A Little Friendly Competition

There are two of us in our group who sit behind the screen.  I am usually the one running the world and trying to maim the players in innovative ways, but sometimes, including the next few sessions, Justin takes the helm.  Our schedules have been wonky lately, and we haven't been able to get together on our once-normal night, Monday, due in part to Real Life and me being put back on full time (yay!).  So, in order to scratch our itch, Justin and I decided to run a little advanced board game type scenario with D&D 4e.

We both have Insider accounts, and I made a proposal, from which rules followed.  Here is the premise, followed by the rules.

Premise:

We each take turns running through a 3 combat encounter dungeon delve of the other's design.  The one with the most living characters at the end wins!

Rules:

1. Each party will consist of four pcs, each at level 6.  They must be made using the Wizards Character Builder, and excludes the use of races from the Monster Manual.  They may be outfitted with, in addition to mundane gear, one magic item of each 5th, 6th, and 7th level as well as 1,000gp for additional purchases.
2. The race, class, and build of each character must be disclosed, but details are optional.
3. Each dungeon will consist of three combat encounters of increasing difficulty.  The first will be worth 1,000xp, followed by 1,200xp, and 1,400xp, give or take 75xp on each side, with a total xp budget of 3,750xp to spend between the three.
4. Battle maps for each encounter may not take more than 16x16 in size.
5. The creatures chosen must be of an appropriate level for the party.
6. The theme and cohesive qualities of building a dungeon and populating it with monsters may be taken into account.
7. There will be no more than 3 terrain features per map to trip up the players.
8. Each player will get the opportunity to play through each encounter, and will alternate running the game and the players.  Who goes first will be decided by a d20 roll.  Winner chooses.
9. There will be no loot awarded over the course of the dungeon.
10. The party starts the delve at full power, and no extended rests are allowed.  Short rests are allowed between encounters.
11. Monsters used for the encounters may not be custom; they will be from the Wizards Compendium.
12. Encounters and the delve as a whole will be written using the Masterplan program.
    

I believe that is a good start.  The goal of this exercise is not only to use these tools that we have, but to learn how to run games more efficiently, how to write a more effective set of encounters, and to familiarize ourselves with the other character classes that we may not be using on a normal basis.

Keep tuned to this page for more information as it comes to pass.

Ultimate Geek Paradox

I was listening to the This Just In... From GenCon! podcast today when I heard mention of an event that made me think...  There is a couple who is going to be getting married at the con, complete with gamer onlookers.  This presented a quandary:

1.  Stereotypical geeks live in their mother's basements, are male, and are usually overweight due to a diet consisting of, but not limited to, Cheetos, Mountain Dew, and pizza (the bigger, the greasier, the cheaper, the better).
2.  Getting married in a nontraditional setting (a Renaissance Faire, et cetera) would be very geeky.  Marriage at GenCon, arguably Geek Mecca for anyone in the role playing field (my apologies to anyone of the Islamic faith, no offense intended), is like turning up the Geek dial to 11.

Here comes the paradox part...

3.  A geek, who by definition in this limited space, should have difficulty speaking to a female, much less tricking her into marrying him!
4.  She happens to be referred to on the podcast as the "Chainmail Bikini Chick."  This means that she is attractive, and can pull off such a getup.

It took me a few seconds to try to wrap my brain around that, and then I started looking at it in a personal way.  Sure, the two stereotypes don't add up and play nice with each other, but how accurate is a stereotype?  It is based on myopic, antagonistic views of people or issues, and that never tells the whole story.  I mean, I am quite the geek, but I am a well-adjusted, social adult who is married to a beautiful woman, and we definitely don't live in my mother's basement.  I applaud the couple and wish them the best; may you always roll 20s.

Besides, if we all lived in mom's basement, how could anybody afford to go to Indianapolis unescorted and in the bright, bright sunshine?

GenCon Indy 2009 D&D 4e Announcements

This is all gathered from the twitter feed #gencon and I cannot claim any breaking news.  I am just putting it together for us all to see.  Most of this is courtest of @GeeksDreamGirl's twitter feed.

1. DDI subscribers will have 1/3 to 1/2 of PHB3 before it is released.
2. 3D dungeon tiles come in March.
3. Primal Power hits in October.
4. The Underdark book hits in January 2010.
5. Books for each of the races coming at $10 each.
6. Somehow, Gabe & Tycho have been holding out on us -- there is a Player's Strategy Guide coming that has art from them in it.  June 2010.
7. Ravenloft makes its triumphant return, in the form of a board game.
8. Dark Sun is the campaign setting for 2010.  No surprise, with all of the Psionic stuff.  WotC_Rodney can finally announce that he is the lead developer of the project.
   
9. PDFs to return from WotC, in some shape or form.

Adventure Time: The Forgotten Forge

I went to my local FLGS (Pandemonium Games in Garden City, MI) today to run a couple of games with some friends.  The first game was designed to teach one of the people the basics of the game, since he had never played any D&D, not even 4e.  I ran a modified room from the second level from the Dungeon Delve book, using Big Grigbad, a bunch of Goblin Cutters, and 3 of the Decrepit Skeletons reskinned as goblins.  With some difficult terrain, a table to hide behind, and a bubbling cauldron of hot, hot stew, there was something to interact with rather than just a blank room.  That was fun, and it led me to the game I decided to run: w0nkothesane's 4e update of The Forgotten Forge for Eberron.

My party was mixed between first and second level characters and there were five of them.  The adventure was designed for four level one characters, so it was a little easier than it was intended to be.  We didn't get through the whole adventure, but we got to the underground chamber and through the encounter with the beetle swarms.  All in all, it went well.

I didn't have a chance to read through the material first, so I was a little disorganized and scattered.  I have to definitely know the material before I step in and try to be the universe.

Ramping Up Toward GenCon

First, let me say that I wish that I were attending.  I will be listening to the This Just In...Fron GenCon! podcast twice daily, watching my Twitter feed (you can follow me @D_Gibb), and checking a slew of other sites that I will link later.

It physically pained me when I saw a tweet from WolfStar76 that read that more GMs were needed for GenCon and to sign up right away.  If only I had money and were able to take time off of work, I would be there in a heartbeat.

I think that I will be happy with following the coverage and trying to live vicariously through those attending and podcasting/tweeting/posting/twitpiccing about it.

So jealous...

Room for Improvement: Down the Rabbit Hole

I always ask my players for feedback as to how I can improve their experience.  I was especially insistent yesterday since this was my first real adventure completely written by me in 4th edition.  Here are some of the suggestions from the group:

• More chasms for slow-mo leaping attacks (story involved, will add later)
• Variety in fighting environments
• Interactive terrain
• Different ways to kill enemies
• Exploration increased
• Quick and dirty fights in addition to epic battles
• Give them a cleric

All in all, I think that's good advice and something for me to grow on.  About the chasms bit...  One of the players is a Dragonborn sorcerer.  In what they had thought was the big battle, the caster was hiding across a 7' wide chasm in the cave.  The sorcerer throws his Arcing Fire on to her, runs and leaps the chasm, then spends an action point to rend into her with his Tearing Claws.  He dropped her well into pudding consistency with this attack, but it was the most awesome visual attack we had.  Fantastic!  I love how the players are getting into it since we had started as mainly a 'let's go fight stuff, no need to roleplay' group and are growing from there.

Adventure: Down the Rabbit Hole

It has been over a month since the last time I ran a game, due to vacations, and the fact that my group has to work for a living, and our schedules don't line up very well all the time.  However, I have been writing a little module that would neatly take the group to second level, pass out the treasure parcels, and do what I really wanted to do: take my group from Forgotten Realms to Eberron.

I wrote an adventure called Down the Rabbit Hole that incorporated three combat encounters and a skill challenge.  This was my first real adventure written for 4th edition, so I took a lot of time with the monster creation (I had a gang of bandits in it).  I also had a group of 4 elites who were a gang of mercenaries that I spent most of my time handcrafting.  They were pretty fun to write, more fun to run (especially since they had some Alchemical items to use and confuse/tick off the players).  My Big Bad didn't have a chance to summon the 12 followers of his that were supposed to show up when bloodied -- he was mobbed and slaughtered with some great rolls by the party.

The best part, I think, was a new monster role that I implemented (but had heard discussed on Sly Flourish) that I called a Goon.  It is essentially a normal bad guy, but worth about a third of a standard monster.  The change is in the hit points.  It has 2hp, and any normal hit takes 1hp away, unless it is a natural 20, which kills a Goon outright.  I ran them to good effect, breaking minions up into "squads" of three that were led by a Goon.  I had 14 enemies in the room at once, and they all went at different times, but it worked out well.

The group said that they had fun, and I hope they did.  I am now going to run Khyber's Harvest and then I will have to write my own campaign after that.

I had better familiarize myself with Eberron!

Start of a New Blog

This blog will have interesting news posts from around the internet, reviews of new products, and some posts recounting the tales of our home campaign.  Our 4th ed campaign started very recently, and I was going to run it as a LFR campaign exclusively, but now that I have been reading more about Eberron, I think that I want to bring our players over to the other world.  I think I am going to have to run a few more sessions in the realms before I throw in some sort of portal that throws them from their world and into the world of Eberron.

The implications of that are pretty cool.  For example, would the gods be the same, or would my cleric have to convert?  Would I allow access to Dragonmarks that would slowly spread on the bodies of the players (as if they'd been there the whole time)?  I love the idea of running a campaign paralell to a similar group of NPCs trying to reach the same goal.  For instance I am drawing the idea from the Rod of Seven Parts theme where I have the players gathering multiple pieces of an artifact that would help them get home or at least give them access to go back and forth (thus expanding my potential game play options).  If they choose to go back and forth, this wouldn't be until Paragon Tier.

Finally, I think I will move them over when they hit 2nd level and have them run the Khyber's Harvest module that was given out for Free RPG Day 2009.  It looks pretty fun, and the idea of Symbiont magic items are interesting how they have special uses but require a healing surge to activate.  I can just see the potential stigmata involved with roleplaying options also...

Okay, well this is David Gibb signing off of the inaugural post of Temporary Hit Points.