We ran a Dungeons and Dragons campaign recently. Every Wednesday night, at around 10:30pm UK, Andy & I will live stream some live Dice Masters game play. We often work on teams and practice for events, but more often than not we’ll have set ourselves a team building challenge for the fun of it. We’ve been doing it for years now, more recently over on our MoDXtra Twitch channel, but on YouTube for a long time before that. (We’ve got an archive playlist of all our live Dice Masters game play vids over there. If you want to check it out you can find it here: Dice Masters Live Game Play with the MoD)
We’ve done a wide array of formats and team building restrictions over the years. Regular listeners to the Ministry of Dice podcast will be very aware that we are advocates of keeping Dice Masters fresh & interesting by taking full advantage of the game’s flexibility to play in this way. In our continued desire to have fun and experiment with formats we recently finished a 5 week run of a “Dungeons & Dragons Dice Masters Campaign”, and I’m here to tell you all about it…
The Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Structure
The idea was pretty simply; inspired by our recent experiences of playing some classic Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone Fighting Fantasy novels together (which you can check out here: MoDXtra Fighting Fantasy Play Throughs) Andy struck upon the idea of putting a Dice Masters twist on dungeon crawling heart of those novels. To do this he prepared a campaign storyline for me to play through.
It was clear that Dungeons and Dragons Dice Masters was the best fit for us. It was thematic and easier to work the game around the idea. I was to construct a war band of adventurers that were to face the campaign over a number of sessions. Andy was going to build a fresh team of nasties based on the storyline for each step of the campaign.
In addition; Andy introduced a few extra twists in the form of benefits or drawbacks that would change session to session. For example; I was going to be accruing new cards and expanding my Dice Masters team list with spells, potions, weapons & equipment collected through the course of the campaign. Upon defeating a specific enemy, or winning games, I’d get some loot, just like in a classic D&D session, or through a Fighting Fantasy book.
The Team
Andy would be changing team every week, but I was to use the same team for the duration so had to choose carefully.
In the interest of theme I interpreted the word “adventurer” in a literal Dice Masters context, and focused my selection on characters that were “Good” alignment and carried the “Experience” keyword.
As far as these elements were concerned I saw it as an opportunity. As a Dungeons and Dragons only format I knew that I was going to be able to maximise the “Experience” keyword and use cards with alignment related game texts that don’t often see the light of day. Andy was clearly going to be running some Monsters for me to KO and get that sweet Experience buff and there was a high likelihood of “Evil” aligned characters too.
Win Con
Having decided on my broad theme I chose these two cards to form my win condition…
It was my hope that, with a team full of Adventurers, I could get some big Tashlyn Yafeera’s on the go and push for a big swing alongside Artus Cimber. With the anticipated volume of Evil characters he would be using Tashlyn could go through un-blocked.
As well as this pair, I wanted a bit of a back up way to drive damage through, so went with a fun card that was another lesser used card outside of the Dungeons and Dragons context; Aasimar Paladin. She would give my sidekicks a cheeky little buff to add even more wallop to my Artus Cimber assault, as well as add another Experience Adventurer to my team to contribute to Tashlyn’s game text. Not to mention the fact that she is a super-pretty looking foil to add to my team. (an element to my team building that I hadn’t mentioned yet, more on that in a minute…)
Control & Utility
A big chunk of my team was dedicated to the Control & Utility function. It needed to be flexible; Andy was changing team every week and I wanted to protect Tashlyn and Artus from a range of eventualities.
My knowledge of Andy’s playstyle definitely came into play here, having faced him many times over the years and having a decent sense of the types of cards he leans towards. In the event of some pretty aggro combat stuff I popped this bearded wonder in for some blocking strength…
Likewise, I knew that Andy would try to aggressively remove my characters with damage, with some targeted effects for example, so I popped a couple of other bits in to serve as further protection.
The Human Paladin was a great fit due to any potential cheeky Magic Missile action or force blocking Spider globals I may see (as well as keeping my Tashlyn safe from Blink Transmutation global), and likewise the Half-Elf Bard was going to keep me safe from any nasty character abilities. (for instance; intimidate or Breath Weapon). In addition; these guys are both Adventurers, further contributing to a big buffed Tashlyn. I’d also be lying if I didn’t mention that Human Paladin went in due to the sweet alt-art promo version I own. (There’s that “pretty looking cards” pre-occupation again).
Finally, since I was looking for good protection AND good looking cards, I dropped some classic Control in the form of Rare Dwarf Wizard – Foil Promo edition…
The “DwiZ” is a lovely bit of flexible Control with a great deal of utility. In other words – she was going to take care of anything the other two couldn’t.
Ramp
To keep me good and sorted I dropped in a couple of cards to help my dice purchasing power. These were…
Hitch was a no-brainer. First; he was going to make my purchase and fielding costs much more manageable. Second; he was an Adventurer who could get bigger AND help make my Tashlyn bigger. Finally; he was cheap enough to be a first turn purchase.
Create Food and Water felt like a strong fit too. Not only does it come with the solid ramp & churn value of its game-text, but also brings a handy global for some bag-resetting management magic. This, coupled with Hitch’s discount, was hopefully going to allow me to get my Adventurers bought up quick & cheap, ready to follow up with some Tashlyn attacking action.
The Dungeons & Dragons Campaign
We played the campaign over 5 sessions. Here is a brief storyline description and the game play videos for you to get a feel for it…
Round One
The band of Adventurers land in MoDPort only to discover that the town has been terrorised by the evil Valindra Shadowmantle. Eager to help the poor townsfolk the team commit to travelling to Valindra’s castle to defeat her and free them from her tyrannical reign.
Almost immediately though Valindra’s forces mobilize to defeat these heroic outsiders and the warband is set upon by a gang of seafaring pirates…
My warband won this round, and my prizes were a starting experience token for Hitch and a Ring I looted from the pirates. To give himself a leg-up into round two Andy allowed himself to draw & roll 5 dice in the roll & re-roll step.
Round Two
Moving forward on our journey to face Valindra. we move into the woodlands between the town and Valindra’s castle. As we make our way through we encounter a campsite inhabited by evil creatures from the forces of Valindra, led by the notorious Queen Grabstab!
The warband are victorious once again! We loot the campsite for anything useful and find a new spell: Burning Hands. Pushing onward, the warband moves to the caves at the foot of the Castle’s mountains…
Round Three
In the cave we discover a chamber of magic mirrors. In a cunning move of magic defence Valindra has cursed these mirrors to weaken the heroes and produce evil doppelgangers for them to fight. I lose some dice, and firm up for a mirror match…
we are prepared for such evil magics, and succeed in defeating our nefarious counterparts. We acquire some magical stinking clouds and carry on towards the castle…
Round Four
Continuing our journey through the cave system we discover a hell hole! Spewing from the hole are all manner of demonic fiends, hungry for some Adventurer meat! Time to draw swords once again…
After facing the fiends and sealing the hell hole we discover a small chamber with a fellow adventurer trapped within. It’s the legendary adventurer Minsc, with his furry sidekick Boo, and he decides to join us on the final leg of our mission. We reach the castle – its time to dispatch Valindra…
Round 5
Valindra awaits our arrival, gathering some of her finest evil warriors to face us. Can we free the town and return peace to MoDPort?
Final Thoughts
Overall we found the Campaign to be tremendous fun and a great way to play Dice Masters. I would wholeheartedly recommend you consider it as an option to keep things fresh & different if you are regularly playing.
We’ve learnt a few lessons along the way. I was a bit restless playing the same team and we believe that tying in some opportunities to change a card here or there might be useful to keep it engaging.
We also think that some better pre-planning would be useful – we have a habit of winging things but there was one of two occasions when having the campaign a bit more planned & organised would have benefitted the flow some more. For example; what loot and prizes there might be to acquire along the way.
If you’d like to hear more of our thoughts then you can find more discussion on the approach in more detail on our podcast episode here:
The Ministry of Dice Podcast Episode 96 “Iron Man is Disappointing”
