Current Happenings

A lot of new leaves turned up this week.  Let's see, I can think of three things worth mentioning here.

First, my daughter and I were able to make it to a Shadowrun 3.0 game this Friday with some new friends (thank for the invite!).  The game involves some similar ability scores to D&D 4e but all the skills seem ad hoc to fit the story.  Also the game runs entirely on d6.  You get to roll more d6 the higher your level of a particular skill is (including your various fighting skills).  All in all, I did not enjoy the game as much as D&D 4e, but I also know better than to judge a whole gaming system on a single encounter.  If you want to learn more about Shadowrun, I found the wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun a great overview on not to many pages.

In this encounter, my daughter got to roll a bunch of important skill checks, while my friend and I got lost and had to find our way back.  I do look forward to giving it another go someday.  I also wanted to commend the GM.  He ran the whole campaign from his mind, never referencing a book or story.  He reviewed what he wanted pregame and just made it work.  Our part was essentially on three different action paths though we were in the same area and he kept us in turn and engaged.  He also created a father-daughter team in game for us with the requisite skills to survive the encounter.   I have a few things to learn. 

In case any of my new friends are reading this, thanks for a great game, I really enjoyed the role playing, and hope to be able to make it back soon.

Second thing of interest this week was a continuation of one of my conversation regarding D&D 4e at Gnomecon.  They don't have a game going yet, and with greater participation of conference attendees than expected already registered, they haven't had a chance to organize a D&D 4e game.  I had already volunteered to run a game or two for them, but now I am also going to contact Wizards of the Coast and see if we can get a sanctioned game going.  Either way, it will be a blast and I encourage you to come join us. 

I think I wanted to try to write an appropriately timed adventure involving gnomes and HumanCon.  I have only had a hand at writing "Thank you, but our princess is in another castle!" which feels like I have barely begun so far.  At least the Gnomecon game can be smaller in scope and hopefully easier to write.

Lastly, a friend of mine and I are looking at starting a small business providing some custom tools for table top RPG gaming.  I would love any thoughts on this.  There are so many things I wish I could customize for my DMing or playing, but honestly don't always have the time or skill to do.  If I could pay a nominal fee for someone else to customize a DM Screen for me, for example, it would be worth to me.  Lots of other ideas going on, and I need to get some more experience with other game systems as well.

Find and Search

I just went back through my posts and worked on better tagging.  Now if you are looking for the home campaign, and only the home campaign, you can click on the tag "home campaign" or search for the same.  Same is true for "Encounters" if that is all you are interested in. 

If I missed a tag, or mistaged a post, please let me know.

Just Grrrr...

Okay, I'm still new to D&D.  I hear stories of D&D being out for 40 years, and I am playing 4th edition.  4th edition which is new, like only 4 years old.  Now I hear that 5th edition is well in the works. 

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/dungeons-dragons-plans-comeback-200249601.html

Remember, I am the cheapest gamer I, or most people I play with, know.  I think I can still invest time in D&D, though this was not my first reaction.  I just will not buy anything else that is not reusable.  Minis, fine (I hope).  D20s?  Surely sacred.  More rule books and add ons?  Forget it.

I'm just so...grrrr...  I don't know the word.  Wait a minute?  Is this one the 3.5 fan boys sounds like to me?

Fortunately, all 1 of our followers has signed up to be a beta tester.  Dude, keep up informed!

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120109

I am glad to see that they are taking feedback, but I also hope they keep in mind that the loudest isn't always the best.  One thing, in my uninformed, only played 4e opinion, is that 4e is structured enough to bring in fresh blood and is less scary to start.   Kudos to the Encounters initiative as well for being accessible and a gateway a drug.

Sound off!

Artistic versus Creative

Some would say I am not very creative, but I argue that I am just not very artistic.  The first challenge in naming this blog was AVAILABILITY.  So, I immediately came up with the acronym ROT for Random Organized Thoughts.   I do not think that the things in this blog are rot.  It literally took me 2 extra seconds to do this.  Not art involved, but I thought naming something out of nothing counts as creative.  After all, creating a D&D campaign is creative, but I lean on my wife and daughters to lend me a hand on the artistic part. 

Creatively I can pull together existing artwork to bring a world to life.  Such as reusing maps I already have to fit my world.  I love these dungeon tiles that are predawn with the right terrain and then I can fit them together. Heck, if the campaign story, though I hope it seems original in the end, is pulling from numerous places and blending them in a, I hope, unique way.  Thanks to Varis/Jadis/Glyth's player for pointing me in that direction to get started.

A quiz to see if we can start some comment posting.  Can you name the sources for any of these items that appear in my campaign?

A.)  "Thank you, but our princess is in another castle"
B.) King Hrothgar
C.) Palancia (this one is tough, the root word is from a source).

There's definitely some more blatant "borrowing" coming, but I don't want to spoil it yet.  See some of you Saturday, and look forward to the Campaign Notes shortly after!

Almost Game Time

Wow, over a week off from playing D&D.  Refreshing, but I am ready to go back at it.  During the break I "volunteered" (read: pushed) to DM for the Wednesday night Encounters games.  On the plus side, I get D&D stuff for doing it, including a few cool paper maps, AND our usual DM may get a chance to play.

Also, since we last played, I have been able to flesh out some more encounters for "Thank you, but our princess is in another castle."  I have over 10 encounters detailed out (all but the map layouts) and have completion on a minor quest story line.

My dear wife has ordered me my first set of DM Dungeon tiles for Christmas, that I hope arrive in time for Saturday's game.  Hopefully this will make building all these quest maps easy, varied, and fun.   I'll report back on the results.

Now, off to add more encounters for the main story line.

Hello World!

As a geek with a computer science degree, I felt it only appropriate to print my title as the very first program I, and numerous other programmers, ever wrote.   Since this serves as my introduction, I should mention that I am NOT a programmer, and not even a proper geek.  I am notoriously cheap, have been a business owner, and recently took up a hobby of playing Dungeons and Dragons (my first experience was June 2011).  Oh yeah, and I like video games, but I don't play nearly enough to call myself a gamer (according to my friends).

My primary reason for STARTING this blog, was I was looking for a central place to put some D&D stuff out to my players (especially for the one who refuses to acknowledge D&D publically on Facebook).  In the back of my mind, for the last couple of years, I have always wanted to voice my opinion about a few unimportant things and have someone actually care, and maybe even respond.  The latter may still by a pipe dream, so I will start with getting the first one done.

So, "HELLO WORLD!", I look forward to a meaningful shallow relationship with you!