This is what I’m talking about.
I’m trying to warm up to Eberron, really I am. I’ve even reviewed both the Eberron Campaign Setting as well as Races of Eberron, both in a relatively favorable way. I’m trying here, I really really am.
Then they gotta come up with stuff like The Autoscribe.
Look, I get warforged. Playing a construct is sweet. I get dirgibles, even. After all, they worked in Warcraft II and beyond, right? I even understand a lot of the clockwork devices, although I don’t personally enjoy them.
But why do we need a magical photocopier in D&D?!??
This is the crap that turns me off of Eberron.
D&D Online. Sorta.
I’ve always been a bit behind the times.
I don’t mind it, to be sure. When you’re out on the bleeding edge, there’s a heck of a lot more stress than when you’re a little behind. So, five months after, I found this article about the future of Dungeons and Dragons online.
At least, for me.
I’ve said it before: I should be in love with Everquest, World of Warcraft, and D&D Online. If they had come out even a decade ago, I’d have been hooked. But today, and maybe I’m just getting too damned old, they don’t appeal to me. I’ve said that it is the face-to-face interaction that I like about pen-and-paper D&D, but I’m not sure that’s the case.
See, I’m intrigued by Second Life. I’ve always liked the Sims, and thought that a good online version of the Sims was needed (the EA attempt was relatively weak).
Anyways, I think I could do this. I think that I could log into a virtual world like Second life, and sit around a virtual table with other normal-looking virtual people and roll virtual dice to play virtual Dungeons and Dragons. How crazy is that?
Maybe it’s the imagination part that I like about pen-and-paper D&D. Maybe its the fact that I like playing with my friends and, generally, only my friends. Maybe The ten years I spent in the IT field has left me so jaded that I still can’t seem to merge fun with technology. I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I just know how I feel.
I think I’m going to give it a shot soon.
So, what about you all? Would you play virtual pen-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons online?
An open letter to the D&D players community
I remember the day I decided that I was going to be a Dungeon Master. I was reading through my Basic Dungeons and Dragons book, the one with the red cover and the big nasty red dragon who, I was almost certain, was about to eat the barbarian-looking fellow. (My interpretation of that picture should have been a clue - I could relate to, and was rooting for, the dragon over the PC).
Anyways, I got to the part that said something like: “Caution! Don’t go any further if you are not the DM, or lightning bolts will shoot from the sky, burning your eye sockets and consuming your eternal soul.” I knew then, I needed the real power.
Back then, unless a player wanted to face the DM’s wrath, he couldn’t buy a module. If he did, he had to lie about it, and keep it hidden under his mattress along with the issue of Playboy he stole from his dad. While this was great for DMs, the fact remained that it was bad for TSR. TSR needed people to buy its products. If a substantial portion of its products can only be sold to DMs, they’re losing as much as 75% of their potential market.
By the time we got to Second Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, TSR was beginning to get this idea. They began publishing a lot more player-related materials, like handbooks and such. Even so, players were discouraged from knowing too much about monsters and whatnot.
Today, nearly every single product that WotC produces is geared towards both players and Dungeon Masters. They even go so far as to provide hints and tricks about how to defeat bone devils. Gone are the warnings about lightning and eye sockets and eternal souls and whatnot. This is becoming frustrating, because a DM cannot go into a store, buy Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, and expect to run it for his players. His players probably already own the damned thing. God forbid he should try to run an adventure that WotC puts up on their web site, because he can be guaranteed that three out of four players have read that one!
So, here it is. I’m calling on the entire Dungeons and Dragons player community. There is only one way to solve this problem. Players, you need to stop reading adventures. Buy them if you like. After all, we want W0tC to sell product so that they can stay in business. But then, either give them to your DM to run (he’ll probably return them when he’s done) or let them sit on the shelf unread. Once you’ve bought it, give your DM a deadline, say six months, to have the option to run the thing before your greedy little eyes begin to peruse. If he runs it, you can still read it afterwards. If he doesn’t, you can read it then.
At least have the fracking courtesy, if you do buy or read an adventure, to shoot your DM an e-mail so he can scratch that one off the list. He puts in hours on planning campaigns and such, you can certainly give him 30 seconds to send a note that says, “Bought Fantastic Locations: Fane of the Drow today.”
And for God’s sake, stay off the damned downloadable adventures section of the Wizard’s web site.
I miss Modules.
Now, my players like to tease me. From time to time, I’ve been known to run a module, as-written, on short notice. When this happens, the big joke is for them to all say “I’ve read this one.” Ha ha.
I get it, I do. My players want to know that I’ve put thought, time, and energy into my adventure design. They tell me how much more they like my “original” adventures than published modules.
But here’s my dirty little secret: Three quarters of my adventures are published modules. Always have been. I’ve just reworked them to the point where they don’t necessarily resemble the originals.
Unfortunately, adventure modules seem to have faded from the WotC product lines. While there were the few “adventure path” modules when 3E came out, there’s not been much since, except for the big ones like Return to Castle Ravenloft and the upcoming Cormyr: The Tearing of the Weave. There’s Dragon Magazine, but several of my players have subscriptions already.
*sigh*
Guess I just have to start doing the work. It’s like the day I figured out that my High School lit teacher could spot work based on Cliff Notes.
Candlekeep.
I’m such a dork. As savvy as I once was in technology, that decade lost in the bowels of server rooms made me so numb to the cool parts of the internet that I’m just now finding out where Ed hangs out on the web.
*sigh*
Everything takes time, I guess.
The most powerful move in all of wrestling.
So, more and more, I am intrigued by some of the more “non-traditional” combat moves in Dungeons and Dragons. Sunder, for example, can be especially useful against those NPC fighters, but also against wizards wielding wands (or spell components, for example).
Grapple has to be the one I’m most fond of right now. Of course, this is because I’m playing a half-celestial in the joint Prysm campaign that Randy and I are running. When I’m at his table, I like to grapple an opponent, fly them up about 120′ over a few rounds, and then drop - wham - 12d6 of falling damage (as opposed to city damage).
It’s like Hadoken, but for flyers. Just wait until I can boost my fly speed.
MI Con 2007
For those of you local to the Mid-Michigan area, here’s something to keep on the radar for next fall:
Sounds like it could be a fun day, if a bit low-key. They promise to have everything from Magic to RPGs. I am toying with the idea of running a D&D game there. It’s being organized by the Vampire folks at CMU, who tend to be fairly orgainzed.
It’s not D&D that’s evil, morans
It’s Shadowrun.
Cliff, where do you find this crap?
I love Dungeon Tiles.
As any of my players can tell you, I’ve always been about the maps. When we switched from AD&D to 3rd Edition D&D, one of the things that we lost was the necessity of player mapping. Sadly, this ended my cool-looking, hand-drawn maps.
But Dungeon Tiles change things. The printed versions from WotC, while a bit expensive for what they are, just look damn cool. My problem with them is that there just aren’t enough in a package. The printable ones from WotC are cool, but eventually you run through them as well. The PDF pieces at Enworld are good too, but there’s just too much assembly involved.
The problem may be solved. Check this out: Dungeon Tile Mapper — v1.1.1
Please, tell me what you think of tiles in general, and the mapper if you check it out.
GM’s Day is Sunday
March 4th is GM’s day.
Be sure to remember your GM this year with a gift certificate from EnWorld’s RPGNow store.
Especially if you’re one of my players. 
And none of this “when is it going to be Player’s Day?” crap. My kids tried that on me, and it didn’t work for them, either. There’s no Player’s Day for the same reason that there’s no Kids Day - because every day is Player’s Day.
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