Dungeons and Dragons has been quite a prevalent part of my life these past few years. As a Dungeon Master, playing D&D has kept me quick-witted and ready for anything (in a campaign sense, not so much in life as a whole). My players are all sorts of chaotic. Not only must I prepare the campaign, but I also have to prepare myself for possible outcomes from my players (and they will still do something completely unexpected). 

There is quite a lot of work to do before we hop into a session. Unfortunately, I do not always have the time to dedicate to proper preparations. Playing Strixhaven on Roll20 has opened my eyes to how much easier it can be not only to prepare for a campaign but to run one as well. Even if I had some trouble with the UI, Roll20 improved the experience from the DM side on the whole.

The Module

Strixhaven, as with all official D&D modules, brings you into a world absolutely teeming with magic. The university that is Strixhaven is where magic users can go to hone their craft. Wizards, clerics, druids, and the like will easily find a place at Strixhaven. However, classes that are predominantly magic-based are not the only ones welcome. Classes like barbarians and rogues are also welcome. There are sub-classes and feats within these classes that allow them to wield magic. In doing so, they will find a welcome home in Strixhaven. 

Overall, Strixhaven does a good job of making sure that everyone feels welcome at the university. There is a section in the beginning dedicated to accessibility. It describes how one might navigate more difficult terrain, such as stairs, while on campus. The general gist of it is that the stairs will transform into the most accommodating means of travel for the user. This can be a ramp, an escalator-type mechanism, or even just teleportation. There are also reminders in the various locations about this mechanic. Simply put, there is no reason for anyone to not feel welcome at Strixhaven or be able to make their way around the campus. 

Strixhaven also integrates some interesting new mechanics. One such mechanic is the relationship point system. This allows you to track how close they are with other members of the community. Your interactions with other members can increase or decrease your standing and will determine how others view you.

Another interesting system that Strixhaven brings are exams. The system is broken into a study phase and the actual exam phase. You determine how you want to study and it will help decide how well you do during the exam. During the actual exam, you roll against a certain skill check set at a pre-determined difficulty class. Passing an exam will give you an extra die to roll on checks of the same nature for the rest of the academic year. For example, if you had to roll against Arcana on your exam, passing means that you could earn an extra 1d4 for all Arcana rolls through the rest of the school year. 

Strixhaven also brings a new race: the Owlin. These Owl folk are an interesting new addition to D&D. Their ability to fly lends itself to some interesting gameplay, as races who can fly normally do, but they have an interesting mechanic. Their feathers automatically give them proficiency in Stealth. Their Darkvision is also extended to 120 feet, instead of the normal 60. I can already see how Owlin will be used to make wonderful Rogues but from the sky. 

Schoolwork is not the only thing to do in Strixhaven. Just like in our world, you can participate in extracurriculars and jobs. These can increase your standing with members of the community, as well as give you perks moving forward. Extracurriculars will give you an extra die to add to rolls just as exams do. They also allow you to further build relationships with people. Jobs will allow you to earn some coin while building relationships as well.

Outside of these new mechanics, the story is broken up into four years. If you follow the layout in the module, players will start as first-year students making their way through their academic career. Year One is very much a “tutorial” year where everyone gets used to the setting and mechanics. Year Two opens the world even more as that is when players can decide what track to follow and will go off into the different colleges that correspond. Picking a college will also allow the players to add spells to their repertoire. 

But what is a magic school without a dark force afoot? Starting in Year One, there is a mysterious force at play. In fact, it might even start showing its face during orientation. Orientation does include a scavenger hunt, which did give me a good laugh. I had to participate in the same thing when I started my college career. Though Strixhaven’s ended a little more interestingly than mine did.

Strixhaven is a lot of fun because it brings a lot of opportunities for world-building. The module is not as combat-heavy as other modules have been. The main focus is roleplay and character building. While there are still combat opportunities, this module is certainly better suited for fans of roleplaying and character interactions.

Roll20

Prior to playing Strixhaven on Roll20, I had used it for a homebrew campaign (the short-lived Digital Dragons campaign that was on the Digital Chumps Twitch). I had a basic knowledge of Roll20 and its workings. I was not a fan of it. It felt overly complicated and the UI was not user-friendly. However, my views have now changed. Some.

Running a module in Roll20 is, overall, leaps and bounds better than running a homebrew campaign. Everything was already in place and ready to go for me. The maps were all set with NPCs in their places. NPC and enemy abilities are programmed to their tokens making combat and interactions a breeze. Strixhaven was a delight to run in Roll20. 

However, I did run into some issues once players got involved. Firstly, I was unaware that you could make player sheets in Roll20. This was wonderful to find out but took a little bit to understand. I did not realize that the character had to be made with basic information saved before a character sheet could be added. It took no small amount of searching to figure out. If I had to run a Session 0 and players ran into this, it would certainly bring things to a halt. 

After that, I had some issues with the tokens. I assigned a player to a character and that character to a token. I figured that this would then assign the player to the token automatically (if A=B and B=C, then A=C and all that). This was not the case. Every time I moved to a new map, I had to reassign the player to the token. Depending on the party size, this could be a real pain to have to do every time. It would, realistically, need to be done before the session so that it is ready to go. Now, I will put a disclaimer here: there might be a better way to do this, and I missed it. But, while running a campaign, I did not want to take the time to figure it out while my players waited.

Overall though, Roll20 was a delight to use with Strixhaven. Though it takes a bit of learning, it is a powerful tool. Especially for players who cannot play in person. I could even see it being a powerful tool for in-person play, especially for a DM. There are tools such as dynamic lighting and sightlines that could change how the game is played and maps are viewed. I did not take a look at them this time, and they are a part of their subscriptions, but I’ve seen them advertised for a while and they seem quite interesting. 

However, I would recommend a Session 0 – Part 2 to dedicate to teaching new users Roll20. But, as with any software, once you learn how to use it, it can change the game.

Roll20, while difficult to use at first, is a powerful tool that can really change how you interact with your campaign. Being able to buy the module and have everything populate automatically is delightful. As is the ability to share information, pictures, items, and more with my players at the press of a button. There is even a community store where you can bring in extra map pieces or tokens. With the digital TTRPG space expanding, Roll20 is a good resource for all. 

Strixhaven is a wonderful setting and one that I plan to explore more in the future. I have some players that love roleplaying and worldbuilding that would love this module. The new mechanics, as well as the addition of Owlin, make this a welcome resource for many campaigns. As does the setting. Seeing Wizards of the Coast adding accessibility to their modules is also nice, especially after the recent discourse about it in the community. I think Strixhaven would be a wonderful place for new players to begin their dive into D&D 5e, but also a good place for more seasoned players to work with new mechanics.