Once again the folks at Wizards of the Coast have given us a peek into the mind and learnings of one of D&D’s iconic characters. We’ve already gleaned a ton of insight and campaign inspiration from Xanathar, Volo, Mordenkainen, Tasha, and recently Van Richten. Now we’re turned over to Fizban and his wide breadth of…
GameJoy: Three Different Ways to Use ‘The Wild Beyond The Witchlight’
The best D&D adventures and modules are the ones that are replayable, offering up a variety of tools, monsters, and setting details to be used in your home campaigns. Even if the latest D&D hardcover adventure isn’t to your players’ tastes, quite often the best ones have one or more things that can be re-used…
GameJoy: The Wild Beyond The Witchlight Impressions
The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is the newest adventure and setting offering from Dungeons and Dragons. This adventure feels like a marked departure from prior adventures for D&D 5e, both in tone but also in content and mechanics. At 256 pages, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight includes new player options originating in the Feywild, an adventure that takes…
GameJoy: ALIEN: Colonial Marines Operations Manual Impressions
This week I was given a download code for a PDF of the newest ALIEN RPG release from Fria Ligan and 20th Century Studios. This 352 page beast of a book details all the rules and tools players and game mothers need for making a whole campaign centered around the ALIEN universe’s team of “ultimate…
GameJoy: Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft Impressions
I’ve spent the past three months pouring over Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft (VRGtR), going over its every little detail and piece of lore. I’ve loved every moment of it. If you’ve followed me on Birch + Bat for any length of time, you likely know that Ravenloft as a campaign setting is important to me. Over…
GameJoy: GM Advice: Accidentally Making A Workplace Comedy
This week the GM stands for ‘Game Mother’ because I’m talking about the ALIEN RPG again. I’ve been very busy the past few months and I’ve been without a weekly game with friends for a bit longer. I decided I wanted to treat myself and run a short campaign set in the Alien films’ universe….
GameJoy: Cats + Cartography: Luna Lake (Lakefront Property)
Cats + Cartography is a series where I post a map I’ve made along with a picture of one of our cats. This week’s post is a quick one I wanted to show off from the home campaign I run with my wife Arella. Her current situation in Curse of Strahd has left her with…
GameJoy: GM Advice: How our D&D game turned into a dating sim (PART 1)
Art is from Fair Barovia, painted by Jesper Ejsing, 2012. For almost four years I’ve been running an ongoing D&D campaign of Curse of Strahd with my wife Arella. The game is just between the two of us, with me as the Dungeon Master and her taking up the role of her longtime character Prianna Rein. Early on,…
GameJoy: ALIEN RPG: Destroyer of Worlds Impressions
The second seasonal offering from Fria Ligan, Alien RPG: Destroyer of Worlds is a full blown boxed set adventure set in the Alien universe. With this offering we get to see what the Alien RPG team has in store for us with a complete, multi-session adventure of colonial marine action. Here’s what’s in store for you. What’s…
GameJoy: Dungeon Master’s Screen: Wilderness Kit Impressions
Dungeons & Dragons has a long history of different ways to play the game: the classic dungeon crawl is a staple of many older versions of the game, while the more cinematic and episodic story focused style of play has become the assumed default of the game in recent years. Yet there’s another style of…