An Abominable Fancy

The First Charter for the Reclamation of Tiberian Lands Cadafael XII, by the Grace of the Gods, King of Middlemarch, Defender of the Realm, crowned in the Light of Urizen, &c. WHEREAS the righteous Gods have returned unto the Wide Foundation of the World the lost and rediscovered lands of Tiberia, now bereft of the Governing Organs of Empire nor her Civilized Peoples, and; WHEREAS our loving and well-disposed subjects have made suitors unto us, that we would vouchsafe unto them our License, to make Habitation in that region of Tiberia commonly referred to as Battersea, and in other territories of Tiberia appertaining unto us; And to that End, are desirous that a company consisting of certain Knights, Gentility, Guildsfolk, Merchants and Adventurers should accompany them; We, greatly commending their Desires for the furtherance of so noble a Work, DO, by these Letters Patents, graciously accept of, and agree to, their humble and well-intended Suit; And ...

Having gone through the extraordinarily unusual step of actually play-testing a home-brew, I now present a second iteration of 5e One-Shot . 5e One-Shot v.2 5e One-Shot v.2 Grayscale (printer friendly!) 5e One-Shot v.2 One-Sheet (quick reference!) I dropped the nicknames, which weren't as character-clarifying as I'd hoped, and slowed down chargen a smidge. The die rolls are divided to prevent people from lining 5 dice up in numerical sequence, which led to similar results. A unified full-page character sheet means I can hand each player a copy of the packet, and they can fill the sheet out as we work through the process. The names-list has been shortened to minimize choice-paralysis and focus on the shorter, simpler names that will be easier to grapple in a single session. I also eliminated most of the names that are still extant, figuring anybody who wants to play a Guy can think up the name "Guy" on their own. The characters can now a...

I trotted out my new quick character generation system, 5e One-Shot , for a game at the local library. And it was a blast! I printed out the rules and made an accordion-fold screen out of them. Crafts Time This screen didn't prove terribly useful—the arrangement of the narrow conference room and outsize table were such that no one could really crowd around a see it. But I think it lent my homebrew system an ersatz professionalism that made it easier for people to get on board. All in all, it worked really well. Everyone ended up with a reasonably realized character with distinct strengths. Some points of improvement: Several players lined their 5d6 up in numerical order, which meant they ended up with very similar characters. I'll need to clarify the desire for a randomized spread. The character sheets are class-based, so that they could have lots of the class information pre-printed on them. But class is the last thing you decide on, so the character ...

Last time I ran an adventure at the local library, I was delighted to find that one of my players was an octogenarian who knew nothing about D&D but was rarin' to go. What could be better than introducing the game to someone like this? Except. It caused a real disconnect with the other players. Spending time bringing her up to speed was time where the others were twiddling their thumbs. It doesn't need to be like that. At its core, D&D 5e isn't all that different than those simple Arnesonian systems . The mechanic you need to know is: Roll a d20. Higher is better. Your character sheet might give you bonuses to add to this roll. You should be able to start playing with just that. Damage rolls and hit dice and whatnot can be explained when they become relevant. Except. The character sheet. It's full of a lot of information that takes a bit of experience to get your head around. In this case we were using pre-gens that, unfortunately, also h...