Let's talk table rules

Before kicking off our new campaign, Hoard of the dragon queen, I gathered everyone around the table in a conversation about table rules. I've played a lot of RPG:s with Ola and loads of tabletop and board games with David, but I haven't played that much with Björn, despite knowing him for a couple of years now. I guess I was inspired by office meetings since I wanted my players to know what I expected from them and what they expected from me.

These answers are probably not the solution for your group, but I thought it would benefit the community to share the topics we discussed.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen: Meet our adventurers!

So, we finally got together in my home town for a full day of nothing but DnD and the occasional pizza. It almost felt like christmas.

I decided a while ago that I wanted to run Hoard of the Dragon Queen as our first campaign. First of all because the campaign was last season's DnD Encounters scenario. I presume that it meant the first forage into 5^th edition for many players (beyond the starter set) so it would probably suit us as well. Secondly, I really liked following the adventures of other blogs through the first three or so scenarios. I couldn't wait to see what my own friends would come up with once we had our own run. Thirdly, I had all of the maps and other periferals at the ready, as well as having read the whole campaign for a second time recently.

Later on I hope to share some of the tricks that worked well for me as a DM in our first session, which saw us running through the entire first episode, Greenest in Flames. But today's update is devoted to our heroes.

A fresh start

It's been way too long, but I finally made it through the hardest ordeal in becoming a DM: finding a group.

Since moving away from my earlier RPG friends, friends I've been rolling d20:s with since high school, it's been a struggle to get even the most basic game nights going.

DnD is challenging in that way. Where Ticket to Ride, Smallworld and even Descent manage to infiltrate even the most conservative dinner party nowadays, DnD requires so much more of its players. Although I am constantly surprised that DnD passes as conversation topic during lunch hours at work, I find that the amount of time and devotion the game requires also turns most aspiring adventurers away.

Where no other edition of DnD has caught my fancy since picking up AD&D on a trip to London in the nineties, 5th edition seems tailor-made for me. For me, it's an enabler. The rules make it easy to get a story going, giving the players suitable goals and ambitions on-the-fly and not bogging down completely when it's time to roll for initiative. I hope to elaborate on all these topics in future posts, as well as giving fellow DMs my view of running a game and sharing some tricks of the trade.

Anyway, now that I've got a new group of old friends I'm a happy camper again and will look forward to a monthly sunday full of hit modifiers, XP budgets and, of course, new stories.

Sword Coast Junkie is my blog devoted to the 5th Edition of DnD and I invite you all to come along on our adventures.