The Games

Mask of the Pharaoh

Mask of the Pharaoh is an outlier compared to the other games that I have on the list for unboxing. It isn’t a big and epic game. In fact, the box is quite small. But there is one thing that made me want to buy it. And that is that it uses an app. But it isn’t just that it uses an app, but how it uses the app.

Originally a game called Mask of Anubis coming out in 2016, it was picked up by Hasbro as Mask of the Pharaoh. The game uses an app, not as something to assist the game but as a core piece to the game. One person is navigating and looking around a tomb via the app. They give directions to the other players how to set it up. This is just novel for a board game, so I wanted to try it. Chronicles of Crime uses an app in a similar way, and I want to try it as well.

ISS Vanguard

Now onto the bigger games. ISS Vanguard is certainly that. I didn’t get everything you could in wave one, and I’m okay with that. Everything I didn’t get is not as important for game play. I received the core box, the miniatures, which look cool but also not important and the Personnel Files.

ISS Vanguard is an epic space adventure game. That premise is a signal was sent to Eartha and hidden within the DNA of humanity. It is discovered and uncoded. That leads humanity on a mission using and alien ship to find these coordinates. There, well, that is where the game begins.

There is a lot going on in the game. From exploring planets, flying to different solar systems, and unraveling the mystery. I like that you don’t play as a specific character, but as a specific part of the crew. You might be recon or engineering or security, but you get to pick. I also enjoy that you encounter a planet, but you also encounter things as you maintain your ship or upgrade your landing vessels.

Chronicles of Drunagor

Final game getting unboxed is Chronicles of Drunagor. Chronicles of Drunagor didn’t show up as recently, it has been on my shelf for a little bit. But it is one that I’m going to be playing soon for Malts and Meeples. In fact, it should get started next week. I just need your help figuring out who to play. See the section below to vote.

But Chronicles of Drunagor is an epic fantasy game where you build out 3D maps, unlock doors, fight monsters, and level up the characters. Two things stand out to me as really interesting in this game. The first being darkness. The idea of the darkness is that it pushes you forward in the dungeon. As you explore and fight, darkness is filling in behind you. So you can’t take too long, because if you do, it catches you and bad things happen.

And then the character game play. The game uses a cube system for what you are doing. You play with certain powers, which certain color of cubes needed to activate those various powers. For example, I might have a healing power that needs a yellow cube. I can only activate that if there isn’t already a yellow cube on there and I have a yellow cube. So it is a puzzle of when to activate things, when to not, or when to spend a turn to pull back cubes. But when I do that, I lose access to an ability and I pick which. Seems like an amazing puzzle to me.

Picking a Chronicles of Drunagor Character

Like I said, this is the game I’m playing next on Malts and Meeples. There are 12 different classes and 23 different characters. Help me pick two classes.

Upcoming Streams

So, next week, I will not be streaming on Monday. A week off from my Top 100 games because, well, next Monday is Halloween. So I am going to be busy with that. And then probably relaxing or editing podcast after that. But the following Monday, November 7th, at 8:30 PM, join me for a stream of 40 through 31 in my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2022 Edition.

And then of course, on Wednesday, it is diving into the dungeons of the Chronicles of Drunagor. I likely will play the tutorial scenario first to learn the game. So that might be on camera, or I might try and play that myself so I can delve into the bigger campaign with you all. To be determined with that. But 8 PM on Wednesday for that stream.

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Since I have only played on TTS (TableTopSimulator), I am not going to do a full breakdown of how the game works. Plus, it’s a prototype so things are subject to change, though the module on TTS is very solid. And the rules, hopefully shared immediately at launch are pretty good. So instead I’m going to jump into what did and didn’t work. I do talk about that some in a video below, though.

Edgeguard Preview Video

What Didn’t Work?

This is going to be a massive box game. Now that’s not a massive negative for me. Granted, I’d likely need to find more space on my Kallax by clearing out even more games. But when I see a big campaign game, I fully expect that it is going to take up a lot of space. For some people, who maybe don’t have a dedicated gaming space, that might make this harder to get.

Also, this is going to be a game where there is a fair amount of housekeeping to it. Set-up of finding the tiles will take time, finding the enemy tokens, minis and cards, and pulling out everything for your character. I am waiting on the Kickstarter to see how much of a big deal I think that will be. Mainly because I hope they are thinking about storage and how to make it as fast to the table as possible. Because, compared to other dungeon crawl games, this one can get you into and through a scenario pretty quickly.

Neither of these things are a big red flag for me though. In fact, both are issues that I expect for most campaign games. Especially if a game is going to have minis. And I don’t know, maybe there will be a standee version, but I suspect that most people would go with minis anyways.

What Works?

The Characters

Let’s start with the characters, the characters are very generic, and now that sounds like a negative. I actually maybe should mention that in there, but I’ll say it here now, they could be more exciting. But how the characters play, and I’ve only messed around with the different ones while I’ve played true solo, is different. The warrior does what they are supposed, same with the caster, the healer, the rogue and the ranger. Everyone plays in their archetype.

And to make that work, each class is going to have their own cards that build out your hand. What I really like about the cards is that they are powerful. For a caster, for example, you play a card that uses resources to blast everyone in a row, column, or diagonal from where you are. That is a great ability, but it costs when you do that, it costs to get it back and it costs to use it again. That is very fun, and when you level up, you unlock new card abilities to add to your hand. And you have to pass on others, though you can pay to swap them in.

The last with with the characters that is fun is that you can multiclass. In a lot of dungeon crawl games, or RPG like board games, you pick and class and go with it. In Edgeguard, you can change up the class you are playing. Granted, they can never overtake your main class, but it allows you to customize your character more so. The only other one I can think of off the top of my head is a light boss battler or dungeon crawler in Adventure Tactics. This one gives you more than that seems to.

The Enemies

I also really like how simple the enemies are to operate. There are campaign games where it takes a lot of work to get the enemies up and running. And while you do need to find the minis, place out tokens, find the cards for the enemies, their actual turns are pretty simple. And the enemy AI doesn’t change that much, except for when it does.

The enemies, like the players, have a chance to get a critical success. For the players that just means more damage, but for the enemies, that changes their behavior. The Shadow, Assassin, for example, if you get it’s third critical hit option has a shot to immediately take a character down to one hit point. Granted, that takes a little bit of luck. But if you are being swarmed by a number of bad guys and get hit by that, you are in big trouble.

Combat

As for combat itself, I appreciated how fast it went. When I play solo, some games can bog down in combat and set-up. Now, the game is going to take a chunk of time to set-up. And I’ll miss being able to click a button on TTS and have it do that for me. But at the same time, the combat itself is nice and straightforward. The game is simple to play, but has depth in the decision making space it gives you. So a nice sweet spot for me.

Mainly, going back to the cards, I appreciate how good the decisions are for what you do with the cards. The resources that you need to spend to do a more powerful spell or attack off of a card, that is a good choice. I know when I play RPG’s on the computer, I try not to be the person who just hordes every ability or potion just in case there’s a time I need it more. This game could run into that issue, but only because of players, with the cards that you play. But you can get them back, it just costs. So you don’t use them randomly, but also, you don’t want to horde them.

Who Is It For?

Edgeguard is going to be a game for people who love their campaign games. If that is what you play, and you have a dedicated space for it, it’d be a nice one to keep on the table for a while. I think that most people know if they are that, especially if they are looking to back a game on crowdfunding.

From my time with the game, and remember it’s been on TTS, I think that Edgeguard is probably more accessible than some dungeon crawlers. Yes, there is a fair amount going on with all the different stats that make it feel like more, but overall it was easy to follow what was going on. For that reason another group it’d be good for is the person introducing new people to dungeon crawlers. There will be some RPG elements that take a bit to learn, but the core dungeon crawl game play should be easy to pick-up.

My Thoughts On Edgeguard

I always like to finish up a little bit with my opinion. When I do what I don’t like and what I do like, I try and give detailed reasons for that or explain more of it. My thoughts, on the other hand, are going to be more of my opinion.

Edgeguard is hitting a pretty crowded market, and a crowd of games that are on my shelf. Now, that isn’t a bad thing, because I know I love the campaign genre of board games. And I know that I get to playing them. Whether it’s on Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel or with friends.

What drew me to Edgeguard is the epic look at that it had. But that isn’t always going to be enough to keep me looking at it. What is going to keep me checking this one out on Kickstarter is the simplicity of the game in the dungeon crawl. I know what groups I play campaigns with, and a little bit simpler one will be better for some groups. And even for groups who might not play campaign games with me normally.

So is it one for you? Well, if the card play sounds interesting and you are looking for your next big epic adventure, join me in checking out Edgeguard on Kickstarter.

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Easiest To Hardest

Fighter

The first two on the list are by far the easiest to rank. Fighter is not a difficult class to play, mainly because it’s the most common thing that we’d know of. We can think of fighters in basically any movie set in a fantasy setting or a medieval era. And the mechanics are pretty simple as well, most of what you will be doing is fighting with your main weapon. Now you can make it more interesting by adding in additional types of weapons or customizing your attack style in a different way, but mechanically it is a pretty straight forward class to play.

Barbarian

Next up is the Barbarian, much like the fighter they are basically all about fighting in their fairly basic way. The fact that they add in the rage, that makes it very slightly more complicated. Same with the natural defense that they have, but neither of those really make it more difficult to play, they just change is up from how most other classes handle your basic fighting. Once you have the concept of rage down, the Barbarian is as easy to play, or maybe even easier, than the fighter.

Rogue

Next up I went with the Rogue. Now, I do think that the Rogue is a slight step up in terms of complexity. But again it is still going to be more of a standard fighting class. The rogue, however, is shiftier and interacts with their adventuring party more in combat than other classes. They like to focus on enemies are already facing off against someone else to get that sneak attack damage. But they can also go and hide to get bonuses and get away from someone they are fighting easier. It if a little more to keep track of, and they aren’t going to be able to tank like a Fighter or a Barbarian can.

Cleric

Our first spell caster is on the list and it’s the Cleric. Mainly because the concept of a cleric is pretty simple to grasp. The cleric is going to be pass out some buffs, but really, they are going to keep the party on their feet. So slinging around healing spells and making sure if someone gets knocked out they can get back up again, that’s going to be the clerics main focus. There are types of clerics who can fight solidly as well, but most clerics will focus on healing.

Paladin

The Paladin is much like the cleric in that they are good at healing. The difference is they are a half-caster class versus a full caster and that means they have access to fewer spells. Adding in the fighting that a cleric can do, it is definitely a step up in complexity, but not that hard. The main thing to know is that Paladins can convert their spell slots into more damage, so there are two types of Paladins. The first is going to be the type that heals and the other is going to be the type that fights, and generally stick to one instead of trying to do both. But once you pick, then it becomes real easy.

Ranger

Next up we have the Ranger. The Ranger is another half-caster class and can be a bit trickier. There is the Beastmaster Ranger who can have an animal companion which gives them more to do. However, for the most part the Ranger will use a few standard spells, like Hunter’s Mark, and a bow and arrow to deal with their enemies. Some of what becomes trickier are their other abilities. The favorite terrain, how do you work that into a campaign or use that meaningfully. Those are the questions for the Ranger player and DM.

Monk

After the Ranger comes the Monk. These two and the next one are all really close in complexity if you ask me. The Monk is another fighting class. Like the Barbarian it has it’s own way to calculate defense. Where the complexity comes in is the chi that the Monk has. Basically it is a way to manipulate attacks and attackers. Some of the disciplines of the monk give you lots of ways to manipulate your chi so you really need to think about how you spend it.

Wizard

Now we are into caster territory, and the second easiest caster is the Wizard, in my opinion. The Wizard could even go higher, but I think that casters tend to be a bit trickier than some of the other classes. Why is it easier than some of the others, how it casts is very simple. Simple use of spell slots and not much else that a Wizard does besides cast. It just depends on what type of caster you want to be.

Bard

The Bard is also a pretty straight forward casting class. Again, like the Wizard it is just spending spell slots. Where it adds is Bardic inspiration. Bardic Inspiration is basically a way to help your party do better. It gives them a die to spend on a check and the Bard has a limited number. As you go, it can even do more depending on the college you went to as a Bard. Not too complex to play but adds in a little more to do, and a Bard can also get into the fray with combat more.

Druid

These last three could have gone in most any order, but I’m placing the Druid as my third most complex. The reason that it’s sitting here is that the Druid can go in two different ways. There are caster druids and there are wild shape druids, basically think shape shifting. While the caster has some wild shape, they will focus on casting. Whereas a wild shape Druid will cast, but the wild shape is a key to a lot of what they do. Definitely adds in complexity with what creatures you can turn into with your wild shape and when you do.

Warlock

Next is the Warlock, I think that the Warlock could be simpler than some of these, except that it’s casting works very differently than other classes. You have fewer spell slots, they are always as the higher level and you get them back on a short rest. Plus they have their pact and different benefits that they get from what. Once you can wade through how the class plays, there are some solid and simple combos out there, mainly with Eldritch Blast you can take advantage of.

Sorcerer

Finally we have the Sorcerer. I put this one as the most complex even though it’s base casting is simple. You spend a spell slot and cast it. The difference is they have meta magic with sorcery points. You can convert spell slots to points and back. And you pick which meta magics you want to use. So there are more choices to consistently make than other classes, in my opinion.

Are Any Too Complex For A Beginner?

To wrap this up, let’s talk about this question, are any of the classes too complex for a first time player? Yes, but it depends on the player. I wouldn’t give someone who is casually interested in Dungeons and Dragons any of the last three classes. The Druid, Warlock and Sorcerer are probably just a bit too much, and I would maybe shy away from the Ranger and the Monk as well.

However, a player who is really excited about Dungeons and Dragons, they can play any class. No class is too hard out of the box for a player to pick up. Some of them are just going to require a little bit more work to learn than others.

Now, I skipped the Wizard, I think the concepts of the Wizard a good for a new player. And I think that they are pretty easy to learn, they just have a lot of choices. For a new player that might be too many choices, or it might be just fine. But I think even a somewhat interested new player will be able to figure it out, leveling up just might take longer.

Which is your favorite class to play? Are there any that you avoid because they are too simple or too complex?

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Quick reminder of our characters:
Thrain the Hill Dwarf who became a Hexblade Warlock
Bokken the War Forged who was granted the ability to become a great Fighter (Samurai)
Barrai the Tiefling who now gets to use their musical and story telling skills as a Bard (sub-class to be determined)

At this point in time, they are all level 1.

Upon leaving the tower they were given what basically was an exit interview to gather what their powers they had been granted. A runner took all of their skills around to the various schools, but the characters (players) were given a free choice of what school they wanted to pick as a group.

There were eight different schools:
School of Spying and Espionage
School of War and Combat
School of Charm and Seduction
School of Wisdom
School of Business and Money
School of Order and Government
School of Nature and Raw Emotion
School of Dark Arts and Assassination

They went with the last one, though they did debate for a little while around some other the other ones, The School of War and Combat made sense and they were also interested in Nature and Raw Emotion. At that booth they spoke to Tormin, a recruiter and one of the teachers at the School of Dark Arts and Assassination and had to explain why they wanted to go and what skills they had that would be useful for the Strawhog – Ye Old School of Darkness and Magic. Tormin told them that they’d be in a barracks, bunk house, type set-up with another person who had gone through the trial of the Tower at the same time as them, a Gnome named Dorin.

Then I gave them two weeks of time to do whatever they wanted, Barrai practiced the harpsichord, Bokken picked up work at a warehouse and made a bunch of money moving boxes non-stop for that time. Thrain went to brush on his fighting and sparring at a local combat focused gym.

Showing up at the school, Strawgoh, they met Dorin. He was a pompous little gnome who clearly had a chip on his shoulder and was trying to be important. Barrai made friends with him by bribing him with a gold piece, but Bokken really didn’t acknowledge him, and Thrain constantly referred to him as a halfling, as a goof, though the best part was when the player, not the character, forgot that it wasn’t a halfling. They dropped their stuff off in the barracks and then joined the other nine students for their introduction to the school.

Head Mistress Assandial told them about the school, about how hard it was going to be, about how they still might die, even in the school and if anyone wanted to leave now they could. But everyone stuck it out. She then told them what became the focus of the rest of the session, there were two spies in their midst, two of the people had been recruited prior to the test of the Tower and already had some training. Those two would get extra credit if they could stay hidden for the year. But if someone correctly figured out who they were, they could get those extra credit points. But wrong guesses, there was a consequence for that.

Bokken immediately began investigating and looked for the people who stood out the most, the richest, the prettiest, whatever caught his eye. He spotted a halfling who looked rich and spoke to Narius. While Narius was a bit of a pompous jerk, Bokken didn’t get the feeling that Narius was likely a spy at that time and decided to offer to work for him if he had a job. Which, Narius said he would consider it once they graduate and he started his own assassin’s guild.

They talked to a bunch of other of their classmates, Domon a Tiefling Warlock who wasn’t that smart. Thrain interjected himself into a conversation between Cordin a Dragonborn Wizard and Sadran the Aasimar Wizard who Bokken had noticed earlier. Sadran was nice enough, but Cordin treated Thrain fairly rudely. They talked to Addruss a Human Fighter who had gone through the Trial of the Tower with Castilla a Wood Elf Rogue.

Barrai used his ability to cast the message spell to get information from Domon that he’d gone through the tower trial with the Aasimar, Sadran, and an Elf whom the players haven’t talked to yet.

At one point, Dorin, appointing himself, or trying to appoint himself, leader of the barracks decided to confront the party and see if they’d just tell them that they were spies. However, the party turned it on him pointing out that he was the only to survive the group of four, which seemed fairly suspicious to them.

Finally, the party talked to Edzial, a Dwarf whom they don’t know what class she has yet. However, she says that she went through the trial with Domon, Sadran, and the elf that they didn’t talk to. And the characters call her out on that. She gives a reason that they is investigating to see how much they know, but the players note that she, like Dorin, is the only one who didn’t have party survive the trial of the tower.

The players, since they decided that they could trust Castilla, spoke with her about their suspicions as to who might be the spies, but they really didn’t have all that much proof and they didn’t want a wrong accusation on their record. Barrai, since he is also a Tiefling and Domon had made a big deal out of that earlier, leveraged that friendship to convince Domon, not the brightest character, that he should go and accuse Dorin for them.

And that’s where I ended the session with Domon off to do that.

The DM Notes portion, if you don’t want to see behind the screen don’t read further.

There were only a handful of rolls in this session, once they started talking to people, they rolled for several insight checks but that was about it. I’ve run sessions like this before with little rolling but it wasn’t planned.

So about the planning itself, I had all 8 schools determined and I had the cast of characters, teachers and students whom they’d meet at whatever school they went to. Would they have always been paired with Dorin, no, Barrai asked early who they were going to be paired with, and I had him roll a D10 to determine which out of 11 students they’d be paired with, yes the math doesn’t work.

Also, for preparing for something like this, don’t come up with a new batch of teachers and students for each school, my four teachers (two of them met so far), and nine students were going to have the same names no matter what. Now, the fact that Dorin is a Gnome Rogue and Castilla is a Wood Elf Rogue, those things could have changed.

I was also potentially prepared for combat in this scenario. Only because they went to the school of Dark Arts and Assassination did they end up being a test and students. It was going to be a school who was going to send in some spies that the players would have had to have fought and figured out what they were after instead. But it worked well this way for the school.

Strawgoh is Hogwarts backwards and because of that Bokken now has a commanding officer, mentor named Rettop Yrrah as well, Harry Potter backwards.

This session went really well and I had a lot of fun with it, even though it wasn’t dice chucking combat or an epic set piece of massive story, it was a bunch of different smaller social interactions, some funny, some normal that the players had. Even with the funny ones probably being the most entertaining, the players have already gravitated and made Castilla someone who is going to be important later because they trust her, you never know who they will pick.

Feel free to steal ideas from this for your own game and let me know, what would you have picked for a school in the players shoes? Do you think they are right and Dorin is a spy (I should say, spies were set before they got Dorin as a bunk mate)?

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Since Dungeons and Dragons is a fantasy setting, you have magic in the same, I don’t think that’s a surprise to anyone. How much magic you have to vary a lot. Some worlds in D&D have a ton of magic with lots of people being able to use small spells and little things, like curing a small wound are going to be magically done or lighting a fire, magic might be faster. There are going to be other fantasy worlds where magic is extremely rare. If you have magic, you have way more value to the nations because of what you can do. In either of them, the PC’s (Player characters) who have magic are going to end up being more powerful than most other casters, because, otherwise, those characters would be saving the world, and you’d still be a farmer.

But within magic, there are a number of different ways that you can get magic or use magic. Which, mechanically speaking, are represented by the different classes you can be. A Cleric and Paladin get their magic from their gods whereas a Druid gets it through nature, a Sorcerer just has it, and a Wizard needs to learn it. That doesn’t even touch on the bard who signs theirs (but just kind of have it) and the Warlock who has made a deal for it. If you know you want to be a magic user, picking your class can help determine what sort of background you have because of how you got the magic.

Bard – This magical mischief maker generally gets their spells from their ability to weave word or song in such a way to alter the world around them either for attack or entertainment. A bard is generally going to be someone who has been trained, but not to improve their magic, but their performance ability. I think that the bard is a class that can be generally used for most backstories.

Cleric – The first of our magical classes that gets their magic from the divine. The god that they are worshiping is giving them the powers and has chosen them as special. In particular, they are giving them powers to help people, and while combat might not be their strong point, but healing and aiding other characters is what that character is going to be the best at. With a cleric, your backstory can be anything but you might want to focus more on a religious background and have it something you’ve been a part of for a while, not something that you just picked up.

Druid – The hippy of the magical classes, the druid is all about nature and their attunement to nature. In some ways, I would say that a Druid is a bit like the Cleric in that they get their magic from the divine, but for the Druid their divine is their connection to nature. The Druid is going to be the caster who has the most connections to nature and natural changes in the world. The outlander or hermit backgrounds actually make a lot of sense for a background for the Druid, because you need that strong connection with nature that makes most sense to be gotten on your own. The trick can be connecting back into the group.

Paladin – Our second divine caster, the Paladin is what is know as a half-caster. What that means is that they have a more limited spell selection and a smaller number of spell slots with which to cast spells. What the Paladin does get is some of the healing abilities of the Cleric but much better punching power with their ability to handle weapons. They also get the ability to channel their divine magic into even more damage, at the cost of casting spells, but I still feel like it’s a spell like affect and is part of their magic. For a Paladin, your background can be much more open, because while they do have that divine magic from a god, their devotion to their religion is less strictly guided like a Cleric’s feels, though, they do need to maintain that collection.

Ranger – Another and last half caster, the Ranger pulls a little bit like the Paladin does from the Cleric, but for the Ranger it’s from the Druid. They get some of the connections to nature that the Druid has, but also then gets more focus in their magic for hunting down their enemies. Unlike the Paladin who has extra abilities they can do with their magic, the Ranger is more focused on just using their spells as spells. Their background is generally going to be fairly open, being a scout in the military or being a hermit all make sense, and even some of the more scholarly ones can make sense.

Sorcerer – The natural of the magic world, the bard might just use music, but the Sorcerer just gets magic. And they get amazing control over their magic. The Sorcerer is an interesting class in that they get things called meta-magics and meta-magic points that they can use to improve their spells. This might mean that they can cast them farther or do so silently so it can’t be countered. This allows a player to specialize their character so that their Sorcerer feels different from others. The Sorcerer definitely can come from any sort of background since their magic can be something that just newly manifested. It’s the magic class that you do if you don’t want to be beholden to anyone or anything.

Warlock – If the Sorcerer isn’t beholden to anyone or anything, the Warlock 100% is. They’ve made a pact with some powerful being, fey, elder god, or demon that is giving them their powers. And the Warlocks magic works differently than everyone else’s. They aren’t a half caster, but they aren’t really a full caster. They get invocations that can really make their cantrips much better so they don’t need as many high level spells, which is good, because they don’t get many spell slots. But when they cast a spell it’s always at the highest spot possible. I don’t know that they are that much harder to play than other casters, but how they work makes less sense. They, because they can have just gotten their magic, do have it in common with the Sorcerer that most any background works.

Wizard – Final one and definitely the most iconic. The Wizard has learned magic. You could say that Bard might be considered a bit of that if you consider them learning their craft of storytelling and performance, but for a Wizard, there are Wizard schools and you study and you need a spellbook to be able to prepare spells for the day. But, as a Wizard, you have access to more spells than any other class. Their specializations also makes it easier for them to learn more spells in certain areas, and while other classes can be capped on how spells they know, a Wizard can always add in more spells if they have the time and money to transcribe them into their spell book. A wizard, the Sage background makes the most sense because they’ve spent at least some of their life in school, but that might not be the defining feature for them.

That’s a lot just looking at the classes and how they use magic, I’m going to spend some time coming up here going into more topics on magic such as spell slots and spells known or high or low magic worlds that I touched on that the top of the article. Some of them will be more player focused and others more dungeon master focused. Is there a certain type of caster that you gravitate to?

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I think that this is a more interesting question than the party size question, but has just as vague and answer. It’s totally acceptable to have a party that is all wizards, as a DM, you just have to adjust for that, but there is an ideal party balance. However, 5e is built so you can ignore that if you want.

The ideal party balance goes back to what I said in the previous article, it assumes that you are going to have a Wizard, a Cleric, a Fighter, and a Rogue, or someone that fits into each of those archetypes. But I think a more useful way to look at it is do you have someone for each pillar of the game?

Wait, what are the pillars of D&D?

Exploration, Combat, and Social are the three pillars that most D&D games are built on, though fairly often I would say that exploration is not fully used. Some of that is because people just don’t like the resource management aspect that can be in exploration. It’s also more fun to fight something or talk to an NPC than it is exploring which seems more passive for the players and more on the DM to describe what is going on.

These pillars are important though when creating your adventuring party. You want to have player characters who do cover all of these. Now, I generally wouldn’t say that each character should be good at all of them, but all of them should be good at either social or exploration and then generally you want them to be competent at combat.

If the players and DM focus on hitting these pillars in session zero, the ideal party combination doesn’t matter much. For example, I’ve run games where we have two rangers, a paladin, and a wizard. We don’t have a tank character, but you just have to change which monsters you select and how they work. Maybe they are harder to hit, but don’t deal tons of damage as the paladin is the closest we have to a tank. Or were there was a fighter, wizard, and rogue. In that case, you have no healing, so you either have to hand out some healing potions, or have larger fights, but less fights during a day, so the player characters are less likely to die.

So, to recap, any party combo is going to work. It’s probably more important that they work in your world, such as don’t have a party of wizards when wizards are really rare, unless they are fine being extremely unique, and maybe that’s the plot there. But make it work for your world and your game, but any combo is playable in Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons.

What are some odd player character combinations that you’ve had? Are there any that you thought didn’t work or that were weird but fun to play?

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Dragonborn, are a bit like tieflings or other races where they get some heritage from something non-standard fantasy. And because of that, in Dungeons and Dragons, they are treated as a rarer race. They pull both from their draconic ancestry, including getting a breath weapon. But with that draconic heritage, that means they often also take haughtiness and aloofness of the dragons. This can make them a bit temperamental in a party.

Mechanically speaking, besides that breath weapon that you get which you can use sparingly, you also get bumps to strength and charisma. For that reason, Dragonborn make good fighters, but also charisma casters. Their strongest class is probably Paladin, a charisma casting class that is also good in melee. You also get resistance to the element that your breath weapon is. This also helps you tank as an enemy caster might be using whatever element you’re resistant to, and you’ll be able to stay in melee longer.

Other than those stats, the real things we’re looking at is that Dragonborn tend to role play as haughty. I mentioned that before, but I think it’s worth mentioning again. They think that they are better than you, and that they can probably do it themselves. This can also lead to foolhardiness because they are more apt to rush into something if they feel like someone else is going to be able to do it first.

They are also going to be rare and the chromatic ones distrusted. In Dungeons and Dragons, while the metallic dragons aren’t necessarily helpful, they aren’t evil either. The chromatic dragons, aren’t helpful, and they might decide they want to rule or go on a rampage. So, the people who know this, and I suspect it would be fairly common knowledge in most D&D worlds, are going to distrust a Dragonborn that is chromatic. Even the metallic Dragonborn might be looked at askance.

So let’s talk about some backstories, why might a Dragonborn decide to join an adventuring party.

I was, what I would consider a legend on the battlefield, there were few who could stand up to me. I was able to shrug off spells like it was no ones business, and I was only ever bested once when my “rival” got a lucky blow in on me. That took me out of action for a few weeks, but I’d done enough damage to the opposing army that our forces were able to continue routing them and I was given a retirement. But retirement doesn’t suit me well, so I feel the need to save sad adventuring parties who don’t know what they are doing.
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Class: Fighter
Background: Soldier
Notes: The point of that background, while it wouldn’t make sense for a level one character, is that the dragonborn exaggerates. They were in the army, but got injured, and were in bed for a long time, probably over a year, and now they want to actually do something worth their boasting so when people look them up, it’s something actually true.

With my size, people always thought that I would go into the army. But that wasn’t that interesting for me. I was much more interested in finding out about my draconic background. I spent years researching, trying to get a better understanding of who I was and where I’d come from. That led me all over the world, and I picked up some interesting skills and because pretty good at avoiding trouble. It might not be the most glamorous way to deal with problems, but smashing things with a club isn’t my style. I now want to go to the mountains where my people allegedly came from.
Alignment: Lawful Good/Neutral
Class: Ranger/Rogue
Background: Sage

People always looked at me like I was strange. I can’t help it if my parents left me in the big city at a young age. I don’t even know what happened to them for sure. I wanted to show people that I was better than just a kid who bounced around from temple to temple, helping when I could and getting a free meal. To do that, when you can’t go to school and life in the city is hard and dangerous, I could only come up with one way. I made a deal. I have some power now through it and I can help other people because of that. But mainly, I just want to find out why my parents left me.
Alignment: Neutral Good/Chaotic Good
Class: Warlock
Background: Urchin

There are some ideas for character backgrounds of a Drabonborn. In the game I’m going to be running soon, I’ll have a player who is playing a Dragonborn.

Let me know about some background ideas that you have for a Dragonborn character. Have you played a Dragonborn before?

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When playing a half orc, like the Tieflilng, you have to know that you’re going to stick out like a sore thumb as you’re going to be larger than most any human or smaller than most any orc. It’s really a race that is stuck between two things. I think a half-orc adventuring makes a lot of sense for that reason, because you don’t fit into human society, you might take up adventuring or mercenary work to get into a situation where you can become a hero, or people like you because you are big and strong. And with getting stat bumps to strength and constitution, you are certainly big and strong.

Half-Orcs, beyond their strength score bump are really made for melee characters. They get two abilities, relentless endurance and savage attack that make them great at going into the middle of things. Relentless endurance allows them, once per day, when they would have hit 0 HP, they go back up to 1 HP. And savage attack means that when they strike with a melee weapon and get a critical hit, they do an extra die of damage which means that they hit even harder. Things like Champion Fighter and Barbarian really are where the Half-Orc is going to shine.

When role playing one, it is really about playing a character who is out of place. In a human society, people are going to be scared of you because orcs are a monstrous race. In orc society, you are going to be a weakling and a liability on their hunting and raiding parties. Those things are reason enough to play against type if you want to. Since you would be stuck with menial tasks in an orc tribe, maybe you’ve spent more time honing magic or some other skills such as scouting, since you’d be the smallest orc. Or in human society, maybe you joined a religious order as a way to show that you aren’t just a big brutish monster.

Let’s hop into some backstory ideas, as I think there are interesting game elements that you can tie into a half-orc.

Times were difficult in your tribe and being the child of an orc who loved a human was even more difficult. When a drought hit and all the animals left the area and food was scarce, you were the first to be kicked out of the tribe. You were small for your tribe and you couldn’t hunt as well. You had to make it on your own if you wanted to survive, and you learned to live off of the land better than your old tribe had. Now you’ve been doing that for several decades, and the drought has come back every ten years, to the date and you are worried about the land you live on and that something more might be happening than just a weather pattern.
Class: Druid
Background: Hermit/Outland
Alignment: Neutral/Neutral Good

They said that you were lucky, besides your larger size, you don’t look that unlike a human compared to other half orcs. That made you a perfect choice to join the kings guard, someone who is stronger than the other guards. That worked out great and you grew to be one of the favorites of the King. You followed his rules to the letter, but the other guards became jealous and planted fake letters from you to the prince/princess and had those shown to the King. As a lowly kings guard and a half orc at that, you were kicked out and banished from the kingdom. Little did the guards know that you actually do care a lot about the prince/princess and they care for you. Now you have a new goal, to get back to them.
Class: Fighter
Background: Soldier
Alignment: Lawful Neutral/Chaotic Good

You have a very nice job working for the Black Coat Mercenary guild. They pay you well and give you a spot where you feel like you fit in. You mainly go on missions that are to squash insurrections or other things like that, bolster a kingdom when needed. You aren’t supposed to have any attachments, but when you saw that one mission was supposed to have you kill a well known wizard who was helping a town survive from a powerful kingdom that wanted that land, you decided not to do your mission. Instead you helped the wizard and the townfolk move miles away and relocate then you went and burned down the village. But now that wizard has popped up again under a new name, and you are worried that your secret is going to come out and your standing with the guild will be ruined and you might become their next target.
Class: Rogue/Fighter/Ranger/Barbarian
Background: Soldier/Criminal
Alignment: Lawful Good/Neutral Good

Have you played an half-orc before? Were there anythings that you leaned into with playing a half-orc? Would you play on of these backstories?

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Tieflings, for those not familiar, are tainted in their bloodline somehow by demons. Mainly, the lord of the nine hells. In the players handbook you get the rules for creating a character who has some influence of Asmodeus in their bloodline. In Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, you get it for the rest of the Lords and Ladies of the nine hells. All Tieflings are generally charismatic as they all get an improvement to that stat, that generally makes them good at being Warlocks which makes a ton of sense. However, Bard and Sorcerer are also Charisma casting races. Most interestingly, the Paladin is also Charisma based, so that could make a really interesting role playing experience. As you’d expect, the main feature for a Tiefling is that they are resistant to fire.

Now, how that infernal influence gets into your bloodline is going to be up to you as a player. You could have had a relative that screwed one of the Lord of Hell, but that isn’t the only way. If your family worshiped one of the Lords of Ladies of Hell for a long time, it’s possible that they just became tainted through that and spawned the PC. I think that either of them provide some interesting role playing opportunities, but the biggest thing that the Tiefling provides for role playing is the fact you look different and that tells people that somehow your family consorted with someone evil.

Tieflings, themselves, don’t have to be evil, but might lean towards that alignment. And even if you don’t, again, people aren’t going to trust you, because you are very different. In the PHB (players handbook), you feel like most likely a Tiefling came from a human line, but there is no reason that your Tiefling couldn’t be based size wise off of some other race. But, back to my main point, the distrust of your character is going to be something that you are going to have to role play out with your DM. Maybe even your party doesn’t fully trust you because you are a Tiefling, and I find this interesting, because as a charismatic humanoid, you are not just naturally magnetic. It’s more of a situation that you can just sit down and win people over if they give you the time and aren’t running screaming when they see your horns and tail.

So what are some backstory ideas for playing a Tiefling?

When you were born, there was a lot of shock in your community, and you were tossed aside and left to die. However, the old Priestess in your town wouldn’t allow that to happen and went and took you from the woods where you had been left. She, in secret for several years, raised you and taught you the ways of the church. When you reached the age of ten, a new priest came to town as the priestess was getting old and frail. He didn’t treat you as well, but he promised the priestess he wouldn’t kick you out or abandon you. When you were old enough, he told you it was time to go on a mission and spread the word of your god to others and help where you could. So you went out and found a group that seemed to be doing good.
Class: Paladin
Alignment: Neutral Good
Background: Acolyte
Note: I would play some into the tension between the infernal and the divine.

Your parents told you that the village you had been born in burned when you were young, and that’s why you lived all alone with only a few close family friends who had been able to survive. You found out later that might have been the case. As you grew to know more, you found out that your parents and their friends were worshiping a devil. And it turned out, as you overheard, that the village had burned because the village hadn’t wanted your family there when you were born, and your family and their friends had burned it to the ground while everyone was trapped in the temple. That didn’t sit well with you, so when you were a teen, you escaped and started wandering the woods, hunting and gathering as you needed. Then, one day, there was a tug on your heart and you went into a village, in disguise to see the humans as thralls and your family and their friends controlling them. You knew they had to be stopped.
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Background: Outlander
Class: Ranger

Being a Tiefling is generally looked down upon, but you were bred to be that way. Your kingdom is very pragmatic living in the shadows of a Red Dragon. Tieflings really make good firefighters being able to handle the heat and flames better than any humans. So each generation, a few women are selected to be part of the ritual and give birth to Tiefling children. However, your mother had told you that when she was carrying you a seer had told her that you were going to be important at a time when the world was in flames and that you could bring on the end of the world. You didn’t want to do that, but as compared to other Tieflings, it quickly became obvious that you had more power and that whichever Lord of the Nine Hells had sired you was helping keep you alive. Now you’re running, hoping that will protect you from what the seer foretold.
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Background: Haunted(?)/Soldier(?)
Class: Warlock
Note: What I like about this idea is that your character has a different feeling Warlock patron because they were given it as a way to defend themselves and stay alive, not because they made a deal, could offer some interesting role playing options.

So, what about you? Have you played a Tiefling before? How easy are they to play in your opinion? How hard are they to fit into the group?

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They don’t love an extremely long time like Elves, they don’t live underground like Dwarves, Humans are just like humans in the real world. Very diverse, very able to adapt, and able to be any class pretty easily. Humans are the odd race in that they don’t get a +2 to any of the main six stats, but they get a plus one to all of them. Getting an even stat bump across the board means that you can be equally as good as being a wizard as a barbarian at the start. But that’s the big thing with humans, or the variant human, which gets +1 to two stats and then a feat (an extra ability), which can also help you create any type of character you want to be more effective from the start.

But enough about the mechanical reasons, let’s talk some about role playing a human. Again, they are pretty straight forward, but diverse. You have to decide on things like if you are from the city or a village or the country when playing a human to see how you might interact with the world, or are you wealthy or poor, or something along those lines. You don’t have those racial traits like Dwarves and Elves that are going to give you a basis for your role play, you have to figure that out as a player.

For that reason, it’s pretty easy to have fairly boring human characters. You don’t have that specific thing to latch onto and if you don’t put the effort into your backstory, you’re going to run into issues knowing how to role play your character besides being generic human adventurer #201348. So lean into some aspect that makes your backstory and traits unique for growing up. What sets you apart from the humans you might run into in a town miles away? What world view do you have from where you grew up? Does the outdoors and wild seem too open? Do the city streets seem too confining? None of this is unique to a human even, Elves or Dwarves can have the same experience, but it’s the experiences that you’re going to have to lean into for really playing a human.

So what are some backstories for a human?

Growing up on the farm, I really wanted to find more in the world. I was the second child and I knew I wasn’t going to inherit the farm. When my parents passed away it would go to my older sibling. My parents main hope was to marry me to someone who would be getting a farm of their own. I eventually convinced my parents to let me apprentice in town and get a skill that I needed. I heard stories of the world there, and I wanted to know more about it and see more of it. There were so many amazing tales, wonderful places of power and awe that I could only hear about and had never seen, and I wanted to see them. So I left with a group that came through town and made it to the city where there were supposed to be white spires reaching into the heavens. The real world is disappointing, people lie, but I know that some of those stories must have had truth in them, and I want to find it.
Class: Any Martial/Half Caster Class
Alignment: Neutral Good, Chaotic Good
Background: Guild Artisan

The city is a mean place to grow up when you’re poor. You basically make a living by stealing, begging, or charity of some temple. But I found another way, I met a man at a cross roads who offered to become my patron and a good hot meal. That seemed like a great deal at the time, turns out that he had more plans for me. He started having me do some shady jobs for him once in a while, but it wasn’t too bad. Eventually life changed for me, and I was able to set-up a little shop on the corner where I told people’s fortunes. Sure, it might have been a hustle, but compared to most others who had their little shops, I was more accurate. I had almost forgotten about the deal I made when the man came back to visit my shop and asked me if I liked my success. I said that I did, and he said that in turn for more success I was going to need to do him a favor.
Class: Warlock/Cleric
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral/Chaotic Good
Background: Urchin/Charlatan/Criminal
Note: This is a backstory that really screams Warlock, but I think it could be interesting to have the “deal” be less binding, but something more of a deity sending an emissary to this person because they need them eventually and giving them cleric powers.

The Neverending War, that’s what they’ll call it. And it might not actually ever end, not with the demons seemingly uncountable coming through a tear in dimensions from the abyss. Life is fleeting, even with our short life spans, the war makes it even shorter. Fight for five years and gain your freedom to do whatever you want. Less than half of us last that long. The government gives us money to live, but most of us still need to work to really make a life for ourselves. Some can settle down and start a smithy, farm a field, build furniture, but that isn’t for me. I’m just out of the army now, one of the few of my friends who survived. I know there are demons who are getting passed us into the real world. I want to find a group who can help me stop them.
Class: Fighter/Ranger/Rogue
Alignment: Lawful Good/Lawful Neutral
Background: Soldier

You can see how these are pretty generic backstories that would probably work for almost any race. But I tried to add in a few more human elements to them.

What do you think about those backstories? Is there some trait that you think is really human that I missed?

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