Annabelle's Nerdy Blog

For me as a DM, one of the most challenging aspects of running a game can be managing combat. Keeping track of initiative, hit points, who is concentrating on spells, and multiple creatures' actions can really quickly become overwhelming! Happily though, with a few tips and some preparation, you can make combat easier to manage for yourself and even more enjoyable for everyone sat at the table! Here are some strategies that have worked well for me:   Prepare in Advance   Ok, this one is kind of obvious but I’m the sort of person that leaves things to the last minute...

Ok, now I’ll admit no one asked for this, but I am about to give you the best magic item ever invented for Dungeons and Dragons. I present to you …   The Prestipotty is an essential magic item for any DnD campaign! It is essentially a magic toilet, vanishing away waste. Ok, I know it doesn’t sound glamorous, but think of how many problems it solves!   The technicalities of producing a Prestipotty as a magic item   Ok, so here’s a run down of how I made the Prestipotty. From the Magic Item Rarity Table in the Dungeon...

Making NPCs feel believable and unique is a great way to get your players interested in roleplay. When each new person the party speaks to has the same personality (or lack thereof!) it can quickly get boring for players. Of course, as a DM it is very easy to go too far the other way and to spend hours designing this beautiful nuanced character for the shop-keeper who the party may literally never visit. The middle ground you want to strike is having a distinct personality with minimal effort!   When bringing NPCs to life, I have six bullet points...

We’ve all been there. That first time staring at a character sheet and just feeling overwhelmed. For a lot of new players character sheets are one of the biggest barriers to playing the game. If you want to make Dungeons and Dragons easier for your players (or yourself!) it’s really worth considering what kind of character sheet to use. I’ve laid out four options to make 5e character sheets easier to understand. These are; using pre-generated character sheets, digital character sheets, character sheets designed for accessibility and of course, colour coding a “standard” paper character sheet.   Using pre-generated character sheets...

Stats in DnD represent your characters base abilities. There are three stats to represent your physical abilities; Strength, Dexterity and Constitution, and three stats to represent your mental abilities; Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. For each of those six stats, your character has an ability score, usually between 6-20. Your ability score determines what number (modifier) you add to your rolls based on that stat. For example, if your character has a Charisma ability score of 14, they will have a +2 modifier for charisma based checks. So when making a persuasion check you would roll a D20 and add 2...