Last weekend, at Mind Games in Greenville, NC, I ran the Game Day adventure for Wizards of the Coast World Wide Game Day promoting the new Dungeon Master’s Guide 2. Though I’ve been DMing for a couple of decades, I’ve only run 4th Edition about a half dozen times, so I was a little nervous. The format for this particular Game Day added a bit to my level of nervousness. For those who didn’t participate in Game Day, WOTC provided a map with 2 encounter areas, a pile of minis along with stat cards, and a basic outline with the adventure and encounter specifics to be worked out by a two groups of players on the day of the event. Then the groups would swap DMs so they could play in the adventure designed by the other group.

Unfortunately the store only had enough players for a single table. Fortunately, I’d looked through the packet and come up with a couple of encounters. This avoided a situation where the players designed and then played in their own adventure, though perhaps the folks at WOTC might have prefered that I’d done that, I think I managed to give the players a fun experience.

Four out of the five players had little to no 4E experience. I’m not sure if this made me more, or less nervous. On one hand, I’d hoped for a couple of experienced players to keep me from straying too far from the rules, on the other hand, I was glad not to have a rules lawyer nit-picking every ruling.

I planned the following monsters for each encounter:

Encounter 1: 3 Minotaur Thugs
1 Foulspawn Mangler

Encounter 2: 3 Duerger Guard
1 Duerger Cleric of Asmodeus
1 Foulspawn Hulk

They supplied a few adventure hooks, and based on one of them I decided a the cleric used the cave as a spot to summon the foulspawn creatures. Perhaps I should have ‘reused’ the guards for both encounter areas, but to give a little variety I chose to use the minotaur thugs, with the idea that the cleric either hired, or in some way mentally dominated them into service.

Nothing exceptional occured during the first encounter. Partly because this encounter served to help everyone learn the rules, and partly because everyone had horrible dice rolls, including the DM. This led to a very long encounter. Not sure if it dragged on quite as bad as I thought, but it certainly felt like it went on far too long so I decided the mangler would retreat down the pit to the encounter 2 area. Another reason things stretched on is that the players were afraid to use up their daily powers and so limited themselves slightly.

With the addition of the foulspawn mangler to the second encounter I feared it would be too difficult, and drag like the first, so I made an additional change. I demoted the guards to minion status. I did it simply by dropping HPs to 1, and there probably should have been some additional changes as well, so they were probably minions a level or two lower than the original guards. Quick math shows that assuming level 2 minion status for the guards places this encounter somewhere around level 6.5 vs. the initially planned level 7 encounter.

A combination of the players getting a bit more comfortable with the rules, the fact that they didn’t need to worry about holding back on daily powers, the slightly easier encounter, and perhaps even my own ‘settling in’ led to a much quicker second encounter.

We also had two very entertaining moments during the second encounter: In what was probably not the best of party tactics, the swordmage wound up in base to base contact with BOTH foulspawn creatures. While this eventually led to her being bloodied during the battle, in one round the hulk missed with his smash attack, while all 4 attacks from the mangler’s dagger dance managed to miss.

And in an action that may be against the rules, but was just far too cool not to allow to happen, the barbarian managed to hit with his brutal slam attack against the foulspawn hulk, pushing it 2 squares and leaving it prone. Because of the size difference between the two, perhaps the halfling shouldn’t have been able to pull off one, or both portions of that, but it was simply too exciting a moment to even think of saying ‘Let’s check the rules’. Even in a campaign, I’d probably have to let it stand the first time, unless we’d specifically discussed the issue prior to it occuring.

I left the game store feeling great. It reminded me why I love gaming in general, and DMing specifically. It was an amazing day, and one of the players paid me the ultimate compliment after the game when he said that he’d like to play at my table again some day.

So thanks to everyone: Rai (@Mind_Games), Warren (@wcrow), Kyle, Josh, and _____ (forgive me for forgetting this final name, but if any of the others can refresh my memory it would be greatly appreciated).

Wizards of the Coast: Adventurer's Vault 2

These are the 5 items I think are coolest/neatest/most interesting in Adventurer’s Vault 2. As far as the rules go, you might think them horribly underpowered, or perhaps so overpowered they smell of cheese, but I love the concept behind them.

5) Songbow of Summoning (pq 22): As a daily power if you hit an enemy with a bard power any allies within 5 of you, or that enemy can teleport to a square adjacent to the enemy as a free action. Get everyone to dogpile on a powerful foe, or target an enemy near the edge of a losing battle to speed up a retreat.

4) Door Warden (pg 80): This talking door ornament toughens the door it is placed on, and controls when the door does, or does not open. Talking doors are such a classic bit of fiction it’s great to see them written up in rules. Or create the old puzzle using two doors and two wardens, one speaking only lies, one only truth, and see if your players can choose the proper door.

3) Immurements (pg 88-91): I’m cheating a bit here, and on my next 2 picks. I can’t pick just one of these, the whole concept is so interesting. They’re designed for a higher level of play than my usual games, but the idea of suddenly moving to battle to a new battlefield excites me. I may have to work on a version more suitable to lower level play.

2) Fortune Stones (pg 133): The idea seems simple, a number of stones, each of which allows you a reroll on a specific type of attack as a daily power. The neat thing is that once at least 2 members of the party have one of these stones, you get a +N bonus to the reroll where N is the number of party members possessing a stone. And once five party members own a stone, everyone with a stone gets +2 to initiative and +1 to saving throws.

1) Tattoos of Bond (pg 85-86): And three in a row where I can’t choose a specific item, but love the concept so much that the section makes it on this list. The repeating theme of the Tattoos of bond is: If X happens to one person with a Tattoo of Bond, everyone with a Tattoo of Bond can do/gets Y. Like the fortune stones, I love this because it gives benefit to more than one member of the party, and encourages some unity in the group. Who wants to be the one party member without a stone/tattoo?

What are your favorite items in the book?  Leave your comments below please.

Inspired by my desire to be at GenCon, and my own attempts at creating a Virtual GenCon experience for myself I’m planning on doing a home based onvention for my family, and perhaps a few additional close friends.

For time time being I’m calling it ‘HomeCon’, with the motto, ‘There’s no place like HomeCon’. Basically a weekend of gaming and related activities. Here is a rough schedule for the weekend, though it is certainly subject to change between now and whenever I actually hold the convention (probably early November).

Friday 7:00 Party Mix: get in the kitchen and make a big batch of some version of trail/party mix that we can keep near the gaming table over the course of the weekend. Or provide a wide selection of ingredients and let everyone make they’re own custom mix.

Friday 8:00 PM Movie time. Family friendly fantasy themed movies each night. Current plan is to show “Willow” and the Bass/Rankins animated “Hobbit”. Not sure if it matters which is the Friday movie and which is for Saturday night.

Saturday: 8:00 AM Breakfast. All meals to be basic, perhaps casserols that I can make in advance and bake at the appropriate mealtime. I’ll try to come up with gaming related names for everyday foods. May also look to some Halloween party ideas for suitable ideas. Also, with the exception of breakfast I’m allowing 2 hours for meals so these periods will act as a bit of free time for my kids. While I want them to have a weekend of gaming, I recognize they’ll need some time that isn’t scheduled or planned in advance.

Saturday: 9-10 AM Board games. I would like to find something fantasy related, but perhaps just something like Clue Jr., or Blockus. I also need to check the Circus Maximus rules and see if kids could handle it, or perhaps a modified version of the rules.

Saturday: 10-11 AM Nintendo DS multi-player. We have several games which allow 4 or more players to be playing the same game at the same time using only 1 cartridge and the built in wi-fi. Mario Kart Racing, Diddy Kong Racing, Mario Party DS, StarFox, and probably a couple I’m forgetting about, or don’t realize can handle 4 or more players.

Saturday 11 AM – 1 PM: Lunch.

Saturday 1 PM – 4 PM D&D 4E Dungeon Delve – Low level, 3 encounters, opponents either giant bugs or kobolds (are those both the same??).

Saturday 4 PM – 6 PM Dinner.

Saturday 6 PM – 8 PM – Pokemon card game – need to reset them, but we own 3 or 4 ‘preconstructed decks’ that we can play at least one game of this.

Saturday 8 PM Movie Time

Sunday 8:00 AM Breakfast

Sunday 9 – 11 AM: Board Games/CardGames/or more Nintendo time. Basically a duplication of Saturday’s schedule, though possibly with different games.

Sunday 11 AM – 1 PM Lunch

Sunday 1 PM – 4 PM: D&D 4E: Kill the Dragon. Battle a gargantuan dragon.

Sunday 4 PM – Dinner/Closing ceremonies. I’ll probably spend between $20 and $40 for some Pokemon cards, D&D minis, or other similar items and pass them out as prizes for the weekend. The awards will likely not be too serious, probably just categories made up based on the events of the weekend. Something like “Rolled the Most 1s against the Dragon”, “Silliest Gamer”, “First to Fall Asleep During the Movies”, etc.

I want to design a logo for the even, perhaps to put on some buttons, or t-shirts depending on cost, but also to use on some banners and fliers to post around the house to add to the convention feel.

Maybe I’ll even pass out some poker chips and make them pay me outrageous prices for meals, and send everyone to the bathroom at the same time so everyone must wait in line.

And just so I give credit where credit is due, part of my inspiration for this is Gwendolyn Kestrel and Andy Collins ‘GwenCons‘. Not sure if they’re still hosting them, but you can see some summaries of these events at his web page. According to one page, they had 80 people over the course of one of their GwenCons, but my aim is to server somewhere between 4 and 10 people. It’s primarily aimed at my wife and kids, but I’ll probably invite my niece and nephew, and others who I think might be interested.

Please leave comments!

Last week at GenCon, Wizards of the Coast announced that their campaign setting for 2010 would be Dark Sun.

Prior to the convention I’d heard a lot of people guessing that the next setting would be Dragonlance, and while I would have been happy to see them publish the Dragonlance setting for 4E, I think Dark Sun has the opportunity to be better because some aspects of the world differ greatly from the medieval European flavor present in many other settings.

Here are the top 5 things I’m looking forward to seeing in the Dark Sun campaign setting when it releases next year:

5) Thri-Kreen. Though I don’t believe I ever played one, I thought these psionic insects represented a significant difference from the player character races at the time. It did make me shake my head when I searched on Google to make sure I spelled it right, I found a page titled ‘Thri-Kreen Erotica’ (no link, you’ll have to work if you really want to find it).

4) Nature destroying magic – in the only Dark Sun games I played in, I think this was glossed over a bit during game play, though it was used as the explanation why so much of the world was desolate. When I initially saw the 4E Bullywugs, I thought their mechanic might serve as some version of the blight caused by magic use in Dark Sun.

3) Half-giants – maybe not quite as cool now that we have goliath’s around, though I imagine half giants as even taller and broader than goliaths, and wielding weapons designed for creatures even larger than themselves.

2) Killer environment – While I expect there will be other mechanics created for this, the burning deserts seem like a great place to show off skill challenges.

1) Psionics – Love them, or hate them, the mechanics of psionics always bring something different to the table. Curious whether the idea of replacing encounter powers with ‘Augmentations’ to daily powers as the DDI release of the Psion class does will carry over to other psionic classes as well.

I’m sure all of these will be the topic of some debate/discussion across various Internet forums for the next 10 months or so. I’m also sure the designers will provide some very interesting mechanics, and in the end there’s will probably be something that I’m not expecting that I’ll be interested in when Dark Sun 4E finally hits the shelves.

Perhaps this is a bit late, with GenCon ending today, but with Virtual GenCon there is no time limit! We can keep enjoying GenCon for weeks if we’d like. Some of these are repeats, now that GenCon is in swing, some of the searches mentioned ealier are now full of fun things to see, read, or listen to!

Twitter:

The #GenCon tag has been wonderfully informative and entertaining, take some time to give it a read.

To be honest, with the chaos of GenCon I thought the folks I was following might be a little quiet during GenCon, but they all did a marvelous job Tweeting from GenCon, keeping me informed and entertained!

Blogs:

Don’t think I mentioned either of these before, but they both did a great job of providing some convention coverage:

Temple Lion

RPG Blog II Links to lots of pictures too!

Pictures:

Flickr: Here’s the link to the GenCon search, sorted by date. I should have checked the count, I believe there have been about 1500 more results in the search now that when I looked at the begining of the convention.

Yfrog: This is a site people use to post pictures to the Twitter feeds. Here’s a GenCon search there.

Picasa: Don’t know if it is just me, but I’m not getting many ‘recent’ results on this, but here’s the link, since Virtual GenCon has no time limit.

Podcasts:

This Just in From GenCon has posted 6 podcasts from GenCon as of this writing.

Pixels and Grids has posted 2 podcasts from GenCon as of this writing.

You can also subscribe to both podcasts using iTunes.

I’ll have some reaction to the news from GenCon over the next week or two as more is revealed by those returning from the convention.

With the whole Internet to search, I’ll probably never find all the GenCon coverage, but here are a couple more people and places to keep an eye on (You can see Pt. 1 of Virtual GenCon here):

Twitter:

@Gen_ConCan’t believe I forgot this one yesterday, the official GenCon twitter feed.

@davethegame Should have been on the initial post, hope he can forgive me for missing him. Based on a test I saw in his Twitter feed it looks like he may even try out some ‘AudioTweets’ from the convention!

@CriticalHits is the Twitter feed for DaveTheGame’s Web site.

@Bartoneus is the Twitter feed for Danny Rupp, another writer for the Critical Hits site.

@gnomestew is another multi-author gaming blog/Twitter feed with a presence in Indianapolis.

@DNAphil is one of the Gnome Stew writers and expects to be Tweeting from GenCon.

@ChattyDM is another Tweeting blogger. Also responsible for the #aboutmypc Twitter contest which you can participate in without going to GenCon! See details here.

Blogs:

The Hopeless Gamer: As of Wed. night this blogger already had posted some pictures from the Ram, a very gamer friendly bar/restaurant in Indianapolis.

RPG Bloggers Network: Not sure exactly how many of their bloggers will be at the convention, but keep an eye on their page and you’ll certainly see some news from Indianapolis. There’s already at least one GenCon article live there tonight.

Critical Hits. While they recommend following their Twitter accounts mentioned above, they hope to do get at least a couple blog posts up from GenCon.

Living Dice writer Trask will be going to GenCon for the first time and plans on updating from the convention with “extensive coverage in the following week”.

Podcasts:

Pixels and Grids gaming website plans on doing some podcasts from the convention. I’m linking to their main page and hope to add direct links in a post a bit further into the convention. Here’s a post with a schedule of their intended recording schedule, and based on an email I received from James Jones they intend to post the podcasts “either the night they record them or early the next morning.” They’re also going to be “two live 15 minute recording sessions each day and immediately uploading them”.

Fear The Boot: I don’t have confirmation that they’ll be podcasting from the show, but they definitely plan on releasing some audio commentary they recorded on their way there, and their blog already has a link to some pictures from a pre-GenCon gathering.

Pictures:

Google’s Picasa photo albums will certainly see some GenCon photos posted. Here’s a link to a search for GenCon sorted by date so the most recent photos should show at the top. At this time the first photos are those from the Fear The Boot gathering mentioned above.

Expect another post or two with more links to GenCon coverage. And I hope you’re enjoying your Virtual GenCon experience.

For those of you, like myself, staying home this weekend rather than heading to Indianapolis for “The Best Four Days in Gaming”, here are a couple ways to keep up with what’s going on at GenCon 2009 in Indianapolis. I’m providing a few links here, and if I expect I’ll add a link or two as the weekend progresses.

Twitter:

A number of Twitter users will be at the convention. I’m listing a few hear, but the best way to keep up will probably be searching for the #gencon hashtag, or simply doing a search for Gencon on Twitter. The only problem with this is that if the GenCon tag becomes popular there might be some spam to sort through.

Here are a few Twitter users who will be at GenCon, and who I feel comfortable saying won’t be posting spam, though don’t be too surprised to see them pimping some fun stuff they find at the convention.

@geeksdreamgirl She Tweeted from Origins earlier this year, and her in game posts are always a joy to read.

@AsmodeusLore Gets us our D&D news every day, and will be at GenCon (though he admits he won’t be tweeting much from the convention).

@InstantGameShow will be Tweeting and running trivia games via Twitter from GenCon.

@Annakie plans on Tweeting from GenCon.

@duneshadow will be Tweeting and blogging from GenCon! There are already a couple of pre-GenCon posts there for you to enjoy now.

@MindStormLabs: publishers of Alpha Omega role-playing game will be Tweeting and video blogging from GenCon. I’ll try and get a direct link to their videos when the post them.

@GenConGirl2009 will continue Tweeting about the BNW Interactive Show, and possibly other GenCon activities.

@TheD6Generation: I debated whether to put this here or the podcasts section, but since it sounds like they’ll be Tweeting rather than Podcasting from the convention I set them up here.

Podcasters:

This Just In…From GenCon will be posting 2 podcasts a day from GenCon. They’ve already posted two pre-show podcasts. You can subscribe to their podcasts via iTunes, or get the directly from their web site.

RPG Haven podcast. Not sure if they’ll be at GenCon or not, but they’ve posted a “Not going to GenCon Special Episode”. They’ve got a few additions for my Twitter list above, but please visit them to see it. They’ve also got a list of new products being released at the convention, with links to the products so you can spend as much money from the comfort of your living room as you would if you were actually at the convention, or even more if you’d like since you didn’t have to buy a plane ticket!

Flickr:

Click HERE for a search for GenCon on Flickr will probably begin bearing fruit tomorrow or Thursday, though expect a few pictures of what people packed for the trips, or people in planes, trains, and automobiles* on the way to Indianapolis in the beginning before photos from the convention floor or game areas begin showing up.

Also, there is a group on Flickr called GenCon or Bust. Hopefully a few of these photographers will make it to the convention again this year and have some great pictures to share.

More to Come, and Things to Do:

I’m sure there’s more, as I find more I’ll either edit this post, or add a second Virtual GenCon post as things heat up at the convention.

And if you’re really sad about not being at the convention, sit down for a few hours and game, or take a look at the DDI Compendium which I’m told will be available even if you don’t subscribe for the 4 days of GenCon.

And as always, comments are welcome, especially if you’ve got something to share with those of us pining for GenCon.

*Rest in Peace John Hughes.

Giant Spider Version 2

This continues my test drive of the DDI Monster Builder, and takes a different route to another Giant Spider.

Again I’ve started from an existing creature, the Bristle Spider. After renaming the creature I adjusted the level. While this changed a lot of the stats and damage levels, there were still a couple things that still didn’t seem quite right.

While it might work fine at the higher level, the Acidic Poison spray, an at will burst 5 power, seemed a bit out of line for this level even at a reduced damage amount. I changed it to an encounter power, eliminated the acidic effects, and lowered the ongoing damage from 10 to 5.

I also eliminated Bristle Blast, a second close burst 5 power. I don’t believe there’s a hard and fast rule about how many powers a monster at a certain level, and because this one causes no physical damage and the blind and daze effects only last a round, I considered keeping it. It just felt like overkill considering both the remaining powers will slow party members in addition to the initial damage and ongoing poison damage.

Eliminating this power revealed one minor problem, perhaps I’m just overly cautious, but when I went to remove the power, the software gave me a warning about deleting the power. No big deal as long as the power is just being deleted from the creature, but the wording of the warning was enough to make me go back and look a little closer, worried I might have been removing the power from the database entirely. Inserting ‘from this creature’ into the warning would have eliminated any chance of confusion.

The other slightly annoying thing I keep experiencing is that when you leave a creature your editing, the sofware warns you that changes will be lost and gives you a chance to save the creature. A good feature, but annoying if you’ve just saved the creature and then immediately tried to leave the creature editing area of the software.

Next I’ll be using the DDI Monster Builder to create a spider from scratch instead of basing it on an existing creature. Looking forward to your questions and comments on either my creations, or the Monster Builder software.

Created using the DDI Monster Builder

When I posted the Giant Spider last week, I didn’t know just how close the DDI Monster Builder was to going live, so here’s a new version, almost identical to the last.  The only rules difference is the Monster Builder was smart enough to decrease the bonus on the ‘Bloodied Web’ to match the level of the creature, while I had left the bonus equal to that of the original creature from which I borrowed it from.

The other significant difference is that using the Monster Builder it took only about 10 minutes to create this version, while the one posted last week took 30 or 40 minutes, much of it simply tied up in the typing and formatting. Again I based my creature on the Deathrattle Viper, made a couple adjustments (size, speed, adding the Bloodied Web ability, removing the Deathrattle aura) and I had a finished creature.

There are certainly some issues to be worked out with the Monster builder, for example I didn’t see an easy way to put in immunities, and I had to manually enter the ‘free, when first bloodied’, which wasn’t difficult, but took an experiment or two before I managed to get it entered properly, at first I didn’t realize I could create an entry not included on the pull down menu, then I managed to enter it and have it clear itself out before finally getting it to stick.

Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to create a few more creatures and explore the Monster Builder further. I may even try another version of the Giant Spider based on an existing Huge Spider and see how the Monster Builder performs when making a fairly large change in levels to a creature.