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Star Wars: The Corporate Era

December 3, 2022 by newbiedm

I created a short document with a few prompts for a system agnostic setting (started as a fanfic screenplay idea) for roleplaying in the GFFA. A lot of players join games with expectations of what to find in a SW setting, and I thought it would be cool to create something to subvert those expectations. […]

Campaign Idea: What if Illithids ran a Matrix simulation of the world?

December 2, 2022 by newbiedm

I’m currently running a campaign based off of “Dragonsight”, a concept introduced in Fizban’s Treasure of Dragons. I’m having a lot of fun with it, and will likely blog about it soon, but have started turning the wheels on my next campaign and how to top what I’m currently doing. I know I want to […]

NewbieDM Review: Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen adventure

December 1, 2022 by newbiedm

Lets get one thing out of the way… Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen is not a Dragonlance setting book. You have to go elsewhere if what you’re hoping for is a Dragonlance Campaign Guide, or a 5e version of Dragonlance Adventures. It’s also not a sequel to Hoard of the Dragon Queen (in case […]

Beyond the Sword Coast: Daerlun

January 21, 2022 by newbiedm

In this post we”ll visit the rich merchant kingdom of Sembia, and specifically the city of Daerlun. Sembia’s published origins are…interesting. Ready? in the first edition Forgotten Realms boxed set, much of Sembia was purposely left blank to allow DMs a clean slate to create their own cities and NPCs on. That idea went out […]

Beyond the Sword Coast: Westgate

January 20, 2022 by newbiedm

In this new series titled Beyond the Sword Coast, we’ll take a quick look at different locales throughout Faerun that campaigns can launch from or visit, outside of the all too familiar Sword Coast. We’ll start with the City of Westgate, one of my favorites in the setting, and how it can make for a […]

New Year, New Campaign

January 12, 2022 by newbiedm

I just launched a new campaign and I’m super excited about it. This past summer I ended a year-long campaign, and unfortunately it did not make it to the end. I wish it had, I loved the story we were telling, but we ran out of steam and ended it with the PCs at level […]

Talking with Ed Greenwood and Jeff Grubb

July 9, 2021 by newbiedm

I had the opportunity to speak with legendary D&D authors Ed Greenwood and Jeff Grubb on the debut episode of my new webshow, The NewbieDM Show. It was an interview I’ve wanted to do for a long time, as I am a big fan of their work. Jeff Grubb is one of those D&D designers […]

My issue with social conflicts in 5e D&D

June 3, 2021 by newbiedm

I was musing on twitter about social conflicts in 5e, and how I think there’s a big disconnect with how they intersect with NPCs and Monsters, and thought I’d bring it to the blog to expand on it. I love twitter, but it’s not great for lengthy musins like this one… In 5e, social encounters […]

Tracking time in the dungeon

May 24, 2021 by newbiedm

One of the things that still gives me a little bit of difficulty when I’m DMing is tracking time in the game’s fiction when the characters are in exploration mode. Combat is simple, the 6 second rounds are codified, and we know that 10 rounds is a minute in the game world, 5 rounds is […]

Audio for my online games

November 11, 2020 by newbiedm

Gaming through a pandemic has forced my home game to go online, leading me to reassess what it is I want (or not) out of my online games, and how to get there. I have one major rule of thumb when it comes to gaming online, and it’s very simple: If I can’t recreate it […]