1001 Bobs

For quite some time now I’ve found the format in which adventure design is presented to be outdated.  Sure the Delve format had a large impact in the last few years since its debut in some of Wizards of the Coast’s later 3.5 D&D adventures. Even that, however, stuck to the format of a book be it in hard copy or pdf format.  Dungeon-a-day.com is actually the most recent example of a very forward thinking designer pushing the bounds of what is possible. Dungeon-a-day.com offers a hyperlinked website with new encounters updated every weekday. The site features fresh new content from the mind of Monte Cook and its presented in a much more modern format.

But where too next? Where can today’s modern web tools such as XHTML and HTML5.0 push design forward?

I recently read two very informative articles by two of RPG Blogging’s rising stars, Phillipe Menard (aka @ChattyDM) and Dave Chalker (aka @DavetheGame) that explored some of the possible scenarios that set my mind aflame.  Here were two popular vocal proponents advocating the same revolution in adventure design that I had been craving.

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Castle Shadowcrag © Wolfgang Baur, 2009

Wolfgang Baur is running another round of Open Design so this is the perfect time to get in on it.  This time is a little different as there are three proposals for people to vote on and any one or even all three can progress should they achieve enough funding.  I’ll outline below all 3 proposals, but only one is being written in 4e ~ Courts of the Shadow Fey! The Scathsidhe return from both the Ennie nominated Castle Shadowcrag and Wrath of the River King.

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Free RPG Day

Free RPG Day

Free RPG Day was held on June 20 this year. This was the first year that I was able to enjoy the day as it has not been supported outside the States before.  Here in Vancouver there were several stores who had received packages from the fine people running Free RPG Day. I went out to my FLGS, Imperial Hobbies, in Richmond in the late afternoon.

Even with the late time I managed to pick up quite a few products all of them phenomenal. From Keith Barker’s Eberron Adventure to a Rogue Trader introduction, all great promotional material.
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Alya Portrait by Apis Teicher

Inspired by the work of The Core Mechanic, Mad Brew Labs, At-Will who have started a project they call Portrait of a Villain, as well as by Sly Flourish‘s Twitter DM Tips, I’ve decided to create a twitter project of my own.  For the moment I call it Twitter Villains, though I might migrate it into a broader project in the future. I have lots of ideas on creating more than just villains in 140 characters or less. This is also an attempt to tighten my writing skills and garner interest in my blog.

With Twitter Villains, I’ve posted my first one on twitter already under my account ~ twitter.com/erekose13. I’ll post a log ever once in a while though you can always follow the twitter column under the tag #villain. The format for each post will remain the same: #villain Name; description; motivations & goals.  Stats are purposely not included anywhere as they would defeat the purpose of a twitter column.  Though popular posts might garner a full treatment here on the blog.

Without further ado, here is the first twitter villain:

#villain Elegast; quickling w/billowing smokelike hair who hunts fey on the mortal world due to a misguided love of the fomorian Lord Gryme

It’s been a harried couple of weeks that have left me without time to blog about what I haven’t had time to read.  This week is going to be different, I’ve got the time and I’m going to get back into the swing of things.  I’ll not try to play catch up but will continue forward with a look at the week prior.  This being Sunday, I’ve got something new for you.

Play by Post (PbP) is a unique gaming experience, one full of fun, excitement, and sometimes frustration.  I’ve been playing PbP for about 7 years now, largely over at ENWorld’s fantastic PbP community.  I’ll go through a few of the attractions of the format and how it is different from many other forms of gaming, and I’ll touch on a few tricks of the trade so to speak.

PbP is played on message boards and as such is similar to Play by Email in that a DM will post to the game and all of the players have time to put together their responses.  PbP allows both players and DMs time to craft a response and deliver top notch roleplaying and well thought out tactics.

It can, however, be very slow moving.  In steady games, leveling takes about 6 months to a year if at all.  Many DMs and players do not have the stamina to stick it through and fade away. But there are many communities that provide support for DMs to continue delivering quality games.

At ENWorld, community members have formed persistent Living Worlds that have some similarities with the organized play several companies put on. Similar in that all of the games take place in a shared world with consistent characters who can adventure together through a series of games with a variety of DMs.  Not so similar in that it is more loosely organized and DMs are free to run what ever adventures they want.

Living ENWorld (a 3.5 shared world), Living 4th Edition (a 4e shared world), Living Eberron (a 3.5 Eberron setting), and Living Superheroes (a M&M world) all embrace different shared worlds where a number of games are being run concurrently.  In addition there are the general PbP forums where people gather in all sorts of games together.

One of the most important things to remember if you are going to get in to PbP is to post. Keep posting and the games will stay alive.  So many people fade away because they lack the commitment. Have that and you are all set.

I’ll come back to more tips such as in character vs. out of character discussion, mapping techniques, and more next time.

Apr 20 – 29

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.
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Apr 13-22

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.

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Apr 13-19 ~ DDI

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.
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Apr 6-12

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

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Ash Mephit

The ash mephit is a small winged humanoid composed of ash particles. An ash mephit is from the Quasi Elemental Plane of Ash in the Elemental Chaos. The stifling plane is difficult to breathe in as the cloying cold ash seems to seek out warmth. This impish creature enjoys suffocating beings with its ashes.

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