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 … Read more
We’re about halfway through our Planetorn play-test campaign, with the fourth session happening today, and perhaps another three or four to go before it runs its course. This milestone has me reflecting on where the campaign’s been, where it’s going, and what I hope to accomplish before it’s all over. Today’s adventure finds our heroes … Read more
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
My gaming group is contemplating running a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic campaign, and that’s led me to start searching for Star Wars RPG sites (which in turn will likely lead to a Knights of the Dinner Table column). I’m primarily interested in sites that deal with Saga Edition (the latest version of … Read more
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
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