Tabletop Teacher

One of the interesting things that has cropped up with me starting the blog is the number of people handing me stories. I've posted them a few times, and even had one battle report, but there's one guy who keeps sending me some slightly disturbing stuff. But I'd be lying if I didn't say they weren't enthralling. Here's one story from the guy. "Hi Teach, I was reading your post about DnD, and I just wanted to share this story. Like I said before, I DM games over on [redacted], and had just started with a new PUG [Ed- pick up group]. Simple enough game, literally going through the Pathfinder starter box kit but they'd made some custom characters for it. Awful, awful players though, as you'd expect from my stories. There was a "spell sword" who had taken the starter wizard and given him a Great sword, an atheist cleric (real original), and a gnome paladin. As you'd expect, the wizard got his head cut off by Goblins be...

Just a quick one today. Being on house duty and a solid day at the chalk face has left me fairly wiped out. Also, it's bin day. That means I need to take out the trash bins. That might not seem too arduous to some, but I live on the top floor of an old listed building, and so need to drag a week's worth of a family's trash downstairs. And then 200 meters across campus to where the big wheely bins are. Then drag those wheely bins 50 meters to the nearest pavement where they can be picked up. I'm not even exaggerating those numbers. Being a Physics teacher, I used one of our meter wheels to measure it. Yes, I am that much of a nerd. And could you resist using a meter wheel to measure stuff if you had one? Actually getting the meter wheel was a funny story. But I'm not going to get into it. Because this is an example of The Back Story Trap. Dungeons and Dragons is a story led game. It's all about the narrative you build with the other players in your...

Patron-only post is up now . This week is still following on a Dungeons and Dragons theme, as requested by The First Patron (all Neophytes of the club hail his name). If you'd like any other content, please drop a little into the pot, for paint pots of new players in Warhammer. Here's a snippet of the post: If you’re a new Dungeon Master, it’s a good idea to daisy chain pre-packaged adventures before diving into your own story creations. As a matter of fact, I always start off with a standalone adventure with any group, regardless of if they’re experienced or not. It’s just a better way of testing the waters before throwing all your creative juices into a campaign. No point in giving away your best plot lines for a group that falls apart after the first session. That said, if you are stringing together these often one-shot dungeons, it can difficult to maintain a sense of continuity. A good way of keeping a theme running through these is to give your characters a c...

Let me introduce to the most versatile and useful weapon in Dungeons and Dragons: the quarterstaff. This realization came from building a half-orc monk. As a player, I'm usually the over-thinker. If I ever start an adventure without at least three damage types to use, a rope and about a dozen sacks, I can barely get out the front door. Whatever happens on an adventure, I will try to have a plan prepared weeks in advance. And the monk doesn't really do that. When you play monk, you really have to embrace the poverty of the class. Although you can tool up a Fighter with an arsenal, or carry around a library on the back of a Wizard, the monk really lends itself to carrying nothing but the bare essentials. There is a reason you have about 10GP of starting cash. So when faced with the prospect of not having a tool bag with the right piece of kit for getting out of an oubliette rapidly filling with water, I started to think about how to use what I already had... t...

The paid post is up on Patreon for the mighty patrons! Another fun scenario, that requires very little preparation from the DM. The players enter a magically darkened labyrinth. There is no light whatsoever, and the walls themselves suck light from any source. It is perfectly pitch black, and even if your adventurers devise some clever way of creating light or seeing, a malevolent, invisible force disrupts whatever plan they've had. The goal is to get through the labyrinth, using nothing but touch, wit, and luck... This is a great experience to drop in at the beginning of a dungeon, or as a mini-quest to find whatever mcguffin they need to get to advance the plot. Drop in a few pennies, and take a look! You get a bundle of DnD, 40K and Age of Sigmar scenarios, and also get to buy some paint brushes for the school club. Entertainment AND sense of self-satisfaction and pride. What have you got to loose? Thanks for reading. If you liked what you saw, and you want to ...

... or how to ensure a fun game, and not kill your DM through overwork. I've been requested by The First Patron to make some more Dungeons and Dragons content, and seeing as how he has single-handedly put paintbrushes in the hands of young players, I see no reason not to oblige. You too can have this poor teacher write at your command with a quick trip over to Patreon ! This is a really good tip for both new and middling players, particularly those who are over the min-max phase and wondering what to do next. We've all been in the situation where we've created a character to be the perfect spell-slinger or swordsman, and have gotten bored of the whole concept. Perfect characters tend to become dull after that first combat where you rain destruction on all in sight. Unlike MMOs and video games, there's no real reward for efficiently grinding through hordes of mobs in DnD. All that happens is the DM has to work harder to research and write more stuff to t...

Paid post up on Patreon ! The First Patron of the blog (fully deserving of their capital letters), has requested more Dungeons and Dragon content. Whilst a full adventure is a little difficult to do in my schedule during term time, I can still do one off dungeons/locations that can be daisy chained together for a proper adventure. The first one for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition is a map I created after being inspired by the Shadow Run starter box set. That, which is alright for its price but certainly not a necessary purchase, has a nice little scenario set in a convenience store. Which is good, but doesn't work well in the context of a fantasy setting. Hence making this. It's set in a potion shop, with the owner being a far too smug and arrogant half-elf called Zorba. He's utterly insufferable, and feel free to describe him with a four letter swear word of your choice. He sneers at you as you enter the shop, and clearly isn't interested in serving...

Paid post is up on Patreon , and it's a scenario of epic silliness! Sometimes you don't want to have narrative campaigns. Sometimes you don't want to worry about objectives. Sometimes you don't want to watch your beautifully painted, 6-month-painting-project deathstar unit get deployed badly and end up spending the game only featuring in the movement phase. Enter this little bit of silly fun! This scenario attempts to emulate a pokemon battle, where you call individual units to the game, and tactically call them back. Game runs until all units feint... er, I mean are wiped out. Although I've created it for 40K, it's a scenario that can easily be used by Age of Sigmar players. The only thing you'll need to read up on is the Deep Strike scatter rule from 40K, but otherwise deployment and combat are the same as your usual gaming system. Scenario:  Warhammer 40k (sang to the tune of "Pokemon") I wanna be the very best, And beat oppo...