D&D Week End Review April-24-09

I found a lot of useful information on the blogs over the last while and wanted to share the information with everyone.

Scott Schimmel over at 'A Butterfly Dreaming' has an interesting article on some new uses for action points.

Scott suggests that action points can be used to interact directly with the scene, by altering the environment in some way. Using an action point in this way grants the player narrative control, allowing him to direct the flow of the scene.

Also over at Mad Brew Labs they have a great suggestion for combat to use Pipe cleaners in encounters, to help use them as different markers or create quickly movable areas.

MJ Harnish from Gaming Brouhaha has a review of a 20 year old article on Dragon magazine where he compares what Gary Gygax proposed the d&d system should be and how 4e has matched that. He talks about d&d for him is about the action of the game, and not necessarily why your character goes on adventures

Bard of Valiat has a interesting post on how to build epic games in d&d. I feel there are some neat ideas here, however my primary campaign i have a beginning and an end. my toughest part is joining adventures or chapters together, and all the different encounters without making the players feel like they have been railroaded.

I would say over all, build a flowchart of where your adventure starts, and where it ends, then build several different paths on getting there, and off shouts to smaller neat items. Keep it general, and as the game persist then plan for what you need.

G. Kinslayer has a post over at UncleBear about a homebrew weather chart its a great chart, however doesn't take location into consideration, and not really random. i mean 1d20, you have equal chance of snow and rain. what if its a warm area the result may not fit, what if its summer and you roll a 13, it doesn't make sense. i agree that a nice weather chart for your game can be handy to add description but i think this was poorly done. Its begging to be improved upon.

G. Kinslayer has a second post worth reading that has a interesting point on how player characters are in 4e, he suggests that they are the rock stars of that world, famous bikers etc.

I've been following a blog called Geek's dream girl and she has a very interesting point of view of the arcane power book. Instead of it being about how the book is, she takes a look at each class and lists a few powers and how you could have a character built around that power from a role play point of view. Very interesting and refreshing take.

[Wizard] [Bard] [Sorcerer] [Swordmage] [Warlock]

Wizards has announced some changes to their character builder i think the ability to export your character as XML will be a all around favorite, and the ability to seperate weapons as separate cards. Hopefully they can fix up the gear page even further as it defiantly needs more work. i think you should have a very simple [] Usable, filter on it, hide the crap you can't use.

Over at the Dungeon Mastering blog, there is a article 4 Surprising D&D Rules You Should Know About, its a decent enough article but seems as if its been covered before. i have a hard time believing that people are still unaware of this

Encounter-a-Day has a fresh take on caves should help any DM build up details on a cave encounter

GamesTopica.Net released the second post in their 101 forms of a dungeon posts, examining new types of dungeons. some of my favorites are a half sunk ship, and rooftops of a city.

World of Alidor blogs on how you don't have to spend but load of money on miniatures for d&d, though i still enjoy the miniatures, every game session get everyone in your group to donate a toonie (that's a two dollar coin for our friends south of the border) and just pickup a new pack of miniatures. Luckily at my local store they let us trade in the rare for 8 commons, great if you don't need some of the crazy rares out there.

StupidRanger.com has a review of the new hero miniatures this is where you pay the same price as a miniatures box (if not more) for less miniatures

The RPG Athenaeum blog has a post of five old school books new dm's should read
i agree with some of the books but not others. some information isn't needed anymore. why spend time on a villain when its just going to die and the players really don't care about the history.

There are two articles i read during the week that stick out in my head the most, the first is how ChattyDM got his kid into playing role playing games. For me being a dad of a 2 year old i really like hearing about this stuff. Highly recommended for any dad

The second is more of a video post, re posted over at geekdad. its about Shane DeSeranno's ultimate d&d table. Must check out.

That's it for my Week end (not weekend) review for this week. Keep rolling d'em bones.