I have an article in the 2nd to last (for now) issue of Dragon, and it’s a redone version of my most popular article on Critical Hits. It was also my first paid piece in my RPG designer career.
Recompiling Digital D&D
A common complaint with 4th Edition has been the online tools that go with it. Now that we have a Next Edition coming, WotC gets another shot at getting their cyberducks in a row. The best part is, this time out they’re asking all of us what we want from D&D. Guess what? I want better online tools! Furthermore, I have a few suggestions. WARNING: Some programmer jargon ahead. Proceed with digital caution.
The Architect DM: Building a DM Library
I believe that most DMs have only run a single campaign world, whether it was one big campaign that has been continued through various ages, or they’ve only managed to run one satisfactory campaign. The tendency for a DM seems to be to conserve the number of campaigns they run by reusing worlds or tying them together so that in the end the number of campaign worlds they run is as close to one as possible. I think our tendency as DMs is to keep things relatively stable within our game worlds unless they are split by something like a change in campaign.
Preview: Dungeons & Dragons Virtual Table
What they’ve come up with is a pretty solid product with some extra specific to D&D touches that I haven’t seen so smoothly integrated elsewhere, which gives me hope for this product. There’s still a few key features I would love to see (which I’ll get into) but it’s a great start, and totally useable right out of the gate.
DDI Customers: Check Your Credit Card
If you’re a subscriber to Dungeons & Dragons Insider, you may want to check your credit card statement from the past few months for fraudulent charges. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the e-commerce servicer Digital River (which handles the payment processing for DDI) was recently hacked, leading to possible leak of the personal information of almost 200,00 customers.
How the iPad Changes D&D
If I had to guess, I’d guess that you either already love the iPad or already hate it, and another 2000 words won’t change that. If you hate it, you might want to move on. I don’t think this article will make you any happier. What I do want to focus on are the short-term ways the iPad could potentially change our D&D games. I’m primarily a D&D 4th Edition dungeon master so this article is likely to focus on that as well.
Interview: Matt James, Co-Author of “Monument of the Ancients”
“Monument of the Ancients“ was published in Dungeon #170 and is an adventure set in the Forgotten Realms for 13th level characters. The capsule description is thus: If myth and legend are to be believed, the antediluvian monument defends a region of Faerûn where the boundary between the world of Toril and the Elemental Chaos […]
Chrome Compendium
Just a quick tip for a very small cross section of people. If you use Google Docs, the Chrome web browser, and the DDI Compendium, you can copy and paste stat blocks directly into a Google Doc and retain all the formating. This has proven very handy for my games, where instead of referencing books during the game or printing things out, I can just pull open the Google Doc where I’ve done my planning and reference the stat blocks there. (Plus, if I want, I can edit them to change names, adjust powers, or take away hit points).
D&D Character Builder is Live
You can now generate characters of all 30 levels using the newly updated Character Builder if you’re a D&DI subscriber. Otherwise, you can still download the level 1-3 trial version. I’m still figuring out the details of how many computers I can install it on from the announcement thread on the WotC forums. The interface […]
Critical Bits for the week ending 2009-01-10
New DDI Updates: “Prepare for the Resolution” http://is.gd/eMtl “Fist of Mourning” http://is.gd/eMtt “Don’t let the XP grind you down” http://is.gd/eMtD # Retweeting @thewanderingmen: Planescape: Torment fans might find this interesting: http://tinyurl.com/77cawc # WotC updates: Sylvan Cathedral http://is.gd/eRBL Whose Mug is That? http://is.gd/eRCj Digital Insider http://is.gd/eRCl #
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