Dragonborn in Greyhawk

When 5th edition came out I decided to restart an old Greyhawk campaign that I had run in 2005. Several new races were included in 5th edition that weren't in older products. Dragonborn aren't included in the overwhelming number of Greyhawk products. So I Googled Dragonborn and came up with a few ideas for including them in the campaign. These are some of my notes. I used Player's Handbook Races – Dragonborn as a inspiration as well as Dragon Magazine. Skip Williams published a Greyhawk map of a continent on the other side of Oerth and the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer notes that Oerth has four continents. I decided that dragonborn originated from the other continent. Its basically a blank slat for DMs to work with. One of the countries on the map was Lynn. Lynn was founded on the ruins of ancient Arkhoisa three hundred hundred years ago. It has lived in relative piece since then. When the empire of Arkhoisa flew in the turmoil several hundred dragonborn sailed across the vast Solnor Ocean in search of new lands. Here they found the human and demihuman races of the Flanness. Once settled they multiplied and moved across the Flanness. Over time other dragonborn migrated to the Flanness as well. The dragonborn have prospered in the Flanness working their powerful magic or hiring themselves out as mercenaries. They are as diverse as the dragons that spawned them ages ago. The descendants of blue dragons have found work with Rary in the Bright desert while white blooded dragons fight alongside Suel mercenaries in the Northern reaches of the Flanness. These are just a few of my ideas for fitting dragonborn into Greyhawk. Any thoughts?

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Chhanges....to Organized Play

D&D Adventurers League Player's Guide: a review

Today Wizards of the Coast released the new 21 page guide to organized play: D&D Adventurers League Player's Guide. . The new guide is designed to be the starting point for new Wizards of the Coast organized play campaigns. Earlier this year Wizards announced that they were doing away with their traditional organized play structure namely the RPGA, which stood for the Role Playing Game Association which was started in 1980 by Frank Mentzer. Going forward Wizards has broken down organized play into three parts, Encounters (their traditional weekly store based games) D&D Expeditions (convention based scenario play) and D&D Epics (large multi table events exclusive to large conventions such as GenCon) The guide outlines in three parts, Characters, the campaign and other information for game play. Part one - characters contains the biggest surprise. Evil characters are now allowed to be played. This might come as a shock to some long time members of the organized play community. Since the first organized play campaign Living City was started in 1987, evil characters have not been allowed. This was continued in Wizards 3rd edition campaign Living Greyhawk, D&D Campaigns like Xen'drik Expeditions and the Pazio Pathfinder supported campaign Pathfinder Society. Both of which are/were highly popular campaigns. Some might say that evil characters can be disruptive to game play. In the rules for the campaign Wizards has included some of the rules for infractions which used to exist under the old RPGA. It allows for the DM to control problem players at the table. The Forgotten Realms and the area of the Moonsea in particular, is the focus of the campaign. The guide also outlines the new faction system borrowed from Pathfinder Society. Joining factions such as the Zhentarim and the Harpers allow players to have additional in game motivations apart from successful conclusion of the adventure. But with evil characters allowed I imagine that Wizards has decided to take a bold, and some might say controversial step in Organized Play.

EDIT: Apparently evil PCs were allowed at some point during Encounters. But I have never played Encounters.

If you want to continue the discussion my Twitter ID is qstor2. Thanks!

Setting the Stage

Wizards of the Coast recently announced the schedule for releases for the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons with much fanfare. In early April Chris Perkins one of the designers for the new edition announced at PAX East that there would be Eberron support and in an article in Forbes it was announced that Ravenloft would receive support. Although at this point I'm not sure if its beyond a new board game. Perennial favorite the Forgotten Realms is also receiving strong support and is the focal point of the new Organized Play campaign as it was for 4th edition.

Mike Mearls another designer of the new edition has gone out of his way to make sure that the new edition is simple, easily convertible from past editions and embraces core elements of the old editions like Vancian Magic. But one step that Wizards of the Coast can take to wholly embrace fans of older editions is to publish editions of old D&D settings too. As much as I'd like to see an edition of Greyhawk. I think that's unlikely for a variety of reasons. Some of the other settings more likely are:

1. Dragonlance : Kender were in the play test editions and creator Margaret Weis has expressed some interest on Twitter in having a new edition of the Dragonlance published setting using the new rules for D&D.

2. Planescape – a setting that was overlooked in 3rd and 4th editions and has a lot of hardcore fans. Plancescape writers such as Colin McComb and Monte Cooke have moved onto other work but perhaps a new generation of writers can pick up were they left off.

3. Mystara – Wizards of the Coast refused to license this setting when author and ex TSR employee Bruce Heard announced plans to do a Kickstarter based on his stories in Dragon magazine. Perhaps the beloved Basic D&D setting will be revlived in the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons?

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Mastadons and Cave Men oh my!

Looking for something different for your next game. I recently backed Primeval-Thule on Kickstarter. Its written in part by WOTC veteran Rich Baker. The page suggests its something different. It has its basis in dark magic and pulp writers like Robert E Howard and the fierce worlds of Edgar Rice Burrough’s plus lost worlds and horror. This is the first setting apart from Freeport that I've backed on Kickstarter. I did just its not just another generic fantasy world. It doesn't seen that an Elminster would have a part here. Its more like the old school animated movie Fire & Ice which I'm a fan of. So if you're looking for a Kickstarter project to back before GenCon. I'd say chip in and help fund this one. Also it gives support to the new 13th Age system which I haven't picked up yet but I'm looking forward to getting a copy.

GenCon Viva Las Vegas!

So this week I made my schedule out for GenCon Indy This will be my 9th GenCon. I'm pretty excited as I didn't go last year. One thing that disappointed me this year was the issues I had getting a room. I registered about two weeks after registration opened. However by that time the room blocks were ALREADY sold out. They say that attendance is growing each year. One of the reasons the GenCon LLC moved the convention to Indianapolis in the first place was the shrinking hotel capacity for Milwaukee. Now if Indy is having the same issue maybe GenCon should move to Las Vegas! In all seriousness I'm not a meeting planner or development expert but two sites on the Internet: Meeting Source and CVent. Seem to suggest that Indianapolis isn't even in the top 25 for hotel and convention space. I guess GenCon LLC picked it cause it was in the Midwest but so is Chicago. Meeting source says that Washington DC is number three. OK I'm sold on there but I live 40 minutes from DC and work there so I'm biased. Maybe Las Vegas is a good choice. Its number two according to Meeting Source, lots for non-gaming family members to do. It has an airport that's reached from a ton of locations. I can't say that Indianapolis has a ton of direct flights. BUT I know that you can get a direct flight to Las Vegas from Flint, Michigan. So there Peter Atkinson! Viva Las Vegas for GenCon 2014 anyone? A plug for Sean K. Reynolds. His list here is a good starting point for GenCon newbies on how to get a handle on the convention.

Organized Play or Find a new love

A lot of people I think have always questioned the role of organized play games in the context of the overall game experience. For people not familiar with organized play. A character is created with a certain rule set and guidelines and that character is given experience at an end of a 4 to five hour module. The character then can be take to other organized play games such at GenCon. The rules are specific and experience is tracked by such things as a logsheet. After the four hour session play continues with another adventure, where ever that adventure takes place. It is different from a home game which a DM normally runs for a group of friends and play freezes then picks up later. I think at first when they were created by Frank Mentzer at TSR in 1980 they were to connect games. The Role Playing Gamer's Association grew from a local Midwest USA focus to cover the world. TSR allowed the RPGA to use other systems such as Shadowrun for Virtual Seattle and Call of Cthulhu for its adventures. This ended in around 2003 when marketing the d20 system for 3.5e became the focus of the RPGA. In 2008 when WOTC switched to the 4th edition rules set for D&D it killed its eight year 3.5e campaign Living Greyhawk and started a new campaign Living Forgotten Realms (LFR). Paizo created it own organized play group the Patfinder Society. The rules for LFR had a few changes such as module replay allowing a new character to play a module that an older character had played. Also modules were set to optimize the 4e rules set not allowing sleep or extended rests for the majority of play. Recently with the announcement of 5th edition or #dndnext is its been termed. A few people in my local area have been complaining about the lack of commmitment from WOTC to LFR. I think this needs to be looked at with the purpose of oraganized play or marketing. As much as people don't care for this WOTC is putting its energy into dndnext. As much as it pains my friends to see their love (for LFR) much like mine for Living Greyhawk start to die dndnext is coming out in 2014 so LFR is a relationship that is doomed to end.

I'm feeling loquacious so I thought I'd post again...A friend of mine Jeff posted today on his Google+ page that he'd gotten some more titles from Appendix N. Appendix N refers to the 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide p. 22. The author Gary Gygax included a list of fantasy and science fiction books that he thought might be of some use to assiring Dungeon Masters. Jeff inspired me to crack open my DMG and take a look at what titles were on the list. I hadn't remembered all the titles on the list. I was amazed (in a good way) to find Manly Wade Wellman. A long time ago, I purchased a few of his used hardbacks on Amazon.com because Wellman was a main source of inspiration for another love of mine Hellboy creator, Mike Mignola. Mignola was mainly inspired by the character of Silver John. Silver John was kind of an occult detective in the Appalachian Mountains in mid 20th century America. I'm not sure if Gary read those novels. Wellman was a pulp writer who died in 1986. I can see that other pulp writers infuenced Gary. I was suprised today at the link between Hellboy and D&D. I wonder if Gary would include the graphic novels of Mignola in a "new" Appendix N. I could see using In Nomine or GURPS as a system for a Hellboy game. But Hellboy himself might have too much over the characters. Some of the themes and settings of Hellboy don't seem to fit directly into a fantasy game. Maybe some link to Ravenloft? Who knows..