D&D 5e: The Artificer Class, Unveiled!

For the last many months, I've been working on how to create an Artificer class which would work under the D&D 5e rule set. With the advent of the new SRD, I was able to justify spending the additional time to attempt to polish and eventually publish my ideas.

As such, I'm happy to unveil the Artifice class for 5e on the DMs Guild website. You can download your copy for free (or you can chip in a donation if you feel like it).

Here's the link: Artificer Class

If you're coming to this site for the first time and you're interested in some of my thought process on how the class was developed, you can check them out here on the blog. Roughly, the development followed these steps:

1. The Overview of the Problem
2. Permanent Item Creation
3. Infusions and Class Features
4. Archetypes and Finishing Touches 

Of course, even after the fourth blog post, I worked for another few months (on and off) to refine the design. Ultimately, it needs some play-testing from new eyes to really get any remaining kinks out!

Please feel free to drop some commentary in the comments; I'm looking forward to updating this little labor of love.

In the meantime, if you do give it a quick read-through, don't forget to rate it!

D&D 5e: What DMs Can Learn from Adventure Time (Part 2)

Continuing the investigation and discussion begun in "What DMs Can Learn from Adventure Time (Part 1)," I happily present the second half: Part 2!

Here are our five new bits of wisdom:

Adventure Time...

1. Lets us view the setting (the Land of Ooo) through the eyes of a human, but consistently shows us sentient races which are both inhuman (crazy candy people! sentient fire!) and humane (compassionate, feeling, loving, friendship-seeking creatures).
2. Is brief and episodic, but often ties episodes together into a longer story or campaign.
3. Admits real consequences for the actions of the adventurers, but never lets those actions end the story. 
4. Has characters grow in experience and power; they possess unusual or even unique abilities. 
5. Accepts that characters have a home base from which most of their adventuring is launched.

1. Lets us view the setting through the eyes of a human, but consistently shows us sentient races which are both inhuman and humane.

As DMs, it's important to balance the magical and the mundane. It's also important to balance the human and the humane from the totally alien and inhumane. A campaign where every nonhuman is completely inscrutable ends up looking like an Alien vs. Predator remix at best, and an ant farm at worst. Non-humans and particularly the wildly different non-humans (non-playable races who are sentient) need to be a mixed bag.

An insane, inscrutable, unfathomable Kuo-Toa fishing group might save the adventurers from a drow war band and provide them with food and shelter. A myconid colony might see the adventurers as a mono-minded disease which has to be eradicated to protect the sprouts of the colony. A lone Thri-keen explorer may fall in with the party for safety, but become so frustrated by their lack of order and organization that it leaves them for a route which promises certain death.

What do all of these examples have in common? They each offer opportunities for the party to be
human (and humane) to creatures who are not.

Some of the coolest interactions in Adventure Time happen as Finn (or, to a lesser extent, Jake) tries to be a hero--compassionate and humane--and finds that his own paradigm might be flawed for the species or culture which he is trying to help. Ultimately, Finn either has to gamble that his morality is universal (often) or that his choices were made based on culture rather than morality, and therefore he needs to adjust (sometimes). These are the interesting situations players should find their players in!

Characters need to be put in situations where their own way of doing things is not universally accepted--and occasionally, in which their own version of the "right" thing might be questionable.

2. Is brief and episodic, but often ties episodes together into a longer story or campaign. 

In 11 minutes, Adventure Time tells elaborate, thoughtful, and complete stories. They introduce characters, provide setbacks, reach an emotional climax, and resolve. Sometimes, they take a whole 22 minutes to tell these stories, and without the audience ever really noticing they unveil a plot over the course of many separate, disparate stories. Think of any of your favorite story-lines from Adventure Time (the redemption of the Ice King, Finn's love life, the history of the Candy Kingdom) and you see that while the plot you're thinking of comes into focus for an episode or two, it just as quickly fades into the background, not to be seen or thought of for several more episodes (or seasons!).

So how do we replicate this complicated weaving of adventures into campaigns, where every adventure doesn't have to focus on the same thing?

Freud is attributed with the saying that "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." In other words, sometimes a dungeon is just a dungeon, that wandering monster is just another way of earning experience, and the weird peddler with the third eye is just a curiosity. On the other hand...

To a certain extent, Finn and Jake's adventures are consistently flirting with 21st century irony: we're never supposed to know if the ominous skeletal beggar is really evil, or if he's just a natural feature of his environment. (On the other hand, flim-flammers like the King of Ooo are almost always to be distrusted.) The bottom line is that the world is endlessly complicated, and sometimes our heroes simply cannot follow the thread of a "campaign" continuously. They hit dead ends, they get distracted by other forces or problems, and they run out of ideas.

Try to keep "adventures" brief, ideally wrapping them up after a session or two. Similarly, it's okay to have interludes in campaigns. Many loose threads can be fun--as long as the players don't feel like all of them have to be undertaken (or even can be undertaken) immediately or simultaneously.

3. Admits real consequences for the actions of the adventurers, but never lets those actions end the story.

Many forms of entertainment follow the advice of Philip J. Fry: "It [is] just a matter of knowing the secret of all TV shows: at the end of the episode, everything's always right back to normal."

Adventure Time doesn't allow this to be the case; DMs cannot allow this to be the case either. The exploits of Finn and Jake are not temporary and entertaining interchangeable jaunts, they are moments of development both for the characters and the world they inhabit. This isn't to say that some adventures cannot have a goal of getting things "back to how they were," but it should never be a complete success.

For example, one of the earliest episodes introduces Marceline the Vampire Queen as the original (or at least prior) owner of Finn and Jake's tree-house. The entire episode is spent trying to get comfortable outside the tree-house or to take it back from Marceline. While they do eventually get their tree-house back, everything has changed: Marceline is now (for better or worse!) a part of their lives; their carefree sense that their world has always been "the way it is now" has been shattered; and they have been beaten (physically, anyway) by a force stronger than themselves--but spared. Not bad for 11 minutes of animation!

As DMs, it's our job to make sure that even when we introduce something that seems overwhelming (like Marceline) the way the PCs interact with this new force has real and lasting consequences--even if they are able to solve whatever initial problem the force has created in their adventure. This not only provides fuel for future adventures, but it reminds PCs that their actions have both merit and impact.

PCs' actions need to have consequences in the campaign world--even when their actions are reactions, or when the consequences are unintended or even unforeseen.

4. Has characters grow in experience and power; they possess unusual or even unique abilities. 

This one may seem like a no-brainer, but it bears repeating: In the fifth edition of D&D, player characters are extraordinary individuals. Average people do not have "levels" of anything--let alone levels of an adventuring class! 

When Finn and Jake are helping out average people (whether those people are humans or not!) they are consistently revealing how different they are from those people. Finn grows in wisdom, swordsmanship, and (as time goes on) deepness of voice. Jake is a unique, stretchy dog to begin with, but also grows as Finn does. They each learn from their parents, from their friends, from encounters with enemies, and from their experiences. Finn's various blades and Jake's use (or lack of use) of various weapons and implements change over time.

PCs need more than just new stuff; new items, new powers, and new heights of abilities need to be revealed and noticed by others in the campaign world. Give PCs a chance to try out the abilities and powers they're most excited about, but also try to give them opportunities to show off things they can do, but may not have thought about before.

 5. Accepts that characters have a home base from which most of their adventuring is launched.

The tree-house is a textbook base of operations: it's cool looking, centrally located, easily defensible but not impregnable, has room for all of their gathered loot and armaments, and serves as a cozy home for Finn and Jake when they're not out adventuring. Perhaps best of all, they took it over rather than built it themselves, so they don't know everything about it. Sometimes they leave the tree-house to seek out adventure, other times adventure seeks them out at the tree-house.

Any time adventurers can take an abandoned fort, temple, or ruin and turn it into a new base of operations, the same effects can be had. There's nothing wrong with building something new, but try to encourage the players to build it atop an ancient ruin or near an older construction. This more easily allows adventure to find them.

Having adventures start at a base of operations allows PCs to also have a place to store their
thousands of unmanageable copper coins, to keep their extra blades and arrows, and even gives them an excuse to interact with NPCs. (After all, BMO and NEPTR often watch over the place while Finn and Jake are away!) Having a home base gives PCs a location to work on their downtime activities (running a business, forging a sword, scribing a scroll, researching a distant location, etc.).

Whenever possible, provide a home base for PCs which is wholly their own but not entirely of their own making; allow it to be both a place which is thought of fondly and about which not everything is known. PCs should expect to both seek out adventures from their safe haven and have adventures come to them!

I hope you've enjoyed considering how your campaigns and D&D experiences might take their cues from Adventure Time! I know I have a long way to go to make all of these ideas realities in my own games, but I truly believe players will enjoy the game more thanks to these ideas. Let me know in the comments what you think about these ideas--maybe I missed a key crossover that should be covered in a future post, or there should be a revision of one of my existing ideas? As always, thanks for reading, and happy gaming!

D&D 5e: What DMs Can Learn from Adventure Time (Part 1)

Adventure Time is a (young) D&D player's dream: an adolescent inhabits a world of magic, technology, and candy which is at once both sinister and sincere. Adventure Time offers a few things which I think are, if not unique, certainly special. Let's first examine what Adventure Time has in common with D&D (or other RPGs). There are other television shows and books that could entice us, but Adventure Time:

1. Centers around the exploits of a small band of adventurers.
2. Is story-driven, while remaining character-focused.
3. Reveals a world in which magic plays a substantial part, but which is still shockingly similar to the world in which we live.
4. Has rules and laws which govern its physics, which are playfully loose compared to the "real world."

So how does any of this help me as a player or a DM?

Let's look a bit closer at how the show appeals to us.

 1. Centers around the exploits of a small band of adventurers.

 Finn and Jake are (step?) brothers. They didn't meet at at a tavern, and they didn't decide to "hook up" to slay a goblin raiding party. Finn and Jake have an inherent connection that they don't question. As the story moves on, we find out more and more about their family dynamic (Joshua the Warlock?), but the key here is that the characters backgrounds are both set in stone and dynamic. They have a reason to work together, but that doesn't mean it's boring or uninteresting.

Adventurers don't need to be randomly thrown together; the most interesting characters have a connection right from the start.

2. Is story-driven, while remaining character-focused.

This may sound like a "duh" statement in today's character-driven landscape, but it still bears a brief comparison to some of the best 20th century literature from which the fantasy genre grows. Consider The Hobbit as the prime adventure story of the last hundred years: a character is driven from the familiar to the unfamiliar, meets a cast of unlikely but heroic characters, encounters magic, and eventually triumphs over both himself and his surroundings, returning home a changed individual.

Now think about it again: outside of Bilbo, and (on his deathbed) Thorin Oakenshield, do any of the characters truly develop through the story? I don't mean to start a Tolkien deathmatch, but of the fifteen members of Thorin and Company, only one & a half are really characters in the way we'd address them today. The fun in The Hobbit comes from seeing this gaggle of dwarves get into trouble & having Bilbo or Gandalf figure out or luck out & save them.

Adventure Time offers something different. Not only are Finn and Jake incredibly human creatures  who learn, love, and change, but the majority of the creatures and beings they encounter regularly are similarly "real." The random creature/character on the road side can be (alternately) incredibly important or nondescript and unnamed.


Perhaps most clearly, Finn's hidden past drives the story--but how he and others react to that past is what keeps him real, and keeps us invested in the story itself.

The cast of a story needs to react to the story, and the story needs to react to the cast of characters. Don't let one overpower the other.

3. Reveals a world in which magic plays a substantial part, but which is still shockingly similar to the world in which we live.

Jake is a magic, talking, stretching dog. Right from the get go, magic is taken as normal. At the same time, Finn is shockingly ordinary. At the start of the episode "Web Weirdos," Finn and Jake do some "stunts." Jake does some amazing parkour, and Finn is capable of being excited about a level of "climb and jump" which is (intentionally) laughable by comparison. This kind of contrast is necessary for the kind of wonder and awe that D&D worlds should evoke in our players (if not always our characters)!

For every fantastic dreamscape, floating castle, or kingdom of living ice, include a haggling merchant, a hungry pauper, or an angry mother-in-law. The magic must exist with the mundane or it simply becomes the new mundane.

4. Has rules and laws which govern its physics, which are playfully loose compared to the "real world."

Finn and Jake are constantly getting beaten into bloodied pulps, transformed into other creatures, shrunk, enlarged, stranded without supplies, or outright zombified. Yet, by the end of the episode, all is right with the world again (even if Finn does lose an arm in the process). Pain is a reality, but not a crippling one.

Speaking of supplies, where in the world do Finn and Jake do their grocery shopping? Outside of the occasional pie from TT and meat from "Meat Man," they don't seem to have a home garden for veggies or a local supermarket to pick up their foodstuffs (though occasionally one or the other of them will "go out" to get supplies). Do we ever question this?

Unless it's really important where the foodstuffs come from, we're much more interested in the songs Jake sings about bacon pancakes than about where he got the bacon or batter in the first place.

As one of my players recently said, we play D&D to get away from managing our day-to-day affairs. It doesn't matter where the bacon pancakes come from, or how the fighter keeps swinging even though he's been at 1hp for twenty minutes.

That's all for Part 1! Stay tuned for Part 2 where I'll look at some other important lessons from Adventure Time.

D&D 5e: The Rise of Tiamat

In the vein of looking at my experiences being DM to my home group, first for The Lost Mine of Phandelver and then for Hoard of the Dragon Queen, I'd like to discuss my impressions of The Rise of Tiamat adventure path. For the uninitiated, this is the second-half of the first "module" for the 5e game. Developed as the second half of the Tyrrany of Dragons campaign, Wizards of the Coast partnered with Kobold Press (and two veteran designers) to produce this book and its companion, Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Be forewarned; this is a long, in depth look at a detailed adventure module.

Spoilers Definitely Ahead.

The group I DM for has finished all of the episodes after (roughly) a year of playing between once and twice a month. It took us roughly a dozen "sessions" of play time to go through the book's contents. The sessions ran from small 2 hour evenings (very rare) to marathon 10 hour die-hards (a few times), but on average each session was between three and four hours.

A bit of a recap from previous entries: We continued the story of the Lost Mine of Phandelver when starting Hoard of the Dragon Queen. That is, my players' PCs were roughly level 4, had already completed the sandbox-y Lost Mine of Phandelver module and were transitioned into this campaign. I used a transition that involved placing a connection between an encounter the PCs had (innocuous enough) in one of the towns in the Phandelver module and the first episode in the new book. The connection provoked a journey that required a few roleplaying encounters and one combat. For my notes on this transition, see my discussion on the EN World forums.

The PCs' level advantage did not last long, however; by the end of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, the PCs were achieving their levels by reaching the end of episodes rather than through raw experience collection. This meant they were on pace to continue achieving levels as expected.

Overall Thoughts:

• Structure: The book itself was very strangely formatted. As Sean of Power Score noted, it seemed like two episodes were crammed into one chapter through most of the book. Similarly, the Council sessions should have absolutely been given their own chapters--it made very little sense to place them all together, and therefore out of order. Book's structure aside, the narrative's structure was really pleasing. The PCs are (generally) offered a choice of two paths--each cemented firmly with their overarching goals--and then given a check in with their "patrons" at the end of their missions. Satisfying, episodic, and lots of fun! Some choice, some "railroading."
•  Factions: I can't decide whether to love or hate the way that factions are treated in Rise. On the one hand, having all of the factions be present as benefactors for the party creates a unique environment where it doesn't matter which faction the PCs are members of (and therefore all feel included). On the other hand, there are zero scripted opportunities for the PCs to improve their standing with a faction. That means that after joining factions in Phandelver, and having some sparing, glancing, tangential interaction in Hoard, that they make no further progress as faction members despite being much more influential and powerful heroes! I understand that part of this is my fault--I could have had the factions take a more personal role with them--but I really feel like that's a shortcoming in the text. How hard would it have been to have a few sidebars as to how members of each faction could improve their standing? Some side-quests or even mini-objectives to achieve would have gone a long way. Thankfully, outside of "membership" in the factions, I don't think my party cared overly much about faction rank. As a result, they let that slide into the background and enjoyed being a heroic party of adventurers standing on their own merits.
• Objectives: This is one place where Rise shines. The Council delivers very clear directions, and then leaves it up to the PCs to decide how to achieve those goals. Each episode is relatively clearly defined, and provides a diverse set of problems needing to be solved. 
• Grandiose Locales: Hoard provided some truly epic locations (particularly the flying castle!). Rise provided a diverse set of classy, even classic locations on a grand scale: a diviner's forgotten tomb (reminiscent of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade); a forest dragon's waterfall lair; an ice dragon's iceberg hideout; a council of ancient dragons far from civilization; a forgotten wizard's tower--and it's insidious hedge maze; and, of course, the fight at Tiamat's temple. Overall, I think the diversity of the locations was wild and fun, but not...inspired. There was no single set piece that my players remember as well in this section of the narrative--the floating castle (for example) will haunt their memories far longer!

With the overarching look done, I just want to briefly examine the episodes themselves and give my strongest thoughts on each. It should be noted that my thoughts below are most useful to DMs looking to run the adventure; players may feel more bored than usual!

I ran the episodes in the order they were outlined (on page 5, for those following along at home).

One last note is that my PCs started their journey in Phandelver and paid a hefty sum (basically all of their earnings) as we transitioned from Hoard to Rise to "rebuild" what had been destroyed by dragons and cultists during Hoard in the now-growing mining community. As we progressed through Rise, I gave periodic updates on construction of their new trading post, their Oghman mages' guild, and the defense of the town and trade with other towns as a way of letting them know how bad things were getting along the Sword Coast--this description was tossed in alongside the Council delegates' own narratives of how things were progressing (or digressing) in their own locales.

First Council of Waterdeep:

This session was a lot more fun that I thought it would be. Calling the heroes to account for all of their actions and having them retell their story, their motivations--their triumphs and shortcomings--turned out to be a tremendous experience for everyone. For some of my players, this was like being called up out of the audience during a live show and asked to participate in it--finding out that their actions were not hidden in shadow, but were being followed with interest by some of the most powerful figures in Faerun was both scary and exciting for them. It absolutely changed their perspective--permanently!


Varram the White:

The Tomb of Diderius was a delightful dungeon crawl. The PCs were suitably spooked by the random interference of Diderius, adored the ghostly librarian, and were freaked out by the Yuan-ti!  Recovering Varram alive--but without the white dragon mask--was a hopeful let down. One of the best moments (for my players) was when the Rogue got bored exploring and jumped on a bed--which just happened to be in the room full of undead. The Rogue was immediately killed--she crit-failed on her death saving throw at the wrong time and really died. After the collective gasp of astonishment and corresponding silence, the Life Domain Cleric stepped forward and tried out his brand new domain spell--one that brought his fallen comrade back to life. This, of course, brought no small joy to the party; seldom have any of my players played characters to a high enough level to bring someone back from the dead; this was a reminder to all of them that they had truly reached a heroic level of power, and they rightfully celebrated this victory.

The Sea of Moving Ice:

Oyaviggaton (or "Olive Garden" as my players quickly renamed it) was scary as a set piece. Hunting a dragon in the deep north is not something my players took lightly--they had fought a white dragon before, but on their own terms. As an adventure, this was a tough one to run. For whatever reason, getting the PCs to recognize that the ice hunters were enslaved by fear was impossible. First, they thought they were willing participants, then that they were magically enslaved. Ultimately, they could not win them over, and ended up slaughtering most of the warriors of the village! This was a deeply troubling (im?)moral move, but they failed at diplomacy and persuasion time and time again and this was their only solution left.


Exploration of the caves went well; they convinced Maccath to help them, killed Arauthator before he could escape them, and gained confidence that maybe they could fight a dragon on its own terms--if they were prepared. They descended into Arauthator's lair without fighting more than one troll and without meeting any of the ice frogs, and soundly defeated him. This was, I think for everyone, a turning point. Here, the adventurers had defeated a dragon on his own terms, in his own lair. This wasn't to say they would throw caution to the wind in the future, but that now they were feeling their own strength.

Recovering Maccath meant the support of Luskan's Arcane Brotherhood and a splash at the next Council. Of course, "your Draakhorn is in another castle" was pretty unsatisfying.

This was not my favorite piece to run, and if I hadn't seen Chris Perkins run it for a group, I would never have run it so smoothly--not the strongest piece of writing in the text, but cool nonetheless.

Second Council of Waterdeep:

After the cool-factor of the first Council, it was difficult to have the second go-around live up to its predecessor. I tried (and I think succeeded?) in having Elia be a subtle, unnoticed background character, so that initially the PCs were much more intrigued with the possibility of investigating the Misty Forest--until Elia revealed who she was. I chose to delay the Cult Strikes back just a tad, ruling that the cult hadn't had time to realize it was the same group who tracked down Varram that bested Arauthator.

Metallic Dragons, Arise:


I admit it, I set this up as a mini-game or a skill challenge. My players were deeply uncomfortable representing civilization at this ancient council, and needed to understand their purpose in concrete terms. I let them know that their goal was to create trust; I let them know (first through roleplaying the dragon's introductions and then in concrete terms) what these dragons' trust levels started at. The PCs were asked to follow suit: provide a heroic introduction which would establish the characters as valuable allies, competent representatives, and (of course) true heroes.

Cue discomfort.

Our Paladin rose to the occasion (with some prompting) and provided a stellar heroic narrative of himself and his lineage. The rest of the party followed suit and provided amazing roleplaying moments.

The strange thing for our group is that the book seemed to assume that the average adventurer is a human--but our party has two dwarves and two elves (and no humans). The resulting conversation with the dragons went a bit off the rails, but ended well. The largest concession the PCs had to provide was an apology from the elves for the dragorage mythals.

Running this adventure as a skill challenge (that is, letting the PCs see the mechanics behind the scenes) helped them get over some of their fear of the roleplaying elements. If your group is roleplaying heavy, you can probably do without all of the back-end'ing.

Memorable!

The Cult Strikes Back, Part 1:

These "assassination attempts" were a bit more fun to run than I'd anticipated. Because the party was relying primarily on a network of teleportation (and their Wizard, by this point, often had it prepared, too), an attack "on the road" seemed difficult for the cult to organize. By contrast, having them attacked in broad daylight in the Council-controlled city of Waterdeep turned out to be a great wake-up call for them that the cult knew them and wanted them dead by any means necessary.

In the first scuffle, a dozen or so assassins tried to pen in the PCs in the middle of a city street. The PCs, old pros in combat, wheeled themselves around and avoided the giant poison clouds that were heading their way--until they realized, by the cackling of the assassins--that they weren't the intended target. As civilians began to choke and die by the half-dozen all around the PCs, they realized what was really at stake here: this was not just another dungeon delve or mob boss or thieves' guild they had come to disband, this was a murderous, widespread, destructive cult--and they needed to be sure they became the heroes they claimed.

The actual fight itself was not deadly for the PCs, but when it was over, some two-to-three dozen civilians had died as collateral damage despite the efforts of the party to interpose themselves between the assassins and their targets.

It was a good roleplaying moment: sobering without being defeatist. When it was over, the Marshall from Baldur's Gate showed up with a mass of Waterdhavian guards to assess the situation. The PCs were immediately found not guilty of anything except recklessness, and urged to be more careful in the city in the future--for their own sake and the sake of its citizens.

 Neronvain:


This was one of those quests that could have gone so badly, but the party did literally everything they could do to make it right. I thought, initially, that even if they did everything right, it would still be an incredibly challenging dragon fight--and I was wrong. I initially anticipated that, like Skyreach Castle, this was just a giant trap-system waiting to go off.


The party did all of the following:

• Applied the right kind of guilt/pressure to get the Altand defector to confess after tracking him to the secret glade and knowing he was somehow involved.
• Helped a suspicious woman who was "trapped" under a tree, gaining a druid's blessing and invisibility from the lair spies of the Chuth.
• Went into the cave system super slowly, suspicious of why some poorly armed elves would be guarding the caves, and found the "secret door" that allowed them to stumble onto the paddock which held the remaining elf prisoners.
• Convinced the elf prisoners that they were powerful enough to help them escape the dragon--and then, critically, convinced them to go convince the other prisoners (the guards) to escape as well, leaving them free access to the rest of the complex.
• Discovered the disused shrine of Eldath, prayed at it, and received a blessing. This one they never even had to use.
• Scouted ahead and used overkill-style spells to ensure that none of the actual cultists could alert the dragon they were there early.

The first "mistake" they made was in triggering Neronvain's warning glyph. This gave him about a round to prepare himself and the dragon which--as it turned out--was not enough. The party still had almost an entire complement of spells and used them accordingly. They didn't clump together and did their best to hide the casters behind walls while the tank(s) taunted the dragon and its rider. The dragon rider and Chuth (and I!) didn't realize how deadly the PCs were until it was almost too late. Chuth did eventually manage to escape (barely) but Neronvain was shot off the dragon's back as he flew out of the waterfall in a last-ditch retreat.

It was probably more satisfying for my players than I remember, but it was a wake up call as to how powerful they had become; I didn't hold back anything with the dragon or Neronvain but after they did everything so well, there was no "hidden advantage" they could use.

The big disappointment was--once again--not finding a dragon mask.

The Cult Strikes Back, Part 2: 

The PCs came back from Altand feeling pretty good about themselves. Suitably chastened by their last encounter inside Waterdeep's walls, they went shopping when there weren't many people about, traveled quickly, and expected no more trouble. 

As they traveled to meet the Council for their Third official session, the street they traveled on suddenly cleared except for a small covered mercantile wagon and two porters. Before they could consider why the traffic was so light, the two porters cast off their cloaks, revealing full cultist regalia, tossing magical sapphires onto the street. The sapphires burst into a force-wall which enclosed the section of street the PCs were on, trapping them with the two porters-turned-cultists. As the PCs (cautiously) approached the cultists, wondering why two idiotic cultists would trap themselves in with four very strong heroic adventurers, the wagon burst into splintered wood as the roar of a blue dragon split the air.

Trapped in a relatively small space with two proficient assassins and an angry dragon proved to be a difficult, but not deadly, fight.

As the fight wore on, loud concussive sounds were heard hitting the forcewall, and the PCs were forced to wonder if this was a taste of something worse to come. At the conclusion of the fight, Taern Hornblade shattered the forcewall, letting in a cadre of Waterdhavian guards and mages who quickly dismantled the other half of the forcewall. Again, the PCs were found blameless of wrongdoing, but even Taern was concerned that such drastic measures had been taken to annihilate them: it was no easy feat to smuggle a large dragon inside the city walls!

The Third Council of Waterdeep:

This council was mercurial.

On the one hand, things look bad everywhere: dragons run unchecked, trade has largely stopped, large numbers of villages and townships have simply vanished or fallen out of contact with their patron-states, and news of the dragon attack is fresh on everyone's minds. On top of that, the discovery of Neronvain as a wyrmspeaker had quieted Melandrach into a defeated man: he had already lost his public pride having to apologize for the dracorage mythal, but that anger he felt deflated completely as his own family turned out to be so responsible for so much suffering.

On the other hand, the PCs had--to the amazement of all--won the help of the goodly metallic dragons. They had stalked and stopped the dragon who had been terrorizing the Misty Forest and the High Forest. They had survived two assassination attempts inside the "safe" city of Waterdeep. They had earned the help of the Arcane Brotherhood. They had, with help from the Council, largely deduced the location of the Well of Dragons.

With flights of dragons defending some of the Council members, and with a good track-record behind them, the whispers of a possible parlay with Thay emerged. Before the PCs could accept this, a magical message brought word of a cult defector at Xonthal's Tower.

As a DM, I think it was important to give them both options and let them choose without penalty because we were so close to the end that to set them on a railroad track now would signal just how close we were!

They chose, with prompting from the council, to check out Xonthal's Tower and make a play for the last unaccounted for dragon mask.

Xonthal's Tower:

Run this exactly as written. Seriously. This is one of the best designed puzzles/challenges I've ever had the pleasure to run. My group of players did a bunch of divinations before starting off, and (through that) I was able to give them one cryptic hint. Something like this:

Follow the shadows; they always point true.

Move now with haste to seek success anew.

The party felt well-armed going into the maze, and--after an appropriate struggle which took them through all of the prepared maze encounters exactly once each--found their way through to the other side. Half of my party was excited and felt accomplished, the other half was ready to murder me. Perfect for a puzzle!

The actual infiltration went pretty smoothly. My players quickly realized that the wall symbols controlled the "televator" (teleporter-elevator) and they started (randomly) going from symbol to symbol (realizing quickly that the "locked" hourglass symbol was the keyed dungeon). They probably used a few too many resources on "lesser" enemies, but they felt that time was running out (as indeed it was). Eventually, they recovered the key and made their way into the dungeon beneath the tower.

They fought and killed the elementals, realizing that they were very nearly out of power and reserves. Choosing to "go it slower," they followed the bloody footprints (with a brief detour to the epic library) and their own intuition and found Iskander's corpse beside the giant hourglasses.

Remember that I had "withheld" the final "Cult Strikes Back" encounter; this is where I dropped it. In addition to Lennithon, I also had the third Cult Strikes Back attack force attempting to level the town of Xonthal's Folly. Still riding high (at least in morale) on their recovery of the blue dragon mask, the party initially dove into battle against the multiple dragons and their cronies. After a mere two rounds of combat, they realized how badly they were outmatched and made the horrifying decision to leave the town to its fate in order to preserve the blue dragon mask (and live to fight another day). As a result of this, they did not level to 15 for the final fight, and Lennithon lived to fight another day as well. The party hid in the dungeons beneath the tower until they had completed a long rest, then emerged to find the ruins of the town punctuated by crucified and flayed villagers; the dragons and cultists wanted them to know how badly they had failed to protect this town.

In retrospect, I can see where this encounter might appear too challenging for most groups. However, I still think it was the right choice. My players had burned a lot of resources getting through the maze, and more getting through the tower, which they probably could have kept in reserve. They believed themselves invulnerable and so used excess power on things they perceived to be minor threats; this is where that came back to bite them. 

Mission to Thay:

I have largely the same complaints that others seem to have about this mission: it's so close to the end that it feels a bit anticlimactic, and (more important to me) the whole mechanic revolves around the party being able to dream.

Since half of my players' characters are elves, I chose to gloss the dream-torture and reduce the roleplaying to a very brief audience with the governor and a few skill checks/saving throws during the "dream sequence" from the dwarves. If I had done it all as written, I'd have been leaving my two elves with nothing to do for far too long!

The PCs narrowly gained the support of the Thayans, and they were just happy their creepy visit to Thay was over.


The Fourth Council of Waterdeep:

I was able to run this at the very end of a session, which worked out swimmingly. The idea was the Council was called upon to hear the results of the the mission to Thay and of the raid on Xonthal's Tower--word had already spread, unofficially of course, that the party had recovered the Blue Dragon Mask, obtained Thay's blessings, and (regrettably) let a village burn.

This played out as  a tense drama: the Council was called upon, one by one, to state once and for all if they were truly committed to the cause; this was their last chance to back out. I had each statesperson give a brief explanation of the events which led to their decision (or, in other words, a brief recap of how the PCs' actions had affected them!). This was both fun, and a nice closing act to mirror the recap the PCs had done for the Council at the beginning of Rise.

With incredibly narrow margins, the PCs had won the support of each and every faction around the table!

After some preliminary planning, the only delegate missing (Taern Hornblade) busted in, slammed a charred dragon mask husk on the table, and proclaimed (as the last sentence of the session) that the mask the PCs had recovered was as fake. Wonderful cliffhanger for the penultimate session.

Tiamat's Return:

For my players, rather than having them fight their way to the Well itself, I chose a modified skill challenge set wherein the PCs were asked to choose one of two preparatory paths (each). In other words, their characters were in such high demand that they could only help one group with one task. One of the tasks was meant to bolster the character (reward: a magic item) and the other was meant to bolster the party (reward: information about the Well of Dragons or some concrete help during that fight).


This was relatively easy to draw up ahead of time and worked really well. For example, my wizard-librarian had the choice of either raiding a renegade Red Wizard magic cache with the orthodox Red Wizards (magic item) or of going to Candlekeep to research the ritual with which Tiamat was being brought back (a brief incantation which costs 1 action but which delays the ritual for another three rounds--only usable once during the ritual).

Their awesome prep work led them to the least-used tunnels beneath the caldera, and they arrived inside the Temple itself from below, unaware that the sacrifices were still going on outside. My one change to this fight was to add Lennithon in; this made the combat significantly tougher, but was well worth it. The PCs (even with the wizard's spell which bought them an additional 3 rounds) stopped the ritual at the last possible millisecond.

To up the danger/climax level, I also took the "tunnels are largely empty" tack, allowing the party to arrive at the temple's interior at full strength. Partly this is because I think running into a few measly cultists before the biggest fight of the campaign is kind of lame, and partly because I didn't want them wasting anything on pawns since Lennithon would be there.

The fight itself was both grueling and gratifying. Unfortunately, a real-life case of the flu hitting one of the players caused us to take a break in the round after killing Lennithon--about halfway through the fight. The party did--narrowly--avoid allowing Tiamat into the Material Plane.

It honestly came down to me adjudicating the way that Tiamat's entrance is written. I chose in favor of the PC's actions, but it could have easily fallen the other way; it was something that came down to the last second.

There was definitely a sigh of silence when the portal sealed.

To clean it up, I took a page from the cinema book and had Blogothkus (the giant who ruled Skyreach Castle) spellcast a communication to the PCs that let them know that the battle was not going well in the skies above--Blogothkus's castle was going to crash, and he was going to steer it straight into the caldera, smashing the temple in the process. With seconds to spare, the PCs grabbed their unconscious comrades and sped out through the tunnels beneath, hearing the temple shatter and feeling the earth quake as their friend and ally crushed whatever remained of the cultists' power, buried the amassed Sword Coast treasure (perhaps for a future generation of adventurers to seek out?), and brought the campaign's final encounter to a close.

Epilogue:

I kept it simple, but tried to tie in elements of all of the major places and people the PCs had enjoyed on their meteoric rise to power.  The bottom line is that while we retired these characters, I don't think we are retiring them for good!

 Final Thoughts:

•  As a DM who has never run a campaign from start to finish without it ending prematurely (from TPK or real life party break up), I'm as stunned as my players and breathless as it finished.
• As a story, Tyranny of Dragons does a good job of being equal parts mystery and race-against-the-clock.
• As an introduction to D&D 5e, I think it does a fair job of introducing the ways in which the game is played; Hoard of the Dragon Queen offers a much better range of options, but Rise does its part by adding in the dragon set pieces that were missing from Hoard, and having more "true" dungeon crawls.
• Overall, my players and I had a grand time playing it, and with relatively minor adjustments in the grand scheme of things. I would recommend this to a DM who is, perhaps, just starting out, but who is willing to read through the wealth of blogs and forum entries by helpful folks who have dealt with its issues.

D&D 5e: Planning for Out of the Abyss

While the group I DM for is still working its way through Tyranny of Dragons, I've had my eye on Out of the Abyss since it was released, and received my own copy at Christmas. I've started reading through it, thinking about how to prepare it for play, and thought I'd share some of my thoughts on modifications and adjustments (as well as simple execution tips).


***SPOILERS DEFINITELY AHEAD***

You really don't want to read any further if you're going to be playing in an Out of the Abyss campaign.

Even when other bloggers and commentators had begun to discuss it, I knew Out of the Abyss would be handled a bit differently--that even more than Tyranny, it would be testing (at least my!) DM skills. This was only confirmed further when I read Power Score's review/read-through of the adventure path. I highly recommend reading Power Score's read-through on this. It might take a while, but it's worth it. At least read through the first few chapters. (Don't worry, I'll wait.)

All set? Okay.

Power Score's read-through brought a few things to my attention that I saw more clearly in my own read-through:

1. The adventure relies on a lot of traveling. How that traveling is handled will determine a great deal of the success of the adventure as a gaming experience.
2. The layout of the book is not linear. How a DM navigates the book and what is or is not at his/her finger tips at any given time will dictate how cleanly a DM can cleave to the "as written" adventure.
3. The ability to prep random encounters or travel encounters ahead of time is not clear. The sandbox nature of the adventure, along with the sliders of travel speed, party size, party composition, and "getting lost," all factor into how a potential path comes together. To put it in traditional terms, this adventure has a ton of moving parts.

Traditionally, a set of random encounters can be readily generated ahead of time by simply plotting out the PCs' course and rolling out where the encounters will be along the route. My gut instinct was to do this, and it looked something like this:

Day 1: Travel: No encounter
Day 1: End-of-Day Camp: No encounter
Day 2: Travel: Terrain encounter
Day 2: End-of-Day Camp: No encounter
Day 3: Travel: Terrain and Creature encounter
Day 3: End-of-Day Camp: No encounter

...and so on and so forth.

Unfortunately, this kind of prep work doesn't take into account what happens if the party gets lost, and doesn't take into account different pacing.

At least with regard to the travel in Chapter 2, I chose to combine the "Summarizing Travel" rules and the traditional ahead-of-time-prep.

The key is to stop looking at travel as a function of "days" and to start looking at it as a function of miles. By looking at travel in terms of distance instead of in terms of days, it allows for the party to change speed at will, and still to account for encounters at an appropriate pace.

To the left is what one of those travel maps would look like, represented as a single arcing line of squares.

The two shaded squares represent the starting (upper left) and ending (middle right) points.

As is listed on the sketch, each square represents two miles of travel. (The scale is because the travel speeds are all listed in even numbers.)

"-C-" indicates an encounter that happens when the PCs camp after passing the indicated point. A "-T-" indicates an encounter that happens as the PCs pass the indicated point. I determined these somewhat at random, occasionally even allowing a camp encounter to be a terrain one (having the PCs reach a cool terrain feature at the end of their "day" of travel).

A single page (like this) can sketch out the encounters the PCs would encounter across hundreds of miles in a compact, easy to generate way. I think this particular page took less than 15 minutes to generate, and would probably take my players at least one full session to get through. I made a second page like it to track the number of hours the PCs may spend while lost, and the additional encounters they might run into while not making progress toward their destination.

One other change I made is in the frequency of encounters. Chapter 2's summarizing rules ask for 1d6+1 days between encounters. Since these encounters don't always involve more than a short narration and many don't involve a real challenge--let alone combat--I thought this seemed a bit sparse. My first rolls indicated a journey of a hundred miles with only three encounters and no combat encounters. (For those of you following along at home, the trip from Velkynvelve to Sloopbludop only had a single non-combat, non-challenge encounter.)

To remedy this and up the danger level (something my players felt was lacking in my running of the Tyranny of Dragons arc), I decided to alter the frequency rolls. First, I had to convert "1d6+1" days into miles. My conversion is this: 1 day = 6 miles. Second, I lost the "+1", making an encounter each 1d6 (x6) miles. If the encounter I rolled was not a challenge for the players (for example, a non-combat encounter that didn't increase the drow pursuit), then the next time I rolled, it would be 1d6-1. If I got another non-challenge encounter, it would become 1d6-2 in the next case. When I rolled a zero or a negative number, I employed an absolute floor of 4 miles between encounters.

I haven't had a chance to run this yet, so it's possible that this will be too deadly, but I think this is an appropriate modification.

Happy prepping!

D&D 5e: Solving the Artificer Problem (Part 4)

Many months ago, I began considering the problem of how to bring an Eberron-style Artificer class to life in 5e. I continued that line of thinking into how magical item creation might function, and then considered how to deal with infusions. As stated at the end of that third article, I think it's time to consider how the class's features will look, and to consider what a basic archetype might look like.

Let's take a look at a "generic" class chart (without any archetypes):

 

So, how to flesh this out? Let's start with the simple stuff:
-----------------------------------
Class Features:
As an Artificer, you gain the following class features.

Hit Points: 
Hit Dice: 1d8 per Artificer level
Hit Points at 1st level: 8 + your Constitution modifier
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + your constitution modifier per artificer level after 1st.

Proficiencies: 
Armor: Light armor
Weapons: Simple weapons
Tools: Thieves tools and one other tool set of your choice

Saving Throws: Intelligence, Charisma
Skills: Choose two skills from Arcana, History, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, and Religion, then two additional skills of your choice.

Infusion Magic: 

As a tinkerer and meddler in all things magical, you have learned how to create infusions of magical power. Through a unique and idiosyncratic combination of intuition, scholarly training, and observation, you've learned to infuse ordinary objects with magical power. In many ways, this allows you to mimic spells cast by more conventional magic users.

In order to create an infusion, you need to have bound yourself to an Artificer focus. This focus can be mundane or magical, but it must be present on your person to cast infusions. Infusions work in one of two ways; if the spell has a range of touch, it must be cast onto an item/object; if the spell has a range greater than touch, it is cast into or through your focus.

You may bind yourself to a new focus during a long rest; this removes your connection to any previous focus.

Use the Wizard spell list to learn your spells from.

Cantrips:
You know two Wizard cantrips of your choice from the Wizard cantrip list. You learn additional wizard cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown on the Warlock Cantrips Known table.

Spell Slots:
The Warlock table shows how many spell slots you have. The table also shows what the level of those slots is; all of your slots are of the same level. To cast one of your Wizard spells of 1st level or higher, you must expend a spell slot. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a short or long rest. Starting at 13th level, your spell slots become 6th level.


Spells Known of 1st Level and Higher
At 1st level, you know two 1st-level spells of your choice from the Wizard spell list.

The Spells Known column of the Warlock table shows when you learn more Wizard spells of your choice of 1st level and higher with one exception: starting at 13th level, your spell slots become 6th level. A spell you choose must be a of a level no higher than what's shown in the table's Slot Level column for your level.

When you reach 6th level, for example, you may learn spells of 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level.

Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the wizard spells you know and replace it with another spell from the wizard spell list, which must also be for a level for which you have spell slots.

Spellcasting Ability:
Charisma is your spellcasting ability for your Artificer infusions, so you use Charisma whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Charisma modifier when setting the saving throw DC for an Artificer infusion you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier

Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier

Artificer Insight:
In your experience dealing with magic and magical devices, you have discovered--whether through intense study, sheer luck, or repeated experience--how to use an infusion to mimic a magical spell you have witnessed, studied, or developed that is of a spell level you can cast (as an Artificer).

Starting at 2nd level, you learn two new spells of your choice from any spell list; you will cast these as infusions. Additionally, when you gain a level in Artificer, you may choose one of your spells learned from Artificer Insight and replace it with another spell of a level you can cast (as an Artificer).

You learn an additional spell of your choice at 7th (total of 3), 12th (total of 4) and 17th (total of 5).

Magical Item Creation:
Your insight into the nature of magic and its interactions with the physical world make you uniquely suited to creating a wide variety of magical items, both permanent and temporary, even if you lack the normally associated skill set. Use of this class feature is entirely up to DM discretion.

Starting at second level, you may create Spell Scrolls for spells you know. You may similarly work with other spellcasters to create Spell Scrolls for spells that they know. You may only create Spell Scrolls for spell levels which you know (or for levels of infusions you are able to cast). An Artificer may scribe a scroll for a spell without using up the source. For example, an Artificer may duplicate a scroll in his possession, may mimic a spell from a wizard's spellbook, or may scribe a scroll from a spell known by a cooperating and ever-present spellcaster who is assisting in the preparation and crafting of the scroll.

[Assume this description is much longer, banking off of the magical item creation discussion in the previous entry. See that article for details.]

 -----------------------------------

 Not bad! We've waded through the initial crunch, but now it's time to consider the third level and (likely) the archetypes. For our purposes, I'm going to start with thinking about the three possibilities I came up with in my last post on this subject and go from there:

• the Wandloren (an implement-focused Artificer who ekes additional life and utility out of magical wands, rods, and staves to make them more potent)
• the Tinker (a true jack-of-all-trades who dabbles in many skills and magics, rivaling the bard in esoteric knowledge), 
• the Mechanist (a magical craftsman who seeks to make machines, homunculi, and other golems or golem-like creatures)
• the Magewright (an artificer who seeks to become a better spellcaster through creation/use of magical grimoires and other implements) 

If we take the Wandloren as our "standard" archetype, then perhaps it will look like this:

 -----------------------------------

Artificer Archetype:

At third level, you choose an archetype to assume in the pursuit of magical knowledge: Wandloren, Tinker, Mechanist, or Magewright. The Wandloren is detailed at the end of the class description. Your archetype choice grants you features at 3rd, 6th, 10th, and 14th.

Ability Score Improvement: 

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Artifice Mastery:

At 18th level, you have achieved such complete control over magic's interactions with the physical world that you have developed a few foolproof infusions which you may use at will. Choose a 1st-level Wizard spell and a 2nd-level Wizard spell that you know. You can now cast those spells as infusions at their lowest level at will without expending a spell slot. To cast either infusion at a higher level, you must expend a spell slot as normal. 

By spending 8 hours in study, you can exchange one or both of the spells you chose for different spells meeting the same criteria.

Grand Artifice:

At 20th level, your well of inspiration becomes nearly limitless. You may draw on inner reserves of magical power by spending one minute in contemplation of the problem or challenges that lie before you. Regain all of your expended spell slots from the Infusion Magic class feature. You must finish a long rest before you can do so again.

Artificer Archetypes: 

The Wandloren:

As a Wandloren, you are a versatile spellcaster whose strength lies in creating temporary magical implements and in maximizing the potential of more permanent magical devices. You've devoted your life to the study of wands, rods, and staves. Even the simplest non-magic stick can instantly become a magical implement in your expert hands, so attuned are you to the pathways that magic takes through such objects.

Tempered Baton:

At 3rd level, you have learned exactly what differentiates an ordinary bar, baton, or stick made of metal, bone, or wood (or other suitable material), from a magically treasured wand. Once per day, you may attune yourself to a non-magical bar, baton, or stick, imbuing it with one spell of your choice from those you are capable of infusing. This attunement takes a minute, but is otherwise follows standard attunement rules. Though the device you've created functions exactly as a wand, it can only be attuned to you and will only retain its magic until you take a long rest. You may use your Artificer Focus as your tempered baton.

The spell you choose cannot have a casting time of greater than one action, must have a spell level of three or lower, and cannot have a costly material component.

The tempered baton you create has 1d3+2 charges, and becomes a simple non-magical object when the final charge is expended. Many Wandlorens have a favored object which they give a pet name and imbue each day. 

Implement Extension:

At sixth level, your control over wands and other magical implements has been greatly improved, coaxing even greater magics from your chosen wands. When you create your tempered baton, your creation has 2d3+2 charges. Additionally, any other single permanent magical wand in your possession is considered to have two additional charges per day (or other period, as specified by the wand). 

Instead of a wand, you may endow a rod or staff with one additional charge.

In addition, you recognize magic wands simply by handling them; even the briefest physical touch lets you know the wand is magical. If you handle a magic wand for at least one full round, you know the spell stored inside as well as how many charges it has, when it recharges, and any other conditions affecting the wand's use.

Strengthened Implement: 

At tenth level, you begin to use your own power to push the limitations of wands and other implements. When you create your tempered baton, your creation may store an additional spell of first level with its own 1d4+1 charges. 

In addition, your Implement Extension feature is improved: you may now endow a rod or staff with two additional charges, or a single permanent wand attuned to you and in your possession is considered to have three additional charges (per day or other period as specified by the wand).

Wand Virtuoso:

At fourteenth level, your level of control and expertise over wands becomes so extensive that wands cannot completely fail you. When you expend the final charge of a wand, roll a d20. On a roll of a 1, the wand is not destroyed, and on a roll of a 20, the wand regains one charge. This also applies to your tempered baton (which, on any roll but a 20, does lose its magical status granted by your Tempered Baton feature).

A Wand Virtuoso is capable of breaking the laws of magic as they pertain to magical implements. Your expertise in implement magic allows you to imbue a standard melee weapon--magical or nonmagical--as your tempered baton. You still need to attune yourself to the weapon to use the wand functions as usual, but can now cast spells while wielding the weapon, rather than needing to have a the wand drawn separately.

 -----------------------------------

Let's take a look at what this class progression looks like with all of these features in place:

...and there it is! A (preliminary) 5e Artificer. To stay true to the original, I tried to stress versatility over expertise.

Let me know what you think in the comments. I think this might be ready for play-testing! My early thoughts are this iteration of the class will be wildly powerful at the mid-tier, low-powered at the beginning, and will start to fall off by the highest tiers of play.

D&D 5e: The Game That's Not a Game

Most games--whether tabletop, virtual, or purely social, can be played by pure "rules." That is to say, for example, that when playing poker, solitaire, or even your favorite side-scrolling platformer, your investment in the game can be as shallow as your investment in the rules and you can still beat the game and potentially have a great time doing it. The fun you have while playing the game can come from "overcoming" the game through the structure of the rules. A quick google search of "beating [insert video game here] in record time]" reveals how people have created a whole realm of gaming experience around the speed at which a game's structure can be surmounted in order to win. And, in some settings, that can be fun.

Dungeons and Dragons and other tabletop RPGs, however, are a game style in which beating the game in record time or by surmounting the rules is not the usual way to play and enjoy; in fact, the only "record times" Dungeons and Dragons players appear to care about are the longest running games.

Because of this important but often overlooked difference, I thought it might be useful to consider the two ways to look at Dungeons and Dragons and how seeing the game through these two lenses might enhance enjoyment of it and (occasionally) speed us through the "work" of the game and emphasize the areas that are the most fun. In other words, sometimes D&D is a Game. Other times D&D is Not a Game.

The Basics:

If this concept already makes sense to you, skip down to the advice! If not, read the two sections below for a more full explanation of what I mean.

The Basics: D&D is a Game:
This is the obvious way to look at it if you play with min-maxers, rule-wizards, or number-crunchers. When you play the game and always consider that it's a game, you constantly meta-game, you tend to consider your character as a very valuable but ultimately expendable resource, and it becomes much easier to think of your quests/missions as means to an end (leveling up or loot) rather than anything else.

The Basics: D&D is Not a Game:
This is the obvious way to look at it if you play with role-players, what-ifsters, actors, story-tellers, and (often) young children. When you play the game but immediately lose yourself in the pretend, in the narrative, in the story, you tend to think of in-character solutions, you think of your character as a person--requiring food, water, rest, entertainment, and having real emotions, reactions, and aspirations. It becomes much easier to pursue quests/missions related to your characters goals, and choosing new abilities or powers becomes a natural extension of your character's growth as an individual.

The Advice:

Many, many writers and gamers have tackled the relationship between these two, so I just want to focus on some ways these perspectives can be leveraged to help your game time be more fun and worthwhile! I try to take problems that arise from looking through one of the perspectives, and offer a solution grounded in the opposite perspective. Sometimes that's all it takes.

One last disclaimer is to take these first and foremost as tips to enhance your enjoyment of the game, and second as distinct items belonging under the heading I've placed them--this is a very loose framework!



The Advice: D&D is a Game:

• The Ten-Minute Round. When in combat, I often see gaming groups get hung up on "which spell is the optimum choice?" or "should I strike at this enemy, or that enemy?" If this is really a meaningful choice (for example, if you're the last man standing and have to decide with absolute certainty how to survive the encounter and revive your friends) then I understand some deliberation. However, in most cases, I feel like this is players taking advantage of the fact that they have far more than 6 seconds to determine what's going on in a round to the point of it becoming a detriment to the game (if not to their characters). 
• Solution: When you're not sure what to do because the choice isn't a meaningful one, use a cantrip, pick a target, or swing that sword. Does it really matter whether you wiped out the enemies this round or whittled them down over a few rounds? Does it really matter if you attacked the goblin who was threatening the cleric or the goblin who was threatening the rogue? Probably not. If you make a snap decision, chances are it's the right one--and you have everyone else's turns to think of something clever or "better" to do when your turn comes up again.
• The Thumb of God: Sometimes players--or DMs!--get into an adversarial mindset. They start thinking of a campaign as something where success is defined as out-thinking the person(s) on the other side of the screen. This is a common trope in D&D humor:
  
  
  Still, it can cause its share of drama or problems. The minute you start thinking the DM is out to kill you (or that the players are out to "ruin your story" or some such nonsense), you stop creating a communal narrative that allows the characters and the world to shine. I know this line of thinking tempted me when I was running an early session in Rise of Tiamat; my players transformed "Oyaviggaton," into "Olive Garden" and made one of the creatures there ("Marfulb") into "Marlboro."
• Solution: Even if you suspect that the DM is out to kill you, or that your players are in a particularly comedic/dramatic mood when you've set what you believe should be a dramatic/comedic session, just let it ride. Obviously, if it's a long-term issue, talk about it when you're not mid-game, but in the short term, get your head back in the game by not thinking of it as a traditional game. To refer back to my example above, the renaming was just a strategy my players were employing to (A) lighten the dark mood and (B) remember who was who among many complicated names. They were still vested/involved, and since I accepted that, we were able to have a very fun and intense session--despite talk about Olive Garden's night manager and whether or not the Marlboro Man worked there too.

The Advice: D&D is Not a Game:

• Realistic Villains. I've mentioned this elsewhere, but it bears repeating: I sometimes see groups thinking that just because they've found the villain or monster they've been looking for, that he/she/it is just going to throw everything at the PCs and (when it becomes clear that the end is near) cry out some last words and die. For some reason, players are shocked when the villain uses invisibility and runs away, or kills the hostage when the players come closer, or in any way has an escape plan ready to go. 
• Solution: Remember that this isn't a video game where the boss blinks red as you get closer to killing him, and stays on screen while you hammer away at him. Villains are "real people." If they're smart enough to orchestrate a devious plan that took several levels and multiple dungeons to sort out, chances are they have an escape hatch or two in case things go south. The sooner players see the villains as "real," the sooner they start looking for those escape hatches, the sooner they take the villains' hostage situations seriously, and the sooner the enjoyment comes as much from the drama of the showdown as from the death/defeat of the villain(s).

•  No Good Feat Goes Unpunished. Thankfully, 5e has done a great job of curbing the min-maxing tendencies of 3e through a herculean achievement of game balance. Still, when a party levels up and hits one of the ability-boost levels, sometimes a player hits upon a feat that really stands out for his/her character. This can leave other players searching feverishly for a power boosting feat that just doesn't exist for their character build. 
• Solution: If you really don't want to just take the ability boost (which, by the way, is almost always as-if-not-more powerful than the feat options), choose a feat which adds flair and character instead. For example, one Rogue in a party I DM for chose the Tavern Brawler feat. The rationale, for her, was that she (as her character) never wanted to be without a weapon, and being able to turn anything improvised into a proficient weapon would mean she'd remain deadly in almost any circumstance. Was it as good for her combat effectiveness as a straight up +2 to Dexterity? Probably not, but it made the character a lot more fun to play/roleplay, and the constant joke in the party is that if you don't treat her right, she'll kill you with a spoon. By thinking of it from the character-side, rather than the min-max side, it resulted in a lot more fun.