Why do you Play Dungeons and Dragons?
We’ve gone, now, without a regular D&D game for several months. Mainly, it’s due to the 4E malaise, like I’ve said before. I also said before that I see myself playing D&D pretty much forever.
It almost seems like the two ideas are incompatible, at first; if I’m not playing now, what makes me think I’ll pick up dice again? Something deep down tells me I will. I don’t know if I can explain it fully; maybe it’s just that the malaise is starting to lift. Maybe I’m just basing it on past history - I’ve almost never gone for more than a little while without playing.
But why? Why will I play D&D forever, even though I’m taking a break from it for right now?
For me, I think it boils down to a few specific things:
- I play Dungeons and Dragons to spend time with my friends. Can I spend time with my friends doing other things? Of course. But some of the best memories we’ve got are D&D memories.
- I play Dungeons and Dragons because I like the role aspect of roleplaying games. I like being someone else for a while, or even just being evil Bob in a safe environment.
- I play Dungeons and Dragons because I’m a fantasy geek. Yeah, LOTR was great, but its at least 2 years until The Hobbit, and Eragon just didn’t do it for me. I need fantasy entertainment, and lots of it. D&D Novels are fine, but I like me some live action (not to be confused with LARP).
- I play Dungeons and Dragons, most simply, because I have fun. There are a handful of experiences I enjoy more, and most of them are things like spending time with my family or eating. I just enjoy the game, for all of the above reasons and for a hundred reasons I can’t even express.
So, what about you? Why do you play D&D?
What If? On 4E and the Future
What if it sucks?
Worse…
What if I don’t think it sucks, but the rest of my group does?
I’ve been asking myself this lately, as I think my good friend Phil has convinced Randy and the rest of our local group that 4E is going to be bad. REALLY bad.
Aw, hell. It’s not fair to blame it on Phil. There are things that look like they might be bad.
At any rate, what happens if I like it and they don’t?
Way I see it, I’ve got 3 options:
- Keep playing whatever everyone else wants to play. This means I’m stuck with Spell Compendium (etc), and I get no rules reset.
- Play something different altogether, like Vampire or Savage Worlds.
- Find another group with which to play 4E. (Note: I’m not talking about dumping the guys; they’re my friends, and nothing will change that. D&D or no, we’re compatriots.)
So, is there something I’m missing? A fourth, better option? If not, which of these three is best? Your thoughts are appreciated!
Get Angie’s Chinese New Year Cookbook FREE
<start shameless plug>
Now, I know some of you guys cook, admit it…
I know there are some gals that read this blog that cook, too.
My wife, Angie, put together a little cookbook a few months back. We’ve decided to give the thing away to anyone who subscribes to her cooking blog. Feel free to pay her a visit today to get your free Chinese New Year Cookbook!
I bet if you’re nice she’ll give you the recipe for the GM’s Day cake, too 
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Game Masters Day - Better Late Than Never!
I had intended to observe GMs day in much grander fashion than last year, but with Gary leaving us it didn’t seem right.
In retrospect, maybe he’d have wanted it that way. At any rate, my loving wife made a cake on GMs day. Here it is:
From 3e to 4e and Back Again or a DM’s Journey Through the 5 stages of grief
Hey all: This is a guest post from the famous “Randy” you’ve all heard so much about. I’m hoping to make his visits a regular feature. Make sure to comment, let him know what you think! - Bob
Losing a game like DnD to a new edition is a lot like losing a loved one . Of course, I can only speak for myself on this ,but I have taken a journey lo these 8 months since the ” ANNOUNCEMENT”. I have followed a path akin to the five stages of grief as defined by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross :
1. Denial and Isolation.
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
I will try my best to describe my journey through these stages. Being a mathematician and general dork, I do love anything sequential and/or numerically coded. Thus lists such as these are quite enjoyable to me.
1. Denial and Isolation-at first, we tend to deny the loss has taken place, and may withdraw from our usual contacts. This stage may last a few moments, or longer.
Oh yes, I lived this one. Luckily, I was all ready in isolation( family vacation in Indiana) when I heard of the impending announcement of 4e from my buddy Bob. He called me from home (Michigan) to let me know. For my poor wife and daughter the whole day was just a barrage of me saying, ” I can’t believe this is happening!” I thank them both profusely for not killing me.
I don’t think I completely believed it to be true until I saw the YouTube videos of the announcement upon my return home. Even then, I secretly hoped the designers would soon say…”gotcha”….no new game. But, they never did.
2. Anger - the grieving person may then be furious at the person who inflicted the hurt(even if she’s dead), or at the world, for letting it happen. He may be angry at himself for letting the event take place, even if, realistically, nothing could have stopped it.
Talk about pissed off. I was beside myself at the notion that after the financial debacle that was 3.5 ( my own debacle, they got me hook-line and sinker) that WOTC was planning on bilking me for another $3-4K. I had spent thousands on this version of the hobby( forget that I had spent almost as much on 2e and 1e before that) ,but this time blast it all …I was done!
And of course , I just knew that my support of 3.5 had caused this upheaval in my favorite RPG. If only me, and others like me had just said NO to 3.5 then they wouldn’t have been bold enough to dare to attempt a re-boot again.
3. Bargaining.- Now the grieving person may make bargains with God, asking, “If I do this, will you take away the loss?”
Here, I began taking comfort in message boards and listening to endless speculation about the failure of 4e. I often found myself thinking that if I do not support 4e then it just won’t happen. Or better yet, if we complain enough WOTC will stop this madness and just produce a 1-book update for all the needed fixes of 3.5 . Yeah, I never said grief was sane…just well,…sad.
4. Depression.- The person feels numb, although anger and sadness may remain underneath.
I most recently worked my way through this stage. It showed itself through apathy. I found myself not wanting to play any DnD at all. I dropped my current DnD campaign some 6 months back and evenly openly wondered if I had lost my desire to play RPG’s at all.
But not long after that short hiatus, I decided to try a different system to try and get my mind off of DnD’s treachery .(FYI: Savage Worlds…try it if you can…it’s a great rules -lite game- ran a bit of a campaign using the Rippers setting…loads of VanHelsing-ish fun). I found that I had the desire to GM ,but just not DnD.
I still watched the web for snippets of 4e and generally would be called to religious anti-4e zealotry on some nugget of info about 4e that I found “stupid” or “too video/board gamey”. But for the most part, I realized I still had the desire to run and enjoy role-playing once again.
5. Acceptance.- This is when the anger, sadness and mourning have tapered off. The person simply accepts the reality of the loss.
I have recently slowed the amount of time I spend on my part-time job ( as a 4e discussion board lurker) and am trying to take the 4e thing in stride. I’m trying to live by the most logical position possible:
“If I like it, I will play it . If not then back to 3.x.”
I believe the current crop of designers are truly trying to make a good game and I am giving them the benefit of the doubt until after I have read and played the game. There are still things that bug the crap out of me ( pcs that can teleport right out of the gate and smite attacks that give some ally a bonus to AC?) ,but most of me is at a wait-n-see stage.
The fact of the matter is that I am a DnD-er. I want to play and collect things for my favorite hobby. I want to like 4e and , if it is not for me, then I wish no ill will towards those who do like it, just as I have no hard feelings for those who hung on to 2e, 1e, or even OD&D when each new edition came along.
My tendencies are to stick with the new and shiny versions of things that I like , so I imagine I will give 4e a fair shake. But the rest is up to WOTC ……convince me! ( oh jeesh, I may have just warped back to stage 2 for a minute…sorry)
If you’d like more information on the five stages of grief just google the phrase or check out this site to begin with:
http://www.memorialhospital.org/library/general/stress-THE-3.html
What I’ve Been Up To
Toldja yesterday. It’s the hat.
See the D&D figs in the background? :)
Anywho… I came to the conclusion, a couple of weeks back, that this blog was meant to be a labor of love. By that, I mean that it isn’t going to ever be a reliable stream of blogging income in the way that Writing-Journey or TheHistoryGuru are intended to be. I’m sure it’s possible for a D&D blog to do so (How else could Yax of DungeonMastering.com give away all of that stuff?) but the ratio of work to reward is higher than I’d like it to be. And, there are so many folks out there doing it better than me. On top of all of that, I don’t want to ever have to blog about D&D. I want to do it for the fun of it. I want to do it to meet new friends like the folks at Critical Hits, Stupid Ranger, Chatty DM, Phil Gamer, the aforementioned DungeonMastering, Kimmie, Kam at Pens & Swords, and any others that don’t immediately come to mind. (If you’ve not visited each and every one of them, go do that now. Subscribe to their feeds, while you’re at it.)
Anyways, that’s why I’ve gone from 3 posts a day down to about 3-4 a week. Hobbies get less time than work. I’m also changing around my ad structure to be less intrusive. While I’m not counting on the site for income, I’d love to make enough on the site to at least pay the hosting fees. Also, over the next few weeks, I’m going to be migrating the material from the articles section of the site into the blog. New product reviews will all happen inside of the regular blog, right here. OOH, and I’ll probably be screwing with themes for a couple of days, too, so watch for that.
So anyways, that’s what the site has been up to. As for the rest of me, I’ve been working on other writing projects, and have landed a long-term project with a big client. That’s going to provide some stability to my freelancing that I’m just thrilled about. I’m thrilled with the growth at Writing Journey, and I’m hoping to be able to start my mentoring program up over there by the fall. I’ve also been screwing around on Helium.com quite a bit. Check out my latest article over there on the D&D stigma.
Our regular D&D game is in a bit of limbo, waiting to see how 4E goes. I’m going to be running H1 a couple of times, to make sure that everyone in our group gets to play at least once. I think Randy’s going to run H2 in the same way. By the time that’s all said and done, I think we’ll have a good idea of whether we’re switching for certain. I’m ready for 4E to be out, for that reason if nothing else.
As a side note: any of you writer-types reading this, you should consider getting in on Helium’s Reward-athon, contests, and marketplace. Helium is fun to write for and has a bunch of potential for creating residual income. I know one writer who brings in $300-$500 every month on articles she’s written months ago. If you decide to sign up, email me and I’ll send you a referral link. I’m looking at being the Sub-Channel Steward for RPGs, and would love to see more D&D articles on the site.
Will you always play DnD?
I want to tell you all about a couple of conversations I’ve had lately.
The first one is an ongoing discussion with my friend Randy. Randy and I tend to have these big idea discussions about D&D, about our group of friends, and about our lives. One discussion revolved around whether the people you play D&D with are your friends, or whether they are just the guys you play a game with (like a softball league, for example). That ongoing discussion tool us the better part of three years; by the time we came to a real conclusion, it was a moot point because all of the people we played D&D with were, without question, our friends by that point.
Randy and Me, deep in discussion. I’m the one with the hat. 
photo credit: ohhector
Anyways, that’s not one of the conversations I wanted to tell you about. That one was free.
The conversation Randy and I have been having for about six or eight months is this: Do you ever see yourself stopping D&D? If so, at what age? 50? 60? Will you be a 70 year-old man playing D&D? I think we’ve both, at this point, answered “No, I don’t see myself stopping. I might stop buying new stuff, but I won’t stop playing. I’ll be rolling dice as long as I can lift them.”
“I just rolled a nat 20, Bitches!” (Age-progression photo. You can tell, I still have the hat.) photo credit: Thomas Tribe
The other conversation I’ve had was with another D&D player. He’s decided to retire. He’s done, ready to move on. He wants to do some other things, and the 4E Malaise has really gotten to him. My suggestion was to wait until the 4E hype dies down and we all know whether we’re going 4E or not. He didn’t seem especially interested.
so, here’s my questions for you all today: Will you ever stop playing D&D, or will you retire? If not age, what would make you retire?
I. Hate. Slate. So. Much.
I take a few days of relaxation in regard to DnD, only to come back and be reminded of Why I hate Slate.com so much.
FRACK! Bastards. I expected it to happen eventually.
I am so pissed off right now I might just spit. Go over to Slate and tell the jackhole about himself, will you?
Thanks to Shamus for the tip.
Building a New Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Diary #14 - An Adventure
I can’t believe it’s been 2 weeks since I’ve worked on the new setting. BAD DM. Bad.
I think we’re to the point now where we can actually start putting together an outline for our first adventure. I’m somewhat limited here because, well, I’m going to be running Lenryn as a 4E game (most likely. Did you hear the trepidation there? I’m slipping in my conviction that 4E will be good enough to switch. But, we’ll save that for another time.)
If writing everything you have so far hasn’t inspired you to write an adventure yet, go back and re-read it all. I’m certain that you will find something that jumps out at you.
For me, it is this figure of the Monty Fingers, the tiefling who is organizing a resistance against the eladrin elites. I like this guy, and I think I can develop him into a thoroughly interesting recurring character. So, let’s see if I can, today, put together some background for the first adventure using Monty Fingers:
Monty Fingers has, recently, begun recruiting members of his resistance organization in Halvinguard. His most influential recruit is, to date, Arsaen, the captain of the town guard. Arsaen has become disillusioned of late, realizing that it is unlikely that he will ever advance his station, regardless of how much he sucks up to the Eladrin in control of Halvinguard. In fact, Arsaen actually sought out Monty Fingers, and has been performing covert operations for some time.
On the advice of Monty Fingers, Arsaen has recently stolen the RING OF DESTINY from the Quessa T’alel. This ring is thought to hold extreme magical powers, and maintains some form of connection with other Eladrin bigwigs througout Lenryn. Not suspecting Arsaen , Quessa T’alel has assigned him to find the ring and bring in the perpetrators, dead or alive.
Unfortunately for the party, Arsaen intends to frame them for the theft. To do so, he will have to accomplish three tasks:
1) Plant the ring on one of the party members;
2) Get one of the party members to demonstrate sympathy for Monty Fingers and his motives;
3) Through the use of a memory-altering potion, transfer his memory of the theft to one of the party members.
To complicate matters, the party has previously come to the aid of Arsaen. Arsaenhas a trusted reputation in Halvinguard, and it is not likely that he will soon be suspect.
Arsaen calls the party in on the premise that they are to clear out a farm outside of town that has been overrun by goblins. The farm is half a day’s ride away. It is while the party is gone from town that he will commit his crimes.
Upon arriving at the Farmhouse, the party will realized that it is empty and abandoned, and probably has been for years. There is some sort of pestilence here such that nothing will grow within a square mile. In fact, this pestilence is such that, should the party spend more than 2 hours here, they will have some sort of negative effect (to be determined once 4E core rules are released!)
Investigating the farmhouse thoroughly provides access to several location encounters:
The attic - old diseased woman, speaks only in rhyme, smells of decay
The cellar - slaughtered animals (1 week fresh) perhaps people? Evidence of cultic activity of some sort.
The barn - Rats or some other appropriate feral creature. This creature will have a natural immunity to the pestilence, and will be the party’s only hope of a cure - consuming the animal raw.
Field - formerly growing, now dead. Closer inspection shows that the ground is not covered in dirt at all, but some sort of living material. The dirt itself seems to be moving.
Upon returning to Halvinguard, there will be several event-based encounters. I’ll be leaving these for another day, but it is worth thinking about something here:
On purpose, I’m combining some of the big adventure models. I have a linear beginning (PCs have to get out of town for it to work at all). I have location-based encounters at the farmhouse; and I’m using event-based encounters on return. See how I did that?
Truth is that my group and I really enjoy all three models. I like the control that comes with linear and the momentum that comes with event-based. Location-based encounters probably make the least sense to me as a DM, but they do have their uses. The above use is a great example.
What about all of you? What model or models to you prefer and use?
Review of 10,000 BC
Not D&D related, but I thought you might like to read my Review of 10,000 BC for a change of pace. Enjoy!
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