Barrowmaze 5E Session 6 - Investigating More Barrows!

 

Saturday (9/20/25) we played our sixth session of Barrowmaze 5E. The party decided to investigate more of the barrows on the surface rather than return to the dungeon . . . 

The roster of characters:

• Tanya - Sariel Moonblossom (Half-Elf Cleric of Arcantryl 2)
• Eli - Omarion Zolond (Drow Necromancer 2) 
• Aidan - Alivin O'Harris (Human Ranger 2)
• Christopher - Feles Pugnat (Tabaxi Fighter 2)
• Hireling - Freelik of Glossimir (High Elf Fighter 1) - 2 gp/day
• Hireling - "Killer" Kelg Barrelgut (Hill Dwarf Fighter 1) - 2 gp/day
• Hireling - Brother Binford (Human Cleric of St. Ygg 1) - 2 gp/day
• Mongrelmen Hirelings: Kasmut, Kenamon, Qalhata, Somintu, and Werenro

9th Day of Hardfrost, 1000 GCY

     The party set off for the Barrowmaze early as usual, and arrived without any random encounters. They had decided to investigate some of the barrows on the surface rather than return to the dungeon. They had to excavate the first one they chose in order to enter. Once inside, they experimented with some bathing pools, found some minor treasures, fought two Sons of Gaxx (one of which slew "Killer" Kelg Barrelgut and infected his corpse with rote grubs. The party later burned his corpse for fear that he might arise as a new Son of Gaxx). They explored two more barrows. They also fought two wood golems and an ochre jelly hidden in a jeweled goblet. They found statues with gemstone eyes, and used mage hand to steal the gems without dying from the obvious traps. And they found a barrow with a verdigrised bronze door which could not be opened without a key - and the mongrelmen followers informed them that they had seen such a key in the possession of a mongrelman sub-chief known as Horned One. So there is some thought that they might seek out Horned One to try to obtain that key . . . Anyway, after exploring a few barrows, they decided to head back to Helix. They got a late start back, and could hear the snarls and howls of the horrors that emerge in the Barrowmaze at night behind them as they hastened to return to town to sell their loot . . . 

     They PCs did get enough XP to level up to 3rd level at the end of the session. Alivin O'Harris chose the archetype of the Hunter, Feles Pugnat chose the archetype of the Eldritch Knight, and both Omarion Zolond and Sariel Moonblossom acquired second level spells . . . 

Valhalla (R.I.P.)

•  Imeni the Mongrelman, beheaded by Varghoulis the Dread Knight and his Crypt Knights of the Black Legion (1/3/1000)
• "Killer" Kelg Barrelgut (dwarf fighter hireling), killed by a Son of Gaxx (and subsequently the corpse was burned for fear he would arise as a new Son of Gaxx) (1/9/1000)

Barrowmaze 5E Session 5 - Back to the Dungeon - Carnivorous Flies and Ghouls!

 

Today (8/24/25) we played our fifth session of Barrowmaze 5E. The party decided to return to the dungeon and try to fill in some gaps on their map . . . 

The roster of characters:

• Tanya - Sariel Moonblossom (Half-Elf Cleric of Arcantryl 2)
• Eli - Omarion Zolond (Drow Necromancer 2) 
• Aidan - Alivin O'Harris (Human Ranger 2)
• Christopher - Feles Pugnat (Tabaxi Fighter 2)
• Hireling - Freelik of Glossimir (High Elf Fighter 1) - 2 gp/day
• Hireling - "Killer" Kelg Barrelgut (Hill Dwarf Fighter 1) - 2 gp/day
• Hireling - Brother Binford (Human Cleric of St. Ygg 1) - 2 gp/day
• Mongrelmen Hirelings: Kasmut, Kenamon, Qalhata, Somintu, and Werenro

7th Day of Hardfrost, 1000 GCY

     The party set off for the Barrowmaze early as usual, and arrived without any random encounters. They entered the dungeon and started to explore areas of the map they had left unfinished. They fought a gray ooze (damaging the weapons and armor of Alivin O'Harris, though they later replaced his damaged battle axe with a +1 battle axe) and a couple of giant carnivorous flies, and then pressed on to an area where they fought even more giant carnivorous flies in a room with the demolished ruins of a statue. They did find some murals that gave some hints to the history of the Barrowmaze that they had previously gleaned from a runic tablet - the ancient death-god, Nergal, gifting his favored priest with a special tablet, the Tablet of Chaos, then sending his followers into the Barrowmaze . . . Having used up a lot of spells and resources, the party retreated to a "safe" room (previously secured as a base) and took a long rest . . . 

8th Day of Hardfrost, 1000 GCY

     When the party finished their long rest, it was in the wee hours of the 8th. They explored a defiled crypt, where they fought a ghoul - Sariel turned the undead, and as it tried to flee, Omarion captured it, tied it on a leash, cut off its arms and jaw, and kept it. They then entered another defiled crypt, where four more ghouls awaited them. After this, the party decided to return to Helix for rest, recovery, and restocking . . . 

Valhalla (R.I.P.)

•  Imeni the Mongrelman, beheaded by Varghoulis the Dread Knight and his Crypt Knights of the Black Legion (1/3/1000)

Barrowmaze 5E Session 4 - Into the Barrowmaze - Hired Help, Barrows, and Dungeons

 

     Today (8/24/25) we played our fourth session of Barrowmaze 5E. Having decided previously to alternate exploration of barrows and the dungeon beneath them, the PCs planned to resume exploring the barrows at the start of this sessions. 

     Before we got to that, however, we started with the arrival of a caravan in Helix from Ironguard Motte. The caravan was in the employ of the Silver Standard Merchant Caravan, and had hired double the usual number of guards: a company of adventurers called the Fearsome Fivesome AND a bunch of independent adventurers. It was reported that the reason for this heightened security was a sharp rise in attacks by undead along the roads, some bearing the mark of the Black Legion. The PCs decided to hire some additional muscle before returning to the Barrowmaze, and so approached the independent adventurers (I used the pregen characters published with Barrowmaze for these characters): they ended up hiring Freelik of  Glossimir (High Elf Fighter 1), "Killer" Kelg Barrelgut (Hill Dwarf Fighter 1), and Brother Binford (Human Cleric of St. Ygg 1) at a rate of 2 gp/day each. The increase in "firepower" was assumed to be worth the split in XP . . . 

The roster of characters:

• Tanya - Sariel Moonblossom (Half-Elf Cleric of Arcantryl 2)
• Eli - Omarion Zolond (Drow Necromancer 2) 
• Aidan - Alivin O'Harris (Human Ranger 2)
• Christopher - Feles Pugnat (Tabaxi Fighter 2)
• Hireling - Freelik of Glossimir (High Elf Fighter 1) - 2 gp/day
• Hireling - "Killer" Kelg Barrelgut (Hill Dwarf Fighter 1) - 2 gp/day
• Hireling - Brother Binford (Human Cleric of St. Ygg 1) - 2 gp/day
• Mongrelmen Hirelings: Kasmut, Kenamon, Qalhata, Somintu, and Werenro

5th Day of Hardfrost, 1000 GCY

     The party set off for the Barrowmaze a bit later than usual (by about half an hour) because of the time taken to negotiate the hire of the hirelings. Along the way, they spotted two withered corpses along the path. They investigated, only to be set upon by two coffer corpses. The party quickly realized that non-magical weapons had little effect on the monsters, and switched to their meager magical daggers and spells to defeat them. 

      Arriving later than usual at the Barrowmaze, they explored the first mound to which they came - it was sealed, and so required some work with sledghammers to open. They found two skeletons (not animated), bowls of coins, and two decorated but fragile amphorae. 

     They then investigated a second mound, another one sealed requiring sledgehammer work to open, and found a sarcophagus; they opened it and faced a zombie draped in black cloth. In the battle the amphorae from the first mound were shattered. They defeated the zombie and claimed its treasure - a gold necklace with a jade scarab and a ring of protection +1 (claimed by Omarion, for the first time raising his Armor Class from 10 to 11!). 

     At this point, having spent much more time than expected hammering away at sealed tombs, the party decided to return to Helix before it got too much later. On the way they could hear the snarls and growls of the terrors of the Barrowmaze, but they managed to get back to Helix without incident. 

6th Day of Hardfrost, 1000 GCY

     The party got their usual early start to the Barrowmaze, intending to return to the dungeon beneath the burial mounds today. 

     This time they decided to explore a passageway to the north that they had previously bypassed. They entered a quiet crypt in which there was some graffiti ("Beware the Minotaur"), to which Feles added his own ("Feles was here"). They entered a second quiet crypt where they fought a giant spider and retrieved a hoard of electrum coins. Then they entered a defiled crypt in which they faced a phantom and found a runic tablet detailing the History of the Tablet of Chaos. 

     As a side note, this was randomly rolled - there are many runic tablets in the Barrowmaze, most of them bearing curses, but this one was purely informative, and of potentially epic importance, too. The tablet told of the ancient death-god Nergal and his Tablet of Chaos, which had power over death and the undead. It was said that the ancestral builders of the Barrowmaze brought the Tablet of Chaos to this place, and that it is possibly the reason the Barrowmaze is such an accursed place swarming with undead. It even hinted at the method of destroying the Tablet of Chaos (possisbly by sundering a law-aligned magical item or artifact against the Tablet of Chaos, thus destroying both!). 

     After this, the party explored a seemingly empty room beyond a portcullis, then found a secret door to a hidden chamber where they fought six zombies. 

    Finally, they explored one more chamber, smashing through a bricked up doorway to encounter a room with four shadows. They defeated the shadows in a hard-fought battle, then retreated back to Helix to recuperate . . . 

Valhalla (R.I.P.)

•  Imeni the Mongrelman, beheaded by Varghoulis the Dread Knight and his Crypt Knights of the Black Legion (1/3/1000)

Barrowmaze 5E Session 3 - Into the Barrowmaze - Return to the Dungeon

 

     Today (8/17/25) we played our third session of Barrowmaze 5E. Having spent the previous session exploring the burial mounds on the surface, in this session they decided to return to the dungeon. 

     The characters have learned to set off early in the morning, because travel time to and from the maze is about 4 hours each way, and they do not want to waste daylight in the maze (they took to heart warnings not to linger in the Barrowmaze after dark!). I use a time tracker that tracks both hours and 10-minute increments, which is useful in a setting in which one checks for random encounters every 20 minutes or so. The players got very lucky - they didn't roll a single random encounter for them in this game, even when they were making noise breaking down a bricked up doorway with sledgehammers!

The roster of characters:

• Tanya - Sariel Moonblossom (Half-Elf Cleric of Arcantryl 1)
• Eli - Omarion Zolond (Drow Wizard 1) 
• Aidan - Alivin O'Harris (Human Ranger 1)
• Christopher - Feles Pugnat (Tabaxi Fighter 1)
• Mongrelmen Hirelings: Kasmut, Kenamon, Qalhata, Somintu, and Werenro

4th day of Hardfrost, 1000 CGY

     The party entered the Barrowmaze and headed for the large mound they knew contained an entrance to the dungeon below the mounds. They used their own grappling hooks and ropes to enter, as they do not trust the existing apparatus. 

     The first room they explored was a trap that slammed down a stone slab with Alivin O'Harris and Feles Pugnat in a room and left Omarion Zolond, Sariel Moonblossom, and the mongrelmen outside the room. Then a door opened, releasing several skeletons into the room. Fortunately, Sariel quickly found a way to trigger the stone slab to rise, and the party was able to destroy the skeletons. 

     After this, the party carefully explored several more rooms, some of which were empty. For the first time they encountered rooms with burial alcoves, and spent time searching them for treasure - which was rewarded each time they searched, despite the cost in precious time! In one room they found a sack with 15 pp, in another room 108 gp from alcoves. 

     Next, they entered a room full of giant rats. Omarion blasted them with burning hands, and killed them all. The party looted 123 sp from that room! 

     They risked breaking down a bricked-up doorway next. The sound echoed through the ancient corridors of the dungeon, but brought no new random encounter down upon their heads, luckily! They looted sacks of treasure (300 sp and 400 gp) plus alcoves again (666 sp). 

      The party then moved into a slightly different area of the dungeon. I note that the maps for Barrowmaze do a pretty good job, considering the size of the task, but contain some oddities, such as areas where letters are used to indicate sub-areas, but the map does not always make clear to what area a sub-area belongs. Another oddity is that moving beyond area 17 leads to areas 60, 61, 62, etc. Like, it is hard to figure out how to number a non-linear dungeon, but sometimes, the numbering really seems to make little sense! Anyway . . . 

     They party found 115 cp, 2 silver earrings (50 gp), and a silver dagger +1, which ended up in the hands of the ranger, Alivin O'Harris, since the last magical dagger went to Feles Pugnat. 

     Passing through a room that had suffered a partial collapse, they triggerd another shower of debris, and everyone in the party took some damage from falling masonry.

     Finally, the party entered an chamber of many pillars (and some rubble from past collapses) occupied by a giant constrictor snake. The snake ensnared Sariel Moonblossom in its coils and nearly killed her, while the rest of the party engaged it in battle. It continued to lash out with its fangs while restraining Sariel. The party managed to kill the snake, searched the chamber and came up with 6 valuable gems, and then decided to make a retreat back to the town of Helix. They were able to make it back without any further encounters (although they thought they heard the distant war-drums of the Black Legion at one point!). 

     Back in Helix, the party sold off loot (they made a deal with a merchant to sell him the gems they found for a better price in exchange for promising him exclusive first rights to any gems they find in the future!). The party earned a total of 1072 XP, or 268 XP each. This brought them up to 461 XP each, so they leveled up to 2nd level. Alivin got to choose a fighting style (he picked two-weapon fighting) and Omarion chose necromancy as his arcane tradition. 

So now, the new roster of characters is:

• Tanya - Sariel Moonblossom (Half-Elf Cleric of Arcantryl 2)
• Eli - Omarion Zolond (Drow Necromancer 2) 
• Aidan - Alivin O'Harris (Human Ranger 2)
• Christopher - Feles Pugnat (Tabaxi Fighter 2)
• Mongrelmen Hirelings: Kasmut, Kenamon, Qalhata, Somintu, and Werenro

Valhalla (R.I.P.)

•  Imeni the Mongrelman, beheaded by Varghoulis the Dread Knight and his Crypt Knights of the Black Legion (1/3/1000)

Barrowmaze 5E Session 2 - Into the Barrowmaze and the Black Legion

 

     Today (8/10/25) we played our second session of Barrowmaze 5E. It was certainly an unpredictable good time!

     So, to start off, I had the characters roll on the Trinkets table in the Player's Handbook - it's a fun little assortment of knick-knacks that I had forgotten to have them check for the first game, so we did it now. One character got a silver snuff box, another got a book about the rise and fall of a famous hero with the last chapter missing, etc. Just stuff for role-playing. Also, it was noted that since the PCs had recruited 6 mongrelmen, many of the townsfolk muttered darkly about the mutated folk who live in the area of the Barrowmaze. They even heard a rumor that the mongrelmen enslave outsiders . . . the PCs didn't believe it (well, Feles Pugnat was inclined to believe it, but the others didn't!). Anyway, a little bit of backstory stuff, and the party was off to the maze! They planned to loot some more burial mounds before delving back into the dungeon!

The roster of characters:

• Tanya - Sariel Moonblossom (Half-Elf Cleric of Arcantryl 1)
• Eli - Omarion Zolond (Drow Wizard 1) 
• Aidan - Alivin O'Harris (Human Ranger 1)
• Christopher - Feles Pugnat (Tabaxi Fighter 1)
• Mongrelmen Hirelings (Non-Combatants): Imeni, Kasmut, Kenamon, Qalhata, Somintu, and Werenro

3rd Day of Hardfrost, 1000 GCY

     The party got an early start and headed for the Barrowmaze. Alivin suggested trying to loot a burial mound at the far end of the area. They found a sealing stone marked with a skull in front of a rose - according to legend, the mark of the Black Legion, a dark army that served the ancient cult of Nergal under the dreaded warlord Varghoulis! This did not deter the heroes! Using iron spikes and sledgehammers, they smashed open the sealing stone and entered the tomb! 

     Inside they found a stone sarcophagus marked with a similar seal to the one on the coverstone, but with eyes of rubies! While examining the crypt, they discovered a \secret door. They opened this door and found an indentical sarcophagus, containing, Kenamon and Alivin were badly wounded, and the PCs were forced to flee.

 

     Sariel Moonblossom was able to get Alivin and Kenamon on their feet again, and the party decided to try a different burial mound far away from that Varghoulis. On their way across the Barrowmaze, they saw another party, the  Boon Companions, and exchanged words with them. The two parties did not seem to like each other very much, and the PCs actually encouraged the Boon Companions to head toward Varghoulis' crypt! 

     The party entered another mound and fought a ghoul, defeating it and taking its treasure, and then tried another mound, where they defeated two skeletons and took their loot. They later discovered that a dagger they had acquired was a dagger +1, +2 vs. undead, which certainly seemed like it might be useful in the Barrowmaze! They also found a scroll with some spells that Omarion later added to his spellbook! 

     At this point, the PCs needed to return to Helix before nightfall. They sold some antiquities to Mazzahs the Magnificent, and used the gold to buy some healing potions, holy water, and other needed gear. That night at the inn they saw the Boon Companions, who were angry that the PCs allowed them to walk straight into Varghoulis and his allies . . . which apparently now includes a risen Black Legion of skeletons, zombies, and crypt knights! 

     The PCs earned a total of 250 XP from this expedition, or 75 XP each, bringing each of them to 193 XP. Since 300 XP are needed to earn level 2, it is likely they will level up in a session or two, assuming they survive. The surviving mongrelmen grieved very much for the loss of Imeni, but were grateful that the party protected the rest of them; Kenamon was especially grateful to Sariel Moonblossom for keeping him from bleeding out and reviving him. Their loyalty scores generally increased, with Kenamon especially feeling loyalty to the PCs for saving him from the Black Legion. 

     The Black Legion is now potentially a power in the Duchy of Aerik and a threat to the entire region. Good going, guys . . . 

Valhalla (R.I.P.)

•  Imeni the Mongrelman, beheaded by Varghoulis the Dread Knight and his Crypt Knights of the Black Legion (1/3/1000)

Barrowmaze 5E Session 1 - Into the Barrowmaze (8/3/25)

     So we finally began our D&D 5E Barrowmaze campaign! We set aside some time on Sunday afternoons to play - in slots of about 2 hours, because the kids do not have great attention span - and then had to wait another week after character generation (session zero) because Eli was out of town. 

     The roster of characters:

• Tanya - Sariel Moonblossom (Half-Elf Cleric of Arcantryl)
• Eli - Omarion Zolond (Drow Wizard) 
• Aidan - Alivin O'Harris (Human Ranger)
• Christopher - Feles Pugnat (Tabaxi Fighter)

     We started with some framing stuff - the characters are already in the town of Helix, have procured lodging and such (at a lifestyle cost of 2 sp/week), and have been hired by the local wizard, Mazzahs the Magnificent, to investigate the Barrowmaze and bring backs treasures and lore, and to seek out more information about the dungeon said to lie under the burial mounds. Also, I'm using the calendar presented in Michael Curtis' Adventurer's Almanac from Goodman Games, and starting the game in winter, in the beginning of a new year - the first day of Hardfrost. There is no built-in year for the GCY calendar (Grand Concourse Years), so I arbitarily assigned the date as 1000 GCY. 

First of Hardfrost, 1000 GCY

     The party got an early start from Helix. It takes about four hours to make it from Helix to the Barrowmaze. They picked out a burial mound to investigate - it turned out to be a covered mound that would require excavation (fortunately they had stocked up on shovels and picks). It took about eight hours of work to excavate the mound, so the sun was getting really low before they entered the barrow. At this point they realized they had not stocked uop on torches or lanterns, and had no light source, but they made makeshift torches from branches, and descended into the tomb. They found a crypt with four sarcophagi - and several giant centipedes, one of which surprised the human fighter by dropping onto him as he entered! This was their first fight, and they did OK. They killed the centipedes, looted the barrow, and headed back to Helix to heal and sell their loot to Mazzahs. 

2nd Day of Hardfrost, 1000 GCY

     Having stocked up on supplies, including a new lantern, the party again got an early start. Four hours to the Barrowmaze. This time the party followed a path of cairns to a large central barrow and entered it. They found a rusty old tripod and rope descending about 35' underground. They didn't trust the tripod, so instead used their own grappling hooks and rope to descend. They found thmselves in the dungeon about which they had heard speculation back in Helix! 

     The party began to carefully explore the dungeon, deciding to favor passages to the right. As they entered the first door to the right, they were set upon by some wandering giant rats! The rats landed some painful bites, but the party prevailed!

     The party continued their exploration and came upon a party of six mongrelmen who were apparently descendents of the original builders of the Barrowmaze. They apparently live in fear of The Necromancers of Set. The party recruited these mongrelmen as guides and helpers, offering them protection. There are three males (Imeni, Kenamon, and Somintu) and three females (Kasmut, Qalhata, and Werenro) - they agreed to help, but not as combatants. 

     After this, the party decided to retreat back to Helix to plan their next moves! 

DM's note: The Barrowmaze text gives no names for the mongrelmen and precious little info on their culture and such. Since there are some ancient themes in the ancient background of the setting (Nergal is Mesopotamian, Set is Egyptian, Orcus is Roman, etc.), I decided to give the mongrelmen Ancient Egyptian-flavored names. I rolled these ones randomly on some tables in the back of Xanathar's Guide to Everything. The party was non-threatening to these mongrelmen and immediately offered to protect them from The Necromancers of Set when they learned of the mongrelmen's fear of them, so I decided that they were recruitable as followers - this makes a bit more work for me, but seems worth it in opportunities for role-playing! 

     The session ended there, with the PCs earning 118 XP each. Since 5E requires 300 XP to reach 2nd level, it seems likely that if the PCs survive and continue a similar trajectory, they'll level up in about three games. The combats went more smoothly than they did on my previous attempt at 5E - maybe it is just that the kids are a little older now and better able to figure out the math and what is going on? Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised at how well it flowed. DCC RPG is still my go-to game, but 5E doesn't seem that bad! 

P.S. I later created NPC sheets for the mongrelmen with Loyalty scores and space for equipment and such. I gave them all personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws, based on the tables for the "Hermit" background from the Player's Handbook, as this seemed the most applicable. It was a bit of work, creating separate sheets for 6 different NPCs, but I think it will pay off down the line . . . 

Barrowmaze 5E - Edition Wars and Preparing for the Adventure

      My son Christopher really wants to learn to play D&D. A lot of his peers play D&D. They play D&D at groups he attends. I have been into D&D since about 1985. The problem? What do we mean by "D&D"? 

     Honestly, I loved D&D as I played it back in 1985. Back then, a lot of us played "Basic" D&D (as most of my friends called what is now generally referred to as BECMI) and/or Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, or AD&D. It was a glorious mess of a game - or games. D&D and AD&D were not technically the same game, but a lot of us didn't distinguish between them, back then. 

     Then came AD&D 2nd edition (hereafter 2E), which tightened up and cleaned up some mechanics. Slightly less messy, but a lot of people felt it was slightly less glorious. This was the era when I really came of age, though - 2E was what I ran through high school and college, and the nostalgia factor is strong for me.

     When D&D 3rd edition came out (they dropped the "Advanced," and now all D&D was just "D&D"), I wanted to hate it. To resist. But it was so cool. They had revised the mechanics to make sense. A version of D&D that made sense all the time! No more glorious mess! But . . . less glorious altogether? Hard to say. My gaming group did make the switch, even upgrading to the "3.5" version a couple of years later. I was out of grad school and teaching in high schools by then, and had less time for gaming, but my friends and I made time when we could. And we had fun.

     The best part of the 3E/3.5 era, for me, was when I discovered that there was a lot of AD&D nostalgia among publishers of 3E games. One company, Necromancer Games, actually published with the slogan, "Third Edition Rules, First Edition Feel" - and wow, did they deliver! But my favorite was a new series of modules under the Open Game License (OGL) published by Goodman Games called "Dungeon Crawl Classics." Let me tell ya - the nostalgia factor was off the charts with these bad boys! The DCC line was made up of modules that evoked the feel of the glory days of Basic D&D and AD&D, but used the new rulesets. It was the best of both worlds for me - the new rules that made sense, and the wild, glorious feeling of classic D&D games. Despite their brazen claim to be "dungeon crawls," there was plenty of roleplaying to be had - these were not just stupid slugfests! These felt like everything I had been missing since 2E and 3E began . . . a golden age!

      Before the dark times. Before the Empire. 

     Then came 4th edition - 4E - and . . . I don't know what to say. It isn't D&D, as I understand the term. This is my sole concession to Edition Wars. I don't do Edition Wars. I don't believe in BadWrongFun. Play whatever makes you happy! But . . . please don't think if 4E as D&D. It's . . . just not . . . It's kind of like if someone tried to make a board game, inspired by video games, but then tried to pretend it was a TTRPG . . . yeah. Actually, 4E did result in some cool board games, like the Ravenloft-inspired one. It was a cool board game. But not D&D. 

     My group did try D&D 4E. We tried it. We just couldn't get into it. One of my best friends has a sister who started with 4E when she was in high school. She said they loved it and had a lot of fun. Good for them! But it was not for us . . . Alas, Goodman Games intially tried to make the leap from 3E/3.5 Dungeon Crawl Classics to 4E DCC, but . . . it just didn't sell well. No one I knew at the time wanted to play the thing. It just . . . flopped. And not just for us. Despite my friend's sister and her peers, sales were low, and it kind of flopped in the market. 

     At this point, some important developments happened. I moved from Rhode Island to Arizona. I found a new gaming group there. Our game? Pathfinder - a game designed to be "D&D 3.75" - the idead was to have a game that continued and expanded upon the D&D 3E/3.5 with a "3.75" - it was crunchy, in the way that 3E had become. Too crunchy, really. People called it "Mathfinder" (and that's when they were being polite!). But we had a heckuva lot of fun! 

     Around the same time as my gaming group in Arizona adopted Pathfinder as our system, Goodman Games decided to publish their own system, inspired by Appendix N and the Dungeon Crawl Classics line of modules. They called it the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. This is far and away my favorite TTRPG system, and I can't get into everything awesome about it right now. My original AZ group didn't want to try DCC RPG, so we stuck to Pathfinder for years, but I started other groups to play DCC RPG. 

      Eventually, Wizards of the Coast, the publishers of D&D in the modern era, got tired of losing money on 4E, and announced a 5th edition. I have to confess, I had minimal interest. When it came out, it looked good enough, I guess - definitely a step in the right direction, going back to traditional TTRPGs and away from something that felt like a messed-up hybrid of board game and video game. But . . . did we need 5E? Not really! DCC RPG was my go-to system, but I loved what I was seeing with OSE (Old School Essentials, a cleaned up version of B/X, or Basic and Expert D&D, before BECMI) and the Dolmenwood setting. And in recent years, ShadowDark has provided a really cool alternative to D&D, and I got my hands on it right around the time my family moved from Arizona back home to Rhode Island. 

     So when someone says, "Want to play some D&D?" . . . well, I usually think, "Sure! How about some DCC RPG? Or some OSE? Or ShadowDark? Heck, Dolmenwood (now its own system!) looked like it is going to be really cool!" But when a kid says, "Can we play D&D?", they mean D&D 5E. Actually, it's a bit of a mess, because now there's a 2024 revision to D&D 5E. But whatever. It's 5E. 

     So myyoungest kid, who turns 11 this week, wants to "learn to play D&D." That means 5E. Also, my 23-year-old son wants to try it, for much the same reason - their peers play 5E (although he plays DCC RPG with me already). So I'm going to learn to run 5E.

     I've been looking forward to trying out the massive megadungeon called Barrowmaze. I even got the 5E version (it was originally published in a more generic "OSR" version that worked well with games like AD&D and retroclones of AD&D like OSRIC). So I'm prepping to run Barrowmaze for 5E. We had a "session 0" to create characters a week ago Sunday (7/20/25). We had no game this week (7/27/25) because my older son was visiting Arizona. So our first game is scheduled for Sunday, 8/3/25.

     Prepping for Barrowmaze 5E has presented some challenges. For example, a lot of "old school" play is very adult in content - like, I'm modifying how I present the "town" setting of Helix, because there is a lot of reference to prostitution and such. I needed to present the "story hook" with some hard framing - e.g. "Your characters are in the town of Helix. You've been hired by the local wizard, Mazzahs the Magnificent, to explore the Barrowmaze." The characters have lodging at the local tavern - I don't mention that it is called The Brazen Strumpet - and have the mission already. I even have built-in recommendations from Mazzahs that they acquire some sledgehammers and digging equipment for excavating the barrows (rather than gp through the tedium of having the PCs go to the Barrowmaze, discover that they do not have the proper equipment, have to return to Helix to buy the equipment, then travel back to the Barrowmaze, etc.). So when we start, we can jump right to exploring the Barrowmaze! I look forward to seeing how it goes! I'm really hoping, to paraphrase the slogan of Necromancer Games, that our game is "Fifth Edition Rules, First Edition Feel!" Admittedly, part of the "old school" would be letting players go through the tedium I mentioned (and learn a valuable lesson or two from it), but I also want it to be accessible to my 11-year-old and jump to the fun part. There will be plenty of time to learn lessons facing the horrors of the Barrowmaze!