Ken Newquist Today’s the official start of our Dungeons & Dragons 4th mini-campaign, Planetorn. It’s our testbed for 4th edition, and I expect the campaign to run about five to eight sessions, or until the end of the summer, which ever comes first. Since this is the first night of the campaign I don’t have time for … Read more
My gaming group held our first 4th edition playtest this week, pitting a group of first-level characters against a wandering band of goblins. The battle took place among a couple of low hills, with the adventurers surprising a band of goblins eating roasted dog around a guttering campfire. There was no role-playing component to the … Read more
Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition is upon us. I’ve spent last two weeks or so readying through the Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition core rule books, and my gaming group had our first character creation session two weeks ago. We’d hoped to jump into the game sooner, but alas I had a business trip to … Read more
Martin Rayla and the gang at Gnome Stew offer their impressions of D&D 4E. Martin starts off with his thoughts on the new edition from the game master’s perspective, and then offers D&D 4e: Answers to Gnome Stew Readers’ Questions where he runs through specific questions from readers.
D&D 4E is upon us … and I’ve created my first character for the game. If I’ve learned one thing about the game in doing this, it’s that the 4E’s mechanics don’t fit easily into the old fantasy molds. To that end, I’ve been building out my own 4E campaign setting called Planetorn (detailed in … Read more
I remember when LOST jumped the shark. It was the episode dedicated to the mystery of Jack’s tattoo. It was an inane episode, one that existed entirely to buy time for the writers, while simultaneously keeping a popular character on screen for the majority of an episode. The episode could have been good – after … Read more
It’s all Balticon, all the time as I recap my trip to the science fiction convention, talk about the panels I attended, and catch up with some old friends (and find some new ones). I also talk about the new audio and video podcasts — such as Mur Lafferty and Jason Adams’ new podcast ZombInc … Read more
It’s like a scene out of a horror movie: an unsuspecting woman pumps gas into her car, only to be summoned inside by a gas attendant who informs her that — horrors! — a knife wielding lunatic is lurking in the backseat. In truth, it is a scene from a horror movie — the horror … Read more
I’m back in the real world, having left Balticon in my rear view mirror far sooner than I would have wished. Here are somme random thoughts I jotted down about the con, which easily ranks up there with GenCon in terms of overall coolness. Expect much geeking out about it in the next Radio Active. … Read more
3 p.m.: How the internet helps small presses publish books / Derby / Scott Edelman(M), Mike Walsh, Elaine Corvidae, M.T. Reiten Scott Edelman: Is it helpful? It’s actually damaged one aspect of small press magazine publishing because it’s replaced the zine niche. Mike Walsh: A book that was refused by the big sale chains; SCIFI … Read more