Mike Shea talks to Chris Sims about designing effective encounters in D&D 4e.
The Architect DM: Give Your Cities Some Architecture
Not every D&D campaign or world map includes nations or regions that break the larger mass into more digestible pieces, but this is one of the features that I’m glad I chose to be a primary element of my current D&D campaign. Inspired by a 3rd Edition D&D campaign run by our friend Dennis (aka The Main Event) where the nationality of the PCs became one of the most memorable parts of the game for me and ended up factoring into the ongoing plots in interesting ways, I decided to present my players with a world divided into various nations each with a unique flair and often divided by racial distinctions. However, one of the elements that I failed to strongly present to my players and that I’m going to discuss today is the idea of giving a unique design and feel to each of those nations when it comes to locations and buildings.
4e CAN be Old-School!
I asked myself a question a few weeks ago, and now I can finally start to answer it. Along the way, I scare myself with the random numbers that have stayed in my head for 30 years.
Con-Versations: Highlights of The Grand Roludothon
In which Chatty recounts his gaming day at a local con, describing the highlights of his Dungeon Reality Show and Old School Job sessions.
The Architect DM: Planar Modification
Last week my first appearance ever on the Tome Show podcast was posted (on my Birthday, no less!) and the topic that I was very pleased to be invited in on was Planar Advice for 4th Edition. Thank you to Jeff for the invite, and if you haven’t listened to this episode or if the Tome Show in general then you should head over to his website and check it out!
Review: D&D Daggerdale
D&D Daggerdale is the newest D&D video game release from Atari, available for download on PC, Playstation Network, and Xbox Live. We played the Xbox version, using review copies provided from the publisher. A “hack and slash” style game (in the same genre as Diablo, World of Warcraft, and to a lesser extent older D&D games like Neverwinter Nights and Baldur’s Gate), the game is touted as the first game to use the D&D 4e ruleset (though the connection is loose, as we’ll discuss) and set in the Forgotten Realms.
Critical Hits Podcast #29: Randall Walker and Mike Shea on Terrain
Mike Shea of Sly Flourish interviewed Randall Walker of Initiative or What? (Deadorcs on Twitter) about the use of terrain in your 4e D&D game.
Critical Hits Podcast #28: Mike Shea and Matt James on Power Creep
What is power creep? How does it manifest in 4e? What are some of the egregious examples? How can a DM deal with all those many classes, races, powers, and items out there? These questions and more are discussed by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish and Matt James of Loremaster.
I Am Fortune’s Fool
There’s a new article up on the D&D website, available to everyone, about alternate uses for Fortune Cards. The article was written by Sarah Darkmagic, Greywulf, Tim Brannan, and oh yeah, me.
Unboxing – The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond Boxed Set
We were extremely fortunate to get an early copy of the upcoming D&D boxed set called The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond to unbox and show you all today. It comes packaged in a thin box the same size as the Red Box starter set and comes with a very sturdy 127 page paperback Campaign Guide, a 31 page Encounter Book, two sheets of cardboard tokens, one poster with a map of gloomwrought on one side and an encounter map on the other, and a Despair deck of 30 cards.
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