Random Thoughts: Story Telling Dungeon Crawling Kids in Diablo's Caves to Crit Mearls

(Told you I would not last a week)

I was supposed to be at work, getting ready for the arrival of a new colleague in my team but my 6 year old son has developed a case of Chicken Pox.

I’m therefore at home, playing some Raving Rabbits 2 with him and drawing some Manga out of a Christopher Hart How-to book with my 5 year old daughter. I pencil and she inks… I think we would make a good comic Team…

I’m taking a few minutes to drop in and say hi! Gen Con work progresses. I’m sending letters out to publishers tonight to get some GM-centric material to showcase at our GM-Fu Seminar (and then offer it as prizes).

Here’s a few random thoughts not worth making a full post but subject to fire discussions a bit.

Say yes or face the dungeon (Through lame mage production by way of Tommi’s shared RSS feeds)

Ben I know you’ll love this. This one is for you.

In a story telling game where players get to dictate what happens and how, GMs now have a way to insert Dungeon crawls, in the spirit of the classic ‘say yes or roll the dice’, !

If players want to accomplish something in your ongoing story that the GM considers too hard to just allow without having the players work for it, he can present a dungeon and tell the players to beat it to get what they want.

The trick? The players and the GM get to decide together how the crawl would fit in the story. Once agreement is reached, the crawl starts.

For example, players are trying to negotiate a peace treaty with ultra conservative dwarves who refuse to acknowledge that non-dwarves are sentient. The players come up with the idea that they could get to a dwarven Book of Law, find a non-refutable proof that a non-dwarf can be considered sentient and worth discussing to a dwarf.

The DM thinks it’s a great idea, but not an automatic success. He then says, ‘I’ve got this kobolds occupied dungeon, with a few traps and a nasty surprise Boss, if you beat it, you convince the dwarves to organize a conclave to discuss peace.

So now the players and DM discuss how the crawl could fit in the story. One players says that the lost original of the Dwarven Codex of Law sits in that dungeon, forgotten by all except for a vague reference that one players heard about earlier in her career.

Said Codex could possibly show that non-dwarves are worthy beings and that later copies were corrupted because of linguistic shifts (or malicious intent by older dwarven leaders).

I don’t know about you, but I absolutely love this.

On playing D&D 4e with children

Truly, as mentioned here, D&D 4e is a snap to teach to children. They ‘get’ the concept of powers instinctively. I’ve been playing a few mini sessions with my son and here are thoughts for those who’d like to try it with their own little minions. I’ll post more structured thoughts later (making a tips article out of it) but here’s a few:

• If your children are literate, just give them the power cards and keep the PC sheets on your side.
• If not, describe (or draw) each power they have
• Role playing comes naturally to children. It’s perfect practice to work at your improv skils , doing voices and changing things on the fly
• Hit Points are only a suggestion, when children start fidgeting with the dice and the chairs, it’s time for those monsters to become all minions.
• Children will say out loud what they expect like “Ohhh I bet this door is stuck and I’ll need to force it open with my great axe!’ … well make it so!
• Children like to make friends in dungeons… drop friendly NPCs that can help… however…
• Keep NPC on NPC action to a minimum it’s okay for NPCs to help, it’s not okay to have them spend 5 minutes attacking everything that moves with an area effect. Give the child control of the friendly NPC
• Make then roll all dice!
• Keep sessions short… After one fight, take a break and do something else…
• Yes, you can now do stuff in 30 minutes in D&D… with children, fight go faster because they don’t overthink things… and they still manage to beat the crap out of stuff (hint hint to you planner/cautious types here)

Diablo III’s demo is oddly familiar:

PM, Yan and myself were watching the play demo of Diablo III yesterday.

Throughout the series of nerdgasms and making us Blizzard’s Bitches for life, I kept saying, but that’s what D&D 4e is about! Cool powers, bringing down the scenery on monsters, exploding minions… it’s all in 4e!

So guys, D&D 4e is not ripping off MMORPGs, it’s a Diablo Clone, without Cain and with added Role Playing elements.

Critical Hit scored at Origins

Dave is just back from Origins and scored quite a few interview in the form of Podcasts, including one with Mike Mearls. I’ve been told that he mentions me in it! (Hurrah for minions!) and Dave told me that after the interview Mike mentionned a post of mine he read and liked…

Woot! My fragile attention whorish ego just leveled up!

See you later!

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