dnd &mdash; Semicoherent. https://paper.wf/rafe/tag:dnd Rafe's blog. Thu, 11 Jun 2026 02:01:25 +0000 The Dead Wars https://paper.wf/rafe/the-dead-wars <![CDATA[Last year, over 1,200 D&D players descended upon Provo, Utah, to set the Guinness World Record for the largest single D&D game ever played - and they did! I had planned to attend but, unfortunately, due to a combination of ADHD and... okay, probably just that... I put the wrong date in my calendar, didn't pay attention to the announcements on social media, and missed it entirely. !--more-- THIS YEAR they are holding the event again, dubbed (unsurprisingly) Dead Wars 2 and, damn it, I'm gonna be there! We already reserved our table so it's friggin' happening! I will be the Dungeon Master for my regular D&D group, playing at table #7 on Saturday, May 4th, 2024, the second day of what will be a 2-day event this year. While Guinness will not be on-hand this time to certify the record (they are crazy expensive, and I agree with the organizers: that money is better spent making a higher-quality event) it will likely surpass the 1,227 players of the first game on at least one of the two days. Despite it not having the pomp and circumstance of an actual Guinness World Record attempt, I am giddy with excitement (and anxiety) to be DMing a table this year. And, I dunno, maybe this will encourage me to DM at other events. Tags: #DnD #Events #Utah ~ Rafe]]> Last year, over 1,200 D&D players descended upon Provo, Utah, to set the Guinness World Record for the largest single D&D game ever played – and they did! I had planned to attend but, unfortunately, due to a combination of ADHD and... okay, probably just that... I put the wrong date in my calendar, didn't pay attention to the announcements on social media, and missed it entirely. THIS YEAR they are holding the event again, dubbed (unsurprisingly) Dead Wars 2 and, damn it, I'm gonna be there! We already reserved our table so it's friggin' happening! I will be the Dungeon Master for my regular D&D group, playing at table #7 on Saturday, May 4th, 2024, the second day of what will be a 2-day event this year. While Guinness will not be on-hand this time to certify the record (they are crazy expensive, and I agree with the organizers: that money is better spent making a higher-quality event) it will likely surpass the 1,227 players of the first game on at least one of the two days.

Despite it not having the pomp and circumstance of an actual Guinness World Record attempt, I am giddy with excitement (and anxiety) to be DMing a table this year. And, I dunno, maybe this will encourage me to DM at other events.

Tags: #DnD #Events #Utah

~ Rafe

]]> https://paper.wf/rafe/the-dead-wars Fri, 16 Feb 2024 20:17:35 +0000 A D&D Weekend https://paper.wf/rafe/dandd-weekend <![CDATA[Over the weekend, my wife, brother, and I started a new family game running a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/pbtso" target=blankiPhandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk/i/a, the re-written and expanded a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/lmop" target=blankiLost Mines of Phandelver/i/a adventure from the early days of 5th Edition. Since the kids weren't interested in playing this time around, we decided to try the sidekick rules from a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/tcoe" target=blankiTasha's Cauldron of Everything/i/a so we could still run a 4-person party. !--more-- What we ended up with is my wife playing an elven fighter with a satyr spellcaster sidekick and my brother playing a dragonborn warlock with a kobold inventor expert sidekick. They are having a really good time with the sidekick rules, as am I, except for the fact that for some reason I am really struggling to balance these battles. They've gotten their butts kicked pretty hard in both the first encounter, which they still won, and the second encounter, which they ended up fleeing from - sadly failing to save a href="https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/SildarHallwinter" target=_blankSildar Hallwinter/a - even with me leveling them up beforehand. Granted, there were some bad rolls that contributed to this but it was still much harder for them than I expected. Regardless, we had a good time and there was a lot of emotion when they returned to the goblin hideout to find Sildar impaled in front of the goblins' cave. I just need to get a better feel for these encounters with the sidekicks. All-in-all, we played around 10 hours of iD&D/i over two roughly 5-hour sessions on Saturday night then Sunday afternoon and had a ton of fun. I'm even considering modifying the sidekick rules so I can write-up some sidekick versions of the characters in our main campaign, hopefully making it less necessary to cancel when one or two players can't make it. That's a post for another time, though. I'll give it a shot and report back. #DungeonsAndDragons #TTRPG #DnD ~ Rafe]]> Over the weekend, my wife, brother, and I started a new family game running Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk, the re-written and expanded Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure from the early days of 5th Edition. Since the kids weren't interested in playing this time around, we decided to try the sidekick rules from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything so we could still run a 4-person party. What we ended up with is my wife playing an elven fighter with a satyr spellcaster sidekick and my brother playing a dragonborn warlock with a kobold inventor expert sidekick. They are having a really good time with the sidekick rules, as am I, except for the fact that for some reason I am really struggling to balance these battles. They've gotten their butts kicked pretty hard in both the first encounter, which they still won, and the second encounter, which they ended up fleeing from – sadly failing to save Sildar Hallwinter – even with me leveling them up beforehand. Granted, there were some bad rolls that contributed to this but it was still much harder for them than I expected.

Regardless, we had a good time and there was a lot of emotion when they returned to the goblin hideout to find Sildar impaled in front of the goblins' cave. I just need to get a better feel for these encounters with the sidekicks.

All-in-all, we played around 10 hours of D&D over two roughly 5-hour sessions on Saturday night then Sunday afternoon and had a ton of fun. I'm even considering modifying the sidekick rules so I can write-up some sidekick versions of the characters in our main campaign, hopefully making it less necessary to cancel when one or two players can't make it. That's a post for another time, though. I'll give it a shot and report back.

#DungeonsAndDragons #TTRPG #DnD

~ Rafe

]]> https://paper.wf/rafe/dandd-weekend Mon, 12 Feb 2024 20:06:00 +0000