SND-02: OOC

Starting Monday August 20th, DMG 42 will be hosting a play-by-post delve of SND-02: Fane of the Heresiarch.This post will be used, starting now, for Out Of Character discussions by the players. It is done here in public, as opposed to private emails; for the amusement of the adventure's author, the Dungeon Master, and those Fourthcore Fanatic whom are lurking among the shadows. I will be periodically shifting the post date to stay one step behind the most current PbP room.

UPDATE: The Comment limit has been quickly reached! In lieu of creating many many OOC posts for the remainder of the adventure, the dungeoneers are now simply emailing each other for coordination. Sorry, lurkers! It's just too much hassle.

The Seven Sons of Moradin - actual play log

By reader request, I've linked and opened up the Google Docs continuing log of The Seven Sons of Moradin D&D campaign that I play in on Thurday nights. It's pretty neat to read, as many of the recent innovative posts here at DMG42 were created through its play, such as the popular Death and Reincarnation mechanics.

The notes are written very hastily, during the middle of the game, while we're drinking beers. So, it's a little sloppy at times, but very natural and organic, taking place entirely from the players' perspectives and relaying information that we find important without the shadow of the DM's plot schemes hanging over the descriptions.

Scenes from PAX East

Worth a thousand words, right? Here are some snapshots of some of my my D&D activities last weekend.

WotC's booth in the exhibitor hall with a huge ass Lolth statue

PAX East 2012 DM Challange

Pregame setup

PAX East 2012 has come and gone in a whirlwind of activity. Among my favorite events this year, as was last year, was WotC's DM Challenge. Although I found many of the same troubles and frustrations as before, this time around proved to be at least a little more fruitful, in no small part to hard work done at Dungeon Oracle.

Exploring the Lich-Queen's Beloved (Part 7)

This post continues to document the journey through The Lich-Queen's Beloved (4E). The up to date conversion and latest notes and changes inspired by the actual play can be found here. Have at thee!


IF YOU ARE PLAYING IN THIS CAMPAIGN, DON'T READ THIS

Exploring the Lich-Queen's Beloved (Part 6)

This post continues to document the journey through The Lich-Queen's Beloved (4E). The up to date conversion and latest notes and changes inspired by the actual play can be found here. Have at thee!

IF YOU ARE PLAYING IN THIS CAMPAIGN, DON'T READ THIS

The hatchery is a secret location in Vor Rukoth that Abilene has created . She has agreed to help repopulate the devastated Dragonborn species in exchange for their (literally) undying loyalty.

Exploring the Lich-Queen's Beloved: Part 5

This post continues to document the journey through The Lich-Queen's Beloved (4E). The up to date conversion and latest notes and changes inspired by the actual play can be found here. Have at thee!

IF YOU ARE PLAYING IN THIS CAMPAIGN, DON'T READ THIS

The Three Pillars of Fourthcore

Recently, the idea of describing Dungeons & Dragons by three generalized spheres of play, three pillars if you will, has come into popular usage; those three pillars being roleplaying, exploration, and combat. I think it’s a nice way to organize the game and a good tool to have and think about when designing a dungeon and/or adventure.

Here’s a prediction of mine, or perhaps a mild suggestion to Wizards of the Coast: If the three pillars concept describes the core values of any Dungeons & Dragons game, the very basics that are going on here, then those ought to be the three most core, most basic, most necessary releases for D&D Next. Yes, I’m talking about the PHB, DMG, and MM.

Furthermore, I believe that any successful Fourthcore dungeon must be tested against three additional pillars: strategy, tactics, and luck. Whether you are designing a Fourthcore dungeon or preparing to delve into one, you must ask yourself if you are prepared to conquer these three additional foci.

Exploring the Lich-Queen's Beloved, Part 4

This post continues to document the journey through The Palace of Whispers, as started here. This post will actually be recapping two week's worth of play (again). Have at thee!

IF YOU ARE PLAYING IN THIS CAMPAIGN, DON'T READ THIS

The Lost Crown of Tesh-Naga: Play-By-Post

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love PbP

I'll be the first to admit it, I did not like the concept, the very idea of playing Dungeons & Dragons in a play-by-post format. Without the face-to-face aspect, the very heart and soul of the game is lost. If you're going to run a play-by-post game, sitting alone in front of your computer screen, why not just play a video game? I thought play-by-post was for D&D players who didn't have any friends.

I was mistaken.

Through the enormous and overwhelming success of the Fourthcore Team Deathmatch blog, which includes a heavy dosage of play-by-post matches, I have come to learn the strengths of a play-by-post format and have embraced it.

• I can play D&D on the sly while at work. Blogger gets through the firewall, for the win!
• It allows friends from across the globe to get together and play a form of D&D. If there were only some sort of official version of this concept, a "virtual table" of sorts. If only.
• Everyone can play at their own pace, on their own time, only needing to spend a few minutes here and there out of their all-too-busy schedule.
• Cold and calculated, the players of a play-by-post game offer a scenario to the Dungeon Master where they can bring forth their best ideas without as much of a time pressure. This is very useful for testing out ideas to the breaking point. If your idea doesn't get broke in play-by-post, then it's fool proof for a real game.
• It's very fun, way more fun than I could have imagined, and way more fun than I'm sure you're thinking.

With that in mind, I want to formally announce that I am looking for players for the DMG 42 Lost-Crown of Tesh-Naga Play-by-Post!


Although the adventure has extremely high replay value, the adventure will be open only to players whom have never before read or played through it. If this is successful, I will run it again with a group of all LCT-N veterans. To those veterans out there: don't spoil anything!


To sign up, simply drop a comment below.

Your ability to comment on this blog is pretty crucial, so that will be your first test. I am looking for at least four players, but hopefully we will grab the maximum number of seven. Due to the special nature of this adventure, character sheets will be limited to fit the guidelines of the seven available character archetypes. More on that when you sign up. I'm looking to wait at least a couple of weeks to start this thing; so mid to late February.

Milwaukee Joe has provided a good summary of how the Play-By-Post style works, which can be found here.

I've spoken about this adventure before: here. I've temporarily disabled the links to make it easier to resist the temptation to look up all the goodies and spoil the fun surprises. That said, it's still possible to do so if you know where to look, so please do not go hunting for the adventure. You'll ruin all the fun!

Exploring the Lich-Queen's Beloved, Part 2

This post continues to document the journey through The Palace of Whispers, as started here.

Picking up where we left off from the last game, the dungeoneers had (very briefly) faced Abilene the Iron Lich after stumbling into her throne room. Some very lucky rolls delayed the penultimate Level + 5 Solo villain of the adventure enough to give the dungeoneers a moment to retreat. Abilene had managed to cast a spell on the Shardmind Invoker of the group, turning his floating rocky body into a statue of solid steel. Failing multiple saving throws, he was petrified. Forever!

Or at least until the group found an old potion of flesh restored they had lying around. In this campaign, all magic items need to be physically present at the table in the form of a small printed card, or else it is unusable. It's a good method of keeping track of things, and makes sure that the players take some time taking care of their character sheets and whatnot. It does also place some burden on me, the Dungeon Master, as I'm responsible for having a printout of all treasure. However, I've found this to be a minor inconvenience. Also, dungeoneers are forbidden from crafting magic items.

Even though the group solved that problem/dungeoneer death very quickly, it hurt them pretty bad. That was their one and only potion of flesh restored, and it certainly won't be their last run-in with Abilene the Iron Lich. This session had a lot of fat trimming from the stores of magic items accumulated over the years, as the dungeoneers are looking to at everything they can get their hands on to give themselves an advantage.

Exploring the Lich-Queen's Beloved, Part 01

This is the first part of a series of posts I will be doing that provides commentary and guidance on running my 4E D&D conversion of the 3E adventure "The Lich-Queen's Beloved", found here.

I've also added quite a few embellishments from the Fourthcore Alphabet into the mix, but have not made those parts too public so as not to be posting huge pieces of a paid-for text.

If you're a player in this game, please stop reading now so I can surprise you at the table!

Add Mystery in Your Dungeon

Just the other day I had the great pleasure of playing in a game of D&D, as a player, and having an amazingly fun time. If you're the kind of person who spends their free time looking through the internet to read obscure D&D blogs like DMG 42, then you're probably like me and don't often get the opportunity to be on that side of the screen. So, you understand well what an opportunity it was just for me to be in that seat. The campaign I'm in is set in Dark Sun and we're almost out of Heroic Tier. I've only been involved with the group for a short while, I'm really just filling in for a missing player that had to be out of town for a few months, so I don't know a lot of the background or story details. Although, honestly, I don't very much care to know the story details.

One of the other players, surprisingly not myself, had privately mentioned to the Dungeon Master that they would appreciate a little more challenge. A little more Fourthcore, if you will. The player, Matt, has quite a mastery of the 4E system, he's a "min/maxer" type with a reputation for simply annihilating standard issue combat encounters with ease. It's quite something to watch, really. He goes by Bohrdumb on the Fourthcore Team Deathmatch Play-by-Posts and the WotC boards, for those who care. Thankfully, our Dungeon Master happily obliged. This is something that shouldn't just be glanced past. It takes a little bit of guts to do something like this, from both the player and Dungeon Master. Both are making the game more stressful, more thoughtful, and less reliant on easily obtained DDi adventures. Things go out on a limb, things go past the prescribed ways to setup combat encounters. Of course, this is done because things also get fun!

The Lich-Queen's Beloved

from d3.heroes-centrum.com

This autumn has been a series of wrap-ups and finale's for me and my campaigns. Immediately on the heels of the 4E Modern campaign's conclusion, my group and I jump back to our long-running 4E D&D campaign, now just breaking into epic tier, and conclude the long-standing stories there by wrapping up all the loose ends over the course of a Level or two.

When it was published, I was inspired by Rodney Thompson's "Adapting the Lich-Queen's Beloved" article on DDi. The article goes to describe the author's experiences converting a treasure of an adventure from a (slightly) older edition to 4E and the benefits thereof. The experiences described felt very Fourthcore to me, very much in line with the kinds of adventures I like to run and play in. If you haven't already, please go check it out, as well as the link to the original 3rd Edition adventure. After reading it, I did, however, find myself a little disappointed in the lack of full stat blocks and enough details to really run the adventure in the 4E milieu. I imagine Rodney did what most of us do; print out what you got and wing it! That is a fantastic methods, which often leads to a lot of improv and creativity, but that's not what I wanted.

So when thinking about things and reading the original Lich-Queen's Beloved (LQB), it struck me as a perfect basis of design for creating the capstone to wrap up my D&D campaign. Hence, I have developed a fully written up 4E D&D conversion to LQB, taking many cues from Fourthcore in general and the Fourthcore Armory specifically, going so far as to develop Rumor Cards for my players.

[4E Modern] Middle East Adventure

Retired general, Moshe Dyan

My 4E Modern campaign is coming to its natural close, having been planned out to be a short romp of only 3 Levels. To finish, I decided to convert one of my favorite DDi adventures to the Modern system and aesthetic, Rob Schwalb's Bark at the Moon. To get a better understanding of the 4E Modern adventure, please go check out the original D&D adventure here.

Some highlights:
* An NPC Henchmen, whom my group thought looked like (and thus became) Rebecca Black
* Modern era terrain hazards, such as landmines, machine gun nests, and barbed wire
* Two new Modern era afflictions, Radiation Sickness and Roid Rage, mechanically akin to diseases
* Nuclear weaponry
* Magical assault rifles
* Dude with an eye patch
* A threat to plunge the Middle East into war, just before peace has finally been reached

WARNING: This conversion to Bark at the Moon is a farcical and irreverent look at Israeli-Palestinian relations. It is a touchy subject of which I am no expert. If you feel at all strongly about Middle East issues, just go ahead and please, do not read this adventure and get pissed off.

The adventure is formatted in my own 4E Modern style, so you'll see creatures' attacks listed as flat, static values instead of a modifier to a die roll. I also abbreviate some attacks and don't write out completely in full the "Hit:" line etc., on most attacks. If you've been following 4E for any length of time, this should all appear sensible and easy to read, but I wanted to throw a note out there explaining that, while I do know how the official stat blocks are supposed to be constructed, I have chosen not to for brevity on the printout.

This adventure is suitable for 3rd Level Agents.

Download the adventure here!

The Sundering of the Earth - A Fourthcore Adventure

The Sundering
from www.swordofdoom.com

Long ago in a forgotten age, I had entered the PAX East 2011 Dungeon Master's Challenge. My notes for that adventure can be found here. Afterward, I immediately set forth to "upgrade" the adventure to something approaching the Fourthcore moniker, dubbed The Sundering of the Earth. Like most pieces of work, the author was never satisfied with it and it languished in the unknown obscurity of my hard drive awaiting just one more playtest that simply never happened. After much cajoling by my faithful readers whom would enjoy seeing more of the fruits of my labor and some more detail to my PAX adventure, I have acquiesced and hesitantly published what I have. Like everything on DMG 42, I have posted it in the hopes that it helps the Dungeon Masters of the world have a better game at their own table. I dare you to NOT find something within the adventure that does not inspire one of the adventures at your home game!

4E Modern - Session #1 (09/11/2011) Recap & Game Master Notes

I normally don't try and advocate game recaps too much. When I read a recap on another blog I tend to find it boring and trite. However, I have been directly asked to relate my campaign's development, and like my olden days of college radio, it's hard for me to resist a request. If nothing else, these recaps will provide me with a means of communicating some of the implied ideas I have about Modern campaigns, as well as the less than clearly described rules, and subsequent rules tweaks.

Also, stats for evil Nazi Warlocks.

StarCraft Gammacore: The Prisoner

Intro & Rules * Tokens & Sample Characters * Backgrounds, Equipment, Upgrades * Starships

A Gamma World fourthcore adventure for three to six 1st-level characters.

StarCraft: The Prisoner - Preview #3

Intro & Rules * Tokens & Sample Characters * Backgrounds, Equipment, Upgrades * Starships

Adventure Background

It is a period of darkness and chaos in the galaxy. The Terran Dominion has toppled, the few Protoss tribes still alive struggle to unite themselves, and untamed Zerg hordes roam leaderless throughout the galaxy.

This adventure takes place on the covert Terran Dominion military research station, BR-715. With the complete withdrawal of all Dominion military forces in the area, the station has been left on its own and vulnerable to attack. Recently, the station has been transmitting an automated distress signal and has not returned any directed signals inquiring as to their needs.

The Prisoner - Preview #2

Intro & Rules * Tokens & Sample Characters * Backgrounds, Equipment, Upgrades * Starships

Research Cards

The 10 research cards represent clues and bits of lore gleaned by the adventurers before arriving at research station BR-715. Five of these research cards are marked as COMPLETE, and the other five are INCOMPLETE. Of the five COMPLETE research cards, four are true. Of the five INCOMPLETE research cards, only one is true. The players are entitled to know this ratio; however, the precise knowledge of which research is true is reserved for you alone.

At the start of the game, the research cards are shuffled face-down. Each player draws one, reads it aloud to the others, then keeps it face-up in front of them for the duration of the adventure. All research cards are relayed “as-is” – the adventurers cannot use skill checks or any outside means to confirm or deny research, not least because it is assumed they have already done so to the best of their ability before embarking. To determine which research is worth heeding, the adventurers must rely on logic, intuition, and their experience in the station.