Kingbeast’s Lair

The folks over at the Gnome Stew blog really have something great going. If you have not seen their blog head on over and subscribe. One thread that I found particularly interesting was about considerations when running short sessions. As these days everyone has kids and such most of my sessions are short. I learned everything in this post after suffering through it for a couple of years. Save yourself the hardship and give it a read now.

One word…wow.

Found a great blog for Geek Dads…of which I am one.  It is through Wired.  The writer is big into all things geek including gaming (board and RPG).  Lots of great product reviews and other fun stuff around the net.  Here is a link.

I’m not normally one to repost material on my blog but I thought the comments released today from Green Ronin are very interesting. Check it out.

I know a lot of fans have been waiting to find out if Green Ronin is going to support 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons and it’s a fair question. Green Ronin’s second product ever was Death in Freeport, an adventure for 3rd Edition that debuted the same day as the Player’s Handbook almost eight years ago. We went on to do quite a lot of 3E support, ending only a couple of months back with the d20 Freeport Companion. Now Wizards of the Coast is terminating the d20 license and offering a different way to support the new edition of D&D. It’s called the Game System License and we waited from August of last year until June of this year to see it. We’ve spent the last few weeks reviewing the license and discussing it internally and we have come to a consensus.

Green Ronin will not be signing the Game System License (GSL) at this time.

We plan to do one product in support of 4E: the Green Ronin Character Record Folio. This will be an update of the d20 System Character Record Folio and we’ll be publishing it under the Open Game License (OGL).

Other than that we’ll be giving our full attention to our own game lines: Mutants & Masterminds, A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, True20 Adventure Roleplaying, and Freeport: The City of Adventure.

We had hoped to include 4E support in our plans, but the terms of the GSL are too one-sided as they stand. We certainly do not blame Wizards of the Coast for wanting to defend their intellectual property and take more control over the type of support products D&D receives. We do not, however, feel that this license treats third party publishers as valued partners. Under its terms WotC could frivolously sue a signatory for supposed violations of the GSL, lose the actual court case, and still ruin the winning company because the license specifies that the signatory has to pay WotC’s legal fees. Also, the GSL can be changed at any time and WotC is not legally required to so much as inform its licensees.

Let me be clear in stating that I don’t think that the people in charge of WotC currently are just waiting to attack companies with frivolous lawsuits. Once you sign the GSL though, you open yourself up to that at any point in the future. Who knows when new people will take over the D&D brand and who can say what their vision will be? Who knows when the political winds at WotC will change again and things will get even more restrictive? We do not want to operate under such a cloud moving ahead so that’s why we won’t be signing the GSL.

This means the Green Ronin Character Record Folio is the only 4E compatible product you’ll be seeing from us this year and likely for 2009 as well. Perhaps WotC will revise the GSL in the positive way, but we cannot build our business on maybes. We know this will disappoint those of our fans who have embraced 4E and we’re sorry about that. We have to make the best business decision for Green Ronin’s future and right now this is it.

Thank you for your continued support.

Chris Pramas
President
Green Ronin Publishing

We’ve all had them…those nights where nothing you do goes right…well last night I had one of those. Before I get to my plea for help let me explain a bit. I’ve been role-playing for 30 years. During that time I have taken part in many games but for the most part I GM. In fact I probably GM 99% of the time if not more. After every session I go over the details in my mind thinking of how I could have done things better. I’ll then adjust for future session that I run. My players seem to enjoy my games so I must be doing something right. For some reason that skill does not come easy for me on the player side of the screen.

Now…back to last night…

Last night I met with 5 friends to play 4e. This was the first try of 4e for 4 of us…really only 3 of the players and the GM had read any of the PHB. The first thing we did was to divvy out characters. As we had only a short time to play we used all pregens. I took a half-elf cleric of Bahamut. That was probably a mistake as on hindsight I know I like fighters or mages. The session started with a fight that went good for the PC but I had trouble figuring out some of the details so a couple of my moves did basically nothing. For example, I figured I would move up next to a kobold and blast him with a daily power…well that give him an opportunity attack…ok…I’ll shoot first the move…oops…now I can’t give the injured fighter HP as he is too far away…fine…I’ll just do it anyway. My PC was extremely ineffectual. After the fight we went to a city to gather information so that we could continue the adventure. Me and the dragonborn paladin were trying to find out about a death cult that was supposed to be near the town. For some reason every time I went to talk with an NPC I froze up. I’m not sure if it was because of the character I was running or what?!? After the session I could not decide if it was worth staying up late on a work night to game. GASP! That is not like me at all.

So now my plea…

Help me out here players. Does anyone have any advice for getting out of ruts during or after sessions? The advice can be specific to this session (i.e. “I might have done X”) or long term ideas. I want to improve my playing skills…I can self evaluate as a GM but it is hard for me as a player.

GAME ON!

–== What I Like ==–

The hooks and cave content descriptions are the best part of the product. They are pretty imaginative and can be adapted to fit most campaign worlds very easy. For my post apocalyptic fantasy game that I am running it fits almost perfectly.

The maps are very artistic and have a sort of rustic flair. Speaking of the maps…

–== What I D0 NOT Like ==–

By far the biggest issue with the product are the maps. There are really two big issues.

The main complex map is presented at the end of the module. It is split on 4 pages in an uneven fashion, there is no scale, it is not clear, and rooms are not marked at all. It is literally a process of examining the individual room maps and text to try and figure out where they belong on the main complex map. Since the map is not clear it is not easy to find where stuff is located. In fact this map is so unclear that I am contemplating having to remake it for my game.

The room sized maps look neat but there is no scale or delineation of the various objects at all. “How big is this cave?” “Where is the slit that has the basilisk?”

My only other complaints are not as serious. I would have like to see more detail on the chief and shaman. More information on their preferred method of attack and their personalities would have be good. I also wanted to see a bit more content. Maybe a few more unique rooms??? There are not that many unique areas to the caves. My final gripe is that in several places the English is not great. I know this is from a Polish company but I am buying an English product so I expect clear verbiage.

–== Summary ==–

Fine if you need some added content for your game. The price point of $8 is right on the money. You can get a copy at DriveThruRPG using this link.

I give it 6 out of 10 paws.

I uploaded the game log from session #8 and posted the characters. The game log is the final scene from Yorkshire Horrors. Characters are provided in MetaCreator and PDF formats. The PDF versions are really spiffy. Head over to the TIAM pages for all of this great stuff. See the left sidebar for the link.

Looks dark and very very cool!

Batman Gotham Knight - Official Trailer

The TIAM game log has been updated for sessions #6 and #7. It is now current. See the link in the left pane for details.

The TIAM game log has been updated for session #5.  It is now current.  See the link in the left pane for details.