An article that intrigues me

Article

This article has some bits that intrigue me, in particular this part:

"Second, and most important: Wizards is on the right track.

I’m not a fan of fourth edition. I find the combat slow, the powers limiting, and the rules inhospitable to the kind of creative world-building, story-telling and problem-solving that make D&D great.

But so far, the fifth edition rules show promise. They’re simple without being stupid, and efficient without being shallow. Combat was quick and satisfying; we got through most of an adventure in just a few hours. And I get the sense that fifth edition will bring back some of the good complexity of previous versions, allowing players to create unique characters and new worlds."

From that it sounds like they're on the right track to me.

5e, Hopeful, but not really optimistic

So yeah fifth edition has been announced. I've been reading the Legends and Lore articles on wizards.com and they've given me hope that 5th edition might be better than 4th edition. Yet I can't really say that I am truly optimistic. Will they create a game that can handle my play style? Will it avoid the obsession with balance that IMHO made it difficult to run anything that's non-linear in 4e? Will combats not take hours each to resolve? Will it show more respect for the history of the game?

I don't want an edition where what has come before with regards to "canon" is cast aside. I don't want archons to be elemental warriors, or eladrin to be faerie elves. I want the Great Wheel to be the default cosmology, or at least not all that different from the default cosmology that I have to do a lot of changes to monsters and the like to use the Great Wheel . I want Greyhawk to be the default setting or at least playable with the core materials without lots of houseruling races and the like. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of the Realms I don't want them to have been blown up. Seriously, if you can't play the most generic of settings in a new edition without a lot of work, something has gone wrong.

The focus on making sure everything is balanced makes it difficult to do a non-linear game. Thing is the assumption is that you're players will have exactly x encounters, get x amount of treasure, etc. That doesn't really jive with a game where the assumption is that these things will all be determined by the choices of the players and they're successes and failures. Never mind the idea that failure is often considered to be a thing the DM should avoid.

Well, we'll wait and see. Just might be me and a lot of people will be pleasantly surprised.

Playing with the Nephew

I can't remember if I've mentioned this or not, but I have a six-year old nephew. Recently I ran a short game of D&D for him, using the 1981 Moldvay rules. It was fun for me, but I got the feeling that my nephew could have enjoyed it more.

I'm thinking of emphasizing the visual aspect, using minatures and a grid, maybe even during exploration. We were using legos, and he seemed to respond well to that, but it proved difficult to construct each area quickly as he arrived.

He seemed to enjoy combat most, though I stressed that there were other ways to solve problems. I think that I will provide more opportunities for combat, while still making sure he knows combat is not his only course of action.

I took the scenario from the original 3rd edition starter set, wherein you must rescue a unicorn from goblins. However I wrote pretty much the whole dungeon from scratch, utilizing the five room dungeon concept, but making the goblin lair part of a larger complex. He, of course, ended up going the "wrong" way, slipping by a patch of green slime to explore the rest of the dungeon.  Hopefully I can run it for him again and he can track down those goblins and save the unicorn. But it's not a big deal if he goes "off the rails".

I'm still planning to run Monster Hill. I had a session almost lined up, but unfortunately circumstances forced me to cancel it. Hopefully I will be able to run it soon, however.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from me and the Wolf-in-sheep's-clothing Easter Bunny!

Monster Hill Update

Tomorrow, if all goes well, I will begin running Monster Hill. I've got the first level all stocked, however I am thinking of a few tweaks. For one I'm reducing the size of the giant spiders in an area close to the main entrance and adding one more. Then I'll place giant spiders of medium size elsewhere on the first level. I like giant spiders. I'm also snatching a creature from the Legend of Zelda games- Aquamentus the boss monster in the first dungeon of the first game, and putting it in the dungeon, placing the cloaker I randomly rolled elsewhere. There probably won't be a report of the adventure for a while, since pbp games take a while.

My New Megadungeon: Monster Hill

I have been working on a new megadungeon, Monster Hill. It is the name given by locals to a hill of ill reputation that spews out terrible monsters and is a haven for goblins and bandits and other neer-do-wells. It has in the past been know as a home to demon worshipers, who are supposed to have constructed the complex long ago. Rumors state that there are portals to the infernal realms in the depths.

I'm running this so that many groups can enter and leave they're mark on the complex. Theoretically I could play it for years for many different groups, and any changes the PCs make would remain. Also I'm going to be going with an approach similar to what James Maliszewski, at Grognardia is using for his Dwimmermount campaign, not creating too much of the setting at any one time, instead creating it through play.


If you're interested I will be starting a play-by-post game on this site.

Valarn's Vault: the Reboot

Well you may remember from earlier posts my players in my previous campaign having explored a dungeon called "Valarn's Vault". Well I've decided to revisit this dungeon, applying the lessons I've learned about dungeon creation since then. So I'll rewrite the dungeon, pretty much from scratch. I will be using Pathfinder and am thinking of setting it in some undetailed part of Oerth outside the Flanaess, or a world of my own creation.

The Vault is a fortress that belongs to a powerful necromancer on an island not far of shore from a small fishing village in the tropics. The upper works contain a large garrison of various kinds of undead, however there is a back entrance to the far less dangerous storage area. The upper works are basically a "lair"-type environment, so aren't really suitable for low-level adventurers, but the storage area and lower levels are a more normal dungeon environment, so adventures here are not going to bring the wrath of every creature in the area on they're heads. Below the storage area is a series of catacombs that contain many undead of various kinds. I'll have fun utilizing all the various obscure kinds of undead in my monster manuals populating this area. The third level I'm thinking will probably be a series of laboratories, filled with all kinds of weird monsters, including templated monsters of various kinds. However, I'm thinking I might want to save that theme for a lower level, since I'd want to include more dangerous creatures like golems. The lair of Valarn himself will either be on the twelfth or lower level or a sub-level attached to it. Perhaps his lair will be a demiplane connected to the dungeon by portal. As for other levels, at the moment I'm focusing on the first three as Gary Gygax suggests in Volume 3 of OD&D, "The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures".

As for difficulty I am not going to be adhering strictly to the rules in Pathfinder. Like in old school games it will be somewhat challenging. It would in fact be likely to encounter ten goblins in a single encounter on the first level of the dungeon. However the PCs would be well equipped to handle such encounters, as Pathfinder characters are fairly powerful and it will be assumed that they will bring along non-player character hirelings to help them, including warriors.