RPGs

WOTC Announces New 5e Setting: Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica

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Earlier today, Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) announced their new setting guide to be released in November. It is from a Magic: The Gathering setting: Ravnica. The book is Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica [Amazon Affiliate Link] . Last night fans reported that Amazon had leaked the listing ahead of the announcement.

I suspect if there was a “leak” it was a strategic leak meant to build excitement. Here is the link [Amazon Affiliate Link].

I did a series of tweets about this, and I think that analysis has been confirmed to be spot on, so I repeat it here.

My Twitter Analysis

Ravnica is a new D&D 5e setting. It’s from Magic: The Gathering. I don’t know the M:TG settings and have only played a few games just a few months ago. Some are upset that it wasn’t a revival of a setting from a prior version. I don’t see the problem. This is a smart strategy.

It has more appeal for novice players that only know 5e. It also invites M:TG players that aren’t as already into RPGs to give them a try. The demographic has shifted. If it was my business I’d leverage every asset I could while the wave of popularity lasts.

You don’t need WOTCs official 5e setting to use an older setting. You can even roll your own. Be glad that they’re doing settings and alternate covers of the core. books. It means the investment you made in 5e will last. I’d say there’s little reason for a new version.

Settings and adventure books will keep things going for the foreseeable future. That’s my 2 cents.

Hasbro’s Best Year Ever

This evening Jim Cramer, the annoying screaming stock analyst on CNBC, interviewed the CEO of Hasbro. You can read the article and see that interview here.  Hasbro has had its best year ever. D&D is once again a darling of the stock market. Stranger Things and Twitch streaming has played a big part of that. They have partnered with Amazon, which owns Twitch.

This interview explains that they are using the success of D&D to leverage everything. They are talking about eSports…. I don’t like that idea, but that’s a gut reaction. I’d like to know what they envision that looking like. I would guess they are thinking along the lines of tournament modules with the teams being composed of parties of players.

The Hasbro stock (HAS) is now trading over $100 a share and was up $12 today because it beat the market predictions. Many anticipated that it would be adversely impacted by the closure of Toys R Us. They were, but are leveraging their winners and crossing over core fan bases. As I wrote above, I think this is a smart move, and one I’d make in that position.

Conclusion

As long as 5e is the core driving things, I bet the plan is to leave that alone until the wave of success subsides. They can continue releasing various settings that are either from prior rulesets, or other Hasbro properties. As long as they are all done well and not slap dash and rushed out the door, it should work.

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Eberron Comes to 5e – Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron

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Eberron has a setting guide on DM’s Guild, Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron [Affiliate Link], so Eberron content is available for 5e for others to use in their DMs Guild offerings.

I don’t know a lot about Eberron, other than it is Satine Phoenix’s favorite. Her first convention game was a scenario set in Eberron, and I was one of the players.  From that I experience, I learned that Eberron is a magic and technology are integrated. It is not surprising that many of the players from Maze Arcans have playtest credits.

Very cool that Ruty Rutenberg is listed in the credits as designer.

This $19.99 PDF went platinum on DMs Guild just a few hours after being announced.

I just downloaded it. So do they need a mithril category? I’m not big into settings, but I want to see what all the fuss is about. This was not expected, other than I knew Ruty was working on something big. I won’t get a review of this, as I have a ton of other things on my plate, and need to get through them.

The PDF is 176 pages with clickable links in the table of contents. There is no index. It does use some material from Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, according to a note on the title page. There is a history of Eberron, places, new races, new magic, and recommended reading with a list of sourcebooks and novels set in Eberron.

Someone asked Ruty on Twitter if it will be available as POD and he said that is the plan.

D&D Beyond did an interview with Keith Baker, the creator of Eberron, and he explained a bit about it. See it here.

There are a ton of others tweeting, blogging, and vlogging about this and the announcement of a new setting book slated for November from a Magic: The Gathering setting: Ravnica. The book is Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica.

Ruty also just tweeted that there is more to come.

Congratulations Ruty! This is awesome!


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My Process

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Someone on my G+ post about Saturday’s blog post about prepping to launch a Patreon said they’d like to know what my process is. I will endeavor to lay out how ideas come to me.

Connections

I see connections between things that most people don’t see. Someone says ‘X’, and I almost immediately think of ‘Y’. When someone asks how I came up with ‘Y’, I lay out all the points between the two. It is all about what my mind picks up and adds to my knowledge store. I don’t have eidetic memory, but I seem to be good at remembering various facts. It makes me very good at Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy. Even some categories where I have a weak knowledge, I am able to come up with answers.

Sometimes I hear a word and it triggers a train of thought with unanticipated results. It is also a curse, as this can find a connection that takes me back in time to some memory I’d rather not recall.

I have also seen words “sideways” that at a glance the word or phrase I think I see isn’t the word or phrase that is there. In some words, changing the order of a couple letters gives a different word. Or the order of the words is reversed.  I’m probably the only one to get a chuckle out of the weird things that result. An example is “Isle of Wights” instead of the Isle of Wight. An additional letter makes it a dangerous place of undead.

Visual

I am a visual person, so when I had the question in Trivial Pursuit of which state is surrounded by the most other states, I started by narrowing the focus. I focused on the continental US, and eliminated the coastal and border states. Next I eliminated the big Western states. Because I know the states and have a mental map of the state boundaries within the boundary of the US, I could count the states surrounding the states that didn’t have a coast or international border. I won’t give away the answer, but the state is surrounded by eight other states.

Metaphors

When I try to explain things to people, especially technical things, I have metaphors come to mind to help explain things. I work with financial software and users who don’t know accounting always want to treat the budget like how much money they have. I point out that the budget is like Monopoly money. You can have a budget of a million dollars, but if you don’t have a million dollars in the bank, you can’t spend that much.

My metaphors are sometimes ridiculous, but they can help me to develop ideas with an RPG.

Alliteration

I have gone on kicks with alliteration on several blog posts over the years. Sometimes I see it as a challenge to some up with a list that is all alliteration. I think the last one I did was a six word dungeon challenge, and I did A to Z with six alliterative words for each letter of the alphabet.

Narrow the Focus

The concept of narrowing the focus is the same one I use in my day job of troubleshooting client issues. I do high end tech support for financial applications. I’m the senior tech, so end up digging into SQL to figure out where the data went wrong. I’ve used the programs so long, that except for the newer features, I can see the menu options in my mind’s eye and can talk a client through all the menu clicks without looking at the program.

My brother used to tease me about my spouting off apparently random facts in the middle of conversations because someone would say something that fired off something in my mind. He’d say, “And yet another entry into the book of useless facts and worthless information.” I still slip up sometimes and don’t give the right contextual information when that happens and when I say something, I manage to put my foot in my mouth.

RPG Filter

When it comes to RPGs, I don’t always remember to flip the switch to think about some random thought in an RPG context. However, when I do, I can spit out a detailed string of ideas that are fun and interesting for RPGs. I usually take my real life knowledge and experience and just run things to a logical conclusion.

For some ideas, I can run out of steam before it looks complete. Kind of like McCoy going from “It’s so easy a child could do it!” to struggling to recall the simplest detail in the “Spock’s Brain” episode of TOS.

Then for other ideas, the ideas keep flowing and I can’t write or type fast enough to keep up.

Intentionality

I am sure that if I would be intentional about applying an RPG filter to what I think about on a consistent daily basis, I could leverage it more. Historically, I have tended to go in spurts where a lot of information flows until I hit an eventual drought of ideas. I have yet to identify a consistent set of rules that makes this work for me.

One year on the blog I posted an article every day. I did leverage the bursts of creativity, and I would write multiple articles in a day. Then I would schedule them to post on consecutive days, with the most pressing first. I managed to have several weeks of posts done in advance, and would have multiple posts on days when there was a timely idea.

Organization

I have been lax in my organization, and have multiple notebooks and computer files with all kinds of ideas. Applying organization to the madness will help.

Self Care

My greatest nemesis is the crazy busy time at work December through February. It ends up sapping my energy and creativity to a ridiculous degree. I have not found a solution to deal with that. I am sure it is diet, exercise, and enough sleep. I have always struggled with that.

Personal Knowledge Base

I’ve played different RPGs since back in the day. AD&D, Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, Boot Hill, Top Secret, Gangbusters, Star Frontiers, Marvel Superheroes, Traveller. Also some exposure to, like one game of Tunnels and Trolls, Runequest, and some others. We also made our own space games. We had a space pirate game that was a board game. We had a planetary war game where two planets were at war. We also made a space RPG that had a little bit of something from every RPG we had or new about, with lots of our own ideas.

I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy back in the day. I don’t read as regularly as I used to but still read SF & Fantasy. I’ve been reading the Appendix N authors I never read back in the day. For example, in recent years, I have read the Dying Earth series and Conan. I’ve read many of the Tarzan books, John Carter of Mars, the Venus series, and some others by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Some, such as The Hobbit and LOTR I have read multiple times.

I have a strong interest in history and have a BA in history. My interest is on the ancient near east and Mediterranean, and Europe from ancient times up through WWII. I have pulled out old college history books and re-read them. I’ve read history of other regions and eras too.

I tend to get lost reading an article in an encyclopedia and all the side references. The arrival of Wikipedia online has caused me to lose many hours of follow the rabbit trails of connected knowledge. I see something that catches my interest, read it and see things mentioned that peak my curiosity. The next thing I know I’ve got a dozen or so tabs open of things I want to know more about.

I’ve studied four languages other than English or programming languages. Spanish for three years in high school, German for three semesters in college, and koine Greek and Biblical Hebrew in grad school. I also know a smattering of words and phrases in a few miscellaneous languages that have not been incorporated into the English lexicon.

My high school actually had a geography class. I have always liked maps. I wish I still had all the maps I colored in with colored pencils.

All the books and articles I’ve read, TV shows, movies, and plays I’ve watched, people I’ve met or observed, places I’ve been, and things I’ve done all inform how I view the world and I draw on them automatically when working an RPG idea.

I have 80% of the first draft of a sci fi/fantasy novel. The idea came to me in 1985 or so. I didn’t start writing it down until 2009 or so. I only had the first chapter until I did NaNoWriMo in 2014 and got to where it is now. I exceeded 50,000 words so I “completed” the challenge. It actually wasn’t that hard to do. I just sat down and did it, and was cranking 3,000 plus words some days. As with most first drafts, it’s terrible. I really need to do the last few chapters so I can do the second draft.

Blogging

The hardest part of blogging is staying on topic. I can easily start off in one place, and go down a side passage of an idea, and end up entirely off the point I intended to make. This is why my posts are so long at times. I’ve got several posts in my drafts that don’t say what I meant to say, and I don’t know how to fix them (apart from starting over) but don’t want to delete them in case I can somehow use them. I have over 700 posts and can easily do a “new” post and later discover I wrote a nearly identical post a few years ago.

What I like about blogging, is that it allows me to capture my ideas, so I can come back to them later.

Conclusion

I think my process is similar to others. Each of us makes connections between ideas in our own way. Through repetition and intentional practice, we can get better at it.

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Forgiveness Factor

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While I was doing my dishes from supper, my thoughts wandered and for some reason, people from my past whose reactions to minor slights came to mind. I thought of those who had a negative reaction to something minor (in my perception), and some had a strongly negative reaction that colored how we interacted from then on.

RPG Angle

The RPG aspect of this came to me. What if we classified NPCs based on their reactions to slights, errors, and failures? This could apply to any NPC, but it would be more interesting to use it for pre-selected NPCs so you can plan out how a negative reaction manifests.

More simply, those who hire PCs to do a job might be offended by some cultural gaffe that is generally considered inappropriate. The leader of the town takes it personally and from then on only turns to the PCs for help when there is no other choice. Reneging on payment, setting them up to fail, and outright vengeance such as hired assassins. The reactions some people have to things can come across as flat out insane.

It could be that only one character has earned the ire of the NPC, and they try to convince the others to leave the offender out of their business dealings.

Rough Tables

Here are some rough tables to outline what I’m thinking. This definitely needs more polish, but I want to get the idea down while it is fresh. Keep in mind that these are for individuals who have a petty mind and make lemons seem sweet. They will be abrupt, just the facts, get the offender(s) out of their presence ASAP.

Some of the behaviors will be actively avoiding the offender(s). For example, never using the same door as the offender(s), pretending to not be home, pretending they don’t see or hear the offender, etc.

Minor Slight & how perceived by the offended:

  • Minor – No big deal (This doesn’t belong here because you didn’t make it to THE LIST.)
  • Minor but it rankles to their dying day. They tell everyone about it, and when the offender is present will point them out to all who will hear. Look down their nose at the offender(s).
  • Medium –
  • Major –
  • The worst thing ever! They see the offender as their nemesis.

Disposition to the Player(s):

  • Neutral – What can the player(s) do for me? Won’t voluntarily aid the player(s), without some great compulsion.
  • Negative, Minor – Will throw up red tape, delays, and generally unhelpful. Player(s) will sit in the waiting room and will always go in last, unless there is for some reason, another person or group higher on THE LIST.
  • Negative, Medium – Will instruct underlings to not help the player(s). Some underlings will be apologetic for their superior’s behavior. No guilt about sending player(s) on a suicide mission. Disappointed if they survive, even if a success.
  • Negative, Major – Underlings are instructed to actively delay, hinder, annoy, and seek to damage the offender(s). Damage may be to reputation, relationships, or life.
  • Negative, Ridiculous – Will hire others to maim or kill the offender(s).

Can it be rectified?

Is there anyway to remove the animosity? For some, they may just drop a notch on their disposition to the offender(s).

  • Charm Person and Suggestion can temporarily resolve it.
  • Forget if cast close enough in time to the affront.
  • Only a Limited Wish, Wish, or Alter Reality spell could do it.
  • Divine intervention.
  • Saving their life.
    • For some not even saving their life will make them change their mind.
  • Saving a loved one’s life.
    • For some this too is not enough.
  • Taking out someone higher on THE LIST than the offender(s).
    • May not work for some.

Conclusion

The above is only a rough idea of what can be done with this idea. A similar exercise with other traits of people you have encountered in life can be used to build a similar set of tables.  Not all tables need be rollable tables. They can be idea tables that you read to get a kickstart for brainstorming your own ideas.

Have you had success with filtering an idea through an RPG lense to get something to help you with game preparation or use at the table? Please share it in the comments!


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Patreon On The Horizon

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I finally realized that what I already do on my blog is worthy of starting a Patreon. I had a moment of clarity while cleaning and organizing my office. I work from home, and my personal computer and gaming stuff is all in the same space. I let things go for too long. I am not done, but the freedom that comes from less physical clutter has the added benefit of less mental clutter.

Back at the end of January, 2017, I did a blog post, Trap Idea – Take One Thing and Expand on It. There was a post on Reddit asking for trap ideas for a kobold infested dungeon. The first thing I thought of was a trap door that is so fast leaving a puff of smoke and a pile of dust that makes the players think that the individual was disintegrated. Then have the NPC or character show up later either on their own, or discovered by the others.

I took this idea and I ran with it in that blog post and came up with all kinds of ideas for how kobolds could leverage a trap infested dungeon.

After I read an article or other mention of how silver plates and utensils were used to fight germs, I wrote another article on my blog, Magic Item(s) – Table Service is about magical dishes that defeat poison. That article spawned another article, More Magic Dishes, about things other than poison. And another article, More Variation on Magic Items, to be something other than the standard rings, wands, and staves.

My idea for a Patreon is to let patrons both vote on ideas, or submit their own, for me to Take One Thing And Expand On It.

I can then collect all these ideas into a PDF and patrons get it for no additional cost, and I put it up on OBS for non-patrons.

The end result will be a collection of tables and ideas to help others with their game prep and help fuel their own creativity.

Many of these ideas are not tied to specific RPGs or versions of RPGs, so as long as I don’t mention or use rules based on OGL materials, it won’t need the OGL or other game license.

I think having a monthly poll in the form of [Creature] doing [x], or [Everday item with an RPG twist.], or other table to meet a need because there isn’t a table, or if some existing tables don’t do quite what you want.

Initially, I will pull together my existing blog posts that fit and put them into individual PDFs, with spelling and grammar cleaned up, and possible additional material. I’ll do the first one as a free download/PWYW. This will give something for potential patrons to see what I have before committing to a pledge.

I will also discuss development of my card game, no spoilers, just some mention of progress and struggles. Eventually, the card game will be on Kickstarter, once all the ducks are in a row.

I will have coordination between my blog, YouTube, and Anchor podcast for things relating to Patreon. I will continue my YouTube series, Roll20 For The Absolute Beginner. My blog and podcast will also continue to cover topics I have in the pipeline, and otherwise want to cover.

A few months ago, I laid the groundwork for a Discord channel, G+ Group, and Facebook group for patrons. Since I already researched the requirements for a Patreon, I know that it will take a couple weeks to get all the particulars in order of how I want it done. I also need to get set up on OBS as a publisher. It has been a few years since I first looked into what that takes.

My thoughts are for the Patreon to be a monthly pledge with sensible tiers. I have played around with various ways of handling tiers. I still don’t quite have tiers the way I want, so that will take some more time.

Finally, since I want to have something “ready to go” to offer patrons when the Patreon goes live, I need time to work on that. All of this juggled around work, chores, and grandpa time. At the earliest, I could probably pull it off in two weeks, but I want it to be done well. At the outside, I’d like to have it live by Labor Day. I also need to factor in getting up and running as a publisher on OBS.

I value what a supportive group of patrons can do with giving feedback and an eye to detail on PDFs that will eventually go on OBS. I’ve seen that model on other Patreons I support.

I have a seven part checklist for all the things I need to do for becoming a publisher on OBS and starting a Patreon. Most of these same steps are items on my to do to get ready for the eventual Kickstarter of my card game.

You can hear the Podcast episode about this here.

You can see my YouTube video about this here.

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The Black Isle Released!

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My last post was about the 9th anniversary of the blog, which was yesterday, July 18th. Another cool event yesterday, in addition to session 210 of the Wednesday night AD&D game on Roll20 was the release of The Black Isle, AKA Eilean Dubh.

The Black Isle is the fruit of an OSR collaborative project that started back in 2014 to stat out a region centered on an island. Originally, the project was called Tenkar’s Landing, which is the main settlement on the island. We then decided to name the island. The project had most contributions in about 18 months, as I recall. Editing and layout are what took so long, for one person a 433 page PDF with contents, art, and an index is a huge task.

Fifty-four people stepped up and populated six mile hexes on and under the island and the surrounding area. There is a lot packed in, and some of us, like me, packed a lot into our hex. My contribution is The Screaming Swamp. I had a lot of fun putting it all together. A separate more realistic sized area for what I crammed in my hex is a project I have long thought about, but waited for the completion of this project. I blogged about it here and here. It doesn’t appear I went into detail of the finished product on the blog.

There are tables, new monsters, and I believe also new spells and items. This is a rich resource to run as is, or cherry pick for ideas. There are many years of adventure in this free supplement.

Podcast

I talked about it on episode 6 of my podcast.

Settlement

The second phase of the project is Tenkar’s Landing. As I recall all the work on that is done. There is a map by Dyson Logos. Now that the island is done, the next step is the town. I don’t know if there is the oomph to get it done, but it would be very cool to see the finished town to go with the rest of the setting.

The price is right, it is free and open source. You can see a lot of creativity and you get so many ideas, it would be difficult to use them all.

Where to Get It

You can download the 433 page PDF and 1 page map PNG from Google Drive.

The Black Isle PDF – Drop Box with both Map and PDF

The Black Isle Map PNG – Google Drive Map only

Elsewhere

Discussion on Reddit. [Added 08/12/2018]

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9 Years of The Blog

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Wow! Nine years ago, July 18, 2009, I posted my first post on the blog. Internet outage prevented this article going out yesterday on the actual anniversary. A large truck drove by and broke the line for my DSL yesterday afternoon, and it didn’t get fixed until today. I hadn’t started an article yet, so there was nothing to schedule to auto-post. This post is number 703!

The Start

I started the blog to tell stories about back in the day and about my home AD&D campaign with my sons and their friends. Soon, I was blogging about all kinds of things. One year, I even had a post every day from January 1 through mid-September, when I just ran out of things to blog about.

As with any creative endeavor, the ease with which creativity flows varies daily from “No problem.” to “Impossible.” Most of that is an emotional connection to the “work” or “grind” of regular blogging. I find it is often hard to “be in the mood” to blog, but I have persisted.

Expansion

I consider myself an Old School blogger, and I have expanded to a YouTube channel, where I have found unexpected success in my series, Roll20 For The Absolute Beginner. There are more things to make Roll20 videos about, I’m just out of the habit of regular production. Over 180 subscribers on YouTube also amazes me.

For the last couple of years, I have been active with many discussions over on Twitter. My growth and success there has been beyond my expectations, running up to 560 followers. I have far more interaction there.

Most recently, I started a podcast on Anchor and have five episodes to date. I like the podcast format. No fiddling with the lighting or getting the short lined up correctly. Just record, edit a bit, and post it. I have had nearly 100 listens to all of the episodes combined, some episodes over 20 plays.

I have lots of ideas for blogging, videos, and podcast episodes, and will endeavor to continue sharing my ideas. Recently I have reviewed some of my posts and think I have enough ideas over the past nine years of blogging to put something together and share it on OBS (One Bookshelf), AKA DriveThruRPG/RPGNow.

I have a CafePress store to sell T-shirts, but the prices one has to charge there to make anything are prohibitive. I’ll be moving to a different store that doesn’t charge an arm and a leg.

What About The Card Game?

In the background I still fiddle a bit with my card game honing rules and waiting until the time is right to pull it all together and launch a Kickstarter. The waiting makes the excitement wane, so I’m not as pumped on a daily basis as I was at the start. But get me talking about it, and the excitement returns. I have more ideas for related card games and perhaps board games, so if I find success with the first, I could potentially make a new job of it.

Conventions

I continue to think about what games to run at cons, UCon in the fall and the new round of cons next year. I am working on a DCC funnel to run at UCon, and will be play testing it soonish. Part of me wants to just run games at cons, and not play. It’s not that I don’t like play, I think I need to be more limited in the games I play so I don’t overdo it. Similarly, I need to avoid running so many games I’m not interested in playing. I continue to work on that balance.

Support

I fund the site through affiliate links with DriveThruRPG and RPGNow, and GameScience dice. The amount I have brought in over the years has helped buy more things on those sites, but is far from paying for the costs of webhosting, domain names, software, and nowhere close to funding convention travel. I have considered a Patreon, which would require me to do something on a regular basis. If what I do interests you, and you would support me on Patreon, let me know. Specifically, what would you prefer I do more of? I’m thinking along the lines of at least one blog post a month, one YouTube video a month, and a regular schedule on the podcast. For the podcast, I’m thinking at least weekly, and up to two or three times a week.

I’ll continue to do what I do because I like it, but moving closer to break-even would be great! I’m single, so I have only my future self to answer to, and he’s not here.

Looking Ahead to Ten Years

I want to have more consistency in blog posts, videos, and podcasts. If my plans to share some of my material from over the years works out, there will be more of it. Sometime in the next year, I should be launching a Kickstarter for a card game.  In the next several weeks, we should wrap up the Wednesday night AD&D campaign on Roll20. I’d be surprised if we are still at it when the 5th year rolls around in March. I’m looking forward to running more online games. I need to start them instead of talking about doing it. The sky’s the limit, and I look forward to learn what the next year will bring!

Thanks to all the readers, commenters and other support you all have given me over the years. It is great to know I’m not alone in this hobby and that others are interested in my ideas.


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Anchor Podcast For Follow Me, And Die!

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A few days ago I shared on various social media that I had started a podcast on Anchor. I put up an episode 0 to try things out. I added a link to my Anchor podcast on my Social page.

I’ve made a list of topics for short episodes to record. I haven’t decided if I will do one episode a week, or more frequently.

Anchor has an app that allows others with that app to “phone in” to a podcast, and that call in can be shared in a future episode. If you want to hear me talk about a specific topic, let me know. I can do more detail on a topic already covered, or touch on a topic new to the podcast.

This is just another place holder on the blog for anyone searching for it. I also put a link along the left side under my affiliate links. Give a listen and a comment.


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Origins 2018

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Origins is one of the oldest gaming conventions. This was the first time I had ever attended. It is very big and a long distance from end to end. I spent a lot of time in open gaming, which was furthest from anything else.

I had toyed with the idea of going the last few years, and this year, I took the plunge last minute and was able to attend Friday and Saturday.

I met up face to face with several people from online. It was good to chat with some, and a quick “Hey!” from others. My last minute plans led to no coordination of meet ups.

I mostly wandered the venue and checked out the vendor hall. I played in two sessions of a Basic D&D game using the module Horror On The Hill. Our DM, Kelly Davis, tweaked it a bit to add some backstory and NPCs. We were too poor back in the day to buy modules, so most of them are new to me. I’m not sure how long they played before I stepped in to play a dwarf. In the two sessions that I played, we did about seven hours. Jason Hobbes kept coming by to harass us. It was fun playing with a lot of OSR grognards. The cool thing about the module is that we didn’t finish, and our DM offered to run it on Roll20, so we are working to coordinate a mutual time. This will be the first time I have played on Roll20 with anyone I have met face to face.

Before the final session I arrived in time to see Jason Hobbes wrap up the DCC game he was playing. I got sidetracked and didn’t make it there in time to join in. It was a lot of fun to watch, and lots of laughs.

The size of the con and the location make a strong argument for getting a hotel room on site, or using a driving service/taxi to get there from a more distant hotel.

I learned something to add to my pre-con checklist. There was a parade on Saturday, and I was forced to enter a parking garage and park other than where I had planned, and had a lot of unexpected walking to do to get to the con. So next time I go to a con, I will research other events on that city’s calendar to verify what might hinder travel to and from the con.

I also suggested to Origins that they let new people know about the parade that happens the same weekend almost every year. I think Google Maps should mention such things. Most cities this size have websites with calendars, and newspapers with events sections.

Origins does have its own app, GAMA, that has partial maps of the venue and the ability to search for the events in the catalog. I found it took a bit of digging to locate the search function. The maps did not clearly list the open gaming area. Overall the app was not as intuitive as I would like. There is a notes feature, but only works for events you attach the notes to, such as those you are interested in or signed up for.

Of the two books they passed out with registration, one mentioned Open Gaming, but the other didn’t. All areas should be mentioned in one book that includes all maps of the venue. Searching for open gaming in the app was no help. Open gaming seemed to be too far out, and the water jugs were dry.

The distance between open gaming and wider food choice was extreme. Snacks and a water bottle are a must.

Overall, I liked the con and will probably attend next year. It’s only a 4 1/2 hour drive from where I live, and is mostly interstate. It’s the first con that I’ve done open gaming that wasn’t the night before the con started.


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RPGs

Stream of Many Eyes – WotC Previews New Story

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After last year’s Stream of Annihilation that previewed Tomb of Annihilation, it was clear that WotC has embraced streaming of live play D&D. This weekend, WotC is repeating the streaming idea with many of the same streamers as last year, and many new faces.

Streaming Streams Everywhere

There are far too many streaming games for me to watch. Many are on Pacific time, which is a big difference for Easter time, three hours. They tend to start at 7 PM my time or later, and many run 3 or 4 hour sessions. While I enjoy watching some live play, and seeing how other DMs do things, I can’t watch a lot of streaming shows. There are so many streaming shows that there are more shows than one person could watch. I know a lot of streamers, and have tried to watch all of them, just to see what they’re doing. Personally, I’d much rather play or run a game than watch a game. With “everyone” starting their own stream, since Twitch and other platforms make it so easy, there is a glut of material. Those hoping to make it big need a high quality presentation and present their story and play in a way that stands out.

WotC’s Streaming Method

What I like about WotC’s efforts using the streaming weekends to showcase their forthcoming products is that they show bits and pieces of introductory material, and how different DMs and players jump in. They also talk about related things with partners, or share the news about the upcoming book about some of the iconic art from the earliest days of D&D.

The Announcement

The new product coming in September is Dragon Heist, set in the city of Waterdeep in the Forgotten Realms. A dragon is a type of gold coin. It is a large amount of treasure that the bad guys seeking it will put to furthering their evil machinations, should they get it first.

There are four major NPCs the DM can choose to be the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy). Players can acquire a tavern, with downtime to deal with running it, built in to the story. I missed part of the description, but it will have rules for city adventures.

They mentioned that DMs can ignore the story and just use the setting. That’s how we do it old school. Use what you want/need, toss the rest. By toss, it could mean set aside for later use.

It has a modular and flexible design so the DM can move stuff around and replace major NPCs with your own without breaking things. The city is a character. Each DM makes it their own.

OSR Sentiment

There were several times that WotC D&D designers & editors flat out said the rules are optional, and that you only need to use what works for you and your group. This hearkens back to what Gary Gygax was saying before he was focused on running a business that needed to sell rules books. With city rules and an adventure setting that is modular, plus tables to help fill in gaps/get ideas. I am interested to see what this is when it is released, as I collect ideas from many systems to help inform and flesh out what I do in my own campaign.

If you want to run a city based campaign, or like city base campaigns, this might be for you.

NOTE: This is my 700th post! Wow!

UPDATE: I missed the announcement that Dragon Heist is for levels 1-5, and a second book, Dungeon of the Mad Mage, which is a megadungeon taking players to level 20. So far, there isn’t anything about it on the WotC site. Christopher Perkins tweeted about it.


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Ramblings of an Old Gamer