For the last two years, I’ve run a Dungeons & Dragons game at the local library. This past May, I announced that the group would not be continuing in the Fall, since my Beloved Wife has gone back to college to change careers. However, the way schedules have worked out, I can run the game without creating much (additional) disruption. And I missed seeing the kids, too.

So I announced that I would run the game again. We had one player move away, and another decided that he didn’t want to continue. We also had a friend of one of the players ask to join. I now have three girls and three boys in the group. I’m glad to be doing my part to foster girl gamers.

We’ve now played two sessions of our continuing Red Hand of Doom campaign. The session we played on Saturday ended on a little cliff-hanger, with the party approaching the Town Hall in the flooded ruins of Rhest, dodging large javelins thrown by ogres on the rooftop. Then the adventurers watched the black dragon launch himself from the ruined wall into the air, his goblin rider whooping as the dragon bears down on them.

We won’t be playing again until mid-November, so I hope to have enough time to plan how the dragon will fight. I have run a couple encounters with dragons so far, and they haven’t been as impressive as they could have been. Dragons should make the character (if not the players) afraid, and I want the encounter to be harrowing. Needless to say, I’ll be looking for articles and advice on running dragon encounters over the next couple weeks.