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For quite some time now I’ve found the format in which adventure design is presented to be outdated.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.

(continue reading…)

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

Samuel Van Der Wall over at Roleplaying Pro is hosting this month’s Blog Carnival on the Future of Roleplaying.  Inspired by a video produced by Microsoft Labs on the future of technology, I thought I’d put together a list of ten things I’d love to see at the table top. Additional sources of inspiration follow the list below.

First, I definitely believe that the table top RPG game is going to stick around, there is so much more than just getting together and killing monsters and taking their stuff. Even if that’s what your group is into, sitting around and enjoying some social time together is a far more enjoyable experience than doing the same thing online.

On to the list!

1. Smart Phone Character Sheets

Sure you can carry around your iPlay4e character sheet to reference, but what if you could lay your phone on the table and it would automatically load your character sheet onto the table surface.  You could then access, update or share pieces of your sheet as the game progressed. All in-game calculations could be handled based on the loaded sheet, including character visualization.

2. Tabletop Integrated Rule Books

I’m a PDF convert ever since Monte Cook released the Book of Eldritch Might and I miss WotC’s PDF books that were previously available.  I’ve not used pdfs at the game table yet, though I will be soon. I’ve just always found laptops a little cumbersome at the table. Now if the computer were the table… Rule books could be searched, retrieved, and displayed for anyone at the table.

3. Auto Calculating Dice Rolls

While dice rolling software is available for your Smart Phone or iPhone, I’m still a fan of the tactile sensation of polyhedrons shuffling in hand to give that up. What is sometimes awkward is remembering all the modifiers that are applied to your roll. Imagine if you rolled your dice onto the digital tabletop and when it stopped, the display automatically output all the calculations next to the number. You could then send the roll over to the DM to determine if the roll was successful.

4. 3D Interactive Battle Map

There is a scene in the video above where a project manager is skimming through a 3D graphical representation of their project, isolating and zooming in sections to make changes. Apply all those concepts to a visual 3D game table and you’re on to something. Now let all players at the table see the game table through various lenses (fog of war style) and interact with it and you’ve got one heck of a miniature game.

5. Ease of Condition Tracking

Whether you play D&D or not, most of today’s games rely on conditions from health to blindness to dying.  Many innovative solutions have been created to help track all these conditions flying around, especially with 4E’s reliance on them.  Why would you want to take care of all that when the interactive gaming table can do that for you.

6. Ease of Resource Tracking

Along the same lines, most games use resources that players need to keep track of, be they encounter powers, action points, or spells.  The interactive table already has your full character sheet and is tracking any conditions affecting you, resource management is an easy one to throw in there.

7. Visual Aid Distribution

When it comes to visual aids, from images, to maps, to props, I’ve always had found it difficult to include them at the table. Online games its easy and really helps, but at the table pulling out the Monster Manual or dropping the full geographic map on the table is at times cumbersome.  With surface based sharing you can display images to all (or just one?) at the table and those that wanted to could even grab a shot of it and store it for their own reference later on.

8. Personalized Note Taking Interface

Pen and paper gaming already has one of the most personalized note tacking devices built in, that’s right ~ the pen and paper.  Many gamers have experimented with laptops, netbooks, or smart phones to take notes as well but that can take up a lot of space.  Having the ability to record notes on a multi-touch tabletop interface would allow players and DMs a like to jot down anything they needed to and save it for a later date.

9. Full Game Recording

With all of these innovations above relying on the tabletop computer to display, manage, and manipulate it would be an easy matter to include recording.  DMs would be able to replay scenes to allow for easier preparation for the next session and players could access quick summaries from the records.

10. Enhanced DM Tool-kits

All of the above suggestions have been targeted at making the game better from a table top perspective, but I’d be remiss at leaving DM prep work out of the mix. So many advances are taking place already to allow DMs to modify creatures on the fly or have advance preparations available should players alter the course of play. What if all those tools were available in game immediately at your finger tips. Encounter too easy? introduce new elements immediately. Need information on an NPC from 6 sessions ago? pull them up with a couple of clicks. Events being handled earlier than planned? update other events automatically with the changes to the play environment.

I’ve only scratched the surface with these ideas, but I was so taken with how companies are looking at future technology that I couldn’t help myself. Heck any one of these ideas could be expanded on drastically.  I’ve already mentioned the Microsoft Future of Technology video, but some of the other inspirational pieces include the BBC’s Inside Microsoft’s Home of the Future video and CNN’s Just Imagine: 2020 series.

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.
(continue reading…)

Apr 13-25 – Blogroll

Okay so this is stretching beyond a single week in April and covering most of the third and fourth week. It is also three days behind when I first promised it. As I’m working to gain my legs in the blogging rhythm layoffs at work and other events in real life sometimes throw you for a loop. Well enough of that, on to the reviews. I think I’ll lay this out in a top ten format and aim for 10 articles to highlight in a week.

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

(continue reading…)

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.
(continue reading…)

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.

(continue reading…)

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.

(continue reading…)

Mar 30-Apr 5

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.
(continue reading…)

Mar 23-29

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.
(continue reading…)