Tag: dnd

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Books DnD Roleplaying

5e PHB and Starter Set

I’ve read them both and like them. Today’s Gnome Stew article was about the various 5e products that are out and how they interact.

Long story short: I’ve read Lost Mines of Phandelver (the Starter Set adventure) and Hoard of the Dragon Queen (the adventure that’s being run this season for D&D Encounters). I like them both and am eager to see the system in action.

The system feels very familiar right away; it really does have a “best of” feel, with extensive borrowing from 3rd edition, some stealthy borrowing from 4th edition, and the gritty feel of 2nd edition. At least, on the page and as reported by others. I may join a game or two this weekend down at Strategicon to get some play experience.

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Edited to add: I did get a chance to play at the con, and it worked mostly as imagined. It’s new, so there’s lots to master, but the biggest issue as a GM is largely the same as Fate–keeping track of the cool background stuff to play to and reward is much like Aspects from a GM overhead POV.

(Sidenote: 1. Random short plot with a dungeon generator
2. 3D printable minis, mostly modern era.)

Categories
DnD Roleplaying

5e Resources and Rob Donghue’s great PHB review

Rob has a thorough, interesting review of the 5e Player’s Handbook, section by section. He caught some interesting things and made me pay attention more when reading through it myself. His summary post with links to the twelve individual posts is 5e PHB Roundup

On the subject of 5e, I prepared for the first D&D Encounters session last Wednesday. We decided not to split the table of 7, but I wouldn’t be surprised if next week requires a second GM.

Useful links for public play and 5e generally:
5e Basic Rules PDFs, Adventurer’s League Resources
D&D Adventurers League Organizers, on Wizard’s website.
On G+ Adventurer’s League and Adventurer’s League: Far West

Spell Sorter (google doc)

Other cool stuff for 5e:
Table Tents for 5e Pregens, Generic Table Tents, Form Fillable Adventurer’s Logsheet,
Adventurer’s League Player’s Guide.

Dungeonscape looks like a 5e Hero Lab, designed for tablets.

Merrick’s Musings, a well written Australian blog with good 5e articles.
Frank Foulis for general 5e, especially play. Mike Schley, for cartography. Ultanya for monster conversions.

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DnD Roleplaying

4e links

Resources and Generators: Asmor’s Generators, Book of NPCs (v2), Chatty’s Tool Roundup, Kiznit’s Combat Crib Sheet

Character sheets and cards: iplay4e, Javascript character generator, Simple play sheet(pdf), and Dragon Avenue’s collection

WotC Site: 4e Errata, Compendium, and character builder.

Fan made: Greywulf’s Character of the Day, Catfolk and Ninja, Stored Rituals

Adventures and Other Resources: P3’s Campaign Starters, Forgotten realms wiki

Five Blades of Bahamut (a great custom setting by Chris Chinn) Setting Overview, Cults of Bahamut, Cults of Tiamat, Quest Seeds, Airships, Deities, Creation Myth, and Monsters

Categories
Books Roleplaying

The Elfish Gene

(subtitled: Dungeons, Dragons, and Growing Up Strange, a memoir) by Mark Barrowcliffe

The book is well written with a very consistent tone– but my attitude toward it varied dramatically over the course of the book. As it began, I empathized with his younger self, and remembered how D&D (and roleplaying) felt to me. I was annoyed, though, at his constant running down of himself and his friends– as a roleplayer, I felt like he was bagging on all of us. In the end, he really is, though there’s a lot of wistfulness as he talks about his early days.

In many ways he was a lot like me, squared. My love of gaming and friends squares into a horribly dysfunctional obsession; his sense of superiority is unbounded and turns him into a jerk around friends and family. His focus on cool reminds me of mine… but even more of Dan’s, with his desire to be the only one in on the obscure, his distaste for anything that turns popular.

In the end, it’s a great look at someone very like a more extreme version of me and my friends in junior high and high school. The same jealousies, dominance issues, and friendship choices loomed in his life. In the end, he sets up fantasy and reality as the dichotomy and chooses reality. For him, that’s victory, and I’m happy to let him mark it so. (Of course, I also note that my own identity is quite wound up in roleplaying– despite all the differences between us, I mostly ignored them and read along as if I was almost him. The differences in nation, schooling, social circles, and the like weren’t a huge consideration… which shows what an issue it is for me.)

I liked it, both for the familiarity and the differences. It’s a little amusing the ends he has go to in order to remain apart from the world of fantasy… but only because I’ve made little effort to separate myself from it. Something tells me that it’d be as painful a scab to pick… if I chose to. For now, I still look forward to gaming in the old folks home with my wife.

Categories
DnD FATE Games Roleplaying

Random gaming update

D&D:
Make a 4e Druid from a Fey Pact Warlock.
Earthdawn is being released as a 4e world setting
Mount clarifications
Chatty reports on the new catalog spilling that Players Handbook 2 will include Druid, Barbarian, Sorcerer, and Bard classes (eight in all). New races will include the gnome, the half-orc, and the Goliath.

Fate/SotC:
Starblazer Adventures is preordering.
Triple Ace Games is a Pulp RPG publisher.
Actual Play of SotC:
The Revenge of Zombie Kong and the Lightning Zombies
Hadrian Helm and Johnny Stripes vs. the Evil Earth
Spirit of the Century presents: Revenge of the Tyrian Deathlord!
Centurion Science Heroes vs. the Murder Nation

General:
Tailoring the plot obstacles to the PCs is an Eigen plot
The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen is returning to print. (It’s supposed to be a lot like a freeform version of Once upon a Time.)
Advice on pacing: one of the hardest things to get right in a game.

Random Acts of Senseless Violence is supposed to be an excellent and disturbing book by Jack Womack. (It’s hard to find– the library doesn’t have it.)

Chris points to good advice from Lester Chan to ensure that you don’t fill up your wordpress revision table.

This is a great example of humility over on Rhubarb Pie.

Categories
DnD Roleplaying

5 Blades of Bahamut

Chris Chinn is creating a beautiful 4e setting with his players that he’s tagged 5 blades of Bahamut. The setting they’re building has a dash of myths from India and a lot of twisting stock 4e concepts to match a more stylized setting. It features airships, cults of Tiamat and Bahamut, a reason for the monsters (with a twist that makes killing them with impunity work out very well), interesting interpretations of the gods in the PHB (with a history that makes them tightly interwoven, with more Greek god like rivalries and relations), and more.

It’s a compelling read so far; I can’t wait to hear what happens when the PCs start wandering this wide world.

Categories
Game Group

Next Game: Friday July 18th?

When do we want to game this week? Friday and Saturday both work for me. I’ll call around on Wednesday (remind me if I don’t)– but if one day or the other doesn’t work for you, please let me know by phone or comments.

Categories
Books DnD Roleplaying

4e Month One: Links n Stuff organized

Game Resources
Chatty’s Tool Roundup, and Dragon Avenue’s Resource Page.
A 4e Form fillable auto-calculating character sheet (.zip)
Supplement tables, Reference screen (flash)

Setting and Adventure Ideas
Chris Chinn’s Five blades of Bahamut, Quest seeds, Airships
P3’s short series (a quick post each for 1-10, 11-20, and 21-30) extensible with lots of options.

Continue reading “4e Month One: Links n Stuff organized”
Categories
Roleplaying

Lots of finds, heavy on 4e

4e related:
4e random encounter maker
4e pointbuy calculator
4e character sheet (pdf, for printing)
4e Form fillable auto-calculating character sheet (.zip)

Bankuei’s 4e playaids: Requests and some solutions.

Keep on the Shadowfell review, very positive. (No spoilers.)
The Chatty DM plays 4e: initial thoughts, Into the Shadowhaunt (spoilers!)
Martin reviews 4e books in detail. An excellent review.

From Doyce: Watching the 4.0 DnD release, and The DnD 4.0 game with the seven-year old got even more awesome.

4e FAQ (from Reading Dragon mailing list):

My response from Customer Service is that if a monster has two or more basic attacks, you can select which one you want to use in and opportuity attack situation.

Standing from prone does not generate opportunity attacks (OA). gleemax thread

Here is Customer Services ruling on slowed shifting. It exposes a new way to deal with rules precedence: “can’t trumps can.” As suggested in the basic mechanics of the game on page 11, specific trumps general, though when specific and specific conflict (as in this situation), we rule that can’t trumps can. Thus if you’re slowed, you’re limited to two squares of movement, regardless of the type of movement, unless the power/ability specifically says otherwise.

Now more than ever– is it time to buy Firey dragon counters print them on cardstock?

Dragon Avenue crusades against 4e naysayers.

Roundup from Elonian Nomad

RPG Digest roundup

Rob Donohuge preps 4e: 1, 2, 3.

Continue reading “Lots of finds, heavy on 4e”
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DnD

4e Talk at DnD Experience

Critical hits got a press pass to the D&D 4e seminar at the D&D Experience con. His quick notes hit a lot of high points and nail down a lot of specifics. It sounds like there’s still a lot of… “we’ll think about it” for something launching so soon, but we’ll see what comes of it.

[This post, links off to the various 4e coverage at DnD Experience]

Everything that follows is from the first link.

Continue reading “4e Talk at DnD Experience”