On Wednesday afternoon, I found a email by Chris Sims in my inbox. Chris works for D&D insider but I knew him for having worked on quite a few D&D books, my favorite being the D&D 3.5 Rules Compendium and having briefly chatted with him at Gen Con last year. As I read the email, […]
The Dungeon Reality Show, Part 4: Let’s Play!
Okay so I busted my deadline for posting the whole thing in one week. However I am going through with the project! Part 1 and part 2 of this series introduced the Dungeon Reality Show. Part 3 was where I started to describe an example of DRS based on Blood Bowl and presented the 1st […]
Inq. of the Week: One Year Later for 4e
Starting with the initial announcement at GenCon 2007, we polled reaction to the coming of a new system and found most to be cautiously optimistic. Then shortly after release, we polled about everyone’s favorite edition of D&D, which at the time showed a preference for 4e, and late voting has only increased that lead. It seems only natural to follow up with the following, after 1 year of release, the question on many minds…
Primal/Within Chronicles: Say Yes and have Fun! Part 2
See part 1 here. The word of the Spirit After the Ritual was completed and the elemental monsters were vanquished, Dworkin announced that he was now the spokesperson of the Kodiak spirit. Franky and I had worked out the relationship between his character and the potential spirit beforehand so he explained that from now on, […]
Primal/Within Chronicles: Say Yes and have Fun! Part 1
Previously in Chatty’s game… Our heroes are hired by a mercenary outfit to protect the lives of four City Within candidate in a one-day campaign/election of the city’s newest burg. Thought wheeling and dealings, criss-crossed agendas, monsters gone wild and delusional candidates, our heroes are caught in this electoral storm and try their best to […]
With Karate (And Psionics) I’ll Kick Your Ass
Monks are Psionic. (Yes, “Martial Striker” was half wrong). As per the Design & Development article that accompanied it, Ki is a dead power source (though some third party products have already tried to use it). Personally, I have no problem with this. On multiple occasions, I attempted to run campaigns with an eastern flavor, and banned most (or all) arcane and divine classes, relying primarily on psionic and ki powered characters. Conceptually, they always seemed very close together: an internal energy source with fantastic abilities powered by intense discipline.
The Dungeon Reality Show, Part 3: Lets play Blood Bowl, 4e Style
In Part 1 of this series, I described the implied setting of the Dungeon Reality Show (DRS) In Part 2, I described a few of the tricks I used when I DMed such an event. Today, I’ll start sharing a recent example of a DRS game using the Bloodbowl game. My proposed adventure will differ […]
The Dungeon Reality Show, Part 2: Of Sponsors, Ambiance and Lines
In part 1, I presented the implied setting of my Dungeon Reality Show (DRS)concept. Today, I’ll describe some of the gimmicks I use as a DM when I play a DRS game. The Set Whenever I throw the PCs into the Plane of Games, I always make sure to describe the barely contained chaos that […]
MM2 Worldwide D&D Game Day: Behind the Screen
Over a month ago, I discovered that Monster Manual 2 Game Day would fall smack dab in the middle of Balticon, so I decided I’d try to combine peanut butter and chocolate and sign up to run the game day at my Friendly Local Science Fiction Con. I hadn’t been happy with the previous game day at the game store closest to where I live, and didn’t particularly want to leave the con to head to a game store that day, so I navigated through the RPGA signup system to run it myself (and hey, get a pile of minis to boot).
Lessons from the Heroic Tier
This March, I placed my game on hiatus so that I could graduate. At that time, some of the players were at 9th level and not too far from 10, so I decided to cheat a little and advance all the players to Paragon to begin the next chapter on the next tier. However, during the 9 levels of solid play we got in, I learned a few things about D&D 4e, at least as far as I could learn from the heroic tier. Here’s what I’ve learned about running 4e for close to 10 levels, in no particular order.
Recent Comments