Announcing "Trying Something Weird in D&D 5e"

I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition since it came out, minus a few months. It was one of my gateways into rpgs, and I DMed a lot of it in the "D&D Club" in college. Since I first played 5e, I've branched out and found a lot of ttrpgs, especially indie games, that fit my interests and mechanical desires a lot better than 5e. Even so, I keep finding myself running 5e—probably thanks to its massive popularity, especially in the modern day.

I'm not someone who is easily satisfied, so I end up hacking or homebrewing parts basically any game I play after I've played around in it for a few sessions. D&D 5e is definitely the biggest example of this. I've made probably a hundred or so homebrew monsters for my campaigns over the past 6 years, as well as three or four in depth rule hacks to help capture the vibe of different campaigns I've run.

Since I started Tabletop Atelier, a blog which is going to focus a lot on my own tabletop games and designs, I thought that I could make a good series exploring the strange and wacky ways I've pushed at the boundaries of the 5e system both in the past and with my current wacky weekly game. This also gives me a good excuse to share some work that I've made over the years that I've never gotten around to sharing before!

As I continue to write these "Trying Something Weird in D&D 5e" posts, I'll update this article with all of the links so it can serve as a kind of hub for all of the posts. Cheers!

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Baseball in Dungeons and Dragons? — Trying Something Weird in D&D

(Naoni, our cursed wood elf ranger, donning his baseball uniform for the first time. Art by his player, lycanthroopy on twitter ) A while ago I posted a handout on twitter for a new 5th edition campaign I was starting called Dungeons x Dragons . The campaign's premise follows a group of novice adventurers as they enter the dangerous Adventurer's Exam alongside nearly 600 other applicants. At the end of the exam, less than ten applicants will pass and get their "Adventurer's License," a document which certifies them as an elite Pro Adventurer. The whole concept is heavily inspired by Hunter x Hunter, a manga that is a big favorite among myself and most of the players. Having just survived a grueling week on Bumbo Island, an Australasian remote island where every living organism on the island is at least a Challenge Rating 3, the party of player characters earned their way into the Third Phase of the Adventurer's Exam. It was time for a big change of pace... I...

How Bingo Can Revolutionize Your D&D Game

In May, I decided to run a very different sort of session for my weekly D&D campaign. My party had already faced off with ghost pirates, dragons, sandworms, and a giant time-controlling robot. This session, I wanted to give them a very different sort of challenge: A fluffy, filler-y 'beach episode.' (Avatar the Last Airbender, "The Beach") Anyone who has watched cartoons long enough knows what I'm talking about. Danger and peril are set aside, just for a while, in exchange for sunbathing, watermelon smashing, volley-ball-playing, low stakes character development. In a game like D&D, where character development is often so tied to monster slaying, how can a DM mechanically engage their party with a session like this? Just as importantly, how can we squeeze as many of these tropes that we love to see into a 4 hour session? How do we give this game structure? Previously, I might have just run the session as normal, RP-heavy session, calling for rolls every o...

Homebrew Souls Inspired Campaign Setting — XP is the Key (Literally!)

Last time, we developed the first three regions of our Dark Souls/Shadow of the Colossus/Breath of the Wild inspired "Cursed Kingdom" campaign setting, using the basic land types of Magic the Gathering as inspiration. Before I go on, I want to compile some of the lore and mechanics that I've written up for this campaign idea so that you can embark on the same journey as me in this strange, FromSoftware-inspired realm. If your character is named Albero, Euphemia, or Myoki, turn back now! Otherwise, let's dive into the world of the Cursed Kingdom. Here is the campaign's central conceit, as I see it: the players come from an outside world where magic and its affects are rarely seen. The long-abandoned "Cursed Kingdom," its true name long forgotten to most of the outside world, is said to be the last bastion of magical knowledge in the world. In the world of our character's backgrounds, the highest "level" that even the most potent and l...

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