Sean Does Games

Character Concept Package The character concept package is a collection of backgrounds, feats, equipment, and other role playing ideas related to a single concept. Materials in a package can be used by any character of any class. Though a particular concept might be race related, they can generally be used by any race as well. This is the third package I've posted to my blog (the first was for a  toy maker  and the second was the rocktender ) beta testing and feedback. Eventually, I'll be publishing a final product on  DMsGuild . I look forward to constructive feedback. Goblin Sticker* Background They came at night. They swarmed your burrow. They crushed its protectors. They slaughtered the defenseless. You don't remember how you managed to escape the massacre. You used to try, of course, in a desperate attempt to explain your own survival. But those moments had a will of their own. They revealed themselves without warning as disconnected, stinging flas...

Character Concept Package The character concept package is a collection of backgrounds, feats, equipment, and other role playing ideas related to a single concept. Materials in a package can be used by any character of any class. Though a particular concept might be race related, they can generally be used by any race as well. This is the second package I've posted to my blog (the first was for a toy maker ) beta testing and feedback. Eventually, I'll be publishing a final product on  DMsGuild . I look forward to constructive feedback. Gnome Rocktender * Background Rock and stone are not merely a resource to be harvested or treasures to be hoarded. They are ancient entities who form the foundation of the world. From an early age, you intuitively understood this. Perhaps that's why you spent most of your childhood studying and meditating upon the geology in and around your burrow. And why, when those familiar benefactors could teach you no more, you set out ...

When I wrote  Epic Gnomish Inventing  for Dungeons and Dragons 5e, I tried to balance overall cost of the gadget, its stability, and its relative difficulty to build and maintain so that both the DM and player would find it fair and useful. The worse possible outcome for me was to end up with rules that made it prohibitively difficult, costly, dangerous, or boring to create a gadget when compared to, say, a magic item with the same capabilities. The difficulty was in finding a sweet spot that was fair for every possible gadget players might come up with. For example, it would be unacceptable if the "charges" of a rifle cost 50GP, a ridiculous sum compare to other weapons. On the other hand, it would be equally unbalanced for a much stronger (or epic) invention such as a flying machine to be rechargeable for only 5GP. The task wasn't easy and there was much gnashing of teeth as I flipped back and forth trying to find said spot of sweetness. The final result works wel...

Tales about everyone's first dungeon-mastering experience have been popping up on Twitter lately. It's really been too long for me to remember the details of my first attempts so it has been fun reading the stories of fellow gamers. This past week, I even had the privilege of witnessing my daughter run her first Dungeons and Dragons 5e game. Well, to be honest, this wasn't her first attempt. Her first try was a couple of years back. It didn't go well. The players were a mix of junior-high boys and girls. Most of them were only partially interested in the game. After a series of unfortunate events, YouTube was on, the phones were out, and the game was forgotten. My daughter was understandably disappointed. She wanted to play. I agreed to run a campaign for her and any of her friends who still wanted to give it a try. That campaign is still going, albeit intermittently. It even involves another parent. My daughter was (and still is) grateful, but she couldn'...

I've been toying around with the idea of blogging some tips on managing initiative in a D&D 5e game. Given the July 10th release of Unearthed Arcana's  Greyhawk Initiative , I thought now might be a good time to go ahead and do just that. Hopefully, other readers will chime in and add their ideas as well in the comments. Natural 20s and Natural 1s I am a really big fan of the concept of Natural 20s and Natural 1s in 5e. For those not familiar with D&D, you use a 1d20 for almost every roll you make to accomplish a task (adding any appropriate bonuses you might have to the result). Rolling a 1 on the d20 is referred to as a natural 1. It is always a failure. Well, it's not just a failure. It's a particularly BAD failure. Rolling a 20 on the d20 is a natural 20. It's not just a guaranteed success but a particularly stylish, interesting, or down-right awe-inspiring success worth bragging home about. Sure, there are game mechanics that are affected by ...

The following is the final part in a set of blogs about Theophraxis, the gnome gunslinger I play on  Time2TableTop's  Dungeons & Dragons 5e   The Infinity Tower  live stream. This story picks up where the previous blog left off. Enjoy my ramblings and catch us every Tuesday night 6:30PM Pacific time on  Twitch . The Story Continues If you recall, Grand Ol' Tree was a gnome burrow full of life, hard work, harder play, and deep tradition. It thrived for centuries until orc armies laid waste to it. It's all too common for tightly knit communities decimated by war to scatter across the lands, their populations never to be reunited. This was not the case with the Grand Ol' Tree burrow. In fact, the terrible event only strengthened the bond among its survivors. As a community, they escaped to Tregeria. When they resettled, they did so together. They called their new home New Grand Ol' Tree. This wasn't some misplaced nostalgia for a lost land. I...

The following is the first part in a set of blogs I'll be writing about Theophraxis, the gnome gunslinger I play on Time2TableTop's  Dungeons & Dragons 5e   The Infinity Tower  live stream. In typical gnome fashion his story begins long ago, certainly before his current adventures and in all honesty deeper back in time than any reliable memory can recall. Enjoy my ramblings and catch us every Tuesday night 6:30PM Pacific time on Twitch . In the Beginning Grand Ol' Tree was just a pleasant stroll from Around the Riverbend and an overnight's adventure to "The City." As far as gnome burrows went in those days, it was nothing special but those who called it home loved it exactly as it was. The burrow was so named because of the Ginkgo Tree that served as the community's gathering place. It was beneath this tree that Heranomus Frinkke Rexadalica Wister Klingle Dutterwedge Omnibeard of Spanks Lerone and his family sought refuge from a horde of und...