After a brief respite in Sigil, where they were attacked by a cunning band of phase gnomes, last Friday's D&D 4E playtest campaign saw my gaming group venture back out into the wilds of the planescape. This time they traveled to the Dire Forest of Yalzerth, an alternative material plane in the midst of an ice age.

The session gave me the chance to work through a few points on the playtest "to do" list I outlined in my last Game Day column, namely rituals and newly revised skill challenges.

I was sorely tempted to blow off going to the pool today, but I don't have time to go to the gym after work, and I'm hoping to keep the weight loss thing going, so I pressed on.
Thirty minutes at the pool, swimming laps.

In my ears: Lots of water. iPods don't do well in pools.

When Wizards of the Coast decided to kill the ill-fated (and ill-named) Gleemax project before it got out of alpha, a bunch of role-playing game bloggers stood up and said ... who needs Gleemax? You want a gamer community ... well we've got your community right here! Or words to that effect.

They formed the RPG Bloggers Network, which is aggregating the RPG-centric posts from more than 30 gaming blogs including Critical Hits, Musing of a Chatty DM and Uncle Bear.

And yeah, Nuketown is there too.

One of the things I like best about the site is how it aggregates content -- it's pulls in stories into its home page and incorporates a rating mechanic as it does so. I haven't found a page that aggregates those ratings into a big list, but I imagine that's coming.