to the door than you may be ready for. Not letting players roll for something the players have every expectation of being able to roll for is too much like a neon sign saying “This Way to the Plot.” Letting the players try and fail, no matter how good their roll, helps keep the suspension of disbelief intact.

In my games, I don’t exactly have a house rule allowing critical successes outside of combat, but I run with a principle that a 20 should give a favorable result, and an interesting one if possible. When players roll a 20 for something they are capable of doing, the result should add something to the narrative that an ordinary success wouldn’t. If a player tries to get some information out of an NPC and rolls a 20, they may get more information than they were expecting, or make a friend who’s willing to help them in other ways. A natural 20 at my table doesn’t make the impossible possible, but it can yield a result that’s helpful in some way, even if it isn’t what the character was trying for. If someone tries to pick an unpickable lock and rolls a 20, that won’t open the door, but they might get an inkling of what the key could look like or spy something interesting through the keyhole. A player who tries to seduce a volcano won’t succeed with a 20, but at least they’ll get safely away from the lava.

Crit or not?

Whatever Wizards of the Coast ends up doing with One D&D, crits are an area that’s ripe for house rules and discussion around the gaming table. If you like your fights dramatic and unpredictable, combat crits are a simple mechanic to build in some surprises. If you’d rather have a better handle on how a particular fight is likely to go, you can leave them out or tone them down. Likewise, if you like the excitement of crits in combat, bringing them to the rest of the game can be just as exciting. Bringing the thrill of the critical to non-combat encounters gives DMs more leeway to plan campaigns around more than just fighting, as long as you’re prepared to deal with some of the wackier consequences of giving everybody a 5% shot at anything.

Crits have a role in Dungeons & Dragons, and it doesn’t have to be the same role at your table that it is in the official rules.

Image by Erik Jensen

Of Dice and Dragons talks about games and gaming.

Inkarnate for Gaming Maps

December 5, 2022November 13, 2022Erik

A good-looking map for a tabletop role-playing session can not only help your players figure out where they are and where to go, it can also give atmosphere to the adventure. As someone with no artistic skills to speak of, I’ve never been able to make nice maps on my own, but fortunately there are services for that now.

One I’ve been playing around with lately is Inkarnate. Inkarnate can produce maps in several different styles, including large-scale geographic maps, regional brid’s-eye views, and maps for individual buildings and dungeons. You can define coastlines and paint in ground and water textures. Then you can add individual items like mountains and towns on larger maps, or walls, chairs, and treasure chests on smaller-scale ones, each of which can be individually scaled and rotated.

There’s a good free version you can try out if you want to see how it works. It has only a limited set of assets to use, but there’s plenty you can do with just these. I made these maps below for a game earlier this year just using the free assets.

I like Inkarnate enough that I’m considering paying for a full membership. I really like what it is helping me produce. If you’re looking for an easy way to make your own game maps, you might want to check it out.

Images created by Erik Jensen using Inkarnate

Of Dice and Dragons talks about games and gaming.

Random Tavern Generator

October 24, 2022October 15, 2022Erik

Want to add some color to your tabletop role-playing games? Here’s a quick method to roll up a random tavern, complete with name, atmosphere, staff, and even the potential for some side stories to shake up your ongoing plot.

First, to name your tavern, roll a d20 twice to get two numbers between 1 and 20. Apply the following adjustment for the quality of the establishment to each number to get two final results between -2 and 23.

Quality	Adjustment
Squalid	-3
Poor	-2
Common	-1
Average	0
Nice	+1
Fine	+2
Exquisite	+3

Find the result of your two rolls on the table below. You can either name your tavern “The Adjective Noun” or “The Noun and Noun.”

Let’s say you’re making a poor tavern and you roll a 9 and a 2. You subtract 2 from the results to get 7 and 0. That gives you The Grim Snake, The Dead Sailor, or The Snake and Sailor (or Sailor and Snake), whichever one sounds best for your setting. If you’re making a fine tavern and you roll a 6 and a 15, those become 8 and 17, giving you The Lost Hero, The Cheerful Hare, or The Hare and Hero / Hero and Hare. (Of course, reroll or adjust if you’re not happy with any of the results.)

Roll	Adjective	Noun
-2	Hanged	Rat
-1	Drowned	Thief
0	Dead	Snake
1	Drunk	Outlaw
2	Dizzy	Badger
3	Tipsy	Shepherd
4	Lazy	Dog
5	Thirsty	Drover
6	Hungry	Cat
7	Grim	Sailor
8	Lost	Hare
9	Lonely	Tailor
10	Wandering	Lamb
11	Quiet	Rider
12	Stout	Bull
13	Drowsy	Knight
14	Merry	Deer
15	Lucky	Curate
16	Cozy	Stag
17	Cheerful	Hero
18	Dancing	Lion
19	Winsome	Prince / Princess
20	Flying	Peacock
21	Blessed	Sovereign
22	Glorious	Unicorn
23	Regal	Dragon

Now that you have a name, the next thing to do is roll up the atmosphere and staff. For this roll a d6 and apply the same adjustments for quality.

Roll	Atmosphere and staff
-2	A rickety old hovel, half falling down, with rotten floorboards and vermin scuttling just out of sight. The staff is surly and suspicious of outsiders.
-1	A dilapidated shanty with broken windows. The wind whistles through chinks in the walls and rain soaks through the uneven thatch of the roof. The staff is gloomy and unhelpful.
0	A ramshackle place knocked together from an old barn and its outbuildings. The staff is tired and rude.
1	A worn-out house that’s seen better days; the furniture is unsteady, and the curtains are faded. The staff is harried and disagreeable; they respond to the needs of their guests, but slowly and with lots of grumbling.
2	A modest establishment with good ale and decent food, but the furnishings are old and threadbare, the beds are uncomfortable, and the walls are thin. The staff is capable but does not take initiative and is hard to get moving.
3	An old but tidy farmhouse adapted to hosting travelers; everything inside is worn but well cared for. The staff is polite and proud of their inn, but they have limited resources to work with.
4	A plain but cozy little inn; most of the guests are regulars from the local countryside who come here to see old friends and enjoy familiar comforts after a hard day’s work. The staff is cheerful and helpful, but often distracted by conversations with regulars.
5	A comfortable and well-kept place; the furnishings are new and pleasant, but not expensive. The staff is proud of their tavern; they are gracious to guests who appear well-to-do, but brusque with any visitors who seem poor or unkempt.
6	A charming old-fashioned tavern that has been run by the same family for generations; many of the furnishings are heirlooms passed down from the original owners. The staff knows the full history of the inn and will share interesting historical tidbits at the drop of a hat, but doesn’t know much else.
7	A new establishment, recently built with all the modern conveniences, comfortable rooms, and excellent food. The staff is eager to advertise and encourages guests to spread the word.
8	A luxurious retreat, built in the style of distant lands and filled with imported luxuries; exotic spices flavor the food and vintage wines fill the cellars. The staff performs elaborate courtesies with an affected air, but are also expert at discreetly fulfilling guests’ wishes, even the more unusual ones.
9	A palatial lodging built with cut and polished stone, gilded everywhere; the furnishings are immaculate antiques, and the serving wares are the finest porcelain and silver. The staff is highly competent, discreet and unflappable, accustomed to both accommodating the whims of wealthy clients and being handsomely rewarded for their service.

If you want to add a little extra drama to your characters’ stay at the tavern, you can also roll up a little side story with a d6, applying the same modifier for the quality of the place. How your players deal with this added drama is up to them.

Roll	Drama
-2	A gang of brigands is dividing up the loot from their latest raid in a corner of the common room. They suspect the player characters may be hunting them, so they try to look innocent, which only makes them look more suspicious. They are likely to react with violence if challenged.
-1	A young traveler spots the player characters and thinks they recognize the person who killed their parents and against whom they swore vengeance. (They may or may not be correct, depending on your party’s backstories and adventuring habits.)
0	The kitchen catches fire in a cooking accident, and the guests are called upon to help evacuate the inn and fight the blaze.
1	A very large, very drunk patron spills their drink on one of the player characters and gets belligerent demanding the character buy them a new drink.
2	The innkeeper accuses the player characters of trying to pay with counterfeit coins. Depending on the setting, local law enforcement may or may not get involved before everything can be sorted out.
3	A smuggler, on the run from the law, attempts to slip some of their contraband into the player characters’ baggage.
4	A spy in the service of the player characters’ enemies is staying at the same inn. In their haste to get away before the party notices them, they accidentally leave behind some evidence that helps the party on their current quest.
5	Two young nobles from rival houses are staying at the inn under false names, having run away from their families together. They fear that the player characters may recognize them, so they take steps to evade, eliminate, or ingratiate themselves with the party.
6	One of the player characters recognizes a familiar taste in the cooking and discovers that someone from their past is working in the kitchen. Whether the reunion is a happy or tense one is up to you and the player.
7	One of the staff falls into hero worship of one of the player characters and hangs around making starry eyes at them and being generally awkward but harmless. They may be persuaded to do something to help out their newfound hero.
8	The player characters are mistaken for visiting dignitaries from an important neighboring power and find themselves besieged by petitioners and sycophants.
9	A wandering prophet recognizes the player characters and offers to share valuable information about their current quest in exchange for picking up the prophet’s rather hefty bar tab.

Image: Interior of a Tavern, with Cardplayers and a Violin Player, via Wikimedia (currently Royal Collection, UK; c. 1695; oil on canvas; by Jan Steen)

Of Dice and Dragons talks about games and gaming.

Trailer for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

September 2, 2022October 15, 2022Eppu

I had completely missed the news that there was a big budget D&D movie in the making! On the basis of this trailer, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves looks kinda bad, but fun kind of bad. Take a look yourself:

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – Official Trailer | Comic Con 2022 by IGN on YouTube

I’ve been playing so much World of Warcraft in recent years that I’m woefully out of date with D&D, but I think I spotted familiar things in the trailer. Also handsome, at least on a quick view; they sure churn out decent special effects these days.

At this writing, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is expected to release in theaters on March 03, 2023.

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

DM-ing Past an Impasse

January 31, 2022October 15, 2022Erik

One of the difficult situations you can find yourself in when acting as Dungeon Master / Game Master for a tabletop role-playing game is when your players find themselves stuck. An adventure is about forward movement, whether it’s fighting the next band of goblins so you can take their loot, discovering the secret door that leads into the hidden underground facility, or navigating through the asteroid field to get to safety. When your players feel like their characters aren’t making progress, that can sap the fun out of your game. What can you do as a DM to help your players get past an impasse?

Sometimes, you don’t have to do anything. Remember that your players are not the same as the characters they play. Being on an adventure is often not a lot of fun for the characters as they face danger, uncertainty, and the possibility of death. Sometimes even though the characters may be stuck, the players are still having a good time. They may be relishing the chance to role-play how their characters deal with failure or enjoy the prompt to think outside the box and come up with wacky new schemes so crazy they just might work. Some players want a game that plays strictly by the rules, even if that means they “lose.” When the characters run into trouble, watch how your players react. If they’re still having fun, you can just let them keep at it, but if the characters’ frustration leads to your players being frustrated, then it is time for you to step in as DM. In that case, here are some things to think about.

Break the DM Wall

As DMs, we have a barrier between us and the players, not just the physical barrier of the DM screen (for those who use them), but the distance between ourselves, who know all the secrets of the adventure, and the players, who do not. When your players are feeling stuck, it can help to open that barrier a little.

Suppose your players’ characters are trying to get into a castle to stop the evil duke from doing an evil ritual with an ancient artifact of evil. They try to get through the front gate and are stopped by the guards. They decide there are too many guards to fight, so they try to bluff their way in. The bluffing doesn’t work, but the players are committed this plan and keep trying to argue and make rolls to get through the gate.

Try saying something like: “I’m stepping in as DM to let you know that the guard just isn’t going to budge, no matter what you say or how well you roll. You’ll have to find another way in.” Giving the players this out-of-game information can help in several ways. It lets the players know that they weren’t on the right track so they can focus their energies on something else. It reassures the players that you are playing fair with them—they didn’t do something wrong, this approach was just never viable, and there is a way forward if they can figure it out. It also helps everyone take a step back from the characters’ frustrations to refocus on the fun of the game.

If your players like to actively role-play their characters and speak for them, it can help to shift perspective and speak about them instead. If you can get your players from “I’ve tried everything I can think of, but this guard captain is just stonewalling” to “Whiteleaf the bard is feeling frustrated and at a loss because her skills aren’t helping her group accomplish their mission,” that can help your players reframe their problem and work toward a solution.

No, but

You may have heard of the rule that in improv you always want to say “Yes, and.” “Yes, and” means you accept whatever ideas someone else brought to the scene and add your own contribution to develop it further. DM-ing is a kind of improv, but an adventure is also constrained by rules, rolls, and the story you have built for your players to explore. Sometimes the best thing to do is just throw out the other stuff and go with your players’ ideas, but if you always ignore the rules and the story, then you leave your players without a structure to work within. So there’s a corollary to the “Yes, and” rule: the “No, but” rule.

“No, but” means that when you say no to something your players want to do, you nudge them toward an alternative. This could be anything from a subtle hint on how to sway the current encounter successfully to a neon arrow pointing at the next plot point.

In the example above, you could “No, but” as you play the castle guard with a grouchy reply: “Look, His Grace said no one gets into the castle but Merchant Severan’s crew with the monthly wine shipment. I don’t see any wine barrels, so you’re not getting in here.” Alternatively, you could step out of character and say: “As you continue to argue with the guard, you notice that the northern wall of the castle overhangs a sheer cliff; there are no guards there, for obvious reasons.” These options give your players a hook for a way forward without interrupting the scene.

It’s up to your players to pick up on the “No, but” and figure out how they want to take advantage of it, but it allows you to steer them out of a dead end and back into the adventure without breaking the immersion of the game.

Change something

If your players just keep trying something that won’t work, you have the option as DM to change the rules and make it work. If necessary, you can always just say: “Okay, ignore that last roll. You succeeded. Move on,” but it’s better if you can fit the change into the story. If the situation the players’ characters find themselves in is a deadlock, you’ll want to either add something or take something away to break the stalemate.

Adding something may mean a new character comes on the scene, an event occurs to disrupt the current stalemate, or the characters get new information that gives them a way forward. For instance, perhaps the evil duke himself comes out to see what the fuss is and decides to invite the characters in so he has someone to gloat at as he does his evil thing. Perhaps a band of marauders swarms out of the nearby woods, giving the castle guards something more important to focus on and letting the characters take advantage of the chaos.

Instead of adding something, you might take away one of the things causing the impasse. Perhaps the guard captain gets frustrated and walks away to let her subordinate handle the characters, and that subordinate turns out to be much more gullible or a secret ally to the party. Perhaps several of the guards get called away to handle another problem elsewhere in the castle leaving a smaller number that the player characters can take in a fight.

In the end, remember that a role-playing game is a collaboration between players and DM. The most important thing is that everyone, including you, gets to have a good experience. Sometimes your players are going to get themselves into places where they aren’t having fun, but as a DM you have options for helping them get out.

Image by Erik Jensen

Of Dice and Dragons is an occasional feature about games and gaming.