DM Junior

We're less than halfway through The Lost Mine of Phandelver and already Matthew is clamoring to be the DM. He's working on his own tale about a town whose wealth has been stolen by a greedy dragon. His story is set in the Forgotten Realms*, but as a bit of a nod to the Front Porch multiverse, my wizard's name is Kentigern -- the same name I used for my wizard character during the big Front Porch fifteenth anniversary epic that Tim W ran back in 2003. Matthew has a really good grasp of the basic 5e game mechanics, but it will be interesting to see how he reacts to a wizard whose arcane spells will no doubt wreak havoc with his melee-heavy encounters!

* - Despite not being a huge fan of the Realms, I have to admit that I got a real charge out of hearing my kid talk about the Sword Coast! Baldur's Gate is going to be a lot more meaningful for him the next time he plays around with it.

D&D History

Click here for an interesting article on the history of D&D and its core rulebooks.

Dragon Whispering

The Augury spell. The Spyglass item. The amazing Revelation Quill. I love anything in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game that allows me to sneak a peek into location decks. Most of the time, these items and spells help me locate the main villain so that I can get my characters ready for the inevitable showdown, but last night my monk used his Spyglass to spot one of the best Ally cards in the game...the Charmed Red Dragon! This beast can deliver big-time assistance in combat, but with a catch: Each time you play this card, there's a one-in-twelve chance that the dragon turns against you, breathes fire on all heroes at your location, and flies away. It's a chance I'm willing to take. Even if he loses the dragon, my monk will get the last laugh -- he's got solid resistance against fire damage!

Potion Power

My pre-ordered copy of the Fifth Edition PHB has yet to ship, so I'm biding my time with some Pathfinder card action. As soon as I started the final scenario of the penultimate adventure, I realized that closing two of the four locations would require skill checks -- one Diplomacy, one Perception -- that my characters could not hope to beat without major assistance from blessings. In the space of three or four turns, however, I managed to pick up two humble potions that made life a lot easier: one that allows a character to automatically succeed at a Diplomacy check, and one that allows a character to automatically succeed at a Perception check. Blind luck, but I'll take it!

Kickstarter Blues

It's not looking so amazing for Amazing Heroes, the first-ever Kickstarter to which I've pledged. I remain hopeful, but with only a week to go, we're still a long way from the $30,000 goal. I have a feeling that not even Stardust the Super Wizard can get us out of this jam!

Pathfinder Video Games!

A video game based on the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game? Yes, please! Click here for the scoop!

Blast From the Past: Reavers of Harkenwold

Today is our final Blast From the Past post on the great adventures of yesteryear, and we've reached the problematic, polarizing Fourth Edition era. I spent most of this period DMing Druid Cycle and Torchlight adventures, but I did run a couple of published modules, including the first D&D Encounters adventure and the surprisingly fun Revenge of the Giants, which I adapted for the Druid Cycle setting. Overall, I found the Fourth Edition adventure modules to be far too formulaic and linear -- a mind-numbing slog through overly long combat encounters.

Reavers of Harkenwold (2010) stands in stark contrast to the rest. Included in The Dungeon Master's Kit -- the DM-focused product that was part of the short-lived Essentials line -- this brief adventure (contained in two thin booklets) is refreshingly open-ended. The characters' choices drive the plot, which focuses on their involvement in a revolt against the cruel marauders who have taken over a peaceful little province. I haven't participated in this adventure either as a player or as a DM, but I'd have to say that it ranks first on my list of adventures I'd love to run.

Basic Rules Update

The D&D Basic rules have been updated. Click here to get the latest version!

Front Porch Quotes

"Bring it on!"

"You're not the only one who plays this game."

"I roll ones like it's my job."

"Whoa, haymaker!"

"I'm missing a finger!"

Over the years, numerous Front Porch player quotes have become legendary, at least among our little group. They're usually meaningless to other folks, but they remind us of all the fun we've had together. (Side-note: Eagle-eyed readers may have spotted a number of these quotes in "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes," the short story I wrote to introduce the concept of the Front Porch multiverse.) Back in the old days, Tim W even kept a running log of player quotes in his infamous blue folder. Now I have them saved in a file in the Front Porch folder on my hard drive. A lot has changed for all of us since the first time Scott said "Nomenclature" or the first time Jason said "16 Dexterity," but even just perusing this list brings back so many great memories.

It's with great pride, then, that I add my son Matthew's first-ever quote to the list. His 5e fighter is a none-too-subtle fellow who's fond of shouting a strange (and loud) battle cry that I can only attempt to represent phonetically: Ah-WAAAHHH! During one recent adventure, the party was preparing to attack a key lieutenant of the main villain from The Lost Mine of Phandelver. As I was setting up the minis on the map, I noticed Matthew's whole body shaking. My heart skipped a beat. Was something wrong? Was he sick? He wasn't sick...he was in character. The next thing I know, he exclaims: "I just can't hold it in anymore! AAAHHH-WAAAHHH!!!" So much for the stealth approach.

Online Action?

The email-based Druid Cycle games have been pretty slow lately, as a lot of folks have been busy with other stuff. Any interest in switching gears and doing a bit of online real-time gaming for a while? The last time we had a big real-time campaign was Torchlight back in the 2009-2010 timeframe. Perhaps we could try out 5e. We could do a mini-campaign and run through The Lost Mine of Phandelver, or even a shorter two- or three-session adventure. Let me know!

A Hoard of Free D&D

Want more free D&D? Click here to be taken to the Hoard of the Dragon Queen page on the Wizards site. This adventure is part of the "Tyranny of Dragons" storyline and will set you back 30 bucks, but the online supplement is free. The supplement is a PDF containing all the magic items, monsters, and spells from the adventure. It makes a nice little addition to the Basic rules that were released last month.

PHB Review

EN World has reviewed the Fifth Edition Player's Handbook. Read all about it here.

Phan-tastic!

The Lost Mine of Phandelver is lost no more. I've now run every combat encounter in this introductory Fifth Edition adventure using a solo character and a slightly reduced number of foes (the adventure assumes a party of four or five characters, so I omitted a couple of enemies in each encounter so as not to stack the deck against my lone fighter). Playing through the full adventure with Matthew and Amy is taking a lot longer, but at least now I have some good experience with the mechanics of combat.

The verdict? This is really D&D. Kudos to Mike Mearls and company -- I think they saved the D&D franchise with this edition.

Groot

Click here to watch Groot -- aka Vin Diesel -- talk about playing D&D (and stealing potato chips!) in his youth.

Digital Comic Museum

The Amazing Heroes action figure Kickstarter project has a long way to go to reach its $30,000 goal, but I'm still holding out hope that one day I'll have Black Terror, Silver Streak (whose costume, natch, has not one iota of silver anywhere on it!), and their fellow Golden Age pals standing guard over the bookcase that contains my graphic novels. I really shouldn't be getting my hopes up, but...well...too late!

If you're at all interested in Golden Age superheroes, the Digital Comic Museum (click here to check it out) is worth an hour (or, in my case, a lot more) of your time. It's a treasure trove of old-timey public domain comics (in digital format, of course), all available for free.

More on Backgrounds

Click here for some additional details on 5e backgrounds, including the full list that will be included in the PHB.

Blast From the Past: The Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde

In this installment of Blast From the Past, I'll discuss my favorite published adventure from the Third (and 3.5) Edition era. Most of my face-to-face, pen-and-paper gaming time during this era was spent with fellow medievalist graduate students at the University of Rochester. We had a steady group of five or six people, with two of us (myself included) serving as the primary DMs. During my stints in the DM's chair, I used a variant version of the Druid Cycle setting, and Mike, the other DM, used his own game world as well. Consequently, I don't think I DMed or played in a single published adventure during this entire era.

That doesn't mean, however, that I don't have a favorite adventure. The Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde (2006) is an immersive, non-linear mini-campaign that takes PCs from level 1 to 6, but includes enough supporting material for a much longer campaign. Included in this set (rather than a single book, it's a folder containing several booklets, maps, and handouts) is a brief player's guide with character creation tips and new options to help players link their characters more closely to the adventure and its setting; the two adventure booklets, meanwhile, feature a streamlined encounter layout that anticipates the Fourth Edition design.

What makes it my favorite from this era? Aside from the aforementioned selling points, it's also something I read and re-read when Amy was pregnant with Matthew. I remember thinking to myself that one day I'd play through this adventure with my kid(s). That day is getting closer.

Black Terror!

No, it's not a racist '70s film (or maybe it is -- I haven't checked IMDb), it's the name of a Golden Age superhero who isn't owned by either DC or Marvel. I first encountered Black Terror in Masks, a phenomenal superhero team-up book from Dynamite Entertainment. I was already a fan of Dynamite mainstays like The Shadow (and Miss Fury, although I'm rather disappointed by their current take on the character), but I found Black Terror to be a hugely entertaining character despite his limited role in the series. Quite simply, the dude is badassery personified. I mean, come on, he's got a skull and crossbones on his chest!

Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered a Kickstarter campaign to create action figures for Black Terror and other superheroes of yesteryear. (Click here to visit the Kickstarter page.) Obscure Golden Age characters? 1980s-style action figures? Yeah, I think I'm going to have to invest in this one...

Conversion

We're just barely into Fifth Edition -- still without the Player's Handbook, Dungeonmaster's Guide, and Monster Manual -- but I'm eager to turn the page on the previous era. Henceforth, I'm a one-edition kinda guy, and that edition is 5e. (Oh, and sorry, Pathfinder. You're really special, but I was just using you to make D&D jealous.)

This means that I've got some conversion work to do. All of my notes for Front Porch multiverse settings assume a 4e system, or at least a system based on 4e (such as the modern Gamma World game). My first order of business will be to update these notes so that any new multiverse campaigns (for example, something set in the Shattered Realm world) will be playable using 5e rules.

The Druid Cycle campaigns present a more difficult problem. Not everyone has a strong opinion about which rules we're using, but I know that some folks like the way their characters work in 4e. I don't want to mess with that. I don't want to pressure people into abandoning a build they enjoy, only to have them find that rebuilding the character in the new edition makes it less fun to play. (Side-note: Are there faint echoes of Obamacare here? "If you like your character build, you can keep your character build!") We probably won't know until the new PHB comes out whether it will even be possible to create a 5e character that closely mimics a given 4e build. It's going to be hard enough to turn a 4e fighter into a 5e fighter, to say nothing of the fact that quite a few races and classes from 4e simply do not exist yet in 5e -- and may never exist, for all we know. We have a couple of guys who converted their 2e and 3e/3.5e clerics into invokers. Now what? Do they convert them back into clerics?

Aside from the character quandary is the matter of expense. A lot of us (including myself) have invested our hard-earned cash in numerous 4e books. I haven't heard directly from any of our usual gang on this subject, but I expect there may be reluctance to sink money into another set of rulebooks so soon after 4e came out. (Indeed, 4e is younger than my six-year-old kid. I first saw the announcement that 4e was in development on the day after he was born.) Basic D&D is free (and I applaud Wizards for that bold decision), so the availability of Basic may mitigate this problem somewhat, but Basic includes only the fighter, cleric, rogue, and wizard classes -- not exactly a vast array of options.

So where do we go from here? How do we handle the conversion of existing Druid Cycle characters? Let me know what you think.

New D&D Website

There's a new official D&D website. Click here to check it out. At first glance, I don't like it...

Assault on Cragmaw Castle

Mock my drawing skills if you like, but the attack on Cragmaw Castle (the climax of the third chapter of The Lost Mine of Phandelver from the Fifth Edition Starter Set) is going to be tons of fun. I'm kind of disappointed that I didn't have an owlbear mini (I had a dire bear and a giant owl), but at least I had the grick...

Blast From the Past: Night Below

We return today to my "Blast From the Past" series, a look at memorable published adventure modules from each edition of D&D. Today I'll cover Second Edition. This is my favorite D&D era, so it was difficult to choose a single adventure as my favorite.

My pick is Night Below (1995), a boxed set containing a massive campaign set largely in the Underdark. Billed as "The Ultimate Dungeon Adventure," it lives up to its claim with a sprawling storyline and harrowing encounters with mind-flayers, kuo-toa, aboleths, and other Lovecraftian monstrosities. Back in 2000, I ran this adventure in the Shattered Realm setting. We used our existing characters, so the heroes were a bit overpowered for the first two-thirds of the adventure. As Kevin and Jason may recall, the third and final chapter was a mad dash through the Underdark -- one encounter flowed directly into the next in a seemingly endless battle. I hope it was as fun for the guys to play as it was for me to DM!

Skellig Michael

One of the filming locations for the new Star Wars movie is the remote island of Skellig Michael. I've never been there, but I read a lot about it during my years as a medievalist. It's a place I've always wanted to go, and it's certainly inspired my imagination when I've devised the little rocky islands that seem to be ubiquitous in the Druid Cycle world. Click here for more, including a nifty video!

Spreadsheet Action

As a kind of "proof concept," I recently transferred my notes about the Shattered Realm campaign setting from a word processor document into a spreadsheet. With a spreadsheet, I can sort and filter the entries so that, for example, I can quickly compare the number of elves and dwarves in the world (we try to ensure racial diversity here at the Front Porch), or list all the members of a specific organization, or whatever. Thus far, the Shattered Realm setting has 101 named characters, 10 organizations, 46 named locations, and 20 items of "culture" (a catch-all term for artifacts, important texts, famous historical events, etc.). I think this setting has surpassed the Torchlight world in terms of the sheer amount of named stuff, but it's still an order of magnitude less (I'm not exaggerating) than the Druid Cycle world. It would be extremely handy to get my Druid Cycle notes into a spreadsheet, but that's rather too large a project to tackle at the moment!

Big PHB Preview

Wowzers. Click here for a big, artwork-intensive preview of the PHB.

Factions

The Lost Mine of Phandelver is shaping up to be one of the better D&D adventures I've seen in recent years. It's a lot more open-ended than most 4e modules, and reminds me somewhat of games like Baldur's Gate in that the various NPCs in town have quests that you can take up in addition to the main storyline. Most of these NPCs offer typical rewards (i.e., gold), but some also offer membership in various organizations. I'm no Forgotten Realms guru by any means, but I recognized the Harpers and the Zhentarim; the Order of the Gauntlet and the Lords' Alliance, however, were new to me. I think it's cool that the adventure provides players with opportunities for their characters to join established Realms organizations -- it's yet another way that Fifth Edition helps integrate characters into the game world. And from what I hear, these various factions play a key role in D&D Adventurers League, the new organized play system.

Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set

For my first look back at awesome adventures from each edition of D&D, I'm going with the 1983 "red box" edition of the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (I also have the 1981 edition with Keep on the Borderlands -- another gift from my Aunt Nedra) in lieu of an official First Edition adventure module. I own several First Edition books, but I didn't start playing D&D until around 1985 -- here I'll give another shout-out to Kevin and his brother Brian, who introduced me to the game -- and played Basic exclusively until Second Edition AD&D came out in 1989.

Opening that beautiful red box for the first time is a moment seared into my memory. I had played D&D a few times with Kevin, Brian, and their gaming group, but the red box was my first experience reading the rules and creating characters on my own. No game product I've ever seen -- save perhaps for the much later Pathfinder Beginner Box -- has provided so engaging an introduction to both the mechanical and narrative aspects of roleplaying games. The Basic Set begins with a solo adventure in which your hero meets and befriends a beautiful cleric named Aleena, who soon dies at the hands of the evil wizard Bargle. That was powerful stuff for a little kid. The solo adventure is followed by a full-party dungeon crawl in the ruins of castle Mistamere, wherein the heroes are tasked with tracking down and capturing Bargle. I played through that one as a solo adventure and also ran it for Scott and other lads in the early days of the Front Porch (as part of the Fantasy Quest campaign -- our first foray into D&D after a steady diet of superhero RPG action in Earth Commanders). Flipping through that bright red adventure booklet today, I get the distinct urge to resume my decades-old hunt for that elusive wizard...

Butt-Kicking...for Goodness!

The rumors were true. Read all about it here.

Build-a-Background

It's no secret that I love the background feature of Fifth Edition, and a world with as much history and diversity as the Druid Cycle setting is just crying out for a variety of custom backgrounds. As any longtime player would know, a character from, say, the Cauldron in Troya Nova is going to have a very different background from a Cymry knight of Teyrnas.

Anyone want to take a stab at building a Druid Cycle background? It doesn't necessarily need to be for one of your existing characters. Just download the Basic D&D PDF from the Wizards site and check out the five backgrounds to get a feel for how they work. A Druid Cycle background could be specific to a geographical region or culture (as in the examples above), or it could be based on an organization (e.g., the Druid Council, the Machinery, the Ekhis Movement, etc.)...or anything else that would logically link a character to some facet of this game world. To build a background, select proficiency in two skills, proficiency in two types of tools (or languages), a background feature, etc. Anyone who submits a background gets a special prize!*

Disclaimer: "Special prize" may be fictional in nature.

RIP Hawkman

My beloved Hawkman died a heroic (and no doubt temporary) death in Justice League United #3. Today, his funeral was held on the planet Thanagar.

Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

IDW is launching a new D&D comic book series and a much-beloved miniature giant space hamster may be involved. Even better news? The author is Jim Zub, writer of the acclaimed Pathfinder comics. Click here for the teaser!

Temple, Tower, and Tomb

Ever play this adventure?

Temple, Tower, and Tomb (1994) is one of my favorite modules from the Golden Age of D&D. (I'm defining "Golden Age" as the Second Edition era -- your own personal Golden Age may vary!) This brutal, trap-laden dungeon crawl can be played as three standalone adventures or as a single mini-campaign in which the heroes must recover three long-lost artifacts. I ran this adventure as a one-shot during a backyard campout with Front Porch stalwarts Scott and Jason. It took us nearly all night to finish it, but finish it we did!

Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to do a series of posts in which I look back on the first four editions of D&D and select my favorite published adventure from each edition. However, you won't see classics like Tomb of Horrors or Temple of Elemental Evil on this list. The adventures I'm going to select aren't necessarily the most famous or iconic; they're the adventures I love because they're somehow personally significant for me and my friends. They're also the adventures I'm dying to run again someday -- this time using Fifth Edition rules.

Starter Set

My family and I spent a very pleasant day at Yosemite National Park yesterday. Amy noted that the ruggedly beautiful terrain was like something out of a D&D adventure, and I agree. Here's a photograph I took from high up on Lembert Dome.

When we got home, a package was waiting on our doorstep...it was the Starter Set that Matt sent me! (Click here for EN World's thorough review of the set.) I flipped through the included adventure (The Lost Mine of Phandelver) last night and it looks like a lot of fun. When we get started, I'll ask Matthew to think back to our trip as I describe the Neverwinter Wood and the Sword Mountains and such. Yosemite certainly inspires the imagination. Check out this majestic view of Half Dome, as seen from Olmsted Point.

Characters

The best thing about Fifth Edition is its emphasis on the narrative aspects of character creation. In 4e, characters often felt like nothing more than a massive jumble of stats and powers. The game rules did not prevent seasoned RPG veterans from creating three-dimensional characters, of course, but the system itself did not provide much help on that front, especially for newer players. Fifth Edition, in contrast, does a great job of encouraging people to think of characters as fully-fleshed-out individuals who occupy a specific and meaningful place in the world. With personality traits, flaws, bonds, and the like, the new system puts all of that narrative detail right there on the character sheet alongside traditional game stats. I love it.

We'll use the pre-generated characters for The Lost Mine of Phandelver, primarily so that Matthew can learn the game rules. It won't be long before he's coming up with heroes of his own. He creates lots of characters to populate his Lego stories, and he's certainly familiar with many aspects of the characterization of DC and Marvel superheroes (origins, motivations, etc.), but he has yet to engage in any sort of sophisticated character building. I can't wait to see what he comes up with!

Blast From the Past

My parents are visiting from New York this week, and they brought a suitcase full of old D&D books from my childhood. It's a treasure trove of wonderful memories.

This is the First Edition Player's Handbook from 1978. I wasn't playing D&D at the age of two, of course, but years later my Aunt Nedra -- yes, that's her real name and not the name of a D&D character -- gave it to me as a gift when she learned that I was interested in RPGs. I'll never forget cracking it open for the first time and learning about exotic new character classes like the assassin and monk. I had only played Basic D&D up to that point, so this book really opened my eyes to the possibilities of Advanced D&D.

Stay tuned for more blasts from the past!

I'm Inspired by Inspiration

I love the new inspiration rule in 5e. If you roleplay your character in accordance with your background (personality traits, ideal, bond, and flaw), the DM can award you with inspiration -- which you can cash in for advantage on a single die roll. As a second option, you can give up your inspiration and award it to a fellow player.

I heartily approve of any game mechanic that encourages roleplaying. The sheer simplicity of this mechanic also appeals to me. I think it should work just as well in pencil-and-paper game sessions (sadly, a rarity for Front Porch players these days) as in online adventures.

The Dex Fighter

It took me a while, but I managed to dig up a post from over two years ago in which I pointed out the problems with heavy armor in 4e and in the early iterations of the D&D Next playtest materials. (I'm too lazy to figure out how to link directly to that post, so if you care to read the whole thing, the date was May 26, 2012.) Basically, I was pointing out that the fighter in heavy armor was at a disadvantage when compared to high-Dexterity characters wearing light armor. The implication, then, was that power gamers in 5e would build Dexterity-based fighters, dumping Strength -- the classic stat that we've always associated with the fighter class.

Based on my initial observations, that problem appears to have been addressed in 5e. All other things being equal, the fighter (or cleric, paladin, etc.) wearing plate armor and carrying a shield is going to have the highest armor class -- higher than the rogue, and higher than the Dexterity-based fighter. At lower levels, though, it's easy to build a Dexterity fighter who can match the Strength fighter's AC. I started out making a human Strength fighter but then decided to go with a high elf Dexterity fighter instead. Both begin with an AC of 18 and fight with a 1D8 melee weapon, but the high elf has lots of nifty race features. Add in the folk hero background and I've got a pretty cool character with solid combat stats and a lot of flavor.

Phan-delving

Big thanks to Matt, who's sending me a copy of the Starter Set! I look forward to delving into The Lost Mine of Phandelver, the adventure included in the box. I'm going to rope Amy into running through it with me, and Matthew is capable of joining us as well. Not sure what we'll do with Nathaniel. He's too young to grasp the concept of RPGs, so perhaps I'll tell him to pretend that he's a dog and let him move a wolf mini around the map so that he feels like he's participating!

Got It!

I have downloaded and devoured the initial Basic D&D rules. They're contained in a no-frills, low-art PDF that hardly looks like the culmination of more than two years of development. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen an official D&D product that looked so...pedestrian.

None of that matters. This is Fifth Edition, and it's my edition. In my own small (very, very small) way, I helped make this game. I hope all the playtesters out there (175,000!) feel that same sense of pride. We invested a lot of time and energy in reviewing the many iterations of the rules and providing detailed feedback; even at this early stage, I have no doubt that our investment has paid off. 5e feels like D&D in a way that 4e never did.

What's even more important to me, though, is the knowledge that this is the edition my sons will grow up with. I'm looking forward to years of family game nights around the kitchen table. Matthew isn't even seven yet and already he's clamoring to be the DM. After seeing what he can do with Legos, I have no doubt he'll come up with amazing new worlds for us to explore.

So that was my obligatory moment of sentimentality. With that out of the way, I'm ready to roll up my sleeves, roll up some characters, and start playing!

It's Here! It's Here! It's Here!

Get your free Fifth Edition D&D Basic set...click here!

5e Roll-Out

Today is the first day of the six-month roll-out of Fifth Edition D&D. We can expect the initial version of the free Basic D&D rules to be posted online today (and updated periodically throughout the year), and the Starter Set will be available for purchase in certain game stores. The Starter Set arrives everywhere else on July 15. I pre-ordered my copy on Amazon ages ago, but I have no idea when I'll be seeing it. If anyone out there gets a copy before I do, please let me know what you think and I'll share your comments right here on the blog so that the rest of the gang can get a sneak peek at the new edition.

Proofin' It

I wonder how much frantic proofreading is going on at Wizards. I'd love to take a peek into their offices right about now!

We've been told that the Basic D&D PDF will be available for download from the Wizards site (here, if you don't have it bookmarked already) on July 3, but I haven't seen anything about a specific time. Often the new daily content on the site appears at or shortly after 12 AM Eastern -- which means I can see it at 9 PM Pacific. You can bet I'll be checking regularly after 9 this evening, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't show up until later in the day tomorrow. In any case, I'll post as soon as it's up!

Tomorrow!

Fifth Edition...tomorrow. To quote the immortal Sir Roberts: "Bring it on!"

On Second Thought

You know what? Watching other people play D&D is not all that much fun. I made it about ten minutes into the video below before I bailed. Still, my excitement for the Starter Set remains undeterred!

Lost Mine of Phandelver

See the clip (well, at more than an hour and forty minutes, it's hardly a "clip"!) below to watch players experience the adventure from the Starter Set.

Waiting...

This week I'm playing a few scenarios of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game while awaiting the release of Basic D&D.

Check out this unusual scenario layout. Valeros and Seoni had to work their way around the circle of stone heads, disarming or destroying each of them, before they could face the dragon in the center.

Basic Details

We're only days away from 5e! Click here to see some more details about Basic D&D.

Here's the Wizard!

Click here to see the pre-generated 5e wizard from the Starter Set. I think Timothy will be pleased to see that his favorite class has turned out rather well!

I Want It Now!

Starter Set unboxing video...watch it!

Dwarf Cleric Preview

Click here to see the character sheet for the pre-generated dwarf cleric from the 5e Starter Set.

Ransack...I Mean, "Ranzak"!

We were in Sacramento this weekend, and when I'm there I never miss an opportunity to visit A-1 Comics, my favorite West Coast gaming and comics store. As part of today's Free RPG Day festivities, I picked up the new playable character -- Ranzak, the goblin pirate -- for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. Click here for a look at my new favorite card-based hero!

Get Thee to a Game Store!

It's Free RPG Day! Keeping my fingers crossed for the Pathfinder module...and the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game booster pack!

5e Fighter Unveiled!

Click here to see the full character sheet for one of the pre-generated characters from the Starter Set. This one document provides a wealth of information about the new edition (or, at least, the Basic game). I'm a bit bummed, however, about the benefit for the "Noble" background. In the playtest, nobles received three non-combatant retainers, but now the benefit is more about the person's reputation. I liked the earlier one better because I'm keen on game features that provide henchmen of any sort.

Free RPG Day 2014

It's almost here! Free RPG Day is this Saturday, June 21. Click here for details!

Map Time!

Another Starter Set preview has been posted (here). This time it's the area map for the introductory adventure. The style reminds me a lot of the old maps from Basic D&D, and brings back great memories of early campaigns with Kevin and his brother Brian, our unforgiving DM. Hard to believe it was almost thirty years ago that these fine lads introduced me to D&D!

500, Yo!

This is the 500th post for the Front Porch blog. Thanks to everyone for reading and sharing your thoughts and ideas. With 5e D&D coming out in the next few weeks, I'm sure we'll be off and running toward 1000!

Another Writer Commentary

The second issue of the new Pathfinder comic book series is out, and writer Jim Zub has done another commentary. Click here for the play-by-play.

To my fellow Colgate alums...

Happy Colgate Day!

Quintessence War...in 3D!

Here's another tidbit about next year's multiverse-spanning Quintessence War event: I'm pulling out all the stops and using my vast array of 3D terrain and miniatures to bring this story to life. Of course, due to the vast distances between myself and the rest of you guys, I'm going to photograph all the setups and send frequent updates so that everyone can see the action as it unfolds.

Metro Entertainment

I'm visiting family in the Los Angeles area this week (I know, I know -- it's the worst place in the world to be right now for a New York Rangers fan). Yesterday we spent a pleasant afternoon in Santa Barbara, and Amy spotted a super-cool store just off of State Street. Metro Entertainment (website link is here) is one of the better comic book and gaming stores I've visited lately. I even managed to pick up the latest installment of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game.

Here's Another One!

Click here for a pic of the first page of the warlock class description from the upcoming 5e PHB.

What a Tease...

Here.

Combat Math

I love studying the underlying math of the various D&D editions. Check out this article (here) on 5e and backward compatibility with earlier editions.

Multiverse Madness

If you caught my recent post titled "Quintessence War," you may have some idea of the big Front Porch event that I'm planning for 2015. (The post itself is just one line, but check out the many, many labels underneath.) I'll reveal a few tidbits here and there, starting with this quick overview: Quintessence War is going to be a mini-campaign with a storyline that crosses multiple game worlds. Players will create brand-new characters (using the 5e D&D rules) for this event, but the plot will feature plenty of multiverse-spanning NPCs, some of whom have already started marking appearances in current Front Porch adventures. Stay tuned for more details!

Let's Go, Rangers!!!

Please forgive the occasional non-game-related post...

Basic D&D Is Free!

Also launching in July, alongside the D&D Starter Set, is Basic Dungeons & Dragons...and it's free! Anyone can download this PDF from the Wizards site. Basic includes the rules necessary for play and character creation for the core races and classes. The PDF will be updated and expanded as new settings and adventures are published. We haven't seen anything yet, of course, but this sounds like a game changer to me. Click here for all the details.

Pathfinder Writer Commentary

Jim Zub, the writer of the Pathfinder comic books, provides an interesting page-by-page commentary of the current issue here.

Quintessence War

In 2015, the multiverse goes to war.

What a Rip!

D&D has a new system of organized play -- D&D Adventurers League -- and it appears, at first glance, to be a total rip-off of the Pathfinder Society. See for yourself here. Amazing, isn't it, how quickly Pathfinder has become the brand leader?

City of Secrets #1

What to make of the new Pathfinder series? Much of this first issue is setup for things to come. Unfortunately, it didn't do much to hook new readers; if you aren't familiar with these characters or the world they inhabit, you're likely to be a bit lost -- or, worse yet, you may have little reason to care about the various goings-on in Magnimar. On the plus side, I love the artwork and consider it a substantial improvement over the last series. The RPG material at the end (including a removable map depicting a tavern -- perfect for staging a brawl!) was also very welcome. Check out full reviews here (for a negative review) and here (for a positive review that is, alas, riddled with typos).

Pathfinder Returns!

Dynamite's Pathfinder comic book returns today with the first issue of Pathfinder: City of Secrets. Click here for more info.

Tyranny of Dragons

Here's an update on my post from earlier today: Wizards has a brief article explaining their upcoming Tyranny of Dragons brand-wide storyline, so click here for the details.

Holy Crap! Here Comes D&D Next!

All of a sudden, a massive list of upcoming D&D Next products has been released! Check out the Wizards of the Coast product catalog page (here) to see the cover art, price, and tentative release date for the first wave of D&D products. First up is the starter set, which arrives on July 15!

Kids Track

Kids Track (click here for more info) is an interesting "lesson plan" for teaching young children how to play the Pathfinder roleplaying game. I've spent some time teaching Matthew (currently age six) about RPGs, but what I like about the Kids Track is that it's very well organized and presents the core concepts in discrete, manageable chunks. I'll definitely keep this document in mind when it's time to introduce Nathaniel (age three) to these games.

Mech Maker

I've never contributed to a Kickstarter project before, but...design your own mini? 3D printing? It's tempting...click here for details!

Heroes of Magnimar Reminder

It's been a slow couple months for gaming news, huh? I suspect all of that will change once we start getting more information about the release of D&D Next. In the meantime, don't forget about the relaunch of the Pathfinder comic book, and the coinciding in-store game events that will be held all across the country this month. Click here to find a participating game store near you!

FCBD Update

Score! My local comic book store held a drawing for a $50 gift certificate, and I was the lucky winner!

Head Over to Your Friendly Local Comic Book Store!

That's right, it's Free Comic Book Day today!

Free Comic Book Day 2014

Don't forget about Free Comic Book Day! It's coming up this Saturday (May 3) at comic stores all across the country. Click here to learn more!

National Superhero Day(?)

Apparently it's National Superhero Day. Why was I not informed?! Click here for CNN's coverage.

Heroes of Magnimar

Hey everybody! Here's your chance to get one of your characters into the world of Pathfinder! Click here to check out a contest involving the upcoming relaunch of the Pathfinder comic book from Dynamite. The deadline is July 1, so act fast!

Pathfinder Legends

The first installment of Pathfinder Legends arrived today. I look forward to listening to the epic Rise of the Runelords saga on my way to work each morning. My commute to the office is only five minutes, so this should keep me busy for a while!

Tyranny of Dragons

Click here for an article discussing "Tyranny of Dragons," the first storyline for the upcoming D&D Next. Interesting stuff!

Pathfinder Comic Review

Click here for a nice review of the first issue of the relaunched Pathfinder comic book series.

Booty!

Once upon a time, in an alternate universe (or perhaps it was, like, 2004), I was a college literature professor and I was leading my students through Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain. The text was originally written in Latin, but we were reading an English translation. One of the students timidly raised his hand with a very strange question about a seemingly straightforward passage. As it turned out, the translator had used the word "booty," meaning "plunder" or "treasure." My student had thought it was a reference to a completely different kind of booty. True story.

Anyway, that's a long-winded introduction to the real reason for this post, which is to point out the awesome-looking campaign coins available on the Paizo site. Click here to see examples of fake coins that you can use to liven up your gaming experience. I may pick some up for my boys, who love that sort of thing. Who doesn't love booty?

Back on the Path

I took a break from the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game to play through the iPad port of Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition. Now that my sassy archer Zoe has defeated Irenicus, I've gone back to PACG and picked up where I left off, with The Hook Mountain Massacre adventure deck. It's been a couple of months since I last played, but the break has done nothing to diminish my admiration for this game. If you haven't tried it yet, you really ought to give it a shot.

Table Top Day

It's International Table Top Day, so do as Wil Wheaton commands and go play some board games!

Pathfinder: City of Secrets

Awesome! I just saw on the Paizo site that a nearby comic book store is hosting a Pathfinder: City of Secrets game event. Click here to see if there's a participating store near you!

Fighter Details

For anyone who was following the D&D Next playtest, here's a look at how the final draft of the Fighter class is shaping up.

D&D Attack Wing

Click here to check out the upcoming D&D dragon-versus-dragon miniatures game!

Pathfinder Legends

Give Paizo a lot of credit for their outside-the-(game)-box thinking. Now there's a new way to experience their award-winning Rise of the Runelords storyline -- through audio dramas on CD! The new Pathfinder Legends series is produced by Big Finish (creators of the Doctor Who audio adventures). Click here for more details.

Tolkien and Beowulf

This May, J.R.R. Tolkien's translation of Beowulf will be published, some 90 years after he completed it. Click here for the full story.

Tolkien, of course, is a figure who looms large over D&D and, indeed, over the entire modern fantasy genre. As a long-time Dungeonmaster and creator of numerous fantasy worlds, however, I've tried strenuously to distance myself from Tolkien. If you've played in any of my campaigns, you've probably noticed that halflings (derived directly from Tolkien's hobbits) do not exist, and unlike certain D&D worlds I could mention, there is never ever a character who resembles Gandalf. (*cough* Elminster *cough*)

Why the deliberate rejection of Tolkien? I'm not entirely sure. Although Lord of the Rings never resonated with me (it's one of the many instances in which this former English professor actually likes the movie better than the book!), I have a deep respect for Tolkien as an intellectual. He was a professor of Old English and wrote an article on Beowulf (titled "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics") that changed the way scholars view this poem. I'm very excited to read his translation of my all-time favorite literary work -- a work that has stimulated by creativity like no other over the past two decades.

Pathfinder Comics Return

Pathfinder comics return in May! The new series is called Pathfinder: City of Secrets (from Dynamite Entertainment), and it debuts on May 14. The comic will include RPG content as well as the awesome removable tactical maps that were discontinued from the previous series. Even better is the news that Paizo is teaming up with comic book stores nationwide to host in-store Pathfinder RPG events to get people interested in the game. Click here for more information.

Will You Miss It?

4e D&D is on its way out. Wizards will continue to sell 4e products until there's no longer any demand, but come summertime and the release of D&D Next, the 4e era will, for all intents and purposes, be over. How do we feel about that?

Personally, I'm not sure what I feel. 4e was a radical departure from the traditional D&D rules and it hasn't even been around for as long as my six-and-a-half-year-old son. Some say it did a lot of damage to the D&D community in that short span of time. That's a fair argument. I've enjoyed the tactical aspects of 4e, but I'm not terribly sad to see it go. I think D&D Next will be a return to what we all believe D&D should be. My only regret from the 4e era is that I never got the chance to play in a long-term campaign. Virtually all of my 4e experience was as a DM, so all those super-awesome optimized characters I cooked up in the Character Builder are now kind of meaningless. And as much as I love the shaman character class (under-powered but plucky!), I never got to play one in a real campaign.

How do you feel? Vote in the poll! (See the very bottom of the page.) And please do vote. This question is actually the prelude to a much more important question I intend to ask before the release of the next edition.

D&D Next News

News about D&D Next is starting to trickle in...click here for a summary of topics covered during a trade show presentation about the new edition. The key takeaway for me? Their guiding principle was "What would Gary and Dave do?" If that's true, it's very encouraging.

D&D Falls

Yikes...D&D has fallen all the way down to #4 on the RPG sales chart. Pathfinder is #1.

What's the Cost?

Click here for an interesting post (and subsequent forum discussion) about the inflation-adjusted cost of every edition of D&D over the years.

Gone!

Those mysterious, tantalizing listings for D&D Next products on BN.com are now gone!

Mark Your Calendars

It appears that the first official D&D Next product, D&D Starter Set, is going to be released on July 15, 2014. Click here for the BN.com listing, and here for the new D&D Player's Handbook, to be released on August 19.

Aaron Allston

Sad news -- sci-fi/fantasy author and roleplaying game designer Aaron Allston has passed away, at the far-too-young age of 53. See this link for a nice summary of Allston's prolific career.

Back in the late '80s and early '90s, I frequented a Texas-based BBS (remember those?) called Red October, a hangout for fans and friends of Hero Games. Allston was also a user of that BBS. It took me a while, but I eventually mustered the courage to email him and express my admiration for his work, and he sent me a very gracious response.