Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Monday, April 29, 2013
Fundead
I played some more free WoW this weekend and tried out a few other races. I had high hopes for the elves, but I just can't get past their enormous ears and ridiculously elongated eyebrows. (Seriously, those eyebrows are just terrible!) I played a bit with a tauren (minotaur) and a draenei (tiefling), but my favorite race so far is actually the undead. I'm trying out an undead warlock and enjoying the introductory storyline a lot more than I did with my original human paladin.
Friday, April 26, 2013
Bastion
Recently I previewed an idea involving a revamped Shattered Realm campaign setting that could be used as a generic world for Front Porch fantasy campaigns. If you read the Multiverse-introducing tale "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes," you know that the besieged town of Palisade has been the focal point for that game world. For a bit of a fresh start, however, I'm going to shift to a new location, a city called Bastion. For the record, I'm aware that Bastion is already the name of a small town in the Druid Cycle world, but I like the name so I'm usin' it anyway!
Bastion was founded by adventurers who wanted to establish a new kind of society, one that rejected the aristocratic systems of the past and allowed the citizens to choose their own leaders. The idea of a proto-democratic government is nothing new in the annals of Front Porch fantasy campaigns (hat tip to Timothy for his efforts in The Druid Cycle beginning in the late '90s), but I'd like to take it a step further by giving all the players a more direct leadership role. I really don't want to turn D&D into a Model UN meeting, but I figured this arrangement would be an interesting change of pace from typical fantasy city-states that are led by kings or other such potentates.
In my next post on Shattered Realm, I'll discuss one of the interesting (for me, anyway!) design considerations for creating a new (or, more accurately, substantially revamped) campaign setting.
Bastion was founded by adventurers who wanted to establish a new kind of society, one that rejected the aristocratic systems of the past and allowed the citizens to choose their own leaders. The idea of a proto-democratic government is nothing new in the annals of Front Porch fantasy campaigns (hat tip to Timothy for his efforts in The Druid Cycle beginning in the late '90s), but I'd like to take it a step further by giving all the players a more direct leadership role. I really don't want to turn D&D into a Model UN meeting, but I figured this arrangement would be an interesting change of pace from typical fantasy city-states that are led by kings or other such potentates.
In my next post on Shattered Realm, I'll discuss one of the interesting (for me, anyway!) design considerations for creating a new (or, more accurately, substantially revamped) campaign setting.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Cutter #1
I picked up the first issue of IDW's latest D&D comic, Cutter. It was...okay. The art is a very bright, cartoonish style that was well done but didn't quite work for me. Overall I still much prefer the Pathfinder comic, so I don't think Cutter will find a spot on my pull list. However, this guy and this guy were more enthusiastic about it.
Monday, April 22, 2013
New Campaign Begins Soon
Hey gang -- just a reminder that Strategic by Design plans to resume his play-by-email D&D campaign on May 4. Be sure to contact him soon if you want to play.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Marvel Heroes
Matt alerted me to the current beta session of the upcoming Marvel Heroes MMORPG. Although the basic game will be free, now's the time to check out all the iconic heroes who will be pay-to-play when the game officially releases. Act fast! This beta ends tomorrow (Monday) at 12 PM Pacific.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Friday, April 19, 2013
Repairing the Shattered Realm
Some of you may know the Shattered Realm only from the recent short story "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes," but this campaign setting saw a great deal of action back in the late '90s and early '00s, with Jason and me alternating as gamemasters (and Kevin as a key party member throughout). The point of Shattered Realm was to have a generic world in which we could set adventures that did not fit into The Druid Cycle or other campaigns.
In the years since those final Shattered Realm adventures, I've often returned to the idea of a shared campaign world that could be used by any Front Porch player who wanted to start up a D&D campaign but didn't want the hassle of creating a whole new setting. Now, in our twenty-fifth year, perhaps the time is right to return to Shattered Realm and create the framework for something that people might actually use. I have two ideas in mind. One is a top-secret project involving Chuck, our computer programmer extraordinaire. (That statement alone should be enough of a hint for now!) The second is a revamped Shattered Realm campaign setting with a few cool new twists. I'll have a lot more to say about this second idea over the next couple of weeks.
In the years since those final Shattered Realm adventures, I've often returned to the idea of a shared campaign world that could be used by any Front Porch player who wanted to start up a D&D campaign but didn't want the hassle of creating a whole new setting. Now, in our twenty-fifth year, perhaps the time is right to return to Shattered Realm and create the framework for something that people might actually use. I have two ideas in mind. One is a top-secret project involving Chuck, our computer programmer extraordinaire. (That statement alone should be enough of a hint for now!) The second is a revamped Shattered Realm campaign setting with a few cool new twists. I'll have a lot more to say about this second idea over the next couple of weeks.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Stormwind and Deathwing
Timothy, I know you're a Lego purist and you have no interest in knock-off bricks, but check out the awesome new World of Warcraft Mega Bloks set that Matthew and I put together last night...
The entrance to the city of Stormwind
A close-up of the statues
The mighty dragon Deathwing
Deathwing vs. the heroes
Monday, April 15, 2013
WoW Starter Edition
Matthew and I have been playing the World of Warcraft Starter Edition for the last several days. We created a warrior whose tale began in a town under siege by a vast horde of werewolves. Our hero defeated countless monsters, worked to unite rival factions within the city, helped rescue and evacuate civilians, and even got to operate a gigantic cannon during a frenzied werewolf assault on the townspeople's last bastion of defense. Along the way, he was bitten by a werewolf and, at the worst possible moment, he transformed into a monster and turned against his fellow townspeople.
Cool story, right? If this were a paper-and-pencil campaign, I'd be counting the minutes between game sessions. Unfortunately, in WoW, the game play doesn't live up to the epic scope of the narrative. For the most part, it follows this sort of pattern: You talk to an NPC leader and receive a quest to kill a certain number of a particular type of monster. You wander around the area, kill the specified monsters, and return to the leader for a small reward. Then you're assigned to kill a different number of a different type of creature, and so on and so forth. If it gets this repetitive after just a few days -- and since I have zero interest in player-vs.-player combat -- I can't see paying for a subscription.
Still, the free version is a very enjoyable game experience and I highly recommend giving it a try. I don't see an expiration date on my Starter Edition account, so I intend to keep playing for a while. I've also created a human paladin, and the setting and story for his initial adventure are completely different from what we experienced with the werewolf warrior. I suspect I'll create a character of each race just to see what all the initial adventures are like. The character classes also play quite differently; there's a steep learning curve, but my friend Kyle, a WoW veteran of many years, has tagged along with both the werewolf and the paladin, and his advice has been very helpful in getting up to speed on how the game works.
Amusing side-note: WoW is full of respawning monsters, so there's never a lack of beasties to slay. However, Matthew had never seen a game in which fresh foes just appeared out of nowhere, so he assumed that they had been there the whole time, but had just been invisible until attacking us and thereby revealing themselves. With no small amount of exasperation, he said: "There sure are a lot of invisible monsters in this world!"
Cool story, right? If this were a paper-and-pencil campaign, I'd be counting the minutes between game sessions. Unfortunately, in WoW, the game play doesn't live up to the epic scope of the narrative. For the most part, it follows this sort of pattern: You talk to an NPC leader and receive a quest to kill a certain number of a particular type of monster. You wander around the area, kill the specified monsters, and return to the leader for a small reward. Then you're assigned to kill a different number of a different type of creature, and so on and so forth. If it gets this repetitive after just a few days -- and since I have zero interest in player-vs.-player combat -- I can't see paying for a subscription.
Still, the free version is a very enjoyable game experience and I highly recommend giving it a try. I don't see an expiration date on my Starter Edition account, so I intend to keep playing for a while. I've also created a human paladin, and the setting and story for his initial adventure are completely different from what we experienced with the werewolf warrior. I suspect I'll create a character of each race just to see what all the initial adventures are like. The character classes also play quite differently; there's a steep learning curve, but my friend Kyle, a WoW veteran of many years, has tagged along with both the werewolf and the paladin, and his advice has been very helpful in getting up to speed on how the game works.
Amusing side-note: WoW is full of respawning monsters, so there's never a lack of beasties to slay. However, Matthew had never seen a game in which fresh foes just appeared out of nowhere, so he assumed that they had been there the whole time, but had just been invisible until attacking us and thereby revealing themselves. With no small amount of exasperation, he said: "There sure are a lot of invisible monsters in this world!"
Friday, April 12, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
One Chance to WoW Me
Recently, my son Matthew and I discovered some great fantasy-themed building toys in the Mega Bloks World of Warcraft line. One of the sets we picked up included a card offering free play in the World of Warcraft MMORPG. I've never tried WoW -- or any other MMORPG, for that matter -- because I'm not keen on the idea of subscription-based play. However, I may use the freebie this weekend just to see what all the hubbub is about. With 10 million players, it has to be pretty good, right? Do we have any WoW players in the Front Porch ranks?
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Dwarven Forge Kickstarter
My friend James just alerted me to this interesting Kickstarter from Dwarven Forge. If you like 3D game tiles, this one's for you. But act fast -- the deadline is the end of this month.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Ymbstocc
Many of you know that prior to my current career in the corporate world, I was a scholar of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) language and literature. In all the years I studied Anglo-Saxon, however, not once did I come across the word ymbstocc. It means "a stump containing a swarm of bees." Fellow Porch player Matt discovered this delightful word a couple of years ago while he was searching for possible names for his Torchlight character. Matt mentioned the word to me, and in due course Ymbstocc became a minor NPC in the Torchlight world, but he never really got his moment to shine. Well, today I had reason to create a surly dwarf D&D character, so of course I named him Ymbstocc. What better name for a surly dwarf than a word meaning a stump full of bees?
Friday, April 5, 2013
Murder in Baldur's Gate
Lately, Wizards has been publishing mostly reprints of First, Second, and Third Edition materials. Coming in August is a bit of a rarity: a brand-new D&D adventure, Murder in Baldur's Gate. Check out the Amazon listing for a description. (Note that, as of today, the title in the product summary is different: Storm Over Baldur's Gate.) The product includes a book describing the setting, an adventure book, and a foldout DM screen. I'm a big fan of the Baldur's Gate video game series, so I'll definitely be picking this up. Maybe we could run through the adventure online?
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Ironside
Jason recently brought his legendary paladin Sir Roberts back to The Druid Cycle. As part of his return, I wrote a little scene to introduce Sir Roberts to the arrogant dragon-in-human-form named Ironside, a character he had never met. As I started thinking about the history of this villain-turned-hero, I came to the conclusion that I've badly mishandled his characterization.
Ironside first appeared around 2002 in the original "Castellan's Journal" story arc, which took place on the distant and now-destroyed continent of Sarras. Ironside was a stern, power-hungry warlord whose great secret was that he was a dragon masquerading as a human. I portrayed Ironside as a villain, but at least a reasonable villain -- though he opposed the heroes and their allies, he was not especially cruel or malicious, and he operated according to a strict code of honor. (I later used Ironside in much the same capacity during a long-running but non-canonical Druid Cycle campaign with my graduate school friends.) The Sarras-based campaign ended in 2004, and over the next few years I used Ironside as a "guest star" in a few adventures. Then, during the quintessence rifts storyline (2009-2010), Ironside came to First Home (the main continent of the Druid Cycle world) and I upgraded him into a major recurring character.
It was at this point that his characterization started to change. When faced with a common enemy (evil dragons, the cult of the Old Ones, Ekhis, etc.), Ironside and the heroes often worked together. Slowly but surely, Ironside became increasingly associated with the heroes. That part was intentional. What was not intentional was the effect this change had on his personality. The original Ironside of 2002 was a character whom the players took seriously. He was arrogant and dangerous. Now he's arrogant and...well...just kind of a blowhard. In a party full of serious characters (PCs and NPCs alike), he often provides the comic relief.
I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but I'm a little disappointed by this change in personality. I liked the stern Ironside better than the bombastic one. Players, what do you think? Did you notice (or care about) the change?
Ironside first appeared around 2002 in the original "Castellan's Journal" story arc, which took place on the distant and now-destroyed continent of Sarras. Ironside was a stern, power-hungry warlord whose great secret was that he was a dragon masquerading as a human. I portrayed Ironside as a villain, but at least a reasonable villain -- though he opposed the heroes and their allies, he was not especially cruel or malicious, and he operated according to a strict code of honor. (I later used Ironside in much the same capacity during a long-running but non-canonical Druid Cycle campaign with my graduate school friends.) The Sarras-based campaign ended in 2004, and over the next few years I used Ironside as a "guest star" in a few adventures. Then, during the quintessence rifts storyline (2009-2010), Ironside came to First Home (the main continent of the Druid Cycle world) and I upgraded him into a major recurring character.
It was at this point that his characterization started to change. When faced with a common enemy (evil dragons, the cult of the Old Ones, Ekhis, etc.), Ironside and the heroes often worked together. Slowly but surely, Ironside became increasingly associated with the heroes. That part was intentional. What was not intentional was the effect this change had on his personality. The original Ironside of 2002 was a character whom the players took seriously. He was arrogant and dangerous. Now he's arrogant and...well...just kind of a blowhard. In a party full of serious characters (PCs and NPCs alike), he often provides the comic relief.
I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but I'm a little disappointed by this change in personality. I liked the stern Ironside better than the bombastic one. Players, what do you think? Did you notice (or care about) the change?
Monday, April 1, 2013
Tomb of Horrors
The TSR-era adventure Tomb of Horrors returns as part of Wizards' re-release of classic D&D material in the new Dungeons of Dread book. Check out this amusing cartoon map that may or may not get you through the tomb alive!
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