Sean Does Games

Gnome Alchemy Gnome alchemy was briefly touched on in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes but that book provides very little detail regarding the practice. The concept has enjoyed a more thorough exploration in previous versions of Dungeons and Dragons .  Dragon Magazine  issue 291 , for example, is a great source for this sort of information.  What follows in this post is a sampling of alchemical formulas that any character of any race of any class can produce.  An asterisk (*) next to the name indicates the formula was either sourced from a concept  in that issue of Dragon Magazine or was inspired by concepts in  Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes . A single vial of formula covers or is effective against one Medium-sized target unless otherwise stated. A DM might want to consider requiring additional vials for larger targets and some portion of an entire vial for smaller targets, but that's up to you. The image for this post is from the Fifth Edition Dungeon Master's ...

Skyfell Introduction I started a once-per-month  Dungeons and Dragons  game in my  Skyfell campaign setting . I wanted to provide my players with a log of their adventures and then realized that such a log might make for fun blog posts. See the  Session Index  for a complete listing. The cast is: Rodney - Tauffae Twofeather Topshelf - male orc, Fighter ( Champion ) Dan - Drekzhar - male minotaur, Bard/Rogue ( College of Swords, Swashbuckler ) Laura - Meribore Softwalker - female fitbolg, Druid ( Circle of the Moon) Michelle - Bronte Whitewinter - male firbolg, Cleric ( Tempest Domain) Jeff - Omagoshno - male rock gnome, Artificer ( Artillerist ) Session 18: Clockworks of Carnage - Blue Screen of Death Preparation For a variety of reasons, this session had to be remote for everyone. Some of the prep, then, went into figuring out how to best arrange the table so that I could both broadcast the map and myself to the stream. This involved creating a separate Discord...

  A Creative Retrospective A very many years ago, I was hyper focused on fiction writing. I wrote a lot of short stories and shopped them around. A few were published, which was always exciting. Life came along, though, and I had to focus my time on other efforts. If you've read about  my life as a gamer , you know that it was only a couple of years ago that I got back into role-playing games. (If you've braved my Off the Dice interview on Time2Tabletop , you know even more about me.) Lately, I've been thinking it's time to get back into writing as well. To that end, I recently did a little ego-surfing to see if I could track down my older works. I was pleased to see Bewildering Stories , a site that had shown me a lot of love and encouragement back in the day, is still alive and publishing. My bio for that site is still active. It lists all my short stories published there. Other markets that published my work no longer exist, such as  Planet Magazine (an online mag...

Making a Mimic Trinket Box Inspired by posts on various social media platforms, I decided to try my hand at crafting a trinket box that looks like a mimic  from the Dungeons and Dragons role playing game. I don't do a lot of sculpting and I'm definitely not the best at crafts but I really wanted to make a DIY analog of this classic D&D monster. The Mimic Source: The Monster Manual Like many others, I started with a pre-fabricated box. I picked up mine from Michael's for around $1.00. This was the most important step in my artistic endeavor and I failed to put any thought into it. What I didn't consider at the time was how the box's shape would force certain design decisions later on. For example, with a typical "treasure chest" the lid sits on top of the base and has its own sides. For the box I purchased, the lid is inset. While the design makes for a nice box, it pulled me away from the classic mimic form and changed how I sculpted that form. Live a...

Random Plot Generator Before COVID, shelter in place, and masks were household topics, I ran one-shot Dungeons and Dragons  adventures at my local comic book stores and for Time2Tabletop events. A one-shot, in case you haven't heard the term before, is a full story/adventure that can be completed in a single session of a few hours. Sometimes I show up to these events fully prepared. Other times, I end up running a game on the fly, either because no one else can or because I simply didn't prepare ahead of time. Luckily, many of these one-shots include players who have never picked up dice before let alone played Dungeons and Dragons , so while the players are creating their characters and I'm explaining the rules, I'm also working out the plot in my meat thinker. There are times when I am particularly inspired and the ideas flow. Other times, I struggle to find even a seed of an idea upon which to rest the session. It's at those dry times when I wished I had a cheat ...

Skyfell Introduction I started a once-per-month  Dungeons and Dragons  game in my  Skyfell campaign setting . I wanted to provide my players with a log of their adventures and then realized that such a log might make for fun blog posts. See the  Session Index  for a complete listing. The cast is: Rodney - Tauffae Twofeather Topshelf - male orc, Fighter ( Champion ) Dan - Drekzhar - male minotaur, Bard/Rogue ( College of Swords, Swashbuckler ) Laura - Meribore Softwalker - female fitbolg, Druid ( Circle of the Moon) Michelle - Bronte Whitewinter - male firbolg, Cleric ( Tempest Domain) Jeff - Omagoshno - male rock gnome, Artificer ( Artillerist ) Session 17: Clockworks of Carnage - Smoke Test Preparation This session took place back in mid-June.  It was the first session since the SIP order was relaxed. I wanted to create a comfortable space for everyone while still maintaining social distancing. To that end, I rearranged my couch into pieces with a bit of s...