Our Approach to D&D

Engraving by Hans Peter Hansen from the book Folk and Fairy Tales by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen.

Living Document

(last update 6/14/22)

Dungeons & Dragons 5e has changed over time and will continue to do so. Similarly, our approach to creating supplements that are ready-to-use with 5e will change over time. We’ll regularly update this page to keep you posted on our latest philosophy on our approach to 5e.

System Neutral, but Ready-to-Use with 5e

Like so many before us, we got our TTRPG start with Dungeons & Dragons. We played the game for a long time, and we still do! What can we say, those folks are onto something.

D&D was a wondrous first step into the vast landscape of TTRPGs, a landscape that gets bigger every day. There’s so much variety to experience and enjoy in this hobby, and Cloud Curio is all about wonder and exploration. We want to make our stories and game pieces available for all to bring into their games, no matter the systems they’re using.

TL;DR—We love all kinds of games, including D&D. In terms of system compatibility, our first priority is to make our publications system neutral, and our second priority is to make them immediately usable at the table for 5e players.

We want to bring our style of dark whimsy into people's game worlds by way of original items, monsters, plot hooks, and more. Our hope is that no matter what games you're playing or running, if you like what you see, you can download or print it and bring it to your table. Maybe you'll find a magic item to give to your players as a reward after they defeat an evil mage. Or maybe you'll bring that item to your noir cyberpunk game and make it powered by a malfunctioning AI’s nanotech avatar.

Streamlining

In the spirit of prioritizing key information, we will often streamline 5e statistics. We’ll often simplify statistics based on dice rolls to the average results. For example, a monster with 5d8 + 10 hit points might simply be presented as having 32 hit points. A magic weapon that deals 1d10 + 2d6 radiant damage might instead deal 1d10 + 7 radiant damage.

Similarly, we’ll often simplify abilities, particularly in printable cards. For example, the monster sudden brain has an ability that simply reads, “create a psychic barrier.” This simplification makes the monster more easily adaptable for any game system as well as bottom-lining the ability for 5e GMs.

However, for those interested in more thorough statistics for 5e, our blog entries for our releases will generally have more complete information.