We have a new player joining our group, and her character debut is going a little differently than I’d seen before. I’ve seen detailed backstories written. I’ve never seen a player bring a list of demands that must be met if her character is ever to see the light of day. Of course, I accepted her terms. You see, she hadn’t played D&D before, and she never knew about the credo of the Evil DM — “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!”
Why I’m Starting to Love Epic 4e D&D
I started playing and running 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons right as it was released. I started my current ongoing campaign back then with a party of 1st level characters and now three years later I’ve run over 50 adventures and the party is up to 24th level characters. The campaign has had its share of rough spots and tough times, but overall I’d say it has been an incredibly fun experience and something that I look forward to every other weekend. Dave was also running a campaign that was on the same track as mine only slightly ahead, but due to a myriad of reasons a few weeks ago we ran a day long, jointed finale that closed his game out in style and unrestrained awesomeness. What I’m discovering more and more over the last few weeks is that running epic level 4th Edition is some of the most fun I’ve ever had running or playing in any D&D game.
The Future of D&D Might Be Its Past
Monte Cook has been brought aboard to work on D&D to make “D&D the greatest RPG the world has seen.” Some may point to it just signaling a new edition, but I have another idea…
The Geek Way
In most dictionaries, the definition of “geek” is way behind the times. It’s still classified a pejorative term that implies negative qualities or insular, intellectual behavior. Synonyms include dork, freak, nerd, and weirdo—basically a social misfit. The reason I say this sort of definition, and the people who still use it, are behind the times is because geek has been moving toward chic since Revenge of the Nerds (1984) was in theaters. As the dorks of the 80s grew up and became business leaders, computer specialists, game designers, scientists, writers, and other sorts of accomplished professionals, “geek” has become synonymous with success and disposable income.
The Architect DM: Last Minute Planning
Charrette is a word that most likely means nothing to you, unless of course you studied Architecture or Design in school then it is a word that can mean quite a lot and the emotions it brings up vary widely from person to person. Charrette is a word used among architecture students to describe a design crunch/cramming session that derives from the French word for “cart”. The term became popular because schools in Paris would have carts pushed around to collect student’s drawings and it was not uncommon for students to continue working on their drawings for as long as possible by riding in the cart. For better or worse, the term has stuck through to this day and architecture students are still as bad as ever at finishing their projects before rigid deadlines.
The Architect DM: On Magic Items – Part 2
Last week I looked at some issues I’ve been experiencing with magic items in 4th Edition D&D and some possible solutions. This week I’d like to talk about some other possible solutions as well as just some general concepts related to magic items that hopefully generate some interesting ideas for how to handle magic items in your D&D campaigns. There were some fantastic comments on last week’s post and I’m going to incorporate some of the topics or ideas brought up there into this post as well.
Box Out Of Hell 2: Back Into The Box
Our last D&D session went a bit different from the usual. For most groups, that might mean stepping out of the box a little and trying something weird. For my players, it meant riding in a Toyota Camry on a very straight stretch of interstate back to Normaltown. For the first time in our group’s history, we switched over from homebrewed adventures crafted from the seat of my very pants over to pre-made adventures done by Real Professionals. Of course it didn’t go quite as planned.
The Architect DM: On Magic Items – Part 1
I’m sure that magic items in D&D have been talked about for countless hours, but with Wizards of the Coast finally releasing Mordenkainen’s Magical Emporium for 4th Edition in September and my home campaign nearing the middle of the epic tier I’ve been wanting to talk about them here. The handful of times that I ran 3rd Edition D&D I was guilty of handing out items of a much higher level than the party, but I would try to balance it out with concepts like staves only having a small number of charges. The players/characters always loved it, but I would hear from other D&D players outside of the game that they didn’t like what I was doing and that they had the impression it was “contrary to the rules of the game” or something like that. I didn’t mind them much, but was very intrigued by what they were saying.
The Architect DM: Campaign Building
It’s good to be back! The first week of August saw us at GenCon and very happily winning a Gold ENnie award, and then in the weeks after I’ve been catching up on things post-convention and getting back into the swing of things. Lately I’ve been discussing and toying with the concept that the best world building happens through playing a campaign, and so I suggest the world building DMs out there spend less time before play and just jump into things with a published or a bare bones adventure and then let the world build from there. This also opens your game up to the possibilities for players to contribute to the world building which for me has always turned out better than I could imagine.
Gen Con 2011: D&D New Products Seminar
As usual, speculation was rampant on what Wizards of the Coast would announce at Gen Con. Given the departure of some high-profile names and based on statements made via the D&D website, the default prediction seemed to be the announcement of D&D 5th edition, or some kind of Basic/Advanced split forked off the current edition of D&D. As it turned out, none of that happened. That said, there was a major announcement at the end of the D&D New Products Seminar at Gen Con, and it’s one that gamers have been asking for a LONG time.
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