The party is introduced to (Casey’s New Character), who informs the party that he works for Duke Elkis as a observer and information gatherer. He was sent to Amana to look into a recent increase in undead activity in the area around the ruins.

The party escapes from Amana, with the second of the three artifacts they need to open a portal to the Elemental Chaos, and see out the source of power of the Demon Princes. When they arrive at their airship, they are introduced to (Eric’s Character – Felonius?), who is initially distrusted and claims to be hunting for one of the Demon Princes.

The party proceeds to Mandeight’s Keep (Mandeight is the younger brother of Xavier Birdstaff, trusted vizier to Duke Elkis).

The party discovers that most, if not all, of the clerics from the Temple of Bahamut in Eldemy have taken refuge on the island around Mandeight’s keep (about 40 in number).

Mandeight informs the party that he has an opportunity to infiltrate the Conspiracy, and will soon leave to do so. Xavier is also leaving, in an attempt to garner support from the mysterious realm of Toreschga.

Bishop Voston, who until recently ran the temple of Bahamut, informs the party that the city is in a terrible crisis. Soon after dusk each night, terrible creature roam the street and kill (and sometime devour) anyone unfortunate to not take refuge indoors.

The party travels via Skipping Mirror to the basement of Litch’s Taproom (their old watering hole). They decide to make their way to Ransom’s father’s estate, which lies just outside the city walls. They slip out of the tavern at dusk and make their way through the city.

Several times, they hear the sounds of the creatures hunting in the streets, and they even get a glimpse as they scale the city walls.  One of the creatures is very tall (15-ft), with horns protruding from its head.

At the Rodgers Estate, they discover that the creatures seem to be coming from the Royal District of the city.

The party sneaks their way back to Litch’s Taproom, where they use the skipping mirror to infiltrate the Imperial Palace.

They discover the mirror has been moved to the secret harbor beneath the palace. They find evidence that something is living (and feeding) on the shores of the secret harbor. They sneak their way into the Palace proper.

In the Imperial Throne Room, they find a Frost Giant (actually a Titan) sitting in a throne made of ice, where the real throne would have been.

The Titan asks, “Have you come to pay homage to your new Emperor.”

Dor decides to take the lead and begins to talk to the Titan while the party gets in position. After a while, it becomes evident that the Titan feels no need to fight. He relays the following information:

• The Conspiracy is missing a key component for their ritual to open a portal for the demon princes.
• Currently both Orcus and Dagon have the ability to enter the natural world at will; however, they won’t leave the Abyss until Demogorgon can leave as well. They each fear the others may take over their domains in their absence.
• The titan admits that he is able to control the demons (who are here because of previous failed rituals), but only to a certain extent. In order to prevent them from turning on him, he lets them feed every night. Although they are warned not to enter any buildings or homes. The Titan assumed that the people of the city would eventually figure this out.
• He has told the party that his is willing to ally with them if they bring him the corpses of one of the demon bands as a sign of competence.

Traveller_PC_Guidelines

Just a quick note about Traveller. Haven’t played it since the original “Classic” Traveller days. It’s a really fun setting, and the system is very easy. I’ll be using the Mongoose version of the game, which is only a few years old. It’s very similar to the original game, but they’ve included more diverse careers for character generation.

I’d like the adventure to be a one- or two-session game, and I want to record it for the podcast.

This is a stand-alone program, much like the Character Builder.

I played with it a little over the weekend. I like it. It’s a little slow, but seem very complete and is very easy to use (especially if you’ve been making monsters by hand).

Now, I haven’t used it extensively yet, but it appears that custom monsters appear in the same list as the rest of the DnD 4E monsters, so finding your new creation can be a task. I’d like to see a separate folder for customized monsters — maybe there is one and I just haven’t found it yet.

Looking forward to seeing what those other four buttons are for …

It’s at happyjacks.org.

This is basically a cleaned up version of my adventure notes. The maps are the original maps that I used for the game, and they may be inconsistent with some of the information in the text. Compliments about my artwork on the map are welcome, but no, I do not do work on commission.

Mount_Gorim_Mine (.pdf, 2.5mb)

As several players couldn’t make this, the opening session, I designed a quick dungeon crawl. Several of us wanted to run through a game to see how well we knew the new combat system, but I didn’t want the full-on story arch to start when I was missing so many players.

The party discovers that Xavier Birdstaff, vizer to the Duke, is looking for a group to discover why the Stout Baron Gorim has not delivered his fealty to the Duke in several weeks. He suspects that the necrotic diseased earth from the nearby ruin of Amana may be spreading and may have reached the Stout Baron’s mine.

The characters make their way to Mount Gorim and discover that the mining camp has been abandoned for several weeks, perhaps longer. They find some of the fealty (ingots of silver and gold) locked in a chest in the make-shift refinery.

They then climb to the mine entrance in the mountain to discover the fate of the miners. The first part of the mine is completely empty (being that all of the silver and gold ore veins have been completely mined. They find a vertical shaft with a counter-weighted elevator and make their way down to the newer mine.

Once there, they hear what sounds like miners working (the clanking of pics and hammers on stone). The slowly travel to the first chamber and discover three dwarven miners working. The party announces their presence and discover that the miners are dead, and have been raised as zombies. They dispatch the fallen dwarfs and make their way to the second chamber, where there are more dwarf zombies.

After these are dispatched, they discover a pit where the rest of the dwarf miners’ bodies were burned so they wouldn’t animate.

Finally, they discover the source of the undead curse, a large natural chamber, with a river of black liquid running through it. In the chamber is the dismembered body of the Stout Baron. His ghost is wandering around the chamber, and after a few minutes of exploration, the Stout Baron’s ghost relates the tale of how they discovered this chamber and how the miners met their fates.

Finally, he asked that the party tell Xavier Birdstaff that he would like to see him again, as they were old friends.

I’ve created a wiki for Eldemy.  There’s nothing there yet.

Briefly, Eldemy is the name of a large harbor city, as well as the peninsula on which is resides. Its access to major trade routes and waterways makes the city a hub of commerce and a concentration of wealth. The city enjoys an unusual level of security, thanks to the four Pillars of Bahamut, which create a wall of fire that separates the peninsula from the mainland. As a result, the entire peninsula is safe haven for merchants, nobility, farmers and anyone else seeking fortune and security.

This, of course, will all change.

Here is the player information I’ve posted:

Eldemy-Player-Information

As any of my former gaming compatriots can tell you, I’ve always held a certain disdain for Dungeons & Dragons. I first played D&D in seventh grade, somewhere around 1977 or 1978. It introduced me to a hobby that I actively pursued for nearly the next twenty years.

Through the rest of junior high school and high school I played a number of games, including Traveller, Car Wars, Space Opera and several others.

Early in my college years, after complaining to a friend that I wanted a more realistic, yet playable system, I was introduced to the Generic Universal Role-Playing System, or GURPS. This was a game I could sink my teeth in to. It was realistic, yet very playable. And I faithfully played GURPS for many years, including a GURPS Fantasy campaign that lasted more than a decade.

Recently, I discovered that D&D 4th Edition was released, so I went out and bought Dungeons and Dragons Core Rulebooks, 4th Edition.

Why, you might ask. Why change systems when I already know GURPS? There are two reasons:

1. I didn’t want to have to invent an entirely new world from scratch. I can just use the world details from D&D.
2. D&D is, by far, the most played roleplaying game out there. There are a lot of players out there, so I’ll have a larger pool to find good players.

Enough ancient history. My first impressions of D&D 4th Edition. Most of this will be parsed in response to the criticisms I’ve heard from those who’ve reviewed it before.

One caveat: I haven’t played any scenarios yet. I’ve only familiarized myself with the rules and run a few sample combats to see how the system works. That being said, most of the criticisms I’ve heard are just dumb.

Common Complaint: D&D 4th Edition pidgeon-holes characters into very specific roles.

My response: You’re playing D&D. D&D has always had character classes. That, in and of itself, pidgeon-holes characters! If you’ve been playing D&D since the basic set or AD&D days, you’ve been playing a pidgeon-holing game for almost thirty years. Why are you objecting to it now? Fourth Edition is certainly doing more of that now, with the inclusion of roles. Roles are detailed in each classes’ description, and the game mechanics encourage players of each class to play those roles in combat encounters. But roles aren’t hard-and-fast rules, they are suggestions based on the revised mechanics of the game.

Common Complaint: 4th Edition doesn’t include my favorite class, race, etc. in the core rules.

My response: Get over it, Mary. The new Player’s Handbook is more than 300 pages long. I’ve read damn near the whole book. Apart from a few full-page pieces of artwork, there’s not a lot of fluff. It goes into great detail for every character class (which includes: Clerics, Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, Rogues, Warlocks and Wizards) and race (Dragonborn, Dwarf, Eladrin, Elf, Half-Elf, Halfling, Human and Tiefling). There are also chapters on Skills, Feats (which you gain by leveling and they are roughtly analogous to advantages in GURPS), Equipment, Combat and Rituals (which I would describe as “adventuring” spells. Not usable in combat, but in the rest of the game).

With all of this included — in just the Player’s Handbook — including more classes and races would add many pages to the book. Wizards of the Coast can’t include everything. That would be dumb business. Which brings me to my next complaint.

Common Complaint: Wizards is going to put all the stuff I want in other books, so I’ll have to buy them.

My response: Yes, they are. First and foremost, Wizards of the Coast is a business, which has to pay rent, payroll, printing costs, utilities, maybe employee benefits, insurance, etc. They need to make money. If they don’t, they’ll cease to exist.

But more importantly, they need new players to come to the game. Me, for instance. I’d much rather drop a hundred bucks for the core rules than 300. Maybe that’s just me. If a new player might be interested in playing the game, they can pay about $30 for the Player’s Handbook, and as long as they’re not DMing, they’re good to go.

It is in the best interests of Wizards of the Coast — and the whole RPG community — to keep the barrier of entry to the hobby as cheap as possible. Get ‘em interested and get ‘em playing. Once they’re hooked, some will inevitably want to try their hand at DMing and buy the Monster Manual and Dungeon Master’s Guide, others will want to expand their character possibilities and buy the Player’s Handbook 2.

But if you were to tell some guy who wants to try DMing D&D again, “oh, you’ll need to buy these three eighty-dollar books to get started,” he’s going to think twice. When you have a hobby that’s competing with Worlds of Warcraft, the internet in general, television, sports, sex, drugs, rock and roll and drinking, you want the entry to your hobby to be cheap and painless. Later on you can expand your library and create a richer gaming experience, but you don’t want to throw the whole kitchen sink at new players right from the start — you’ll scare them away.

Common Complaint: 4th Edition is too much like an MMORPG (massively multi-player online role-playing game — ie. Worlds of Warcraft, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, etc.)

My response: Yes, it does look a lot like MMORPGs — the feats and powers especially.I’m not sure why this is a problem.

Perhaps Wizards of the Coast intend to integrate the rules set into their own MMORPG. Maybe they’ll one day create an online experience that has some of the aspects pencil and paper gaming has that MMORPGs don’t.

Maybe they’re trying to capture some of the 11 million WOW players by modifying the system to something with which they are more familiar.

Common Complaint: 4th Edition skills checks removes the role-playing aspect of the game.

My Response: If this happens in your game, you need a new DM. GURPS had skill checks and contests of skills from day one. Someone wants to convince a Duke to help out the party? The rules say to make a diplomacy check (or maybe some others). I say, “You are standing before the Duke. Make your plea for help.” Then I’ll tell the player to respond to the Dukes questions and concerns. If he’s convincing, I’ll give give a big fat bonus to his roll.”

Now I’d like to give you my review

Good Points

1. 4th Edition is very well-written. It is written with no assumption that the reader has ever played D&D or knows anything about RPGs in general.
2. 4th Edition seems well-balanced. I’ve run a few single PC vs. same-level monster combats to get familiar with the combat system. In every case, the fights were very close — some PC victories, some not. Every time, the victor had very few HP left. So for a DM, coming up with balanced encounters should be a very simple task.
3. 4th Edition includes sound advice for playing a good game. The Dungeon Master’s Guide is a triumph. Just the information in Chapter 2, Running the Game, is worth the price of admission. It includes all of the things GMs learn over many hours of play. A beginning GM will be able to run a decent game if he or she takes the advice in this book to heart.
4. 4th Edition game mechanics are consistent. All rolls use the same, or very similar, standards. Higher is always better. Much of these changes have been around for 10 years, since the D20 system came about, but having only played the old AD&D, this is new to me. The mechanics are similar to Champions, where you have generic “powers” that are simply described differently. This means that the mechanics of playing a fighter or a wizard in combat are very similar, though the tactics may vary greatly.

Bad Points

1. Although the books are organized better than any previous editions I’ve played, there are still some problems. All of the combat rules should be in one place. It would be nice if things like the ability modifier used was included on the weapons table. There’s a lot of skipping around necessary to find all relevant rules. There was probably an editorial decision to not repeat rules, as having the same rule in more than one place can lead to inaccuracies, which will lead to contradictions. I also think a flowchart for the combat system would be useful, especially early on.
2. As the characters advance in level, there is a steady march to god-like power. This has kind of always been a problem with D&D. There is a constant escalation, a sort of arms race between the players and the DM. Here’s an excerpt that explains what I see as the problem
   

   In the epic tier, your character’s capabilities are truly superheroic. Your class still determines most of your abilities, but your most dramatic powers come from your choice of epic destiny, which you select at 21st level. You travel across nations in the blink of an eyes, your whole party might take to the air in combat. The success or failure of your adventures has far-reaching consequences, possibly determining the fate of millions in this world and even planes beyond…

   Yeah. So basically, you go from a fantasy game to a superhero game. To me, this means you can’t run a campaign for years unless players retire their characters. Otherwise, the escalation of power will become ridiculous. I want my adventures to start in a tavern, not on Mount Olympus.

3. The God-damned DM Screen! Gaah! In keeping with the fine TSR tradition, the DM Screen contains some information the DM will use often and other information the DM will use rarely. This has always infuriated me.
   The DM Screen should make the game go faster, and the part of the game that consistently needs to go fast is combat. Why is there a monster experience chart on the DM Screen? If I’m looking at it, combat’s over. While everyone’s taking a breather, the DM can look up the XP. Why do I need a flippin’ tavern menu? WHY? Do I really need to know that a pitcher of ale costs 2 silver? What horrible thing (apart from the tavern gaining a reputation for being expensive) is going to happen if I charge the PCs 4 silver? How about including a little note about what triggers an opportunity attack, rather than sending me to page 290?
4. A one-page index? Really? In the old days, when typesetting consisted of moving wax coated slips of paper around on a layout board, I could see how coming up with an index would be rather tedious and time-consuming. But 4th Edition was written on a computer — I know this because I saw the .pdfs that Wizards sent to their printer on BitTorrent, registration marks and all. Making an index is an automated process now — most software is so good at it, it’s overkill. You can always edit out the 4000 entries for the word “the.”
   Here’s a shining example: the Player’s Handbook index doesn’t have an entry for the word “level!” What if I want to find the level chart after I’ve divied up experience? Oh, that’s right, it’s on the DM Screen, ’cause, you know, you might need to level in the heat of combat…

Don’t get me wrong, having perused the core books, I think the folks at Wizard of the Coast have done a fine job, making a set of rules that is easy to understand and in many ways intuitive. I just get a little carried away when I see the same problems that have existed for thirty years and four editions. But those problems are minor annoyances at best. The lack of an index will become unimportant once I’m more familiar with the rules. And I’ll tape over the crap that doesn’t belong on a DM Screen with the stuff they should have included — I’ve done it before.