Free RPG Day 2013

This Saturday is Free RPG Day. Check out the website for details on this year's offerings.

Tinker

As I mentioned the other day, the latest D&D Next playtest packet includes three new races: the half-elf, the half-orc, and the gnome. The first two are kind of bland, but the gnome is chock-full-o'-fun. (Too bad gnomes don't exist in the Druid Cycle world!) I especially like the rock gnome, who gets the super-cool Tinker ability. This feature allows the gnome to craft tiny clockwork machines, such as a marching toy soldier, a fire-starting device, or a music box. These devices are functionally similar to wizard cantrips, but with a uniquely gnomish flavor. I'm already dreaming up a gnome artificer (it may be a long while, of course, before we see this class in Next!) whose backpack is bursting with all sorts of gadgetry. My only reservation about the gnome is that neither variety (rock or forest) grants a Charisma bonus, so a gnome bard (historically a common class for this race) is sub-optimal right from the get-go.

Warhammer Quest

I'm still having tons of fun with the Warhammer Quest iPad game. I'd love to see Games Workshop re-release the mid-'90s board game on which it's based. That board game was the successor to HeroQuest, which I spent many happy hours playing in Scott's basement back in the early '90s.

D&D Next Update

There's an updated D&D Next playtest packet available with some new content, including the half-elf, half-orc, and gnome races, and some tweaks to the rules and spells. Click here to visit the playtest page.

Dead Heroes

The epic-tier Druid Cycle heroes are nearing the conclusion of their adventure on the Elemental Plane as they struggle to defeat their immortal foe Ekhis. So far it's been an evenly matched fight, but the heroes have lost a few lower-level NPC allies. Even the most powerful characters are weakening with each passing round, but Ekhis is bloodied and his henchmen are nearing death. I'll post a picture of the corpse-littered battlefield -- that is, the game map with lots of overturned miniatures -- after it's all over.

Of course, as I've hinted for months, we're going to witness the deaths of not one, but two all-time-great Druid Cycle characters in 2013, our twentieth year of play. I can now confirm that at least one of those deaths will take place during this battle. For a brief moment, it appeared that the doomed hero was Ironside, who was literally chewed up and spit out by Ekhis, but another hero quickly resurrected him. Ironside is down for the rest of the fight, but he's not the hero who will perish.

Players...anyone want to wager a guess as to who it will be?

Neverwinter Review

One of the guys at EN World has written a thorough review of Neverwinter Online, and he's not a big fan of this new free-to-play D&D MMORPG. Check out the review here.

World Building

One of the great things to come out of our twenty-fifth anniversary has been a new look at old characters. Recently, Timothy returned to a long-dormant Druid Cycle hero named Scyld (Hwaet! Take notice, Beowulf fans!), who is soon to set out on a lengthy expedition to uncharted waters. His quest is to rescue the  refugees of a natural disaster that occurred a couple of years ago in the Druid Cycle world, but it's mainly an excuse for me to expand the map of this campaign setting. Scyld and his companions are going to visit a number of heretofore unexplored islands, but their ultimate destination will be an entirely new continent. The travelers will establish a settlement there and try to build a stable, long-term community. Lofty ambitions indeed for a character who was sitting on the shelf, so to speak, just a couple of months ago. I encourage the rest of the Front Porch crew to look back on your old characters and see what new life we can breathe into them!

Questing

I spent a good chunk of the weekend playing Warhammer Quest on my iPad. I'm really digging it. It reminds me of the Dungeons & Dragons Tactics game for the PSP (which I also loved), but with its high level of randomness in the dungeons, foes, and weird side-encounters (while visiting a town to sell our loot, one of my characters got run over by a wagon!), it also reminds me of the D&D-based Castle Ravenloft board game. Now they just need to make a Warhammer 40,000 version, in which the player controls a small squad of Ultramarines taking on the forces of Chaos (or vice versa -- I know Matt would prefer it that way!).

Warhammer Quest Is Here!

Warhammer Quest is here! I'm downloading it to my iPad right now!

Jack Vance

Sci-fi author Jack Vance passed away over the weekend at the age of 96. I've never read any of his work, but the early TSR folks were big Vance fans, and some of his ideas were adapted into the D&D game rules. The notion that wizards and other spell-casters must memorize spells that subsequently disappear from their memories once cast is an idea straight from Vance. He's honored in D&D mythology by the god Vecna, whose name is an anagram of Vance.

Warhammer Quest

Hat tip to Matt for alerting me to the upcoming Warhammer Quest game for iOS devices. Check out this video preview and this review.

OD&D

Confession time: I added this upcoming D&D product to my Amazon wish list. I know it's an extravagance and I know there's no way I'll find anyone willing to play it with me, but...in my defense...the Amazon listing is much cheaper than the price listed on the Wizards site.

Arena of War

There's a new D&D video game -- Arena of War -- coming soon for mobile devices. Check out the details here.

No More Maps

One of the best parts of the Pathfinder comic book has been the removable game map that was included in every issue. Alas, the maps have been discontinued! On the plus side, the book has a new artist and I think he's off to a good start.

Nomenclature

When I design a new game setting, I like it to have a reasonably consistent nomenclature.* I may well be the only one of us who cares about stuff like this, and that's fine, but I'm just not satisfied with a setting that I've created unless I make sure there's internal consistency in how people and places are named. (In fact, probably 90% of the retconning I've done over the years, in The Druid Cycle in particular, has been to "fix" names that didn't quite work.)

Most often my game setting nomenclature takes the form of proper nouns derived from everyday words in other languages. The names in Torchlight, for instance, are entirely from Anglo-Saxon (Old English). The Druid Cycle is a mix of language traditions: Ancient Greek and Latin (Troya Nova), Welsh and Irish (Teyrnas and Annuvin), medieval Italian and German (Southern Principalities), ancient Egyptian (Tadjeser), etc.

The upcoming Shattered Realm revamp will be based on obscure or antiquated English words. Again, because this is a shared world intended for multiple gamemasters, I don't want to burden everyone with a bunch of weird names that they may not want to use. The archaic words I've chosen have a nice fantastical ring to them, but they're generic enough to remain in keeping with my design goals for the campaign setting. I don't want to reveal too much at the moment, but I can say that one of the major NPC heroes is named Caitiff, after one of my all-time favorite English words of yesteryear. Look it up!


* - Dagnabbit! "Nomenclature" is a word with a very specific and idiosyncratic meaning in Front Porch lore, and yet I somehow failed to include it in "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes," which is filled with many such tidbits to amuse long-time Porch players. I apologize, especially to Scott, for this egregious omission!

Big Four

As you know, this year marks the twentieth anniversary of The Druid Cycle. Many, many people have played in Druid Cycle campaigns over the years, but no one has logged more time in this world than these four lads...

Jason, Scott, Kevin, and Timothy (shown here in a photo from way back in 1998!) are the "Big Four" players whose imagination and enthusiasm have shaped this game world into what it is today, and for that I am forever grateful (and even more grateful for their friendship). It's fitting that, in this anniversary year, all four of them are playing in the current epic-tier Druid Cycle adventure. It's been a very long time since we got all four of these guys together in the same adventure, and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

New D&D Movie!

Big news! Warner Brothers has acquired the rights to make a new Dungeons & Dragons movie!

We're Back!

As you can see, we're back online! After some technical difficulties, the Front Porch blog is now firing on all cylinders. Big thanks to Timothy for getting us up and runing again.

DDO

After my recent dalliance with World of Warcraft, Matt reminded me that Dungeons & Dragons Online is still alive and kicking. He checked it out after a long absence and encouraged me to do the same. Last night I downloaded the files and created a character (a paladin, of course!). I had time for only a few minutes of the introductory solo adventure, but I'm finding it interesting to compare DDO to WoW. At first blush, I think WoW is visually superior and has more intuitive game controls, but DDO provides an authentic 3.5 D&D experience that has a strong appeal to me as a fan of that edition. It's free to play, so I recommend that my fellow D&D fans check it out!

WoW Graphic Novel

I'm already kind of bored with World of Warcraft, but I may check out DC's new WoW graphic novel.

Free Comic Book Day 2013

Free Comic Book Day is coming up this Saturday! Pay a visit to your friendly local comic book store and pick up some free goodies.

Neverwinter

Check it out! The Neverwinter MMO is coming soon, and here's a cool animated clip...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Really?

Presented without snarky commentary...

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.

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

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!"

Free Pathfinder Adventure

Want to download a free Pathfinder adventure? Click here for details!

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?

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.

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?

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?

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?

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!

International Tabletop Day

Today is International Tabletop Day, whose organizers encourage us to spend time playing games with friends and family. So dust off those board games and start playing!

NEW: D&D Game Launch May 4

I am starting (or more like relaunching) my game world on Saturday May 4th. It will be email based, so players can enjoy when they can on their schedule.

Background: As the world enters possibly another golden age, there are minor threats so far to this lasting period. Your role and choices could help or hinder the world as it matures.

Please email Strategic by Design if you're interested. Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you!

One Year

Timothy and I started this blog one year ago today. We hope you've enjoyed reading our posts as much as we've enjoyed writing them. We'll continue bringing you gaming news and views for years to come!

Paladin Awesomeness

To be honest, I think all the classes in D&D Next seem a little bland, and the paladin is no exception. Still, it's my favorite class so far. As a front-line warrior with good attacks, good defenses, and great saving throws (the ability to make a Charisma save in place of any other save is a huge advantage), this character class really feels like an iconic D&D paladin. The 4th Edition paladin suffered from having to spread ability score points across at least three abilities (aside from those odd but effective builds in which players dumped Strength and focused on Charisma and Wisdom). The D&D Next paladin can focus safely on Strength and Charisma.

I know some folks have grumbled about the reintroduction of alignment restrictions, but I think the various paladin builds (known as "oaths") allow for a lot of variety. The paladin's oath/alignment determines the character's cleric-like Channel Divinity features (including typical paladin powers like Turn Undead and Lay on Hands) and their mount. Yes, that's right, the D&D Next paladin gets a mount! (And a useful one, at that.) The D&D Next version of this class reminds me of those great 3rd Edition paladins that I used to play.

Gang, when somebody starts up a D&D Next campaign, I've got dibs on the paladin! And that blackguard build looks really, really good at higher levels...

Gallery

Our "Front Porch Gallery" page has now been updated with a number of photographs from over the years. Check 'em out! And if you have any pictures that you'd like to share, just send them to me and I'll post them in the gallery.

More False Choices

As I alluded to the other day in my post about Sneak Attack, the game includes a number of false choices. In 4th Edition, Weapon Expertise and Weapon Focus are a perfect example. Do you want a little better chance to hit or do you want to inflict a little more damage? Ostensibly, if you wanted to do a little more damage, you'd pick Weapon Focus because it grants a +1 to damage. But you don't inflict damage if you don't hit, so if you really wanted to inflict more damage, you'd need to select Weapon Expertise, which grants a +1 to hit. There's no reason to select Weapon Focus unless you already have Weapon Expertise.

The current D&D Next packet includes another egregious false choice. A first-level fighter gets two Expertise Dice (ED) that he or she can use to activate various class features. These ED are recovered after a short rest or an extended rest -- or, the player can spend an action to recover one ED. In almost all cases (unless, for example, the player's only option during a round is to move), the player would have a tactical option (such as making a standard attack roll) far superior to giving up an action to regain one ED. A fighter in D&D Next is a high-accuracy, high-damage character whose attack rolls play a large part in resolving the encounter, so I think we want to encourage players to be making as many attack rolls as possible.

I suppose it's good that this ED recovery option option exists for those rare cases in which it would be useful, but I would hate to see players falling into a round-by-round pattern like this: Action Using ED > Recover ED >Action Using ED > Recover ED > etc.

D&D Arcade Action

Anyone remember the old D&D arcade games from the '90s? Well, they're coming back! Unfortunately for me, these super fun video games will only be available on platforms that I don't own, but maybe someday...

Complexity Creep

From the get-go, the D&D Next team has insisted that there would be a simple and streamlined core game, to which layers of complexity could be added if desired. However, it seems that with each new playtest packet, complexity is creeping back into the rules. One good example is with the role of feats.

Feats are no longer optional because some classes (e.g., fighters and rogues) get bonus feats as part of their class features. Not using feats would cripple these classes in comparison to, say, the paladin or cleric. Core class abilities like the rogue's Open Lock and even the ranger's Dual Wielding must now be handled by feats. Even some traditional actions like Bull Rush have been redesigned as feats; in other words, you can't perform a Bull Rush action if you don't have the feat. Of course, rogues would spend feats to acquire abilities like Pick Pockets, and fighters would spend feats to acquire abilities like Disarm, but now, unless they make some major changes, feats are a mandatory part of the core game.

Druids Do It All

At first glance, I was indifferent to the D&D Next druid. A fellow playtester has now changed my mind -- the druid is seriously broken. This class can tank like a fighter (through Wild Shape forms), dish out damage like a rogue (again, through certain Wild Shape forms and add-ons like Shape of the Dire Beast), heal like a cleric, and cast spells like a wizard (including many spells from the wizard's own list!). Plus, the druid gets all sorts of cool flavor powers like monks and barbarians do. I think this class needs to get nerfed a wee bit.

Sneaky Sneak Attack

When my friend James and I were looking over the playtest packet yesterday, we both noticed the sorry state of Sneak Attack. This is supposed to be an iconic class feature for the rogue -- perhaps even more so than, say, Turn Undead for the cleric -- but its current incarnation does not appear to be a viable tactical choice.

To use Sneak Attack, the rogue takes disadvantage on the attack roll to gain +1D6 damage on a hit (the damage increases as the rogue goes up in level). As you may recall, the D&D Next "disadvantage" mechanic means that the player rolls a D20 twice and takes the lower result. This is a huge penalty to accuracy. I'm doubly disappointed because I had hoped that the designers had learned their lesson from 4th Edition, where modifiers to hit and modifiers to damage are often presented as roughly equal alternatives (e.g., the Weapon Focus and Weapon Expertise feats). Of course, they're not. Accuracy is far more important. So in D&D Next, why would a low-level rogue ever take such a massive penalty to accuracy for such a small damage bonus?

Well, it turns out that the situation is a bit more complicated. Depending on the type of rogue, the character also gets one of the following two features:

• Backstab: Advantage on attacks if there is another creature hostile to the target within 5 feet of it.
• Isolated Strike: Advantage on attacks if there are no creatures hostile to the target within 5 feet of it.

A rogue with Backstab, for example, is going to try to tag-team with allies in order to gain advantage (roll D20 twice and take the higher number) every round. That's a significant bonus to accuracy. If the rogue wants to use Sneak Attack, then, the advantage from Backstab or Isolated Strike would cancel out the disadvantage from the Sneak Attack mechanic and the rogue would therefore make the attack roll with no bonus or penalty. Weird, huh?

But is that even a good choice? We've already established that taking disadvantage to gain a small damage boost is a poor tactical option. How about the advantage-cancelling-disadvantage situation that would allow a rogue to attack nearly every round with a normal attack roll and Sneak Attack bonus damage? That's a pretty good option, but is it better than foregoing Sneak Attack and simply making normal attacks with advantage every round? At lower levels, when the damage bonus is only +1D6, you're still better off taking advantage on regular attacks because the huge bonus to hit outweighs the measly bonus damage.

So not using your class's iconic combat feature is arguably the superior tactical choice for a large percentage of characters. I think they need to go back to the drawing board on this one.

New Packet!

The new D&D Next playtest packet is here! There's a ton of new material in here. I just gave it a once-over with a fellow D&D enthusiast and we're in agreement that this iteration is a step in the right direction. The new classes look interesting and reasonably well balanced and the problem with damage bloat has been addressed, although the complexity of the core rules continues to increase. Sadly, the rogue got shafted on Sneak Attack. Take disadvantage on your attack roll for a measly extra 1D6 damage? Not likely. Anyway, more commentary to follow over the next few days.

Relic

Relic is an upcoming board game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. I haven't seen any advance reviews yet, but the website provides enough of an introduction that I'm sufficiently intrigued!

New Classes Abound!

Check out today's Legends & Lore column. We'll be getting a new playtest packet on Wednesday, and it's going to include the druid, the ranger, and three flavors of paladin (the good cavalier, the neutral warden, and the evil blackguard). And the paladin gets a mount! Huzzah!

Zero Charisma

Zero Charisma is a new D&D-themed movie about a gamemaster whose personality is described pretty well by the title. A couple of reviews here and here. Sounds like it's worth a look!

Print or Digital?: Update

An addendum to my previous post: This guy has it right.

Print or Digital?

The comiXology debacle continues. It's times like this when I'm glad my graphic novels are real physical objects that sit on a bookshelf, not ephemeral bits and bytes that disappear when the servers go down. And when you're buying digital comics (as with books on an e-reader), you don't even own a copy of what you've purchased. Because piracy is so easy with digital media, what you "own" is a license to view the content. Personally, I'd rather have the book in my hand.

I can't deny, however, that digital delivery of comics and (more to the point for this blog) gaming materials is here to stay. How will the purchase and use game products be different in ten years, or five, or even the D&D Next product that's (hopefully) right around the corner? Will my next Player's Handbook be a hardcover book or an app that I download for my iPad? Interesting times!

Game Design Merit Badge

As an Eagle Scout, I have fond memories of the years I spent in Scouting. What could have made it even better? How about a merit badge in game design? How cool is that?!

Free Comics, and Lots of 'Em!

Speaking of comics, Marvel is offering hundreds of digital comic books for free on comiXology. Act fast! The offer is good only until 11 PM Eastern on Tuesday of this week. The comiXology servers are having trouble keeping up with the demand, but it's an amazing offer for anyone who's even marginally interested in comics.

Cutter

IDW has a new D&D comic book series in the works. It's called Dungeons & Dragons: Cutter, and it's written by top-notch fantasy author R. A. Salvatore and his son Geno. The five-issue run begins in April.

Teasers

There hasn't been a lot of roleplaying game news this week, so I'll give you some teasers about upcoming Front Porch stuff:

• A campaign that's been on hiatus will soon return.
• A chance encounter with a Golden Age superhero has given me a major creative boost to flesh out the 1940s component of our multiverse.
• The two major Druid Cycle characters who are doomed to perish in 2013 are swiftly moving toward their heroic demise! How swiftly? Probably before the end of April...

Felicia Day

Did you catch the podcast of Felicia Day visiting the D&D offices?

Launch of the Multiverse

Today I sent out copies of the story "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes" to Front Porch players past and present. This story marks the beginning of a new era in Front Porch gaming. Now all campaigns -- as diverse as The Druid Cycle and Cyberwars -- are part of an overarching multiverse setting. Timothy and Amy are about to start new adventures in the multiverse era. If you'd like to start a new story of your own, just let me know!

Update: Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

Click here for an update on the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, which will be released in August. The price seems a bit steep to me (admittedly, I have no experience whatsoever with card-based games), but it sounds like a really great game!

Story Themes

As our anniversary story "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes" nears completion, I thought I'd share a couple of key themes explored in the tale:

• People traveling to alternate worlds/universes/dimensions/whatever.
• The collapse of cities or nations and the subsequent exploits of the survivors.

Why these two themes? As I reviewed a quarter-century of Front Porch game material (thanks again to Timothy for sending me his archives!), I found these two themes recurring again and again, in my own campaigns and in the campaigns of other gamemasters. As such, I made sure to incorporate these themes (along with copious references to actual campaigns and characters) into the story so that it would feel like a genuine Front Porch experience.

Am I missing any major themes? Are there other issues or ideas that crop up in many of our campaigns?

Fall of Heroes

Surely our Druid Cycle players haven't forgotten my plan to kill off not one, but two major characters at some point this year -- our 20th year of gaming in this campaign world. Turns out I'm not the only one who's culling the ranks of heroes. DC is killing off the current Robin in a comic coming out this Wednesday. My own shocking storyline isn't quite so soon, but it's coming up faster than you might think...

Druid...and Others?

According to today's Legends & Lore column, the next playtest packet is going to include the druid among other classes. I'm intrigued. Does that mean we're soon going to see the paladin, the ranger, and perhaps even the bard?

Story Update

"When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes" is coming along rather well. I've completed a first draft of the text, as well as the accompanying glossary that identifies all the proper nouns. Now I'm reviewing and revising, and incorporating some new content pertaining to campaigns run by other Front Porch folks. I anticipate the story will be ready for prime time within the next 10 days.

Original D&D

A reprint of the original D&D game from 1974 will be released later this year. Check out the price tag, though...

When Last We Left...

After a lengthy and exhausting business trip, I'm now back in action and continuing work on the multiverse project that will either be the prelude to the Harbingers campaign or simply an amusing tale to celebrate twenty-five years of Porch games. The title of the story is "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes," and I've divided it up into seven sections, with each section corresponding to a set of campaigns from our long history.

• Prologue: The Cyberwars / Ragnarok family of campaigns.
• Chapter 1: The Torchlight campaign setting.
• Chapter 2: The Druid Cycle campaign setting.
• Chapter 3: Shattered Realm and all the other fantasy campaigns from over the years.
• Chapter 4: 1930s and World War II campaigns.
• Chapter 5: The Other World, Earth Commanders, and the other modern-era campaigns, taking place in the Tales of the Ternion setting of Demeter.
• Epilogue: A return to the Cyberwars / Ragnarok campaigns.

So that's the basic outline. If you've played in a Front Porch campaign, you're very likely to see your character(s) mentioned in the story, or even show up in person! I've used Timothy's archives, as well as my own resources, to piece together as much of our history as possible. The finished product is still a couple of weeks away, but I'm excited about how it's coming along!

Dark Waters Rising

Speaking of the super-duper awesome Pathfinder comic, the first six issues are going to be collected in a hardcover anthology.

Backmatter

I'm still not back in action yet, but here's a cool article by the creator of the awesome RPG backmatter in the Pathfinder comic book.

Bye Week

Hey gang. It may be a week or so before I post again. In the meantime, I encourage you to check out the rebuilding efforts over at EN World.

The Archivist

Timothy is an archivist. He's highly skilled at organizing and preserving documents from the past. He has an advanced degree in this field and he's worked at many museums throughout his career. As such, it's not surprising that he's maintained the most complete archives (dude, I'm supposed to use the "s" even when it's singular, right?) of Front Porch history. I've saved a few things (maps, old character sheets, etc.) over the years, but Timothy saved everything...and everything arrived in a package at my house today. Flipping through all of his folders -- including the infamous Blue Folder that Kevin, Scott, and Jason will no doubt remember -- was like time-traveling back into our childhood.

As I mentioned the other day, I'm working on a "multiverse" project to link all the Front Porch campaign settings. I can't even begin to describe how useful these documents will be. Thank you, Timothy, for this remarkable hoard of Front Porch lore!

The Front Porch Multiverse

As you know, I'm cooking up a campaign-spanning adventure (The Harbingers) to mark our twenty-five years of gaming fun. After creating the overall storyline, however, I've started thinking that perhaps this anniversary campaign isn't right for a first step. Over the last week, I've been adding so much material from our quarter-century of adventures that what's shaping up isn't a campaign, per se, but a lengthy short story (or possibly novella! How ambitious am I feeling?). 

This story is going to be the opening salvo as I roll out a fully integrated universe -- nay, multiverse! -- of Front Porch campaigns. You'll see how our fantasy, "real world," and sci-fi campaigns are all part of the same continuity. My plan is to email this story to Front Porch players past and present. If it sparks your imagination and your interest in pursuing the aforementioned anniversary adventure, that's great. If not, it's at least a fun trip down memory lane, as well as a blueprint for how our various campaign worlds exist in a shared setting. Expect to see this story within the next month or so.

Exploration Update

Check out the latest Legends & Lore column for an explanation of why we didn't see those new exploration rules in the current playtest packet, as well as what we can expect the exploration system to look like once they roll it out.

Not Much to Explore

I promised you a post on the exploration rules in the most recent D&D Next playtest packet, but after looking through the material...well...there isn't much to explore in these exploration rules. It appears that this iteration of the playtest was focused mainly on the barbarian class. Let's hope the next packet fixes the balance issues with this class and perhaps gives us a first taste of the ranger or paladin.

Damage Bloat

As I've been thinking about the new barbarian class, I keep coming back to something that bugs me about D&D Next. For lack of a better term, I'll call it damage bloat. The new edition has a large number of damage add-ons, and it's a particularly egregious issue for the barbarian. This character getes the standard weapon damage die and ability score modifier, of course, as well as martial damage dice (like the fighter), a flat martial damage bonus, and a flat rage damage bonus. That's a lot of stuff to add up.

In the current playtest packet, the designers list among the "Known Issues" that some character classes do more damage than they should. So why did they rush the barbarian into the playtest when this class is the worst offender?

The Barbarian, Part 2: The Other Stuff

Yesterday we looked at the barbarian's rather overpowered rage ability. It gets even more powerful as the barbarian advances in level (for example, gaining regeneration while raging and severely wounded). Separate from the rage feature is an attack option that allows the barbarian to gain advantage on his/her own (non-rage) attack, but grant advantage to those attacking the barbarian. As I suggested yesterday, this rule perhaps would have been better suited for rage.

Aside from the attack options, the class has typical edition-spanning barbarian features like fast movement and incentives to wear light or no armor, as well as enhanced initiative checks, enhanced senses, and the ability to incite a "mini-rage" in the character's allies.

Like the sorcerer we saw earlier, the barbarian class needs to be toned down. As it stands now, the barbarian seems far superior to the fighter, whose maneuvers simply cannot match the barbarian's impressive collection of class features.

The Barbarian, Part 1: Rage

As with barbarians in previous editions, the D&D Next barbarian is built around rage. A beginning barbarian can rage twice per day, and must take a short rest between rages. The rage ends when the character falls unconscious, after 10 minutes, or if the character fails to attack during its turn. So far, so good. While in "rage mode," the character gets advantage on Strength-based attack rolls, saves, and checks, as well as a +2 (or higher, depending on the character's level) bonus to damage and resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

Wow.

Even just getting advantage on attacks is a massive bonus, but the whole package is...incredible! Surely, then, with so many advantages, the rage mechanic must have severe drawbacks, right? Well, not so much. The drawback is that the character can't take reactions while raging. That's it. The way I see it, this class feature is utterly broken. I heard somewhere that the designers had considered a rule that gave advantage to enemies attacking a barbarian who was raging. That's a significant penalty, but perhaps would have brought this class feature back down to earth. They definitely need to do something to rein it in.

I'll write more tomorrow about the rest of the barbarian's ample supply of goodies.

It's Rage Time!

A new D&D Next playtest packet is now available. They're really cranking these things out, aren't they? This packet includes a number of updates, including exploration rules, a conversion for the upcoming D&D Encounters season, the complete barbarian class, and clarifications to a number of existing rules. I'll have more to say later about the exploration system and the barbarian.

Sarevok Falls Again!

Having now beaten the enhanced edition of Baldur's Gate on my iPad, I can say without reservation that it's a fantastic gaming experience. If you haven't picked up a copy yet (available for Windows and iPad, with Mac and Android versions coming soon), I highly recommend it. I can't wait for an enhanced version of Baldur's Gate II!

Hong Kong Game Recap

It's bear versus alligator in the sewers beneath Riverton!

Druid Cycle players may be interested to learn that this adventure takes place some time in the future, although Timothy didn't discover that little tidbit until the cliffhanger ending. His hero, Aldwulf, was on the trail of a low-ranking follower of Ekhis, who had come to Riverton to deliver a mysterious "item" to a more senior Ekhis crony. Aldie and his loyal animal companion chased the crook into the sewers, where they ran afoul of an alligator (with whom Aldie later "negotiated" -- aren't druids great?!) and ultimately recovered the item.

As it turned out, the item was a sack containing the dead body of one of the world's most legendary heroes, but I ended the adventure before revealing the character's name. Is this the hero whose death I promised to be one of the signature events of 2013, the twentieth anniversary of the Druid Cycle game world? It sure is. And because it's Friday, and I'm feeling generous, I'll reveal one more thing: My plan is to kill off not one, but two legendary heroes this year.

Crack-O-Dawn

Pop quiz! Would your ol' pal Prester get up at the crack of dawn to play D&D? The answer, of course, is yes! It was 5 AM in Nevada and 9 PM in Hong Kong when Timothy and I got together over Skype to run a short solo adventure for his Druid Cycle hero Aldwulf. Huzzah for technology!

Greetings from Hong Kong!

Hello Front Porchers from Hong Kong! We're going to attempt a record breaking feat, as John and I are attempting to have a short gaming session from across the globe, literally! We'll keep you posted on how it turns out, but for now, here's a few images from the other side of the world.

Intercontinental Game Action

It was nearly thirteen years ago (Yikes! Was it really that long ago?) that Timothy and I brought The Druid Cycle to another country when we did some solo adventures with his wizard Cathbad while traipsing across the UK.

Very soon, if all goes as planned, we'll have our first-ever Front Porch game from Asia. Stay tuned for more details!

D&D Classics

Dudes, this is dangerous. I probably shouldn't have navigated to this site, but it's too late. Damn you, Wizards! It's been many months since I bought any D&D product, but that's probably going to change in a big way as I start picking up classic D&D modules -- now re-released as PDFs. Oh, world of Greyhawk, I've missed you...

More Lore

There are a lot of goodies in today's Legends & Lore column from D&D Next leader Mike Mearls, including an announcement that the barbarian class will be available in the next iteration of the playtest.

Nathuz

Last night Matthew and I tried Nathuz, another set in the Lego Heroica series. This adventure takes place in a series of caverns and puts the heroes up against giant bats and golems(!). Nathuz adds another character class (the rogue) and incorporates rules for purchasing additional weapons and magic items. Heroica is starting to shape up as a pretty robust dungeon crawl for kids. The only downside: epic freak-out when the five-year-old lost after a hard-fought game...

Draida

Matthew and I cracked open the first of our two Lego Heroica boxes. This set is called Draida, and the storyline is that the heroes have arrived to liberate the kingdom's harbor, which has been overrun by goblins. The Heroica game rules as presented in Draida are pretty simple, even for a kids' game. Matthew and I played through the scenario three times in a row. He mastered the rules quickly and had a blast. Still, there aren't really enough options to give this set a lot of replay value (for instance, there are only two hero characters, the barbarian and the wizard), although we can mix things up a bit by re-configuring the areas and the placement of the monsters. We're likely to see more advanced rules (such as purchasing items with gold obtained during the adventure) when we open the larger of our two sets. Good game so far...with a bit more complexity, it could be a great gateway to D&D.

Lego Heroica

Timothy, my Lego-lovin' pal, this one's for you!

Lego has a number of board games (the intended age group varies depending on the game) in which players build the board, the game pieces, and other components, and then sit down to play the game. I just found out about their series of fantasy games, known as Heroica (official site here and more info here). They looked like pretty cool dungeon-crawl quasi-roleplaying games, so I picked up a couple of them in the clearance aisle at Target this afternoon. Matthew and I will run through them this evening to see how they play. He's familiar with the basics of tabletop RPGs (character classes, rolling dice to hit, moving miniatures around a map, etc.), so I think he'll pick up Heroica quickly even though, at five, he's a bit younger than the recommended age of seven-plus.

Mumbley Peg

Speaking of Timothy's "other" blog, he's written a fantastic post about our first trip to Wales together. Long-time Porch players may recall that the language, mythology, geography, and history of Wales are the major inspirations for the Druid Cycle campaign world.

So why is the post titled "Mumbley Peg"? Well, you'll just have to read Tim's story and find out!

Even More Bloggery!

This has nothing to do with gaming, but I just wanted to share the news that our very own Timothy is now a major contributor to a great blog called The People's Wheels. If you like cars, you'll love this blog. I've enjoyed reading his posts and I continue to marvel at Tim's encyclopedic knowledge of cars. He's also spurred me to start thinking about branching out into another blog of my own. For me, the obvious choice would be superhero comic books. I'll have to mull it over...

Pathfinder's Difficult Path

Issue #4 of Dynamite's Pathfinder comic book comes out today. Naturally, I'm excited; I'll be heading up to my friendly local comic book store over my lunch hour to pick up my copy. I am a bit concerned, however, that this book isn't going to last much longer.

I took a look at the sales figures this morning. Back in August, issue #1 ranked 165th on the Diamond Comic Distributors sales charts, with 14277 copies sold. I'd call that a solid debut for a niche book from a non-Big Two publisher. Issue #2 (October) fell to 9361 copies and 204th on the list. Of course, there's almost always a decline after the first issue of a new series. Issue #3 (November) moved up to 200th but sold only 8681 books. If Pathfinder were a DC or Marvel publication, sales in this range would almost guarantee its cancellation. I'll be the first to admit that I don't have a good handle on what constitutes a good number for a smaller publisher like Dynamite, but I'll be very interested to see how #4 fares.

More D&D Next Goals

Mike Mearls has a very interesting new article on design goals for D&D Next. He gives an overview of what would be included in the basic rules package, and hints at what would be reserved for add-on modules. The basic rules sound a lot like Basic D&D from the old days, and Mearls specifically references that product in his article. I remain cautiously optimistic about the end result, especially after the major steps forward in the last playtest packet.

More Fun With Cards

Continuing our recent theme of cards and gaming, here's an article that describes a variety of uses for 3x5 cards in D&D campaigns.

"You died far too soon"

For me, the Virtual Front Porch is primarily comprised of emails  between my stalwart GM, John, and myself. Sometimes, in those thousands of emails that pass between us during a month, one touches me in a way that I can not accurately describe. This is one of those emails:

Thesan clapped Lwcus on the shoulder. "Well said. I hope for the same thing -- many years of good friendship!"

It was not many years. You died far too soon, Lwcus thought to himself, as he stamped his feet in the snow. He had not known many Knights of Mithras in his long life, so standing next to Seneschal Senchan reminded him of the time he had spent with Commander Thesan. Now, won't those blasted Naxxians give us the time of day? The children's lives are at stake, not to mention my own!

"I only hope the elves will show me the same friendship that you did," the Knight continued. "I am rather less than optimistic."

"I'll make sure they do," said Priam, from far ahead of them.

Thesan smiled. "I didn't realize you could hear us all the way up there."

"These pointed ears aren't just for show," the elf replied.

"So you heard me make a fool of myself by prattling on about courting Cerys?"

"My excellent hearing is also quite selective, I assure you."

Thesan laughed. "It's been a long time since I traveled in good company. I am more accustomed to dealing with...hard men."

"We've certainly seen more than our share of those since returning to First Home," said the elf. "With a few notable exceptions, Duke Arswyd's men are a cruel lot, especially Taro."

"I know the name," said Thesan. "Perhaps one day I will face him, and get justice for those he has wronged."

He killed you, Thesan. He killed you, but you died trying to save her. I will always love you for that.

"Let's stop here for the night," said Priam. "There are some trees up ahead; that should make a nice, secluded campsite."

"We are within a day's ride of Caer Eurfryn," said Thesan. "Those men are loyal to Duke Arswyd, are they not?"

"They are, but we chose this route knowing that we would have to pass near Caer Eurfryn. Unless you all want to press on without rest, I think we need to take the risk of spending one night in their territory."

Thank you, John, for creating a world that can bring a tear to my eye. Somehow, even knowing the outcome of this particular thread of story, the journey to that foregone conclusion is as gripping as anything else I've ever participated in.

New D&D Minis

Nice! Gale Force Nine will now be creating official D&D miniatures. Check out the pics here.

The Deck of Encounters

Reading Timothy's recent post on Spellfire got me thinking about the upcoming Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. I can't wait! But more on that in another post.

Today, I'm going to reminisce about another card-based gaming product, a little gem from the '90s called The Deck of Encounters. As part of the AD&D Official Dungeon Master Decks series, this product included dozens of index-card-sized cards that each contained the necessary information (story hook, monsters, treasure, etc.) for a single tactical encounter. The cards also identified the threat level and environment (urban, dungeon, wilderness, etc.) for ease of reference.

I loved this set. I rarely used the encounters exactly as written, but they provided the seeds for a lot of adventures. They also spurred my interest in the possibility of a "DM-less" game in which a group of players can get together, week after week, for a true roleplaying experience that requires little or no preparation on anyone's part. It's a tall order, but I'm hoping the Pathfinder game can pull it off.

2013 Game Event: Revealed!

The year-long game event to celebrate our twenty-fifth anniversary is called The Harbingers, and it's time to get started! If you want to participate, please send me an email and let me know whether you'd like to run your own character, or take part simply as an observer. If you plan on playing a character, I'll respond with a player packet that includes everything you need to know.

The Harbingers is like no campaign we've done before. It's something of a crossover of a quarter-century's worth of Front Porch campaigns and worlds, infused with the themes that we're developing in our current games. I have no idea whether or not this will be successful, but I can't wait to find out!

Spellfire

I don't remember Spellfire CCG, but then again, I wasn't as involved with D&D beyond the world that John included me in, but it's still an interesting read.

Both of these seem like something I might actually have been interested in, if only Magic hadn't been too geeky for even me.

Druid Cycle Teaser

I have big plans for the Druid Cycle in 2013! After the explosive season finale cliffhangers in the heroic-, paragon-, and epic-tier campaigns, we'll now pick up the action in our twentieth anniversary season. As I've mentioned before, one of the major characters of this game world is marked for death in 2013. Who will it be? And what other surprises are in store? Well, in honor of this milestone year, we're bringing one of the most famous player characters out of retirement, along with a well known NPC hero and one of the worst villains in Druid Cycle history. And players, you won't have to wait long to see any of them!

2013 Is Here!

Happy 2013! Ask any Colgate alum and they'll tell you that 13 is a special number. Well, 2013 is a very special year for the Front Porch Gaming Guild because it's our twenty-fifth anniversary as well as the twentieth anniversary of our Druid Cycle fantasy campaign world. I look forward to a great year!