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
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
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
Wizards of the Coast has announced the D&D 4th Edition Game System License. This license replaces the old d20 license, and appears to take a different tact from D&D 3.x’s Open Gaming License. Exactly how different is hard to tell from the announcement; if nothing else what used to be separate procedures and policies for … Read more
Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition is coming, slashing and burning all that has come before to create a new game that ignores the tropes of classic sword-and-sorcery in order to embrace the always-on, always-cool mechanics of digital fantasy. We see it at every turn. The lack of a 3.x-to-4.x conversion guide. The admonishment to wrap-up … Read more
This week’s Game Day sees us returning to the Dark City campaign to wrap-up our quest to save a bunch of kidnapped kids from some dungeon-dwelling kobolds. It’s a fun adventure, but I find myself straining to connect it to a Game Day column. So instead I’m going to stick with the semi-random rambling approach … Read more
With the Dark City campaign back in full swing, I’m finally able to use my Book of Almost Everything. I created the Book in the waning days of the original Dark City campaign as I realized that I had a treasure trove of instant non-player characters, random encounters, and flavor text lurking in my back … Read more
When last we left our weekly Game Day, our Ravenloft campaign was slugging along, pitting a heroic band of adventurers against the monstrous horrors of the fading land of Count Strahd. It’s based on Expedition to Castle Ravenloft an old school, 1st-edition style monster-crawl in which role-playing is minimized, and encounters with level draining undead … Read more
On this episode of Radio Active, I discuss my daughter StarGirl’s sudden desire to learn chess and my approach to teaching her, contemplate the impending arrival of National Novel Writing Month, check out the Geek Dad Podcast and Simian Farmer blog and offer some thoughts on the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Getting the Show … Read more
Somehow Pierce Haligarth has survived his fellow Lightbringer, Donegal, cleric of Daern. The cleric fell while Pierce and his fellow adventurers sought the Amulet of Ravenkind, which they’ll need to fight the dread Count Strahd of Castle Ravenloft. While Donegal rests in his god’s eternal fortress, he’s left the rest of the party to hunt … Read more