Games

Playtesting D&D 4E Skill Challenges

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D&D 4th Edition — particularly the Player’s Handbook — taken a lot of criticism for being 99% crunch, and 1% fluff. It’s also taken hits for the gutting of many of the role-playing aspects from earlier editions, including skills like craft, profession, and perform. All of this is true, but 4E’s saving grace is the … Read more

Advice on building a Second Life Island?

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So I find myself in the position of needing to buy and help build up a Second Life island for the day job. I’m excited in about it insomuch as it’s a new project, and something I’ve never done before. Plus, hey, it’s almost virtual reality. Granted, it would have been far, far cooler if the college had gone ga-ga for World of Warcraft instead, but hey, I’ll take my virtual worlds where I can find them.

In the meantime though, I find myself having to work through questions I don’t really know the answers to. Specifically:

  1. Preferred Grid Location: I know we want our island to be on the public grid, but where on the public grid? Is it better to be off by yourself? Should you be next to another college? Or the New Media Consortium? Or does it not really matter, because people will be ‘porting in, not wandering the wilds of SL looking for college islands to explore?
  2. What island shape do we want? Is one type of island better to build on than another? For example, we’re thinking of either the “donut” shape, which is an oval island with a lake in the middle, or a mountainous shape, which sticks an mountain on one side of the island. Which is easier to build on?

Game Day: Fueling the D&D 4E Storm with Planetorn

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After a week’s hiatus so I could play with the kids on an island, our Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition playtest campaign gets back underway tonight. The campaign’s officially moved to “active” status, and now has its own campaign home page in the GriffWiki. For those late to the show, we’re using Planetorn as a … Read more

Game Day: The D&D 4th Edition Campaign Launches

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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

D&D 4E Annotated Playtest: Goblin Smackdown

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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

Game Day: How I learned to stop fearing and love D&D 4E

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Ok, maybe “love” isn’t the right word. “Tolerate” might be better, but the sentiment is the same: for the first time in months, I’m looking forward to my gaming group’s playtest of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. First, some background. My gaming group’s been together for 12 years and we’ve played in the World of … Read more

My First D&D 4E Character: Field General Zhoran

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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