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.

High Level Concept

Adventure Design 2.0 would feature some of today’s leading web application concepts to allow high quality content presented with the individual user (a DM in this case) in mind. Allowing that content to be dynamic, personalized, and shared.

Adventures designed to present different forms of media together in an application that allowed DMs to purchase access to an adventure that would be customized to their needs and allow for the DM to further modify and share their own customizations. The media incorporated, from maps and graphics, to text and formatted stat-blocks could be tailored to the DMs individual campaigns all in one tool.

Possible Features

Modular adventure content that can be customized and shared is a rather broad concept but some of the features that one can imagine include:

• System of Choice (4e, 3.5, PFRPG, OSRIC, etc) which would update all rules content in a saved adventure instance to that system.
• Adjustable scalable levels which could also update rules content and be saved.
• Customizable monsters that can be imported, exported, and saved.
• Customizable NPCs that can have additional notes or hooks added.
• Customizable treasure in the form of traditional loot or packet formats.
• Larger supporting images or links to external graphics.
• Hyperlinked content internally within the site or externally for referenced rules.
• Maps that allow you to hover over sections and display a quick synopsis or click to open the related encounter.
• The ability to share the customizations with other members.

Subscriptions

One of the difficult pieces of the puzzle centres around profitability. An enterprise like this would need serious capitol to succeed. Not only would you need to hire authors, artists, editors, and cartographers, but also web developers and the system to support it.

One particular model of financing such an endeavor would be around a subscriptions or around access purchases. So someone could buy an instance of a particular adventure for 4e at 1st level and gain access to the system for that adventure. Future adventure purchases could be added to the purchasers account and offered similar to how some game companies market download-able content.

In addition those customers could then be migrated to a subscription model where they gain access to a set number of adventures in a particular period and potentially to more advanced tools such as customization and sharing.

Dynamic Content

One of the features that was listed above that sounds the most intriguing is the customizability of content. If you look at the current list of WotC’s Dungeon adventures or Goodman Game’s DCCs you can see that there are adventures for many levels and I’m sure all levels will be covered eventually. But what if you like one adventure that is a couple of levels above the heads of your party.

Customizing that adventure is often left in the hands of the DMs often with no pointers from the authors. What if the adventure were written with a range in mind (similar to LFR/Pathfinder Society scenarios) that automatically updated the difficulty of the adventure.

Perhaps the adventure that really fits in a DM’s campaign is one from a system that their group does not use. Sure DMs could spend the countless hours converting that adventure to their system of choice but what if the adventure was already built with the appropriate monster stats, treasures, etc.

Even beyond altering adventures by overall settings what if a DM’s campaign features a specific set of villains such as the Order of the Emerald Claw or the Purifiers? A suite of tools could be available to import Monster Builder files and allow DMs to replace the opponents in a featured adventure, touch up encounter information, and make notes all without the difficult work of redesigning the whole thing.

In the grand scheme this is an immense idea and I hope to continue expanding on this little bit of brainstorming. Already I can picture user interfaces, data structures, and tools or modules that I’d want to build. Yes I’m more the guy who can design the system than write the adventure or draw the illustrations and maps.

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

RPG Blog Carnival

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.

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…)

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.

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.

Created with Monster Maker 3.5 by Asmor.com

Ash Mephit Tactics

The ash mephit starts a battle by sneaking into a position that it can catch a number of breathing opponents with its cloud of ash. It will then breathe on any close opponents before running away to hide again.

Ash Mephit Lore

A character knows the following information with a successful Arcana check.

DC 15: The ash mephit is an elemental humanoid from the Quasi Elemental Plane of Ash. It delights in taunting breathing creatures as they suffocate.

DC 20: The ash mephit finds a suitable location to unleash a cloud of ash that remains in place suffocating those caught in it. The mephit can also breathe on opponents close to it.

DC 25: The ash mephit is resistant to both fire and cold.

Encounter Groups

Ash mephits delight in causing havoc and suffocating their opponents and are sometimes found near volcanic regions filled with magma and ash.

Level 4 Encounter (XP 850)

• 1 Ash Mephit (level 4 controller)
• 2 Magma Claws (level 4 brute)
• 1 Magma Hurlers (level 4 artillery)
• 1 Ashbeast (level 3 lurker)

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.