Another MEPACon has come and gone, taking with it two weeks of frantic game preparation and 12 hours of actual play. The convention was held in Clarks Summit, near Scranton Pa. on November 12-14 and looked to have the typical attendance of 100 gamers playing a mix of board games, organized play, and one-shot RPGs. … Read more
Dark Sun, the grim, post-apocalyptic fantasy setting for Dungeons & Dragons is re-launching this summer for D&D 4E. In honor of that, I’m writing my next “Summon WebScryer” column for Knights of the Dinner Table about Dark Sun … but I need your help. I need web sites dedicated to the setting. I’ve found a … Read more
After many months away from the game, my group is returning to Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition for an old school dungeon crawl through the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth using the D&D 3.5 version released in 2007. I’ve got mixed feelings about this. While I owned the Lost Caverns as a kid and read through … Read more
In 12 years of adventuring in Greyhawk, our group built up a number of legends, told, but never experienced. The recovery of the soul-devouring sword Blackrazor is one of them. Brant Bladescream, warrior, adventurer and conman, recovered Blackrazor from the volcanic dungeon known as White Plume Mountain and used its notoriety to found the Blackrazor Guild. … Read more
Megadungeons, epic character deathtraps that have made or broken a thousand RPG campaigns, are staging a comeback. While it’s been upwards of 25-30 years since we first crawled into Castle Greyhawk and Undermountain, the Oughts saw the release of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, World’s Largest Dungeon, Castle Whiterock, Maure Castle and now … Read more
Like a twister carving its way through a Midwestern cornfield, Nuke(m)Con has come and gone. My gaming group held its annual (well, almost annual) home-grown convention over the weekend. In a break from previous years, which typically saw a mix of Dungeons & Dragons and board games, this year’s Nuke(m)Con had a western theme. We … Read more
Nuke(m)Con is coming back with guns blazing. After a one-year hiatus, my gaming group’s homegrown convention returns September 19-21 with a slate of western-themed role-playing games. We’ll be playing Serenity, Dogs in the Vineyard, Aces & Eights and Deadlands: Reloaded. We’re also running two high level Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 adventures on Friday and Saturday. During … Read more
Rather than just complain about how difficult high level combat is in D&D 3.5, my gaming group’s decided to do something about it. We’ve created a playtest group who’s willing to put in the extra effort it takes to play a high level game … and to figure out what, if anything, we can do … Read more
High-level play within D&D 3rd Edition is hard. Whether you’re playing 3.0 or 3.5, the end result is the same: thousands of feats, hundreds of prestige classes and gods-only-know how many spells give rise to complicated game mechanics that slow play to a crawl. Iterative attacks, in which high-level martial classes like the fighter or … Read more
This week’s game sees us returning to our Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition roots after weeks of beating up 4th Edition in our Planetorn playtest campaign. The playtest’s not over, just on hiatus because of real-world player obligations, and this pause is giving us a chance to go back and tie up some loose ends … Read more