Battle of the Witchlight Hermitage Coming to DDI

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My next D&D adventure for Dungeon magazine issue #191 / D&D Insider is due out later this month:

Battle of the Witchlight Hermitage
Shadowmire, the black wyrm of the Witchlight Fens, doesn’t like his neighbors. Can you protect a poorly defended hermitage from the dragon’s wrath? A D&D adventure for characters of levels 3–5, designed to support Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale.
As you might guess, it builds on some of my sections of Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale, to be released June 21.Check out the issue's cover art on the for a hint to the adventure...(though for some reason, I can't see it in firefox...may be a setting here, since it works in IE and android)

Star Wars Wendesday - How long did that take?

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Action scenes in roleplaying games are major highlights in the game. In Star Wars, more often than not, they should be THE highlight of the session, or the campaign. Creating good cinematic sequences is key.

Remember that action doesn't always mean combat. There doesn't even need to be a direct physical threat, if there is enough drama in the scene. The results of failure can manifest itself in other ways - the characters didn't get there in time to prevent x from happening, for instance.

Creating a good action sequence can be difficult.

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Star Wars Wednesday - Newsnets

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So, it's still Wednesday, right? Sorry for the delay, things got considerably busier at the end of the day than I expected...

Today, or what's left of it, I want to talk a bit about distributing information within the game, for those RPG fans out there. I'm talking mainly about clues and backstory - information that the gamemaster wants the players and their characters to learn about, but may not want to spend a lot of session time playing it out. Sure, the GM can read it out, or play it out with GM characters, but this runs the risk of halting play for a lot of exposition. Handing over a sheaf of campaign notes aren't likely to be read either, no matter how interested the players may be.

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Star Wars Wednesday - Yoda's Species in Play

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A long time ago, in a meeting far, far away, George Lucas declared that Yoda's species details would remain a secret. Generally, I'm fine with that - it's a big galaxy, and it's nice to have unknown bits. We don't even know the species name. For game designers, this presented certain challenges - how do you stat out Yoda or one of the other two known members of the species?
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CHAOS D&D and GenCon 2011

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I see from my site stats that a few eager GenCon 2011 attendees/players found my old post on CHAOS D&D, some through a google search. Thanks for the interest! I've gone back and edited the plot info out of the entry, but reading it may still give a way some spoilers on how the game itself is played. Though that in and of itself is not a secret (CHAOS has been running for years at ShaunCon and KC Game Fair), it's still more fun for some people to experience it first hand.

As to the plot info earlier readers or players may have read/played, CHAOS plots have a way of developing over time (and even in game), so I'm sure it won't be exactly the same this time around.

For those who aren't following all of that, the Roleplayers Guild of Kansas City, Ltd. is running two rounds of its long running Chaotically Hysterical Association of Systems (CHAOS) event at GenCon 2011.

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Star Wars Wednesday - May the 4th Be With You

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May the 4th be with you!

Sorry for the late post today. When I realized yesterday that there would be a lot of Star Wars related activity today, the mostly unofficial Star Wars day, I decided to hold off at least until after the countdown clock on starwars.com expired, in case it was important. By then, of course, I was at work and ended up working late, so I'm just now getting to this.

As my friends and family know well, I like puns. You'd think I would be a fan of a something like the title of this day. Sorry, but this one just never clicked with me. Apparently the fun continues tomorrow with the Revenge of the 5th. I do find the combination of jokes funnier than either individually, for whatever reason.

Anyway, there was a lot of Star Wars around the web, at least. Here's a quick roundup of some of the better stuff, for those who missed it:

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