What Possessed Me to Write a D&D Gaming Guide?
How I came to build a new character sub-class for Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons has been a part of my life since 1980. I discovered the seminal roleplaying game from overheard conversations amongst 6th-grade classmates who were playing the very early incarnations of the tabletop mainstay. Already exposed to The Hobbit, I was immediately intrigued. As a lifelong storyland escapist - to this very day - I was instantly fascinated.
Truth be told, my mother never understood my obsession with weird stories and mythological entities and the like. She was raised in a conservative Christian region and family and had trouble relating to my interests. To her credit, though, she indulged me and supported my hobbies of comic collecting, fantasy novels, role-playing games, and sci-fi movies. That support included taking me to an indie toy store to buy my first D&D guides, the Monster Manual and Deities & Demigods hardcovers. I poured over those hundreds of pages of new fantasy lore and incredible images for days and hours and years. Although the books are long gone, much of the content remains in active memory.
From that tender age of 10 years, I went on to run small campaigns with friends and my brother using the classic D&D red box from the early 1980’s, until we discovered TSR’s Marvel Super Heroes FASERIP (named for the first letters of the character attributes used in the game) system, which became our primary gaming outlet for nearly a decade. I GM’ed an X-Men-adjacent campaign throughout those years, and I can honestly still recite most of the story beats from those many sessions. Wow.
Honestly, most of my storytelling chops developed from composing tabletop roleplaying campaigns for friends and family. After the Marvel years, I turned to the West End Games Star Wars RPG, the “d6 system”, as it’s still widely known and loved, and, in the mid 2000’s, we transition to Wizards of the Coast’s d20 Star Wars system and enjoyed the largest, most well-sustained gaming group I’ve ever been part of. People I haven’t seen for years still bring up those storylines when we run into each other after time apart.
Over the past few years, as my own nuclear family shifted and grew, I found myself returned again to the fantasy realms of Dungeons & Dragons and have played in a couplpe of different campaigns. I’m typically an elf player, simply by my admiration of Legolas from The Lord of the Rings, and I absolutely fell in love with the gritty dark magic of the Warlock class, so it’s been a blast playing a dark elf warlock that rides the line of conventional morality but has good intentions at heart.
D&D 5th Edition character creation rules are extensive and extremely dense, not for the casual gamer. Even as a seasoned RPG guy, some elements of the process can seem impenetrable. Of course, this elaborate complexity is what allows for such uniqueness in the final character. As I explored the rules to define the type of character I wanted, it occured to me that:
New players might benefit from class-specific guides on character creation.
The existing rules might be supplemented to craft brand new, more innovative character sub-classes that are cool and different from what’s available.
So, earlier in 2023, I made the decision to write my own D&D 5E-compatible guide, under the Creative Commons License offered by Wizards of the Coast. After a lot of research and decision-making, I jumped in with both feet and began creating a sub-class that would bring the heavy metal bravado and wickedness of a badass drummer to 5E. The idea of a bard with a 1980’s-style Satanic Panic bent was too intriguing to pass up, so I made it. Furthermore, I wanted to exploit the multi-class rules that allow characters to branch out into more than just one class. So I expanded the drummer concept to include both Bard and Warlock attributes, then added some cool features and spells on top to really hammer home that concept of a thunderous drummer in the heart of a pitched battle.
Lords of the Pit Volume One: The Hell Drummer is a 24-page, comprehensive guide to using the 5E multi-classing rules to build a kit-bashing weapon of mass destruction by weaving together the Bard and Warlock classes. The Hell Drummer sub-class guide includes:
Original and exclusive Hell Drummer sub-class features like Timekeeper and War Drummer
Drummer-specific spells like Drumroll and Drop the Beat
Drum-themed magic items like Basilisk Skins and Gold Dragon Ear Drum
New monsters like the dreaded Bass Villain and Beatwing
Rival NPC's like the conniving dragonborn drummer Alaya Ayala
Brand new percussion instruments for the 5E Bard
Simple but substantial rules for busking - earning big coin as a street musician
A massive, two-page, easy-to-use table laying out the spells, class features, sub-class features, feats, and attribute bonuses to take at each and every level, from 1 through 20
A step-by-step build guide that explains every advancement decision on features, spells, etc.
Detailed walk-throughs of Hell Drummer strategy at all points
The Hell Drummer guide does the hard work for you, deciphering the arcane 5E multi-class rules for the ultimate, most fun Bard + Warlock combination and then laying it all out in a clear, understandable table and descriptions of how to use it.
The Hell Drummer guide is available in digital (PDF) format but also as a softcover zine or hardcover book, both at 8.5" x 11" dimensions. The softcover zine features a sturdy laminated cover stock, and the hardcover book is presented in durable case laminate format. Both softcover and hardcover options include the PDF edition at all reward tiers.
A lot of work and thought went into this book. I hope you’ll take a moment to check out the Kickstarter page and support it (for as little as $6).
Here’s to a great start to the week for you and for me.
All the best -
Kevin