Saturday, September 20, 2014
Friday, September 19, 2014
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Acquisitions Incorporated
There are some people I play D&D with who have not seen Acquisitions Incorporated, so this post is for them. Everybody else - stop reading. Oh, okay - read along if you must - other people.
Back, like, about a billion years ago, Wizards of the Coast made a podcast to showcase their new (then) version of Dungeons and Dragons - 4th edition. They got some funny people - Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade, and Scott Kurtz from PvP - to play a round of D&D and show what it was capable of. Over the years, that idea exploded into a mutant horror involving huge auditoriums packed with people, cosplaying DMs and players, and live streams on Twitch.
There have been a lot of podcasts and videos over the years, including a plethora of 'interns' - including Wil Wheaton. They are kind of scattered all over the net in various formats. If you are interested in watching, I think the last four sessions are a good place to start, and form a story arc that I like to call 'The Forgotten Realms Magical Mystery Tour.'
Ark of the Mad Mage Part One - This takes place after the members of Acquisitions incorporated crash land Jim Darkmagic's family mansion onto the world of Faerun. Um - long story. It involes some old fashioned crazy dungeon goodness. This one is only audio - so no big audience or cosplaying - but they had done large theaters before this. It's also chopped up into a whole bunch of episodes, but the link I provided puts them into a playlist. It's a good one, but if you want to SEE what is going on, feel free to skip to Part Two. Oh, and it is using 4e still.
Ark of the Mad Mage Part Two - This one is on stage, with a live audience and costumes. It continues the dungeon delve - eventually turning into the movie Pacific Rim inside of Waterdeep. I'm not sure how that happened - but it's funny. The game mechanics switch from 4e to D&D Next in this episode.
Tyranny of Dragons Part One - The party continues on after the events in the 'Ark,' and begins to run afoul of the 'Tyranny of Dragons.' Again, stage and cosplaying and still D&D Next.
Tyranny of Dragons Part Two - And more dragons. :) This is the first game using the 5e rules.
If you want to see the earlier stuff, just dig around on the D&D site or on YouTube. You'll eventually find the stuff and sort it out. :)
Who the hell are all of these people?
Enjoy.
- Ark
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Monday, September 15, 2014
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Friday, September 12, 2014
Thursday, September 11, 2014
We Killed A Dragon This Weekend
![]() |
| No gold dragons appeared in any of the games this week, but my son's high school colors are purple and gold, so yeah - that explains the color choices above. :) |
[WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE LOST MINE OF PHANDELVER AND HOARD OF THE DRAGON QUEEN!]
These days, I play in two D&D games a week. One as a player - one as the DM. Our DM, a younger, much more energetic fellow, participates in three games a week. So yeah, we are using the hell out of the 5.0 PHB.
As you may have seen from previous posts, I'm playing as Lady Sarafina of Corlinn Hill in the Phandelver game. We've been playing some time now - but because of the sandbox nature of the adventure - we've been purposely avoiding the big green dragon on the top of the box, who we figured pretty quickly was in the old mage's tower in Thundertree. So - there came a point where there was nothing left to do but go take on the dragon.
The party currently consists of one ranged fighter, one tanky fighter, a tanky paladin, and two howitzer wizards. The net effect is that we don't sneak and we don't heal. We just show up loudly on someone's doorstep and begin blowing the shit out of everything visible.
We were afraid of the dragon. What we should have been afraid of was the frikkin spiders.
One of the players - the paladin - had been complaining that he wasn't really feeling threatened. He wasn't afraid of the combats. This, despite the fact that his character had been KILLED DEAD in the last session. (You know that one revivify scroll? Yeah . . .) So the DM upped hardness of Thundertree. Holy shit. I never want to see another spider again.
The spiders immediately took out the two tanks. Then one of the wizards. The ranged fighter did some damage, but was taken down as well.
So, in the dusty main street of a ghost town, one wounded giant spider and one battered, stubby halfing wizard with a ring fetish stared each other down like two Clint Eastwoods in Tombstone. I think even a tumbleweed went by.
It was the spider's turn. He was too far for a regular attack, so he shot his web. Every time that frikkin spider shot his web, one of us went down. So it was just about down to a TPK.
The spider rolled a 1.
Wham, the halfling sent a barrage lights into the spider and killed it dead.
The dragon fight was a real work out. It was fun. At one point, three out of five of us were out on the ground. My son said it was a very satisfying end to the adventure - which it was.
But I don't care how badass that dragon was. My heart was pounding HARD - and I mean HARD - only in that spider fight.
Frikkin spiders.
Hmm - I didn't get to the second dragon story - the one in Hoard. Oh well - next post. Till then, watch out for spiders.
:)
- Ark
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Monday, September 8, 2014
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Saturday, September 6, 2014
Friday, September 5, 2014
Thursday, September 4, 2014
The League of Extraordinary Adventurers
Last night was my first foray into Adventurers League. That's WOTC's blanket term for their multi-pronged organized D&D play program.
In a nutshell, the Adventurers League is divided up into three bits - D&D Encounters - the 2 hour Wednesday night games, D&D Expeditions - a 4 hour a week program more like a standard home-sit-down thing, and D&D Epics - big-ass multi-table affairs that happen at conventions.
At my FLGS, there are about 20 people involved in the Adventurer's League. It's a different experience that the previous RPGA LFR stuff back in the 4e days. Those had the feel of a highly structured, 6-man game of Magic: The Gathering at times. There were very specific rules on how players could earn their XP and their magically morphing magic weapons and armor. It was a head-to-head(s) miniatures skirmish game where DMs were lauded on how fast they could get the party through an adventure. (YMMV, but that was MY experience.)
This new stuff it - well - you just sit down and play D&D. The overall mandate for the DM is spew fun out your ears. DMs are encouraged to change the adventure as they see fit. Players keep track of their swag and xp. The store keeps track of who showed up. And that's it.
Hoard of the Dragon Queen is D&D Encounter's first offering this season. I DMed, and we made it through somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the first section of the adventure. Plenty of role-playing, plenty of kobold ass kicking, and plenty of heroics.
Honestly, the first bit of HDQ is kind of bland. There is high adventure, sure, as there is a war going on. But there isn't a lot of flavor in the pages. Actually, I consider that a wonderful bonus as I have gallons of my own flavor to pour in. I decided that the chapel would instead be an orphanage, and to focus the town's purpose around taking care of those kids. That ratcheted up the urgency and gave a whole lot of drive to one of the players who had picked the urchin background.
And might I add - again - how happy I am with 5e? I swear it DMs itself. It feels completely natural and the rules rarely intrude. They are probably most apparent when a spellcaster is firing of a new spell for the first time and has to look it up. I don't know - maybe it might be difficult for someone new - but for a person with years of experience with other editions - it's like butter.
I think I have a good description now: 5e is 2e riding 3e's bicycle.
Okay, maybe that description needs some work. But if you've played em all, you get my point. :)
Speaking of points, let's look at something interesting map-wise. Examine these maps - in particular, the shape of the forests in the region where Horde of the Dragon Queen starts:
Why does it look as if . . . oh . . . the Spellplague never happened? :)
So yeah, I'm happy - on multiple levels with multiple things.
- Ark
In a nutshell, the Adventurers League is divided up into three bits - D&D Encounters - the 2 hour Wednesday night games, D&D Expeditions - a 4 hour a week program more like a standard home-sit-down thing, and D&D Epics - big-ass multi-table affairs that happen at conventions.
At my FLGS, there are about 20 people involved in the Adventurer's League. It's a different experience that the previous RPGA LFR stuff back in the 4e days. Those had the feel of a highly structured, 6-man game of Magic: The Gathering at times. There were very specific rules on how players could earn their XP and their magically morphing magic weapons and armor. It was a head-to-head(s) miniatures skirmish game where DMs were lauded on how fast they could get the party through an adventure. (YMMV, but that was MY experience.)
This new stuff it - well - you just sit down and play D&D. The overall mandate for the DM is spew fun out your ears. DMs are encouraged to change the adventure as they see fit. Players keep track of their swag and xp. The store keeps track of who showed up. And that's it.
Hoard of the Dragon Queen is D&D Encounter's first offering this season. I DMed, and we made it through somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the first section of the adventure. Plenty of role-playing, plenty of kobold ass kicking, and plenty of heroics.
Honestly, the first bit of HDQ is kind of bland. There is high adventure, sure, as there is a war going on. But there isn't a lot of flavor in the pages. Actually, I consider that a wonderful bonus as I have gallons of my own flavor to pour in. I decided that the chapel would instead be an orphanage, and to focus the town's purpose around taking care of those kids. That ratcheted up the urgency and gave a whole lot of drive to one of the players who had picked the urchin background.
And might I add - again - how happy I am with 5e? I swear it DMs itself. It feels completely natural and the rules rarely intrude. They are probably most apparent when a spellcaster is firing of a new spell for the first time and has to look it up. I don't know - maybe it might be difficult for someone new - but for a person with years of experience with other editions - it's like butter.
I think I have a good description now: 5e is 2e riding 3e's bicycle.
Okay, maybe that description needs some work. But if you've played em all, you get my point. :)
Speaking of points, let's look at something interesting map-wise. Examine these maps - in particular, the shape of the forests in the region where Horde of the Dragon Queen starts:
![]() |
| 3e FR Campaign Guide - circa 1372 DR |
![]() |
| 4e FR Campaign Guide - circa 1479 DR |
![]() |
| Horde of the Dragon Queen - circa 1486 DR to 1489 DR |
Why does it look as if . . . oh . . . the Spellplague never happened? :)
So yeah, I'm happy - on multiple levels with multiple things.
- Ark
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)































