With this update falling on a Wednesday we have a few more exciting pieces of news from Wizards of the Coast to include in this post. Not only have Dungeon and Dragon magazine delivered some great pieces with the Prince of Frost and the Remains of the Empire adventure, but the D&D Character Builder and Compendium have been updated. Probably the biggest piece of news this week, however, is that WotC is giving away D&D for Free! Read below for more.

Dragon Magazine

Note that these articles require a subscription to DDI to access.

Court of Stars: Prince of Frost ~ link

This article by Keith Baker is portrays one of the Winter Fey, the Prince of Frost and his palace the Fortress of Frozen Tears.  Keith delves into the history of this great eladrin lord and his court.  As a fully detailed opponent, this article shows us the goals and motives of the price, adventure hooks, and even a full write up of the prince as a level 31 solo controller. Several allies are presented as well including Mournwind and Soulsorrow the Sisters of Lament. In addition player options accompany these NPCs in the form of a paragon path and a Warlock feat for fey pact warlocks to tie themselves more closely to the Winter Fey.

Playtest: The Wilden ~ link

From PH3, the Wilden are the spiritual ancestors of the Killoren who appeared in the Races of the Wild for 3.5.  The Wilden are fey who take on aspects of their ancestors in their eternal battle against the encroaching forces of the Far Realm. With bonuses in Constitution and Wisdom along with their 3 different aspects which can change each extended rest, the Wilden are appropriate as druids or shaman.

Dungeon Magazine

Note that these articles require a subscription to DDI to access.

Remains of the Empire [Heroic - L3]~ link

In this adventure by Kolja Raven Liquette the characters befriend a unique, docile drake who accompanies them to an ancient Dragonborn citadel that fell from the sky centuries ago. The citadel shattered across a mountain time with pieces of the tower suspended in mid air.  The party must unravel the plot of a zealous dragonborn intent on raising the citadel to its former glory.  Filled with interesting skill challenges and unique encounter locations, this article features some amazing art as well.

Dungeoncraft: Background ~ link

In this issue of Dungeoncraft James Wyatt reviews his implementation of PH2′s background system for his Greenbrier game. He discusses the player’s choices and how, as a DM, he will incorporate those choices into the campaign.

D&Di

Character Builder and Compendium Update ~ link

The Character Builder and Compendium were updated with the information from Arcane Power, Dragon 373, Dungeon 164, E1 Death’s Reach, and the Player’s Handbook Heroes I miniature series. I’m looking forward to re-tooling my wizard as a conjurer with the Tome of Readiness.

D&D Test Drive ~ link

Wizards of the Coast is giving away D&D 4E for free. You can now download the quick start rules that were published last May in Keep on the Shadowfell and you can get the entire adventure as well.  Linked from this page is the Character Builder free version with all information for levels 1-3.

From a great adventure to an incredibly well written piece by Keith Baker this week’s updates couldn’t get any better until they released all the Arcane Power content into CB and gave away KoS for free! Proof that WotC is trying to engage their online fans more and more. If only they could bring back PDF sales as well.

Jonas and Kalidra Temm © Apis Teicher, 2009

From villains to dungeons and on to campaigns, this week(ish) features a huge variety of DM advice columns from the RPG blogosphere.

Top Ten Blogroll

10. Modular Campaign Settings: Creating a Versatile, Reusable World ~ link

This article by Martin Ralya at Gnome Stew is about creating a versatile world that can be patched together for your next campaign. As someone who often gets bitten by the “Ooh New Pretty” bug often, its been tough to put together a campaign setting of my own in the past. The idea of building a small piece based off the latest new shiny then setting it up beside the next new that comes by is appealing to me.

9. How to Build an Interactive Timeline Using Google Docs ~ link

Jonathan Jacobs at The Core Mechanic shows us how to use Google Docs (an amazingly useful suite of office tools) to create something quite unique, an interactive timeline.  Explore the history of your setting by creating a timeline that your players can edit and add to.

8. Emerging Complexity for GMs: It Rocks for NPCs ~ link

Martin Ralya at Gnome Stew presents another great article this week (and not the last). This one is a follow up to his great article on PCs. The idea is simple, start off with a basic sketch of your NPC and add to them only when needed. Did your PCs practically ignore the Duke’s chamberlain, but latch on to the gambling drunk at the tavern, then spend the time to flesh that NPC out.

7. Hi I’m Magesto. Let’s Go Kill Some Kobolds ~ link

Gnome Stew continues to hit it out of the park this week with this article by Scott Martin.  Scott looks at many different methods to bring a group of adventurers together at the beginning of a campaign. From GM led initiatives like in media res or a group geas to Player let parties like interlinked backgrounds to group character creation.

6. New Grand Contest: The One Page Dungeon ~ link

While I was a little unsure about adding a contest to the best posts of the week, this one is huge and you should definitely take a look and submit something I know I will. Chatty DM, Chgowitz, Mike, and Sham put together an amazing array of prizes with one simple goal create an entire dungeon in one page using the template created by the later three.

5. A Basic Goal of DMing? ~ link

Mike Mearls posted earlier in the week that the goal of DMing is an unrelenting attempt to utterly defeat the PCs. Chatty (amongst others) took issue with Mike’s rather confrontational view of DMing and answered with a much more realistic goal ~ challenge and push the players to work together to creatively overcome encounters.

4. 10 Reasons Why Roleplaying Games are a Positive Force for Kids and Adults Alike ~ link

This post, by Martin Ralya of Gnome Stew is not directed at the RPG blogsphere but rather at educating parents or guardians about the positive effects of RPGs for kids and adults.  He looks at 10 reasons from creativity, problem-solving, and teamwork to building lasting friendships and a social network.

3. Well Meaning, Nihilistic, Civilized-yet-Deranged: Three Villains ~ link

Gamefiend at the At Will 4E blog gives us three motivations for some interesting and unique villain archetypes. I’ve been thinking a lot on this subject lately (probably because of the number of great articles on the net lately) and having three interesting villains is a great addition.

2. Dynamic Domains: Caves ~ link

Asmor at Encounter a Day (and also asmor.com) reviews 10 different ways to make spelunking interesting in your adventure design. Might have to appropriate some of these ideas for my contest entry. From water to unique flora to unsteady footing, Asmor covers a number of great quick ideas.

1. Five Ways to Spice up your Encounters ~ link

Following on the fabulous 4E grind post from last week, Gamefiend at At Will gives us 5 techniques on how to make 4E combats flow better. His techniques include Difficult terrain is good, add objectives beyond combat, change the landscape of the battlefield during combat, concentrate on one unique tactic, and include interesting weaknesses to your NPCs.

And thus we arrive at the end of a week’s posts. I enjoyed splitting them up in this fashion as I was able to delve more deeply in all 4 categories that I want to review. Once I get the rhythm going on this format I’ll look to add some of the other columns I’ve got planned. Till next week (which is only a day away…)

Presenting my third review article this week, we move on to Wolfgang Baur’s projects Open Design and Kobold Quarterly.  This is an exciting week for both as 4E content accelerates as Halls of the Mountain King moves into the 4E conversion phase and Kobold Quarterly releases more 4E content then ever before. It looks like votes from last week are in and the 4E Halls will be for levels 8-11 ushering in Paragon play.

Note I am going to leave out the duplication of content and announcements.

Open Design

Note that these articles require a subscription to Open Design to access.

Playtest Reports

More playtest reports come in for the 3.5 version of Halls of the Mountain King. Each of these encounters reported on sound exciting and unique. The senior patrons who have designed these encounters sound like they’ve done a terrific job. I hope to get both the 3.5 and the 4E version of both Halls and the Gazetteers so that I can report on all content from the project.

• Heartsblood Forge
• Dark Was the Night
• Dark Was the Night (2)

Iron Gazetteer ~ link

While design on the Dwarves of the Ironcrags Gazetteer for 3.5 continues with Wolfgang writing the entirety, the Iron Gazetteer kicks off this week.  Discussion begins with suggestions on the content to include. It looks like many people are looking for paragon paths, rituals, and equipment.  Wolfgang has indicated that he does not want to include any of the culture pieces from the Ironcrags Gazetteer so this will be all fresh content. Join now and you can join in on the discussion.

Monster Conversions

The first of the senior patron work for 4E has been delivered to all supporting patrons in the form of three creatures. Discussion is raging on each of the creatures already, but I can tell that the patrons are getting into the swing of things with 4E design.  All of these will pass through Wolfgang’s development once the community has provided feedback.

• Fledgling Roc – a large roc that can pick up opponents and drop them prone
• Cavelight Moss – an obstacle or a soldier, you decide in discussion
• Gilded Devil – a controller that wields a golden flail and is covered in golden armor

Kobold Quarterly

Note Kobold Quarterly links are open content.

Kobold Quarterly #9 was released this past week and it is a phenomenal issue which will be reviewed in a subsequent review.  What was nice to see was additional 4E support in the magazine. Wolfgang has run an article in issue 7 and a few on the site, but this issue had 3 and now additional support online.

Monster Monday – Maenad [4E] ~ link

Presented in depth in the print magazine, the Maenad is given a 4E monster treatment by Matthew Hanson online. Matthew gives us the Maenad Warrior and Maenad Wilder as opponents for your PCs. They are interesting low level heroic tier creatures that provide an alternative to the more primitive humanoids in the Monster Manual.

Kitsune [3.5E] ~ link

The Kitsune are presented in the print magazine as a player race for 4E.  Scott Gable gives us a 3.5 version of these 9-tailed foxes of Japanese folklore as a player race as well.  Along with the stats to play these sneaky tricksters, Scott gives us details on the Star Ball as a wizard spell and Fox Possession as a ritual.

Interview with Aeryn Rudel ~ link

Well known creature crafter Blackdirge is interviewed by Jeremy Jones on his recent work with Goodman Games and his history with creating some of the most detailed and nasty creatures for 3.5.  Aeryn has written many products for his own PDF publishing company but was recently hired on as a staff writer for Goodman Games. At Goodman he has been given the position of senior editor for the new Level Up! magazine for 4E.  I look forward to seeing the fresh content that Level Up will bring to the 4E 3rd party publishing world with a dedicated magazine for this edition. I also learned a new word that I’m not sure I want haunting my head any more ~ autophagia.

Monster Monday – Buggane [3.5E] ~ link

Richard Pett returns to Kobold Quarterly with the latest Monster Monday. The buggane is a devilish looking creature from the folklore of the Isle of Man. Buggane gather in the cacophonous Great Hunt in the forest wielding scythes as they chase their chosen prey.

Until tomorrow when I’ll tackle some of the blog posts from the last week that have caught my attention that I’d like to promote and discuss.

Continuing from Monday’s look at DDI, we turn to the updates for Dungeonaday.com over the past week. As this week is setting the tone for future updates you’ll see some of the dates change as we progress through updates so that I get caught up to the new schedule.

Monte Cook’s Dungeonaday.com continues this week with the first few rooms on Level 2 ~ The Font of Dreams!  Monte also has a number of posts to the Blog, a new free roaming encounter, a new listen check podcast, and the first of Jason Bulmahn’s articles for the site.

Dungeonaday.com

Note that these articles require a subscription to Dungeonaday.com to access.

Room 37-44

This week we move down to the second level where we meet everything from drunken gnolls, a werewolf, and an intelligent fountain.  Monte continues to produce interesting, dynamic, and unique encounters with every single set of rooms.  He points out later that this level will be harder not only in terms of the opposition, but also in the frequency and proximity of the encounters as the fountain works to counter intrusions.

Temples and PCs ~ link

In this first Dungeon Blog entry for the week, Monte tackles the issue of PCs expecting support from local temples.  When PCs come to town and demand to be healed for free simply because of the good services they provide they take advantage of NPCs.  Monte suggests making characters work for their prayers instead.  His design for the Temple of Vune last week had this design goal in mind, combining not only interesting NPCs but also a political and social setting to support this goal.

Level 2 Random Encounters ~ link

While normally random encounters are frowned upon in the newer school of adventure design, Monte’s old school approach makes good use of them. He suggests frequency and ties them to the themes of the level in which they inhabit. Many of them (like the font thralls on this level) are drawn from the types of creatures encountered in some of the set pieces of the level. This level you might encounter anything from bugbears up to a gray ooze. I was a little disappointed that this page was not hyperlinked to the D20 SRD. I know that it has been addressed on the forums and I hope that Monte includes that tool here.

Getting Started ~ link

This is Jason Bulmahn’s first article for Dungeonaday.com. Its quite a lengthy discussion about his background with the project and the excitement he brings to his column. Most of the article addresses some of the general items that Pathfinder RPG DMs will want to convert when they are considering using the Beta rules for the Dragon’s Delve.  He also points out that with PFRPG launching at GenCon this year, he has that on at the top of mind lately and had to remember not to refer to those rules yet.

Free Roaming Encounters – The Dark Prophesy ~ link

The Dark Prophesy is the first Free Roaming encounter presented on Dungeonaday.com. The idea is that these encounters can occur anywhere in the dungeon or even outside of it. In this case the encounter is with a pair of adventurers and their pet bird who are exploring the dungeon as well. They are a bit creepy and don’t want to join forces but wouldn’t mind chatting with the characters before setting off in a different direction. Monte has left their intentions and use pretty vague offering several suggestions. I’m curious to see if he will revisit some of these encounters again in the future.

Fights and Dreams ~ link

In this blog entry, Monte discusses some of the complexities that make Level 2 harder than Level 1. As mentioned earlier in my blog the design assumptions are that each level is progressively more difficult.  Its difficult to go into much detail about this entry without giving away spoilers, so maybe just one ~ an intelligent pool that haunts the denizen’s dreams is very cool.

Listen Check ~ link (Open)

Podcast – This week’s listen check features both Monte and Sue. Sue Cook is the moderator of this Q&A episode in which she asks Monte several of the questions that have been posed on the forums for the site. Monte tackles questions on the planning process, the history of the dungeon itself, and how to use the design assumptions to challenge characters appropriately.

Maps ~ Upper Levels, Surrounding Environs (Open)

The first map, the Upper Levels, shows the names of the top 5 or so levels in the Dragon’s Delve including hints on The Domain of the Venom Cult and the Sprawl of the Demon Liege. The second map, the Surround Environs, shows the area around the Dragon’s Delve and Brindenford.

Overall this has been a huge week (and a bit) for Dungeonaday.com.  I look forward to seeing this project grow. This ends the second in this week’s review installments as well.

After several posts each Monday that are 2000-3000 words in length, I’ve decided to try and change my strategy a bit by spreading it out in many posts. For this week I’ll start with a review of the DDI articles from the past week. Tomorrow watch for a follow up with insight into the Dungeonaday.com articles and the day following will showcase Open Design and Kobold Quarterly.  On Thursday then will be the Blogroll and Podcast feature.  That should keep me busy this week. I’ll look to add the other pieces on the Quasi Elemental Plane of Ash and a review of KQ9 this week if possible.

Without further ado, today we look back over the Dragon and Dungeon magazine contents of the week. It has been a very fruitful week with many great articles for DDI. Several follow up on articles presented last week, including the White Lotus Academy and the Get Familiar pieces. Orcs and Devas get top billing in Dragon and Mike Mearls explores Skill Challenges in his ongoing column.

Dragon Magazine

Note that these articles require a subscription to DDI to access.

Creature Incarnations – Orcs ~ link

Mike McNerney and Greg Bilsland present the latest article in the Creature Incarnations column.  The Creature Incarnations series examines existing favourites like kobolds, zombies, gnolls, and now orcs in greater detail. This installation of the series truly shows off the versatility of orcs, portraying their barbaric brutality and stunningly destructive tribal culture. Interestingly, Mike and Greg show us three replacement attack powers to replace the iconic warrior’s surge shared by all orcs. Each of which alter the flavor of orc’s encounter enhancing the creature when bloodied. Each of these is great for combating the 4e combat grind as they increase damage rather than healing the orc.

• Warrior’s Rage
• Bloodied Strike
• Gruumsh’s Fervor

As is the case with each of these articles, several additional orcs are presented, of which my favorite is the Pyromaniac. The orcs featured in this article include:

• Orc Harrier – an orc with great mobility when charging into combat
• Orc Darkblade – with a poisoned blade the drakblade infiltrates enemy ranks
• Orc Pyromaniac – a minion that attacks from range, sometimes setting itself on fire!
• Orc Alchemist – with stink bombs, acid jars, and caustic glue
• Orc Crescent Hurler – throws battle axes chained to him
• Orc Gruumsh Sworn – a front line controller who weakens, slows, or knocks prone
• Orc Warlord – inspiring blood-lust and encouraging allies while hitting with a double axe
• Orc Beastmaster – leads a pack of hounds on the hunt
• Pack of Hounds – a savage swarm of dogs harry opponents nearby

Design and Development – Familiars ~ link

Logan Bonner and Stephen Radney-MacFarland talk about the design decisions they took while revamping familiars for 4E. Last week we saw a number of new familiars but it was difficult to see what additional stats might be presented in Arcane Power. The answer is similar to summoned monsters, they use defenses and hit points based on your own.

Familiars have simple move stats and constant benefits while sticking close to it’s master or active benefits if it’s master orders it out of the backpack. In fact one of the key goals Logan and Stephen discuss is to bring the familiar out of the backpack. There is quite a bit of room to add more familiars to the game on this basic framework.

The other piece of information missing last week was the method with which one acquires a familiar. As many assumed the Arcane Familiar feat in Arcane Power will allow just that and there are several other feats that build on the relationship and enhance your familiar’s defenses.  I definitely think I’m going to make that Ash Mephit familiar soon.

Ecology of the Deva ~ link

Elegy © Apis Teicher, 2009

Chris Sims expands seriously on the Deva presented in the PH2.  One of the most praised new races in the new Player’s Handbook, the Deva was the only new race to cover new ground.  When reading the PH2, you are only given a glimpse into these new transcendental purple folk with a two page write up, a paragon path and a few feats. A full race writeup was needed and here it is.

Chris looks into the history of the Deva in the D&D non-universe, as well as their physiology and psychology. Art includes an image of a Deva being re-born in true Terminator style (okay he’s not curled into a ball, but close enough). The article continues to explore this new race with great detail. It finishes with a page of additional feats (including one that grants a daily power ~Astral Splendor) and a few opponents for characters to face including:

• Deva Seer – prevents opponents from taking most types of actions
• Deva Discarnate – dominates and attacks an opponent’s spirit
• Deva Catspaw – attacks an opponents ability to sense it

Dungeon Magazine

Note that these articles require a subscription to DDI to access.

Danger at the White Lotus Academy [Heroic - L7] ~ link

This short adventure by Peter Schaefer uses the background material from the White Lotus Academy article in Dragon this month. In this adventure visitors to the academy become embroiled in a secret battle going on behind the scenes. The characters are drawn in as a hidden opponent sets mystical traps and guardians on them.  When the headmaster refuses to investigate the players must solve the mystery on their own.

Ruling Skill Challenges ~ link

Mike Mearls continues his monthly column which is one of the best in Dungeon magazine. Skill Challenges are the most challenging aspect of 4E to get right and the one that has the most potential. Many blogs have tackled the subject and are phenomenal resources in their own right. Mike Mearls, as designer of the system, is in the unique position of being able to show us how he intended them to work. This week’s article he approaches a single suggested skill challenge, Haggling. While not one I would generally turn into a skill challenge the article offers several tantalizing reasons to try it out.

And there you have it, my first shorter article in a new format. As this blog is still relatively new, I’ll continue to experiment with format a bit until I hit my stride as a blogger. Stay tuned tomorrow for a review of Dungeonaday.com over the past week.

As mentioned last week, I’ve decided to switch it up this week and give the blog posts of the week top billing. I think I’ll cycle content like this regularly to mix it up.  The two biggest news pieces in the RPG world this week hit blogs pretty heavily. First and foremost, Dave Arneson, co-creator of D&D  passed away on April 7th.  A sad day for the roleplaying community as we all collectively said good bye to the man who gave us character based roleplaying, hit points, AC, and many other staples, not to mention helped create what has become a gigantic world-wide entertainment industry.  AP ran a story on his passing which the NYT amongst others picked up, the well-spoken Kennith Hite delivered an eloquent obituary, OotS produced a comic in memory, and Kobold Quarterly ran an interview that they had just completed. RIP Dave and thank you for the gift of Fun!

The other large piece of news that has hit this week, called PDFGate online, is Wizards of the Coast’s decision to remove all PDF products from all channels on the Internet, specifically RPGNow/DrivethruRPG/OBS and Paizo without warning to customers.   This comes at the same time as WotC sues 8 people for illegal distribution of their PDFs all through Scrybd.com.  It strikes me as a poor business decision on WotC’s part as PDFs are an integral part of the marketplace now as many other publishers have capitalized on their move by offering deals on PDFs. ENWorld has had the greatest coverage of this event, including an interview with Greg Leeds, President of WotC as well as public copies of the court fillings.  With these two unfortunate events, I agree with others that regret that they are no longer able to purchase any of Dave Arneson’s books.

Broken Time Finn © Apis Teicher, 2009

Blogroll

Gnome Stew – Starting a new campaign – The background independent pilot session ~ link

Martin Ralya presents an interesting article that I’m definitely going to be using for my next campaign. I’ve read a lot of posts over the last few months about character backgrounds and weaving a plot around the characters themselves rather than the major plots the DM wants to run. A staple of sandbox games, this style intrigues me but I’ve had trouble drawing that kind of information from my players. In this article, Martin offers a solution ~ run the first session without an care for background, allow players to get a handle on their new character’s personality and play style. That way you can follow up after the session to dig deeper into the decisions that the character portrayed in that pilot episode and get a more detailed history to draw from once the characters are a little more cemented in the minds of the players.

Gnome Stew – Five thinks to make your NPCs stand out ~ link

Personally I find my NPCs a little flat so any article on breathing life into them is appreciated.  John Arcadian’s Johnny’s Five article this week shows 5 ways to make NPCs stick in your player’s mind. The five things John suggests include Details, Voice, References, Uniqueness, and Physical Representations.  A solid article that I’ll have to try in my next game.

Dungeon’s Master – Reputation ~ part 1 part 2 part 3

Began on The Core Mechanic by Ameron from Dungeon’s Master, this three part series finished this week, but I wanted to get it all in.  Its a great set of articles starts out with a discussion on different types of reputation such as positive and negative reputation and its potential effects on game play.  The second part presents three different flavors to colour your hero’s reputation such as local heroes, unsung heroes, and anonymous heroes. The third part  plays on negative flavors of reputation such as false heroes, anything but heroes, and larger than life heroes. How will your players try to build their own reputation and how will you put it to use in your game?

The Core Mechanic – Anatomy of a Villain ~ link

Both At-Will and The Core Mechanic offer us articles on Villains this week and both of them are out of the park. Jonathan Jacobs offers yet more advice on something I want to improve on, my villains. I’ve had a couple that my players really remember and hate like the changeling Brother Garrow from the Eberron trilogy of adventures for 3.5.  This article advises GMs on a few tricks that they can use to create memorable villains such as types of villains, motivations, minions, and re-occurances.  What’s more Jonathan lets slip his inspiration for his villains, TV Tropes Wiki, which looks like a useful site.

At-Will – The Vicious Virtues of Villainy ~ link

Beyond the methods of how to make a villain great, Gamefiend goes into the importance of villain in games and why it is important to create one that is memorable and hated by your players.  He then delves into how to achieve that hatred by using a villains motivation, goals, and plots (and minions).  Together these two articles are great.

Chatty DM – Chatty’s Review: Monte Cook’s Dungeon A Day ~ link

As you’ve seen from my past weekly review entries, I’m a fan of Monte Cook’s Dungeonaday.com project. This week a number of bloggers reviewed the project including the Chatty DM, Philippe Menard.  His review is very positive, so if you’re not taking my word for it, give his a read too.  Philippe covers some of the innovations that Monte is employing to make the dungeon as dynamic and usable.  With hyperlinks, forums, maps, dwarven forge terrain, a glossary, and a great click-able map technology really drives the site almost as much as the phenomenal content.

Megadungeon.com – Welcome to Megadungeon ~ link

James Maliszewski of Grognardia fame has begun a project similar to Monte Cook’s Dungeonaday.com and while the comparison will be drawn across the net James’ project had begun to percolate prior to Monte’s started.  Many bloggers were speaking of megadungeons over the past few months and James decided to do something about it. Megadungeon.com is an old school dungeon built with OD&D rules. I’ve discovered many blogs out there that encourage a return to RPG roots and a different way of playing where the rules were suggestions and challenges were leveraged against players more so than their characters at times.  This mega dungeon will return us to those games of old using modern Internet technologies to deliver the content.

Newbie DM – Vin Diesel’s Melkor the Drow ~ link

Newbie DM pointed this one out on his blog this week and it is too hilarious not to pass along. Vin Diesel, on Jimmy Kimmel’s late night talk show talks about his re-appearance in Fast and the Furious 3. At about the 2:27 mark he starts talking about his half-drow character, Melkor.

Dragon Magazine

Note that these articles require a subscription to DDI to access.

The White Lotus Academy an Arcane School ~ link

Peter Schaefer presents a nice article about an arcane school that offers something for all the different classes that draw from the arcane power source in 4e. Bards, Sorcerors, Swordmages, Warlocks, and Wizards all have a place at the White Lotus Academy. It was this kind of content that I liked reading in the old Complete books for 3.5 and that I would’ve expected in the Power series in 4e.  I’ve not seen Arcane Power yet, but I’m not sure it will have any content like this given the precedent set by Martial Power. So I’m glad that Dragon is picking up where those books left off and presenting more campaign material for the arcane rather than just character options.

Get Familiar ~ link

Logan Bonner offers us a completely revamped system of familiars for 4e. Familiars were definitely missed in the original PH for 4e as they had been a staple in 3.5.  This article is intended to expand on the familiars offered in Arcane Power, but as mentioned above, I’ve not seen that yet. Overall they look very interesting. Each familiar has a simple set of stats including just speed and senses as well as static advantages and active ones for the caster. I’m going to have to create a version of the ash mephit as a familiar soon.  Its too bad that we don’t get to see how one gains a familiar or what game stats (hp, defenses, etc) that they have. I guess Arcane Power will have those.

Dungeon Magazine

Note that these articles require a subscription to DDI to access.

The Scales of War – Part 10 – Alliance at Nefelus [Paragon - L14] ~ link

The 10th adventure in the Scales of War adventure path is presented by Chris Tulach.  Where as the last one I was intrigued by the adventure path, I’m not sure how well this one fits.  It sounds like a really fun adventure where the players are asked to help one of their long time allies to free her tropic homeland from a siege of ice.  The characters travel to the island realm, beat up several frost giants and make it to the island. There they are given three apparatuses of Kwalish, yes the big crab vehicle thing from way back, that they need to use to enter Icehome to fight a two-headed white dragon, Chillreaver. Chillreaver is allied with the githyanki and is use the Seed of Winter to change the weather around the tropic island.

Wizards.com Features

As mentioned in my introduction, I’ve cycled the Blogroll picks to the top of the list. That leaves other sections for brief linkage.  The three excerpts below are interesting, though my pick is the Adamantine Dragon, the first metallic we see for 4e.  The Scales of War advice column reviews the third installment of SoW with advice on troublesome spots and suggestions on which minis you’ll need and which dungeon tiles will support each encounter.  Its a good thought, but why start with the third adventure?  Why not #1 or the current one #10?  The other difficulty is of course that some of the dungeon tiles are out of print and the minis are rare and expensive now, especially the Harbinger series originally released 6 years ago.

• Excerpt: Archlich Epic Destiny from Arcane Power
• Excerpt: P3 Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress
• Scale of War Advice
• Excerpt: Adamantine Dragon from Monster Manual 2

Dungeonaday.com

Rooms 32-36

Once beyond the thematically linked encounters of the earlier rooms on level 1 and the stairs down there is an older section of the Dragons Delve that has a number of unique and interesting traps and treasure.  With a creepy web filled room and a bubbling black ooze that makes more of a puzzle than a combat encounter, Monte has offered us a number of rooms with a very old school feel. Almost to level 2!

Our Sponsors ~ link

Monte introduces the sponsors for the site. Dwarven Forge and Reaper Minis were originally on board for the site and their influence can be seen through out, though personally I’d like to see more minis featured.  This week Monte adds the Hypertext d20 SRD which has been along for the ride the whole time but is getting more notice on the site now.  He also welcomes Paizo publishing whom he has worked with recently on the Pathfinder RPG. Speaking of PFRPG, Jason Bulmahn will be joining Dungeonaday.com soon as a guest blogger.

Empty Rooms ~ link

In this blog entry, Monte talks about the importance of including empty rooms in a dungeon.  Verisimilitude and suspension of disbelief are the key reasons Monte highlights.  He also addresses the concern that in maintaining that philosophy he’d have to present encounters with ’45. This room is empty.’  In the Delve he has created area encounters which may include several rooms some of which have monsters, treasure, or traps, but others contain nothing.  He also includes empty rooms that have a revisit entry, allowing players who pass through those rooms to encounter creatures on their way back through later.

The Temple of Vune ~ link

Vune is a goddess of charity, light, and purity whose clergy maintain the largest temple in Brindenford, the town near the Dragon’s Delve.  The clergy of Vune offer healing and assistance to those willing to donate to the less fortunate with time or money. To the followers of Vune, fighting evil is not a reason for charity, thus making adventurers less important in the eyes of the clergy.

Open Design

4E discussion kicks off this week! With the 3.5 version wrapping up we start into a discussion of tier and level. I personally would like to see this go early paragon, but others want to keep it in the heroic tier especially as a sequel to the Wrath of the River King.  While I can see that point of view many of the tasks the adventurers undertake seem more paragon oriented to me.

• Playtest Report: Deeper Darkness
• 4E Discussion: Level

Kobold Quarterly

I’ve linked to it above already, but you have to read the interview with Dave Arneson.  It was included in the recently released Kobold Quarterly #9 (review forthcoming) and Wolfgang has been gratious enough to post it to the site. He mentions the poor timing of the article in the Passing of Time piece below, but it really is a wonderful tribute to the man.

• Monster Monday: Necrotic Tick
• Free Dice ~ Subscribe Today!
• The Passing of Time
• Interview with Dave Arneson

Podcasts

It would appear that the theme of this week touches on two pieces, Dungeonaday.com and the passing of Dave Arneson.  The Tome Show’s celebrating D&D is a great tribute whether Jeff meant it or not. From all the articles that I’ve read over the past week, Dave loved the game and wanted everyone to have fun. What better a way to celebrate that than by celebrating D&D itself.

• Fear the Boot – #142 Roleplaying with Kids
• The Tome Show – #100 Celebrating D&D
• RPG Countdown – Mar 25- Apr 7
• Atomic Array – #20 Dungeonaday.com
• D&D Podcast – S2E8 Penny Arcade/PvP/Wil Weaton

And that wraps it up for this week. I’ll be posting another creature in my ongoing Quasi Elemental Plane of Ash series this week. Eventually I’ll be posting some adventure locations, a description of the plane, and more.  I will also be doing a review of KQ 9 this week time permitting. I’ve almost finished reading it already.

Highlights from this past week include a new playtest article from Player’s Handbook 3 (3 already OMG I just got 2!), many April fools jokes including the hilarious Witchalok and stats for the Flumph amongst others. Writing this on Monday without including Monday news is a bit difficult, especially given the questionable move of Wizards to remove all PDFs of their books from all online channels including downloads of past purchases. This move was apparently in reaction to piracy, the problem is that they are closing themselves off from perfectly legal sources of revenue and will likely have no affect on piracy. Indeed those who prefer to have PDF copies of their material will no longer have a legal method of getting those files even though they have paid full price for the hardcopy.

Dragon Magazine

Note that these articles require a subscription to DDI to access.

A new month of  Dragon Magazine started off with a bang. Many of the regular columns launch first with is a little odd, though I do understand why Editorials are important up front. The playtest article is the real gem this week.

Character Concepts ~ link

This article by Matt Sernet simply presents two character concepts, a Tiefling Hellock and a Drow Bard/Ranger. Matt walks us through how to change general character concepts into well developed stats across all 30 levels.  It is not a ground breaking article, it is a bit too focused on building a stat line that a well rounded character.  What it does have is some of the names of powers and feats from Arcane Power for both characters. The section on the Bard/Ranger is more interesting as Matt shows us how to achieve an arcane archer type build with the new things coming this month.

Editorial ~ link

Chris Youngs addresses a concern that strikes close to home ~ too many cool new toys and not enough games to play them all in! PH2 is out and there are so many new things to try out I need to play more. I’ve created a large number of characters already in Character Builder with it and read through the first chapter (review pending) but its not enough. My answer = join PbP games online. They move slowly so you can easily play in 10-12 at a time.

Playtest: Hybrid Characters ~ link

From PH3 – This is one of the best articles this week. Hybrid characters are similar to Gestalt characters from Unearthed Arcana in 3.5. Basically you choose two classes that you want to combine and you get a subset of the abilities from each. So the Hybrid Rogue will have some of the class features, skills, hit points, etc and when you throw that together with a Hybrid Ranger you get another subset of each to combine.  When selecting powers you have to have at least 1 of each class for each type of power (at-will, encounter, daily, utility) but then are free to select what ever you want from either. For feats, paragon paths, epic destinies, and the like you qualify as both classes and for powers that require specific class features, even if you have a hobbled version it counts.  The one thing I’m not sure about is whether you will really be able to compete with straight classes. They hybrids class features are really minor versions its like taking 25% of one class and adding another 25% which by my math does not yeild 100% of anything. This playtest article is very open to future development and the article even indicates that it will not be available in CB or in LFR either. I’m not sure what playtest they are going to achieve if two of the most powerful playtest tools are not including the rules, but hey they are worth a shot. With all the new toys from PH2, I wish those new classes could’ve been incorporated into this document too, but maybe thats pushing it a little.

Ampersand ~ link

Bill Slavicsek gives us a pretty big preview of a set of feats from Divine Power. The feats presented recreate the Domain system of 3.5.  Players of divine classes can choose a domain feat and a divinity feat from the gods they worship. The domain feat modifies the at-will powers associated with one of the domains of the god, similar to the martial styles. I’m assuming we’ll see something similar in Arcane Power and Primal Power.  The divinity feats are the same as the ones in the PH, offering another use for Channel Divinity, these based on a domain instead of a specific god. The domains presented include Civilization, Creation, and Justice.

Dungeon Magazine

Note that these articles require a subscription to DDI to access.

Save My Game – The Tangle of Threads ~ link

Stephen Radney-MacFarland’s column is quickly becoming one of my favorite. Its not surprising given that the Dungeoncraft columns of Monte Cook and Wolfgang Baur were amongst the best in Dungeon’s Paizo print runs.  Stephen’s columns are reminiscent of those in the way they offer concrete advice for DMs and the problems presented at the table. This particular article is about keeping track of all the threads you are weaving with your plots, NPCs, and descriptions. A fascinating read, highly recommended.

Editorial – The Jokes on You ~ link

This month Chris Youngs talks about humor in play and creating memorable, amusing characters that keep boundaries in mind.

Wizards.com Features

April Fools Joke Articles

April 1st is always an amusing one out in the Intarwebs and this year was no different. WotC’s foray into the hilarious was topped by the Witchalok by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade. Dagger of Sorrows One Hundred Million Weeping makes the target sad! And they get Eye Lasers at will. Just too funny and they make a good companion to the podcasts and recent comics in the Further Songs of Sorcelation

• Dungeon Delve: Fool’s Grove
• PH3 Preview: The Witchalok
• Previews: Drizzt the Gathering

Excerpts: Feats ~ link

From Arcane Power – This excerpt is simply a list of feats from Arcane Power. There are no feats presented as an example.

Excerpts: Grave Caller ~ link

From Arcane Power – This is an odd paragon path for bards that present them as assassin bards who deliver their targets to the grave. Members of the Grave Callers mark those who prey on innocents and attack them from shadows. Like I said its a bit odd.

Previews for April and Beyond ~ link

We know that Arcane Power is coming up this month and we are treated to our first look at Tomes, a new implement for Wizards.  We also get a little preview of E1: Death’s Reach, the first printed epic adventure coming to 4E which involves a visit to the Raven Queen herself.  We also see a few of the prepainted minis from Arcane Heroes. All in all I’ve been less than pleased with the exceedingly overpriced poorly presented examples we’ve seen of the new Heroes line. I saw some of the new Reaper prepainted minis recently and they looked much better. In this article we also get to see the Diamond Hide Xorn and Green Slime from MM2 which looks cool. The last preview is E2: Kingdom of the Ghouls. I’m curious to see where Bruce Cordell will take Wolfgang Baur’s creation in 4E.  The Empire of the Ghouls that Wolfgang did for Open Design 3 was fantastic and I still have to read the original Dungeon adventure from issue 71.

Dungeonaday.com

Note that these articles require a subscription to Dungeonaday.com to access.

Rooms 27-31

Moving away from Serrestique’s sanctuary, the players enter an area controlled by an evil spirit with some historical ties to the ruins above.  A few traps and some zombies round out the rooms just before the stairs down to level 2.  There are still a number of rooms on level 1, so I’m curious to see where Monte will go with the rest of the level which is quite difficult to get to.

Altering Experience Rewards in a Dungeon Campaign ~ link

In this article Monte speaks of altering the rate at which characters advance in the Dragon’s Delve. The 3.5 DMG was designed with the 13 encounters per level theory, which in a dungeon setting barely comprises a third of a level.  Monte suggests halving the experience rewards to run PCs close to 1 level of advancement to 1 level of dungeon exploration. Some have also suggested the Pathfinder RPG’s slower advancement rate as a possible solution as well which is elegant. For 4E I’m going to have to see how things progress before deciding how to play it out as their rate of advancement is faster (1 level per 10 encounters) but their levels are a little shallower and spread across a gradient of 30 levels.

Using Bluesteel Doors to Your Advantage ~ link

One of the features in the Dragon’s Delve is Bluesteel doors that we’ve seen already. These doors are indestructible and require passwords to bypass. Monte encourages DMs to alter their location to channel players away from areas that are not developed yet if that is ever required. At an encounter per day I don’t know how many groups will be able to keep up with him anyways so I’ll probably just use the ones that Monte has in there to control the flow of exploration rather than cut off areas that haven’t been done yet.

Maps Update ~ level 1 & level 2

Not only are we shown an advanced preview of Level 2 which contains a large water system, but we are also given a wonderful new tool, clickable maps. This is one of the biggest requests on the boards, as people clamor for easier ways to use the site at the table. I must admit that it is a brilliant way to access the information needed if you are using a laptop or preparing for a session ahead.

Open Design

Note that these articles require a subscription to Open Design to access.

Halls of the Mountain King Progress ~ link (Open)

Wolfgang posted the covers of the Halls and updated us all on the status, join now

• Playtest 1: Dark Was the Nightlink
• Playtest 2: Dark Was the Night
• Notebook: Gefangak ~ link

Kobold Quarterly

Monster Monday: Secretion Ooze ~ link

Another icky monster by Phillip Larwood, an intelligent ooze comprised of humors secreted by the bodies of those its eaten. Ew.

Behind the Spells: Entangle ~ link

I’ve never read any of Bret Boyd’s Behind the Spells articles before. His company, Tricky Owlbear has put out a number of them. The concept is great, provide a lot of additional background on a simple, popular spell on how it developed and where it came from. Then Bret adds a twist to the spell in the form of a spell secret obtained by using a spellcraft check while casting it as well as an item or other addition. I’m not a huge fan of his writing, its a column to try again, but this week was a miss.

Blogroll

Lots of great stuff this week, most especially the Wired article on Settlers of Catan. I’ve been playing that game with my 4 year old son for a month or so now ever night. He loves it! I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t tried it. This is the best boardgame I’ve played.

• Wired – Settlers of Catan
• Encounter A Day – Setting Seeds Lingua Franca
• A Butterfly Dreaming – April Blog Carnival – Humor
• The Chapel Perilous – Jason Bulmahn to join Dungeon a day.com
• Dungeon Mastering (by Chatty DM) – Playing 4E with only 1 player
• The Citadel of Eight – Dungeon a day.com
• Mike Mearls – Skill Resolution

Podcasts

• Fear the Boot – #141 An Underserved Demographic
• Pulp Gamer Out of Character – #72 Jamaican Rum
• The Walking Eye – #3 Interview with Monte Cook

Another shorter week, I think the 2000 word target is easier to achieve each week rather than the 3000 set in the first post.  I really wish I had time to expand on why I think the blog posts and podcasts I feature deserve your attention.  Where as I’m posting almost all of the content offered on the pay sites I visit to give everyone a critical eye on what they might be missing, the blog posts are often some of the best content I read in a week. Perhaps next week, I’ll start with them and move to the other stuff if I have time. If not the the WotC content will fall to a list of links. What does everyone thing? Anyone?

Oh and I gotta start work on my April blog carnival post and continue my Quasi Elemental Plane of Ash stuff for 4E. Till next time, roll a 20 for Dave Arneson, he needs all the luck he can get right now. Here’s thinking of you Dave, get well soon.

Things seem to wind down in the last week of the month. This week we’ve got a few playtest and excerpt articles from Wizards, Monte’s Top 10 Rules for GMing, Open Design moves into playtest mode, and KQ delivers another creepy creature. Thanks to Daniel Perez who clued me into the daily summary emails from RPG Blogger’s Network, they are so much easier to digest each day than the huge number of duplicates in the RSS feed. The emails contain short descriptions of each post also making it easy to spot interesting articles.

Remember you can follow my shared items on Google Reader for a daily view of articles that I feature here once a week. You can also follow me on Twitter, though I’ll add a link to the right of this blog in the near future. I’m also working on setting up Warpig radio syndication when I work through some technical difficulties.

Dragon Magazine

Note that these articles require a subscription to DDI to access.

Design and Development – The Primal Power Source ~ link

James Wyatt, Mike Mearls, and Rob Heinsoo talk about the process that they went through to build the new power source in PHB2 in this month’s Design and Development. It was interesting to see the evolution of the concept of a druid as a representative of nature gods to one of the world spirit. It sounds very Final Fantasy to me though the concept draws on a lot of historical context. Personally I will be tying the Spirit world to the ideas used in Avatar or those of Shintaoism in Japan. Its amusing to see how Mike’s inspiration on the spirit world came from The Temple of Elemental Evil and H1: The Village of Hommlet. I remember encountering the druid in the grove and the tension between the old gods and the new.

Confessions of a Full-time Wizard ~ link

Shelly Mazzanoble’s column is a humor piece about discussions within R&D. I’m not sure what target market these columns are for, but they are not for me. I’ve largely ignored them in the past and in reading through this month’s installment I think that I’ll continue to do that.

Dungeon Magazine

Note that these articles require a subscription to DDI to access.

Vicious Venues – Incadescent Smithy ~ link

Skip and Penny Williams present us with the only article this week for Dungeon Magazine, it did not end the month on a high note. The vicious venue in question is a smithy operated by a pair of Azers over an open magma flow. While a unique location for a friendly smithy, it wasn’t very appealing to me. The hooks on how to make it a combat were good but kind of went against how I saw it presented up front.

Wizards.com Features

Ivanite © Apis Teicher, 2009

Character Builder Update ~ link

Note that Character Builder requires a DDI subscription, though access to this article does not. That said, Didier Monin brings us the big news of the month for me. I find that the Character Builder is the most useful tool in the subscription. All of my players have created their characters using the tool and they had a blast doing it. It made character creation so much easier. I also use it for all my 4e PbP characters and just love tooling around with it. This update brough all the PHB2 content to the Character Builder instantly expanding it with a huge amount of content. I played around and build a doppelganger bard, a shifter warden, a deva avenger, and a dragonborn sorceror and had a lot of fun doing so. I know that I’ll likely continue building random characters just for the heck of it. The last player in my party playing a human shaman will now be able to create her character too.

Excerpts – Orc Stronghold [Heroic, L3] ~ link

From Dungeon Delve – I think this dungeon delve was better than the one presented in Dungeon this month. This one is actually in the Dungeon Delve book and makes interesting use of the Dungeon Tiles to create interesting encounters for level 3 adventurers.

Excerpts – Summoning Magic ~ link

From Arcane Power – With this preview and the previous one that James Wyatt published I’m really keen to see what a summoning wizard can do. There is one additional summoning daily power in this article, Summon Fire Warrior, but also previewed is the first conjuration. Conjurations are apparently encounter or at-will versions of summons that affect enemies by conjuring creatures to attack once. They don’t stick around long, but the spell effects look and feel more like creatures attacking.  Sounds neat to me.

Excerpts – Cosmic Magic ~ link

From Arcane Power – Cosmic Magic presents another source of arcane power for the new PHB2 sorceror that we’ll see in Arcane Power this month. It’s interesting to see that we’ll have support for new PHB2 classes in a book released just a month later. When I started reading this article I thought that the line between Warlock and Sorceror continued to blur with Star Pact vs. Cosmic Magic a little too close conceptually. Reading the abilities and the phases of the cosmos abilities prooved me wrong. These two classes will play quite differently even though they are both arcane strikers.

Dungeonaday.com

Note that these articles require a subscription to Dungeonaday.com to access.

Rooms 22 to 26

This week Monte continues to expand on Si.. and her interest in the Mages Four with largely non-combat dungeon rooms that present puzzles, traps, and just interesting encounter locations. I hope that adventurers entering this section really catch on to the hook and look forward to finding out more about both the Mages Four and Si.. herself.

Monte’s Top 10 Rules for DMing ~ link

Flexibility and consistency are key to Monte’s rules on how to DM a good game. From the guy who wrote the 3rd edition DMG it is interesting to see how his advice years ago still holds true after 9 years. I’m not sure when he wrote this list, but Monte indicates that it was a number of years ago and that it is still pertinent today. Largely Monte suggests that DMs work to understand their players, what the players like, and what they as a DM like to run to make the game fun for all.

Listen Check 2 ~ link (Open)

In this episode Monte speaks more on the background of Dungeonaday.com and some of the ways that he is looking to expand it. It was nice to hear him plug the efforts of the community, including the 4E conversion effort that a couple of us members have started. We’ve covered most of the rooms that have come out to date.

NPC: Evinarus ~ link

Evinarus is presented as a friendly NPC that is hanging around outside the dungeon. He wants to accompany the party into the delve and is able to provide them with helpful advice and directions through a few of the opening rooms.  But does he have a hidden agenda? Is he being as helpful as he makes out to be?

Open Design

Note that these articles require a subscription to Open Design to access.

Open Design moves into one of the final phases this week. Many of the patron designed pieces of the adventure have come in as playtest manuscripts.  The patrons selected for playtesting will begin now and will have a few weeks to run through the material and generate reports on the encounters providing valuable feedback to their authors.  Once the playtest reports start rolling in we’ll get a good glimpse of how the encounters play out.  After that the books head into editing and then layout. It’ll probably be another couple of months till we get the final product.

This project is being written for the 3.5 edition of the rules and will be accompanied by a Gazateer of the Dwarven Cantons. We 4th edition fans had enough of us stick around to talk Wolfgang into producing a full conversion of the adventure as well as a separate book of dwarven goodies all in 4th edition.  Both the gazateer and the 4e book will each be 64 pages.  Currently all patrons are either one edition or the other, but Wolfgang announced today on the messageboards that he will be developing a dual track system for those of us (myself included) who play both editions.

This week we have a few small updates as we move into the playtest phase.

• Design Notebook: Grand Lodge
• Heraldry
• Status: 4 Playtest Manuscripts Complete

Kobold Quarterly

Monster Monday: Grimdaw or Ghoul Crow ~ link

Written by Richard Pett and John Robey, these creepy black crows or ravens feature faces or appendages that appear to be human. Sometimes the faces or even just eyes or lips of these birds are covered in flesh at times they are just exposed bone. For 3.5 the Grimdaw and the Grimdaw Miseries (a swarm of grimdaw) remind me of The Raven by Edgar Alan Poe and channelling Poe is never bad.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“‘Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door-
Only this, and nothing more.”

….

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, 1845

Ask the Kobold: Succubi and Enervation ~ link

Skip Williams continues to share his encyclopedic knowledge of the 3.5 rules answers some bizarre questions about succubi and enervation. Where these groups manage to come up with these situations is beyond me, but it certainly makes for entertaining reading. I mean the opening sentence begins with “Say I cast the simulacrum spell on a succubus (for, you know, science). ” funny stuff all of which Skip answers with alacrity.

Blogroll

There were some great blog posts in the RPG blogsphere this week. Many of the blogs touched on more PHB 2 coverage.  The gamefiend’s At Will blog covered the avenger in play and it was quite an interesting article about the most intriguing and fresh classes from the book.  Mike Mearls had a great post this week as well on improvisation and how to use acting methodology at the game table.

• RPG Blog 2 – Interview with Jason Bulmahn
• Critical Hits – Ranged Warlord
• A Butterfly Dreaming – War and How to Wage It
• At Will – PHB2 In Play: The Avenger
• Mike Mearls – Carefully Prepared Improvisation

Podcasts

Some of these are a bit of catch up for me, especially the Pulp Gamer ones. I have fallen a bit behind on my podcast listening given the added reading I’ve taken on for this blog. But not to fear, I’ve delved back into it this week and have quite a few to recommend.  The highlights of this week were Have Games, Will Travel’s look at narrative control where Paul Tevis talks about failure forward which was covered in one of the blogs from last week by At Will. I was also keenly interested in what the Gamer Traveler had to say about Kobe Japan. Daniel Perez spoke with a good friend of his while in Puerto Rico who had been in Kobe on a MTG tournament.  While living in Japan for 3 years, I never had the chance to visit Kobe so it was something new for me though it made me a bit homesick.

• Fear the Boot – Interview #8 – Trampas Whiteman
• RPG Countdown – Mar 11-24
• Atomic Array – #19 Gestalt
• Pulp Gamer – Out of Character – #70 More on Mechanics
• Pulp Gamer – Out of Character – #71 Bon Voyage
• Have Games Will Travel – For a Few Games More – #37 Narrative Control
• The Gamer Traveler – #11 Kobe, Japan

Well thats a bit shorter this week, though it certainly didn’t feel like it with all that reading.  I’m finding new ways to organize my thoughts and put these posts together as time goes on. Hopefully I will continue to refine them and attract traffic to the site. I will also be putting together more creative pieces in the next bit on 4e material.

By Thomas Denmark © Wizards of the Coast, 2009

Mar 16-22

Okay here we are in my second weekly update post. In my first post I mentioned how broad my weekly reading was; apparently I was mistaken. I’ve since added the RPG Blogger’s Network to my Google Reader subscription. To say I was overwhelmed is an understatement. I looked back over the week of posts to see how many there were and it was in the 700s. Now the feed has an odd habit of grabbing the same posts multiple times from the feed and I’m not sure why. But if you want your daily dose of RPG goodness go drink from the fire hose over there. There are so many good blogs and posts every single week. In looking though I discovered that my ideas for a Weekly What’s New was nothing new and that there are a couple of bloggers who do the same thing. Hopefully my opinions on articles will inspire some of you to take a look at some of the wonderful content available. This week I add a couple of sites that were absent from my first round up, Kobold Quarterly and Open Design.

Dragon Magazine #373

Party Building ~ link

The Dungeon Master’s Guide for 4e was the best book of the three by far as it addressed so many good articles to the DM on how the game runs. One of the articles in there was about party composition and how to adapt to deficiencies in party role representation and alternate party structures. Robert J. Schwalb puts that discussion in front of players in a pretty good article on how party role plays into the construction of a party. How to balance small groups or large groups, how the party will play with an abundance or shortage of characters in a role and how to use secondary roles and multiclassing to strengthen a weak area. Overall the article is a little gamey, concentrating on the tactics of D&D 4e, which is one of the game’s strengths but not necessarily how every group plays it (like mine).

Playtest – Martial Power 2 ~ link

Richard Baker, Robert J. Schwalb, and Peter Lee present us with an article on combat styles from the Martial Power 2 book. What jumped out at me right away was how quickly Wizards was taking the series of books to the next level. Sure we have PHB2, DMG2, and MM2 already announced as well as AV2, but now we also see that they are doing the Power series of books in sequence too. The article on combat styles is interesting and presents pairs of feats that make up combat styles. Each style has a specific set of weapons that share characteristics such as all two-handed axes or all high-crit heavy blades, etc. The first of the two feats enhances at-will abilities that work well with the weapons from any martial class and the second feat applies to all attacks with the weapons.

The combat styles included in the article include:

• Black Hood Style – two-handed axes
• Desert Moon Sword Style – high-crit heavy blades
• Leafrunner Style – light ranged weapons
• Moradin’s Forge Style – heavy picks and hammers
• Ninth Legion Style – spears and picks with heavy shields
• Partisan Pole Arm Style – pole arms…
• Reaving Axe Style – one handed axes
• Steel Vanguard Style – two-handed heavy blades

Dungeon Magazine #164

Dungeoncraft ~ link

James Wyatt has been giving us a glimpse into his Greenbriar setting since the first preview articles of 4e. It has been interesting to see how it has evolved and in this episode he reviews how he will be adding Player’s Handbook 2 into his setting. While the discussion is valuable, I’m more interested in the evolving plot with the Speaker in Dreams. There are a few hints in here which keep my interest.

Ruling Skill Challenges – Social Skill Challenges, Part 1 ~ link

Mike Mearls’ series on Skill Challenges have been some of the most valuable pieces in Dungeon. Skill Challenges are a fascinating option in 4e but one of the most difficult to pull off. Many a blog post has been spent on Skill Challenges, all of them extremely valuable. The more we have on this facet of 4e the better. I’ve written a few myself that have failed spectacularly. Following Mike’s advice I converted half a 3.5 adventure from Tales of Zobeck. It looks really good on paper, here’s hoping that it goes well. In this particular article, Mike talks about how to make Social Skill Challenges interesting and applicable. Many have discovered that running social encounters as skill challenges tends to hamper role playing. Mike addresses this and offers advice on when to just skip the challenge and let the role playing continue. All in all, one of the best articles this month.

The Scales of War – Part 9 – Haven of the Bitter Glass [Paragon - L12] ~ link

Piratecat of ENWorld fame (or Kevin Kulp to the outside world) gets his start in Dungeon this month with a mammoth adventure in the Scales of War campaign. Haven of Bitter Glass is immense weighing in at 83 pages! I’ll admit that I’ve not been following the SoW adventure path up to this point. This adventure has piqued my interest enough to go back and read them all. In this part of the adventure path, the party is contacted by by a githzerai to help rescue his leaders from a siege orchestrated by the githyanki invasion. After helping them the party heads to a city where a githyanki spy has infiltrated his way into the political and social scene. The group must carefully navigate the social waters to oust the spy and discover the source of the githyanki’s communications network. I have to admit that I’ve not read the entire adventure yet but so far its excellent work.

Wizards.com Features

D&D Alumni ~ link

Bart Carroll and Steve Winter trace the history of the druid and the bard across the different editions of D&D. For those interested in the history of D&D its an interesting look at two of the classes that have probably changed the most from their original forms (especially the druidic fighter/thief aka. Bard).

Excerpts: Arcane Hunter ~ link

From Arcane Power – the Arcane Hunter is a Paragon Path for Swordmages. This paragon path targets a creature’s vulnerabilities and resistances trying to maximize its ability to deal different types of damage. Its an interesting take to address the issues with resistances that Mike Mearls weighed in on in February.

Excerpt: Vestige Pact ~ link

From Arcane Power – Like the Fey Pact, Infernal Pact, Star Pact, and Dark Pact (as well as the Pacts from 3rd party companies like Adamant Entertainment) Arcane Power brings us a new pact ~ the Vestige Pact. Drawing from the excellent 3.5 Tome of Magic’s Binder class, this new option for Warlocks allows you to bind to a vestige as part of a daily attack power. That bind enhances the at-will power that you get as well as the pact boon. Its a nifty translation of the binder’s abilities and is similar to the barbarian’s rage in a few ways. I like it and look forward to seeing more vestige attack powers.

Dungeonaday.com

Rooms 17-21

The new rooms in the Dragon’s Delve this week are really interesting. They are all centered around the adventurer Serrestique who carved out a section of the dungeon for herself so that she could study the legendary Mages Four. The rooms this week show some of the traps she set and the treasure they guard. Each room continues to be unique, interesting, and yet tied together in a fascinating way. I continue to look forward to the rooms presented every day.

The Lost Shepherd ~ link

The Lost Shepherd is one of three taverns in the nearby town of Brindenford. This article introduces some of the NPCs who work in the tavern, the prices for room and board, as well as some hooks for characters looking to immerse themselves in the location around the Dragon’s Delve in between delves.

The Aesthetics of Maps ~ link

Monte continues to talk about his love of dungeon map design and some more thoughts he puts into creating a dynamic, living environment with such static encounter locations. Realism and the art of the design are the focus of his article though he does also indicate how Dwarven Forge dungeon terrain has influenced his design and other suggested options for presenting the dungeon to players (such as Ed Bourelle’s Skeleton Key Games)

Adventure Hooks (Open Content) ~ link

Monte presents the first two hooks in an ongoing series. Each hook can be used independently to encourage players to investigate certain aspects of the Dragon’s Delve or in conjunction. The first two involve a stolen bracer taken by the Bestial Host, and a lost Werewolf who left town a year prior. Both present interesting hooks for characters and I could see these as well as the rumors used all together to get each of the different party members a different focus for exploration. This page is included as preview material.

Puzzles ~ link

This short article presents Monte’s take on designing riddles and puzzles. His advice is to make them relatively simple and to offer multiple ways to get around the puzzle so that they don’t hinder parties not interested in solving brain-teasers.

Open Design – Halls of the Mountain King

Note that the posts on design below are closed content for patrons only. Details on patronage are also below.

I’m not sure why I forgot to include Open Design in the first blog post I wrote. For those unfamiliar with it, Open Design is a project by Wolfgang Baur to write an adventure or supplement for a small audience of patrons. The patrons select topics for the book, offer suggestions on where they want to see the book going, build monsters, treasure, traps, and more all in a blog based environment. Then Wolfgang goes off and writes amazing adventures exactly how patrons want them. The projects cost around the $25 entry fee and all patrons will receive a PDF copy of the adventure once its over. That’s normally a pretty high price point for a PDF, but the experience and the wealth of knowledge that Wolfgang shares is well worth it. Many even choose to take a greater role in the projects as senior patrons at a higher price point.

I’ve been a member of every open design project save the first, Steam and Brass. So far that includes Castle Shadowcrag, Empire of the Ghouls, Arabian Nights, Blood of the Gorgon, Tales of Zobeck, Wrath of the River King. The latest project is Halls of the Mountain King, a dwarven super adventure. This one is being written by senior patrons largely who all pitched adventures to the patrons. Its a new direction for Open Design and I’m keen to see how it goes. The adventure is being written for 3.5, but the 4e patrons choose to stay on and support a 4e edition which will be completed after the 3.5 version. The adventure will also be accompanied by a Gazetteer full of dwarven goodness written almost entirely by Wolfgang. That too will be re-written for the 4e crowd after the other one is finished.

Halls of the Mountain King is open for patrons still though the design is almost complete. Patrons of Halls can still purchase the Wrath of the River King and Tales of Zobeck projects. Click here for more information.

This week we’ve had three articles written by the patrons designing the adventure. Each asks the other patrons for advice on design decisions.

• Design Notebook – the Prime Anvils
• Design Notebook – Puzzle Doors
• Design Notebook – The Broken Door

Heraldry: Wintersheim ~ link

Wolfgang has also written an article on the dwarven heraldry used by the Cantons of the Halls. I’ve never studied Heraldry before so its interesting to see how my clan’s crest would be described.

Kobold Quarterly

And another one I forgot last week. KQ is a quarterly magazine put out by Wolfgang Baur. Having read just above you see that I’m a fan of his. He used to be Dragon Magazine’s editor back in the day and now he has turned that experience into a great little magazine. Eric Mona calls it the spiritual successor of Dragon. The magazine presents great articles by leading freelancers and budding talent. Last issue was Winter 2008, Issue 8 and it featured a number of articles on new monsters, legends of the golem, a new school of magic based on ink, and many others. The next issue should be out in April I think.

On top of all the great content in each of the magazines, Kobold Quarterly posts regular articles on their site. While the magazine is of course for sale, the online content is free. Each week Wolfgang posts a new monster in his Monster Mondays. Other regular articles include Traps Tuesday and Friday Funnies.

Monster Monday: 4E Doomsayer Hag ~ link

Many of these articles are written by freelancers, in this case however we are treated to a creature by Wolfgang. The Doomsayer Hag for 4th edition reminds me of the hags from Macbeth. It can call the spirits of the dead and confound the living with prophesies and visions of the hero’s death. The design uses immobilizing and dazing conditions to simulate the confusion caused by the hag’s prophesies. The shades of the dead block access to the hag, forced to protect their tormentor. A very flavorful and interesting addition to my monster collection.

RPG Superstar Showdown ~ link

Wolfgang was one of the judges in Paizo’s RPG Superstar again this year, joining Clark Peterson and Sean Reynolds. The four finalists this year are:

• Dragonrest Isle by Kevin Carter
• Denying the Boiling Beast by Matthew Stinson
• Realm of the Fellnight Queen by Niel Spice
• Last Ride of the Mammoth Lords by Eric Bailey

Water Hazards ~ link

Maurice De Mare presents three water based traps for 3.5e. The cold shower trap unleashes freezing water on an area dousing flames and chilling those in the radius of the trap. The drowning pool is a shallow puddle with an elaborate telekinesis trap that tries to drown the target of the trap in the 1ft deep pool. The reversed water well trap
is a reversed gravity trap that sends hapless adventurers up past an illusionary wall into a shaft filled with water. If the reverse gravity spell is negated the water in the shaft rushes out in a huge gush that damages people nearby and flushes them away.

Blog Roll

There were a few large themes in this past week’s blog posts in the RPG blogging sphere. Most of them were found on the RPG Blogger’s Network. I’ll reiterate OMG they have a lot of posts every week. I took part in the first Blog Carnival with my previous entry on the Oilliphéist, an Irish legend.

St. Patty’s Day Blog Carnival ~ link

Conducted by the Gamer Traveler, Daniel Perez, the St. Patrick’s day carnival had a bunch of posts both amusing and serious. Daniel’s Banshee of Kilmainham Gaol was the best of the bunch, show casing his own experiences with a banshee with very tense prose. Amusing posts included the Leprechaun paper mini for use with the Leprechaun racial stats for 4e and the Lair of the Leprechaun in the shape of a shamrock. It was fun to listen to the Adventuring Party podcast hosted in Ireland while reading all these blogs.

Open Gaming Table Anthology ~ link

I’ll most likely have more to say on this during this week’s blog roll next Monday as the book launched today. The Open Gaming Table Anthology is a collection of works by bloggers in the RPG Blogger’s Network on advice, game material, design and many more topics. At 140 pages its destined to be chock full of gaming goodness. If only Lulu was not as expensive to ship to Canada.

War Blog Carnival ~ link

Run by the blog Book of Rev this month’s blog carnival, a monthly feature in the blog-o-sphere is on war. I’ve not used war in any of my campaigns so I’ve not been as involved in these posts this week. The Critical Hits post on War in Low Level campaigns has me intrigued, as have the posts by A Butterfly Dreaming on A Harvest of Men.

Great Posts

• Chatty DM – Robin’s Laws Revisited
• Chatty DM – Megadungeon
• RPG Blog II – Interview with Pathfinder Lead Designer
• At-Will – Failure is an Option

Podcasts

• Fear the Boot 140 – Playing Bad Guys

Completely Unrelated

• Steampunk the Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello

I’m going to start what I hope is the first of a regular column. My past attempts at starting a regular column have all failed not due to lack of inspiration but just motivation.  The goal of the column is to review what I’ve read over the last week and ideas that sparked from the content.  I read a large number of blogs, subscribe to two paying sites (DDI and DaD), listen to several podcasts, and try to keep up with my PbP gaming. All in all its a heck of a lot of reading in a week.

Dragon Magazine #373

Note that these articles require a subscription to DDI to access.

Art of the Kill ~ link

Assassins are back in D&D. The Art of the Kill by Robert J. Schwalb updates the assassin to 4e, though not as a class option but aa a series of backgrounds, feats, multiclass weapon options (similar to the Gladiator feats in Dragon 368), equipment, and paragon paths.

Backgrounds: grant +2 to one skill or fluency in one language. Examples: bounty hunter, executioner, poison master, zealous slayer, etc.

Feats: 6 heroic feats, 5 paragon, 3 epic, 6 Guild Feats, 13 style feats. Examples: poison inured (bonus to saves vs. poison), slow fall (reduce fall damage), fey death (use fey step as a reaction to killing something). Guild Feats give you bonuses to a skill and a teamwork bonus and style feats grant additions to class at-will powers.

Multiclass: Blowgun training, Bravo (dogged pursuer?), Cutthroat, Garrote training, and Poisoner. All present an opening feat and 3 follow up multiclass feats.

Paragon Paths: Blightbeast, Nightmare Weaver. Overall not very connected to the idea of assassins.

Weapons and Equipment: Garrote, Blowgun, and a few pieces of mundane equipment, and alchemical items.

The article has some interesting discussions on how to use the material from a player perspective as it can be difficult to play an assassin hero.  I’ve personally never been a fan of assassins as a player option, leaving it more for the realm of the DM. This article does not present them as opponents with stated adversaries, though the little bit of information on the culture and background of assassins would serve a DM well.

The Brood of Alloces ~ link

This bestiary article by Ari Marmell includes several really disgusting creatures patched together by the Butcher of Nessus, Alloces. When I say disgusting I really mean it.  All of the creatures are piecemeal amalgamations of flesh and soul, like a steed that is a whole bunch of legs and arms sown together, ick.

Creeping Teeth – ooze(ish) creature made of teeth and bone.
Damned Choir – writhing mass of souls the scream in eternal torment.
Carpet of Flesh – ooze(ish) creature made of mounds of flesh. most disgusting creature in here.
Vile Host – a hulking brute made of many souls tied together. Very cool ability to split into 5 different creatures when bloodied changing the battle completely.
Shrieking Steed – mount made of human limbs all sown together. rivals carpet of flesh for ick.
Nessian Hounds – the coolest of the article, three different flavors.
Seraphic Golem – what devil article would be complete without a creature sewn together from parts of angels.

While I like the critters in here my face to face group would never go for it. I may have to inflict them on my Pbp players. The article is very well written, I like the way Ari portrays the devils, but eww. This is a companion piece to the Codex of Betrayal below.

Codex of Betrayal: Alloces ~ link

The second article in Dragon this month by Ari Marmell, whose work I am a fan of. This article details the Butcher of Nessus a Prince of Hell who descended with Asmodeus and the rest of the fallen angels.  This is probably the best article in this issue of Dragon. There are a slew of adventure ideas dripping from this one from including his creations in encounters with other Devils to tackling fleshcrafter vivisection mages and throwback beast cults.  Alloces himself is stated as a L28 Elite Controller as is his trusted servant, Machalos, a patchwork construct with the soul of a pit fiend. As with the previous article this one is full of really sick and twisted ideas that would horrify most gamers (overly so for my group) but it was so full of good material.  The writing is engaging and conveys itself very well. Note that this article is for Monday, Mar 16th, but dropped on Sunday night so I’m including it here.

Steal this Hook ~ link

Robert Weise gives us three hooks tied to the PHB2. Given all the coverage that Wizards have given us with previews and the blogs that helped propel this book to the forefront this week, I think this article is a little weak. Truthfully though, I’ve not been a fan of this series since it ran on the website and its kind of odd that it is included in the pay side of the site.
The hooks are:
Zaria’s druid grove is under assault by goblins.
A gnome bard spins tales of a forgotten tomb.
A destroyed caravan points to the local goliath tribes.

Design and Development: Deva ~ link

James Wyatt presents an interesting article on the transformation of the 3rd edition aasimar to the new 4e Deva race featured in PHB2.  The entire article guides the reader through all the various iterations and decisions that were made that resulted in the Aasimar not making it into the PHB.  James touches on how much effor they put into making them drawn to a celestial good, but are not an enforced stereotype (similar to how the tieflings turned out). Note that this article is for Monday, Mar 16th, but dropped on Sunday night so I’m including it here.

Dungeon Magazine #164

Note that these articles require a subscription to DDI to access.

Return of the Poisoned Shadows [Heroic - L8] ~ link

With the Dungeon Delve book released this month, Greg Marks provides us with an additional delve designed as a sequel to “Poisoned Shadows” from the book.  This also nicely ties into the Art of the Kill article with synergy in themes.  I’ve never run or played in a Delve so it was interesting to see how one was presented. I’ll definitely have to try one in Pbp, though I don’t think it’ll be this one.  I found that the mapping was difficult to follow as it was ties so tightly to the Dungeon Tiles line that it really hampered the presentation. The encounters were interesting and I can see potential in them, but the overall execution was lacking.

Worse than Death [Paragon - L12] ~ link

This adventure by Robert J. Schwalb has the adventurers hired to find a hedonistic noble who has been kidnapped. There is a lot of background material detailing why the noble is not all he appears to be and how he could end up on wrong end of the character’s swords.  The Patriach is the most interesting piece of the adventure and could easily serve as a tie to Ari Marmell’s articles on Alloces, especially with his bride, ew.  The other encounter that I ties closely to the themes of these three articles is the blood hag, very creepy. The background seems convoluted and it is doubtful that the party would find out much of it, especially given the tactics of their would-be rescuee during the last battle.

Save My Game ~ link

This series of articles by Stephen Radney-MacFarland are another set that were originally part of the free set on wizards.com prior to DDI. However, unlike the Steal This Hook series, I can see why they are included on the paying side of the site. These articles are a great source of advice for DMs at home with the direction Dungeon has always provided with the Dungeoncraft series.  In this article Stephen tackles the issue of naration and provides tips on how to draw players to a line of questioning that puts them in an active role. Overall a well written piece with some good advice. Reading it reminded me of the DMG2 from 3.5 and the new DMG for 4e, both of which gave solid advice on how to take on the task of being a DM.

Wizards.com Features

Note: These articles are open for anyone to read.

Interview with Rob Heinsoo ~ link

Rob was one of the lead designers of 4e and has credits such as the card game Inn fighting and Three Dragon Ante. The interview does not present much new information about the design process for 4e. Once again the interviewee talks a lot about problems with 3.5 and how those were targetted for fixes.  I’m not a fan of the message that Wizards has been using in this style of article. At first I agreed with their criticisms of 3.5 but the more I read about how a better marketing tactic would’ve been to stand 4e on its own successes rather than the failures of 3.5 I came to find these arguments tiresome.

Use This Book Tonight: Open Grave ~ link

Robert Weise gives us a rather lame encounter with some minotaur mummies and zombies when adventurers stop to ponder an open grave beside the road. The encounter was not very engaging and did not provide me with many ideas to spin it into more than a strange and out of place tomb.

Excerpts: Primal Avatar ~ link

From PHB2 – the Primal Avatar is an Epic Destiny for characters using the Primal power source.  It is exactly what I look for in an epic destiny, it has distinct flavor and really shows how a character could end their career in style. The avatar joins with the spirit world after a long life defending it.

Excerpts: Arcane Power Rituals ~ link

From Arcane Power – One of the concepts that I was looking forward to in 4e was Rituals. They are well done and remove the rarely used, but good to have around spells from previous editions making them a pay per use powers rather than something that takes the place of combat spells.  These were the spells that my wizards and clerics made scrolls of to have lying around just in case.  That said, I’ve yet to see one used in play, I think I’ll have to work on that. This article gives us the list of rituals in Arcane Power as well as two examples (Unseen Servant and Guards and Wards).

Excerpts: Sky Hunter ~ link

From PHB2 – the Sky Hunter is a druid paragon path dedicated to the power of the sky. It includes short range flight based powers and action point effects. Its okay, nothing that made me say, I need to play a druid right now.

Dungeonaday.com ~ link

Note that some of these articles are open previews, but unless noted the articles require a subscription to dungeonaday.com.

Dungeon-a-day is the new brain child of Monte Cook, famed co-designer of 3rd Edition D&D and author of the DMG 3.0.  He was one of the first to experiment with the D20 license and pdf publishing with his company Malhavoc Press. Over the years he created some of the most ambitious and well recognized D20 material include Arcana Evolved, Ptolus, and the Complete Book of Eldrith Might. Dungeon-a-day takes the world of online publishing in a new direction, offering a hyperlinked website detailing a dynamic living dungeon that will change and adapt as the characters delve deeper. Its an ambitions project that will deliver an encounter every weekday with additional bonus content as time goes on. The dungeon is presented in the D&D 3.5 rules set though the community is working on conversions to a variety of editions and alternate games.

There are a number of initial welcome articles that are open preview content that talk about the design decisions and the direction Monte will take with the project. The concept is engaging and I see great things in the future. I look forward to seeing how he pushes the format in uncharted directions.

Level 1 (Room 1-16) ~ link

The opening preview content looks at rooms 1 to 6 which present several options for PCs to explore. Right up front Monte shows us how a dungeon can be a sandbox game too, with multiple options that allow players to define their own direction, goals, and difficulty level. The maps are done by Ed Bourelle and are very well done. Monte also presents Dwarven Forge terrain laid out for the dungeon with each room.  Each of the squares on the dungeon are 10′x10′ allowing larger combat space (good for 4e enthusiasts) though some of the encounters are a bit tight.

Rooms 7 and up are closed content for members. They explore the areas radiating out from the initial encounters in the dungeon. Each encounter is dynamic and interesting.

I tried to write up brief descriptions of each of these without giving spoilers but that is not really possible. Instead as the dungeon grows I’ll try to give brief descriptions of the directions that are being taken and the evolution of the concept itself.  The rooms above vary between direct encounters with a dangerous gang of humanoids to seemingly empty rooms with strange magical effects. Each room details not only its initial occupants but also advice on how to make the encounters more difficult and possible future states when the PCs come back later. This creates a dynamic environment where players will feel that they are having an impact on the inhabitants of the dungeon.

Blog ~ link

Monte is also presenting members with comments on the direction he is taking and some of the design decisions taken in a regular blog on the site. Early blog entries are available as preview content and talk about how to use dungeons as a campaign setting and how the initial opponents can be used together.

Listen Check ~ link

In addition to all the daily content and blogs, Monte is also producing a podcast called Listen Check for members. The initial show is available as part of the preview and discusses the idea behind the site and some of Monte’s goals with the project. Give it a listen today!

Community

Built into the site, a set of forums is available for members to discuss the dungeon, provide feedback, and talk amongst members on a variety of topics.  Monte originally built the Okay Your Turn forums for Malhavoc Press which grew into a huge community of posters.  The community forums on Dungeon-a-day are taking off with several hundred posts from a number of members all within the first week of the project.  Members are creating additonal material, offering alternative maps, and providing feedback on all sorts of topics related to the project. Some members are also working on providing conversions to 4e (which is something I’m contributing to),  Castles and Crusades, and Iron Heroes.

Blog Roll

I use Google Reader to keep up on the various blogs and news sites that I’m interested in. You can follow my shared folder. I’ll try to make sure that I include all of the blog posts that I link to here in my shared page as well.

PHB2

Over the past few weeks several bloggers on the internet were sent copies of the PHB2 in an effort to create a viral marketing campaign for the book. I believe it was coordinated by Ed Healy of Atomic Array. On March 12th a slew of blogs posted reviews of the book. Many of the reviews took the form of class reviews, but some like Kobold Quarterly and Gnome Stew took their articles in a different direction.

Atomic Array ~ link
Ed Healy and Rone Barton took their distinctive style and humor strait into Wizards of the Coast’s headquarters in Renton, WA.  Interviewing Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford the pair presented another amazing episode.  Personally I find these two are the best interviewers in the gaming podcast sphere asking well timed questions, interjecting their odd humor, and drawing though provoking answers from their guests.

Kobold Quarterly ~ link
Wolfgang Baur over at Kobold Quarterly presented probably the only article that offered a negative view of some of the material. Overall the book is recommended, but in the review Wolf criticizes WotC for poor prose and weak choices that will now become core because of the book that they are in.

Gnome Stew ~ link
Martin Ralya reviewed the book from a DM’s perspective speaking of all the options that the book provides to enrich a campaign world. I think the biggest point that Martin makes is that nothing in the book will break your game.  He contends that many books in past editions introduce scope creep but that this book keeps that in check.

Class Articles ~ link
Most of the other blogs included in this marketing campaign review one of the classes that will be available in the PHB2.  All of the links are provided in any of the articles taking part in the effort as pingbacks or in Atomic Array’s episode notes. Chatty’s article is amongst the best of the run, it made me want to play a warden now!

Here are several more good blog posts this week that I recommend:

• Chatty’s Megadungeon Project
• One Bad Egg – Kids and 4e
• One Bad Egg – Considering Conditions
• One Bad Egg – Open Gods
• At Will – Skill Challenges

Podcasts

I listen to several podcasts, though my listening time has decreased steadily over the past few months because my commuting situation has changed.  I still try to get in what I can and here are the best from the week previous. Have a listen.

• Atomic Array 018 – PHB2
• D&D Penny Arcade/PVP/Wil Wheaton
• RPG Countdown – Best of RPGNow.com from Feb 25 – Mar 10, 2009
• Fear the Boot – Writing for a Con Game

OMG I read a lot! I knew I did but until I put it down like this I didn’t see it. I had fully intended to write longer reviews on the recommended blog posts and podcasts but ran out of time. In the future I’ll include full reviews of posts as well. I think the largest impact on time was the launch of Dungeon-a-day which is amazing, but had a lot of reading right up front. I’ll also include books or pdfs that I read as well if I manage to fit them in my schedule.