The Heroes of Hovel’s Way is an epic fantasy story about two young heroes, Odie and Eremon. These heroes have the potential to deal with a dire threat from an ancient time that is poised to return to the world. A titan destroyer, Valhalmorris the Mountain Strangler, stirs. The fate of the Barony of Kastakin may be in their hands. We play the game to find out. We invite you to join us on the journey.
Tag: Dungeons & Dragons
Thac0 with Advantage 51. What Goes In Your Homebrew?
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 has a lot of potential energy.
From 3rd edition forward, when asked, the majority of DMs indicate that they run a homebrew campaign, rather than a published setting. But what does that mean? What goes into that homebrew setting? Where the the inspiration come from? Does this mean that setting material is less valuable than general material? We’re going to pick apart what goes into creating a campaign from the ground up, and look at what gets ground up to make a homebrew setting.
From the Bardic College
How many official Dungeons & Dragons settings have been published over the years? If official means published by the current owner of D&D, there are more than 35 settings, including some interesting familiar locations from beyond D&D’s IP, like Conan’s Hyperborean Age, the movie version of Red Sonja’s word, and the Blizzard properties of Diablo and Warcraft. But, to be clear, Warcraft was a D&D setting briefly, but World of Warcraft was a d20 game using the 3eSRD. And the Warcraft movie definitely isn’t a D&D setting.
The Heroes of Hovel’s Way. Chapter 2 – Crossing
The Heroes of Hovel’s Way is an epic fantasy story about two young heroes, Odie and Eremon. These heroes have the potential to deal with a dire threat from an ancient time that is poised to return to the world. A titan destroyer, Valhalmorris the Mountain Strangler, stirs. The fate of the Barony of Kastakin may be in their hands. We play the game to find out. We invite you to join us on the journey.
Thac0 with Advantage 50. What Have VTT Done to Us?
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 followed us into cyberspace.
Time changes all things, including the procedures we engage with when we set up and run our games. We’ve broadly looked at VTTs before, but this time we’ll be examining our time using VTTs, how that’s changed over time, and what other VTT experiences we’ve had to expand our horizons.
The Heroes of Hovel’s Way. Chapter 1 – Hovel’s Way
The Heroes of Hovel’s Way is an epic fantasy story about two young heroes, Odie and Eremon. These heroes have the potential to deal with a dire threat from an ancient time that is poised to return to the world. A titan destroyer, Valhalmorris the Mountain Strangler, stirs. The fate of the Barony of Kastakin may be in their hands. We play the game to find out. We invite you to join us on the journey.
Thac0 with Advantage 49. Trouble at the Table
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends who have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D lets us practice our diplomacy skills.
Dungeons & Dragons is a game that requires social interaction. It is a game that can inspire strong emotions and great feelings of satisfaction. It is also prone to miscommunications and mistakes, just like any other social interaction. This episode we’re going to look at when there are problems at the table, and what we can do when those problems come up.
Thac0 with Advantage 48. Languages in D&D
Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time, and podcasting for two years as of this episode! While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D speaks our language.
Many fantasy stories revolve around lost and arcane languages, or characters that can speak for their party when they encounter creatures that don’t share a language with anyone else. One of the most consistent elements of character creation in D&D has been determining what languages a character knows, but what does that mean at the game table. We’ll be talking about language and seeing if we share a gaming dialect.
Thac0 with Advantage 47. Workshopping Vecna. Eve of Ruin
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, the multiverse may come unraveled if we don’t play D&D.
Published adventures are often juggling a lot of objectives. The adventure may be trying to illustrate a specific style of campaign, it may be highlighting a certain type of creature or opponent. And sometimes, it may be trying to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. In this episode, we’re going to look at Vecna: Eve of Ruin, and see what kind of fine tuning you might want to explore when engaging with this plane hopping epic adventure.
Thac0 with Advantage 46. Far From Home: Adventuring on Other Planes
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 coterminous to our gaming reality.
Fantasy stories abound with places beyond the mortal realms. Fae domains, magical islands outside of time, and the lands of the dead, among others. How can you instill this kind of otherworldly adventure into your game? How do you make a realm outside of mortal existence feel different, memorable, and distinct? What are some of the pitfalls of taking your mortal adventurers and placing them beyond? We’re going to example these questions in today’s episode, as we pass beyond the veil.
Thac0 with Advantage 45. A Valiant Effort to Look at a New Game
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, a whole lot of them have a family resemblance to D&D.
In 2008, Wizards of the Coast released the extremely restrictive GSL, making it unattractive to develop for the 4th edition of the game, which led to the creation of Pathfinder, a game that effectively allowed gamers to continue using the familiar structure of D&D 3rd edition in a familiar fantasy roleplaying game. In 2023, Wizards of the Coast attempted to assert that they could revoke the OGL and issue an amended one that gave them more control over creators, which resulted in a lot of creators building their own games. Today, we’re looking at one of those games, Tales of the Valiant, built on the Black Flag System Reference.