Dungeons & Toast hosted a special open house event featuring author and game creator Sean K. Reynolds on February 21st. Sean spoke specifically about his work on the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms campaign setting and the deliberate approach taken to avoid interfering with gamemaster’s long-standing plans for specific NPCs.

You can follow Sean on Twitter here.

In an impressive display, led by Quest Master (Vice President Education) Greg S., the Dungeons & Toast Toastmasters club achieved ten out of ten Distinguished Club Program goals on February 11, 2022! This is just shy of 7.5 months into the 12 month Toastmasters International year! Congratulations, Greg, on a job well done! Thou art truly a master of your craft! Congratulations to the Dungeons & Toast Toastmasters club–and a hearty thank you to all of the club members–for the accomplishment of this supreme feat in such a short amount of time! Huzzah!

Hello fellow Dungeons & Toast guild members. I hope that you have seen the awesome news that we’ve got Sean K. Reynolds visiting our Open House and delivering the keynote for the evening. We’d love to fill the room with guests and wanted to share some easy ways for you to do so. You can share the image on your social media and we’ve even taken the liberty of drafting up some generic text you can use for the post:

My Toastmasters club, Dungeons & Toast, is having an Open House on February 11. We have an exciting guest speaker, Sean K. Reynolds (an amazing game designer) who will be giving the keynote of the evening. If you like gaming or just want to enjoy a fun night of storytelling and creative speaking, please visit! Sign up at www.dungeonsandtoast.com and click “Visit.” #D100

Would you prefer/be willing to send a personal email, well we’ve got you covered there too!

Hey <Name>-

I wanted to invite you to an Open House for a club I’m a part of, Dungeons & Toast. It’s been a wonderful experience for me and has helped me become  not only a better speaker but also a more creative person in general. I feel like it’s something you’d enjoy and we’ve got Sean K. Reynolds speaking who has a lot of experience with game design.

It’d be great if you would be willing to come check it out.

Don’t worry, you won’t have to speak if you don’t want to. And there is no pressure to join. I just thought you might enjoy it – it’s a lot of fun!

If you’d like to attend the Open House, you can register at www.DungeonsandToast.com and click “Visit.” I hope you’ll be able to make it!

<Signature>

Please share with your friends, family, colleagues… It’s always more fun to game with other people. 🙂

Good morning, good day, and good evening! It’s that time again – your friendly reminder that we’ve got another Dungeons & Toast meeting coming up on the morrow. We hope that you will be in attendance.

If you needed any motivation to attend, we’ve got a lineup of experienced speakers set to captivate and regale us tomorrow night. Our very own Club Mentor, Ryan K., will start the evening off. Everyone’s favorite GM, Greg S., will take the meat part of the speech sandwich and closing us out will be the always engaging David E.. You know he’s got his vocal variety ready to snap you back to attention if you think you have time to multi-task.

For our table topics, Matthew K. will be on creative duty. He’s always got something up his sleeve when it comes to the impromptu discussion, so we will be in for a good time.

See you all tomorrow!

If you’ve ever stumbled across a YouTube video that you thought would make the perfect backdrop for an in-character speech but didn’t know how to go about setting it up, great news! I’ve just posted a tutorial on how you can download any YouTube video for use later over at my new blog, Loni, the Witch, & the Wardrobe. I use this technique all the time, perhaps most notably during our costume contest to have an animated haunted house behind me:

I look forward to seeing what backdrops you choose to use in future meetings!

Whether as a player or as a Dungeon Master (DM), I’m sure you may have favorite monsters that you love to include or encounter in your Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), or other game system adventures, yes?! Perhaps you love to hate said monsters. Perhaps you love to encounter them as a player or throw them at your players if you’re a DM in order to provide them with encounters that challenge them.

Here are some of my favorite D&D monsters. Please note that I’m pulling this list of monsters from first and second editions of D&D in terms of their powers and abilities even though they’re probably in later editions of D&D as well, because I prefer to stay on the player facing side of fifth edition D&D so as to keep from spoiling the mystery . . . and the fun!

First off, the majestic, the iconic, dragons. Even the red dragons are enough to send icy shivers of fear through your veins and running down your spine!

Faerie Dragons are fun. They provide nice, local color, pun intended, to a world, and they can provide a more lighthearted encounter for your players.

Beholders are nice too! Although they aren’t nice per se, as monsters go, they are a nice, terrible monster to throw at your players as a DM.

And then we have the classic Orcs and Goblins, meanies and baddies of the worst sort.

Gelatinous Cubes are fun, as are molds, puddings, and oozes. Any monster or encounter that presents a challenge to the players, gives them pause and makes them think Do I really want to do this? And if so, how do I want to do this? Or worse, or better, depending upon your point of view, How am I going to get out of this situation!? If an encounter makes players get creative and puts more on the line than just character hit points, such as their equipment, is good in my book.

Want to throw some confusion into the ranks of your party? Introduce a Doppelganger and watch the chaos begin!

Does every encounter with a monster have to end in combat and bloodshed? No. Any well designed encounter with thought put into it by the DM will present a challenge the players. When I DM, I like to challenge my players with monsters that make them think and poses a challenge to them, rather than just monsters thrown in for the purpose of mindless hack and slash. (Although, for variety, a straightforward pure combat encounter is good at times too and also serves to keep the players on their toes in other encounters with monsters so they’re never sure what type of encounter it will be.) And monsters should have morale and play smart, and never just fight endlessly to the death, except for some mindless undead, that is, which presents a terror all its own.

I know that many wonderful new monsters, monster combinations, and iterations of these monsters have, in all probability, occurred over the years. Search online if you want creative ideas to build challenging encounters for your players. If you’re players are ho-hum about your encounters with monsters they encounter because they’ve encountered them before or they are already well established in the cultural lexicon, pull in monsters from other game systems and convert them to D&D.

Other fun monster options are to run a horror adventure or role-playing game, change up the stats and abilities of monsters, put a twist on the monsters—maybe that tribe of Goblins is benevolent or is on a pilgrimage to a sacred shrine of their peaceful deity—do a monster mash-up with unusual and different combinations of monsters paired up in the same encounter. (This might require some thought on the part of the DM to come up with reasons why the monsters are working together.) Another option is to get in there and flesh out those monsters, maybe the one-eyed Orc tribe is so deadly and fearsome because they follow a Cyclops, and a clever one at that if it leads a tribe of Orcs, or have a Beholder as their leader, all of which is unbeknownst to the player characters, of course.

If all else fails, let your imagination run wild and make your own D&D monster! That ought to scare the living daylights out of your players, or yourself if your DM pulls this on you! Now that I’ve shared some of my favorite monsters with you, I’d like to hear what some of your favorite monsters are and why.

Now that the party of adventurers has formed, how do you begin the adventure or campaign? Here are a couple of ways (aka adventure hooks) to start the adventure or campaign:

You all meet in a tavern. I can here the groans from the players already . . . “We’re starting the adventure in a tavern . . . again!?” Ah, the classics. There’s nothing like them. This is a standard, tried and true method, trope if you will, of fantasy role-playing games as a way to start an adventure or campaign. (And some may say cliché.) What happens from here, after the characters get to know each other, if they’re lucky enough to do so before the adventure begins, is up to the Dungeon Master (DM) and the players. This scenario is rife with role-playing opportunities and character interaction, along with some possible pitfalls and perils.

A peril I’ve encountered in the you all meet in a tavern scenario, or any other scenario where characters meet each other for the first time, is that I’ve had some players that I’ve met for the first time or have known for a while, have their character do what I consider to be tantamount to an interrogation of my character, which is a less than ideal circumstance, and less than fun. You mean to tell me that my character just entered the tavern to have a flagon of their favorite beverage, meet some other fine folks and adventurers in the realm, and is already imperiled!?

That’s a way to get a relationship, whether between people in real life or between characters in Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), off on the wrong foot. D&D is a game, the purpose of which is to have fun! Let’s keep it that way! One way around this particular potential peril (character introductions) is to have the characters already know each other.

Adventures or campaigns can also be started by the local ruler, or some other local personage of importance, who summons the party for an audience with them as they seek a party of adventurers to go on a quest for them. A variation of this is a scroll posted in the town square requesting adventurers to go on a quest or perform some service for them. Now that Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything has introduced Group Patrons (83), that is yet another way to get this party (of adventurers) started! (As are any class specific ideas found in the character class descriptions that can be used to generate adventure hooks!)

Yet another way is to have the characters smack dab in the middle of a situation, called in medias res, usually an action filled one, right from the start. Mysteries are also a great way to start the adventure or campaign.

An online search will reveal more ways than the ways I mentioned above to start an adventure or campaign. Here are some unique ways to start an adventure or campaign of your own!

If you’re doing a one-shot, rather than any of the above adventure starters, I suggest using pre-generated characters and have the party already know each other or keep the character introductions brief as time is short. You’ll lose some of the role-play aspect; however, if you want to finish the adventure in one-session, though, sacrifices may have to be made.

What about you? What are your favorite ways to start an adventure, either as a DM, or Game Master (GM) if you’re playing a different game system, or as a player?

Brave adventurers, hardy souls who thirst to see and experience the unknown and test themselves against challenges heretofore undreamed of, how many players are in your Dungeons & Dragons, or other role-playing game system, party of adventurers? What’s the ideal number of players in said party of adventurers?

I play in a group of three players, myself included in that trio of players, and the Dungeon Master (DM) too, of course. For awhile there, when the party of adventurers formed, there were six players. Play was consistent from week to week, as it was easy to continue the adventure if one or more players missed a game session. As a result of the pandemic, life events, and other obligations and responsibilities that have occurred in the lives of my fellow players, the group is now down to three players.

As I’m sure you can guess, the group’s play schedule is now inconsistent and a lot of playtime is missed due to said life events, obligations, and responsibilities. The opportunities for the group to play whenever possible are better than being unable to play at all! Thus, while the four of us have grown to be a tight knit group and have a blast when we do play, the fulfillment—and fun!—factors would increase if the group had three more players which would make it possible to play on a more consistent basis.

While opinions vary due to taste, the level of skill that the DM and players possess, and the number of players available and interested in playing in any one game session, my opinion is that six players is the ideal number of players to make up a party of adventurers. I want to go with five players as the optimum number of players. However, I’ve bumped it up to six players and I’ll tell you why. A party of adventurers composed of six players means that the adventure can continue, even if one, two, or even three players are absent from any given game session.

The benefit of having six players instead of five players is that it gives that extra little cushion that increases the likelihood that the adventure can continue when real life inevitably intervenes in the lives of your fellow players. (Or yourself!) The interruptions caused by the unavoidable realities of everyday life can disrupt the fantastical adventures that the party of adventurers is on if there are less than six players; adventures which can consist of the thrill of exploration and adventures in space, the horror of facing down undead hordes, crawls through creepy dungeons, encounters with majestic (and frightful?!) dragons, or anywhere and everywhere in-between. While six players is the maximum number of players I suggest in any one group, three is the minimum. I know there can be less than three players and a fun time can still be had, even with one player and the DM or even solo.

If you want a fun group of adventurers, the more the merrier. (Parties of greater than six can be fun too!) Six players is optimal to make sure that everyone has their time in the spotlight. With each successive player that is added beyond the sixth, this time in the spotlight erodes a little bit for each player. If the DM and players manage their time at the table well, this can be overcome. (Hint: Players know what you’re going to do before it’s your turn!)

Which again begs the questions I asked at the beginning of this quest (blog), how many players are in your Dungeons & Dragons, or other role-playing game system, party of adventurers? What’s the ideal number of players in said party of adventurers?

Now, where should the party of adventurers meet and start the adventure? Tomorrow’s quest will answer those questions!