Tolrendor DM's Blog

DM for Kids: The Amber Tower

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Tolrendordm

Heroic Tier, Level 3

The kids’ characters are now based in Fallcrest (staying at the Silver Unicorn of course) and actively looking for new adventures!

While staying in Fallcrest, they managed to rescue the old wizard Nimozaran (who lives in the ancient magical tower that overlooks the town) from a mugging by members of the River Rats, and as a thank you, he invited them for tea! Whilst there, they learned an interesting snippet of information – the tower (at least in my campaign’s incarnation…) has some interesting properties – for example the view from the window of the room they were entertained in was not out over Fallcrest, but rather out over a wooded valley in the Feywild!!

This scene produced a nice role-playing session, and also provided a hook for the next adventure: Nimozaran asked them to hunt down an evil wizard who had stolen a magic tome from him (and adaptation of ‘Den of Dreus’ in Dragon Magazine 179).

The information about the tower (which is known as the Amber Tower in my campaign) however, is critical to my plans for the story of the campaign. ** Spoiler Alert – if you’re my kids, stop reading 🙂 ** The premise is that the tower, which predates the town of Fallcrest, and in fact human habitation of the Nentir Vale, by eons, is a nexus between the natural world and the alternate worlds of the Feywild and the Shadowfell. This causes a number of planar breaches in the region, which naturally attracts all the wrong sorts of people … (evil grin).

Many of the adventures coming up will be connected to this theme, as various powers and factions try and make use of the unique properties of the area to further their own designs, and naturally the PCs are drawn into opposing these plans. Nimozaran (who of course is not the doddering old wizard he appears to be…) will hopefully grow to act as a mentor to the kids’ characters: providing key information, guiding them towards certain adventures etc.

Now, in an adult campaign, this might be seen as a bit obvious and cliched, but for a kids campaign, I think it has several benefits:

The kids don’t always have the ‘background’ of D&D or fantasy in general to draw upon to ‘click’ to an aspect of the story that a more experienced and/or older group might have, so sometimes a little pointer is required.
Roleplaying is something they’re just beginning to grasp as a part of the whole experience, so an NPC that they have reason to engage with on multiple occasions should help to stimulate this.
Kids tend to operate in the ‘here and now’ so a long-running story, while they enjoy and seem to want that out of the campaign, they find difficult to keep track of. A ‘mentor’ that ties the strands together for them throughout a number sessions is likely to be useful.

These are some of the reasons that I’m planning to take this approach – its very early days yet, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out – and I’ve also got a couple of twists up my sleeve! 🙂

TolrendorDM (to the kids!)

Posted in Adventure Design, Columns, DM for Kids, Roleplaying with Kids, The Amber Tower Campaign | 14 Comments

April Update

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Tolrendordm

As I mentioned in my ‘Map of the Month‘ column for March, the month really flew by. Once again I did manage to publish 7 posts, including all 5 of my regular columns, although it was touch and go. In fact my last column only got published in March by a bit of WordPress magic that I’d forgotten about 🙂 It was scheduled for March 30th, and I missed by a couple of days as it was still in Draft … but when I finally hit the button, it still showed up as published on the 30th – oops 🙂 In terms of hits I had another good month – less than February – but still considerably more than any other month!

So far, the target of 5 regular columns per month is having a significant positive effect on my posting. Having a range of standard topics is definitely helping my planning, as I have most of my column ideas plotted out until the end of June … but I’m still finding it hard to ‘get ahead’ on the columns that require the most time e.g. Content Corner and Map of the Month.

In March I also became a member of the RPG Blog Alliance, and with the more regular posting I hope to soon join the RPG Bloggers Network. I’m also targeting that if I keep up an average of 7 posts a month for the rest of 2012 I’ll hit the 100 post mark before the year is out … so let’s see 🙂

As usual, the proposed column posts for April are listed in the Content Calendar! More on the Havenscoast theme, and a look at iPad content publication, are in the works. It’s a busy month in real life (moving house…) so lets hope I can keep to schedule!

Posted in Columns | Leave a comment

Map of the Month: Jonathan Roberts Style City Map

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Tolrendordm

So March has flown by, and this column missed the boat slightly in terms of publication, and significantly in terms of the content I had wanted to publish 😦

As the title suggests, my aim was to complete a set of map types using the Jon Roberts styles for Campaign Cartographer 3. I’ve managed Tactical Maps, an Overland Map, and this month it was the turn of the City Map. I decided to start with a reasonably small map, the town of Bradon in the Havenscoast region. The original hand-drawn map looked like this:

The Town of Bradon, the Havens coast

So off I went with a modern digital version! Unfortunately, as well as a lot of life stuff getting in the way, I discovered the City Designer add-in for CC3, which I’d never really used before, had a bit of a learning curve! I’m sure, like the other Profantasy tools, once I get used to it, productivity will follow … but unfortunately not in time for the March Map of the Month column, as you see 🙂

A lot of work to go 🙂 I think the style shows a lot of promise, so hopefully I’ll get to post the full version in time!

Posted in Cartography, Columns, Map of the Month, RPG Technology, The Havenscoast Project | 1 Comment

RPG Tech Talk: The PDF Dilemma (Part 2)

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Tolrendordm

In Part 1 of this article, we looked at the PDF security options that are available natively in the Acrobat PDF format itself. These included the ability to password protect and encrypt a document, as well as control actions that are available, such as copying or printing. Ostensibly, this seemed like a sufficient set of controls to protect the IP of electronically published D&D products. Unfortunately however, it seems there are two quite significant potential issues with the native approach:

The Adobe encryption is relatively easy to crack, being only 40-bit, and there are plenty of programs out there that can achieve this on normal equipment.
The Adobe PDF specification does not enforce that a specific PDF viewer implements the security restrictions! This does seem rather lax in current times!

So it looks like a more solid DRM (Digital Rights Management) solution would be needed to persuade publishers like WOTC to get back into the PDF game. There certainly are options out there, but there are often constraints that come with them. Lets look at a list of key potential ‘wants’ for such a system:

Simple access and technology requirements
To be able to use PDF files both on-line and off-line.
To be able to use PDF files on any device – PC, Mac, Phone, iPad etc…
Ability to print PDFs
To be able to read PDFs as soon as they are purchased
To be able to lend a PDF to a friend, like you would a hard-copy book

The above is a feature list from a user’s point of view. I can imagine WOTC might have an expanded list of requirements:

Able to integrate the DRM system into a ‘branded’ store
Able to work with 3rd party distributors such as RPGNow.
Simple administration of licences
Simple publishing of protected documents
Ability to provide various publication options e.g. perpetual licence, subscriptions, time expiry etc.

Are there products out there that can support these features? After some research, I decided to review one product against the requirements: Safeguard Enterprise PDF Security from LockLizard. Unlike many products that I looked out, their product did not rely on continuous access to a central server and/or passwords to be maintained for each document (if you remember the vitriol when WOTC moved to an online only Character Builder, I think you know where I’m coming from…). So, lets have a look:

End User Requirements:

The Safeguard product works by encrypting the entire PDF document with AES 256-bit encryption – this is military strength, so there’s not much out there that can break that without super-computer efforts! So how does the user read the document? Well, this is the downside – the user needs to use a specific secure PDF reader, supplied by Lock Lizard, rather than a standard Adobe Acrobat Reader. Its available for Windows and Mac (with some constraints), so straight away this rules out your phone or tablet :(. Still, I reckon most people would take this over no PDFs, at least to start with. As smartphones and tablets start to dominate the end-user computer market, I’m sure the product would catch up.

The upside is that once you have the PDF, and the secure reader, you don’t need to remember a password, or be connected to the Internet, except for the first time you load it. Once only the secure reader will connect to the licensing server, download a machine specific licence file, and from that point on the PDF can be read on that machine forever (unless the publisher has specifically added some expiration controls). It is also possible to ‘transfer’ the licence to another machine, in case the user upgrades, or even to ‘lend’ the PDF to a friend (i.e. the original user would no longer be able to access it). The PDF can also have print and copy controls built into it, but the secure reader can put watermarks or user information in the printout to discourage mass distribution.

Wizards’ Requirements

Pretty much all of the requirements that Wizards might have from their perspective seem to be catered for, although I’m sure there would be some significant integration requirements. Using the LockLizard eCommerce Add-in, most of the functionality could be hidden behind D&D branding, whether on their own website, or via a 3rd party. The product also has features to allow the licences to have various expiry options based on both the document or the user. For example, for a Core Rulebook distributed as a PDF you would expect the document to have a perpetual licence; but for a subscription based PDF (e.g. Dragon Magazine) the licence for the user might expire in a year (renewable of course…), allowing access to documents published in that annual period, but nothing after that.

Of course, this is a theoretical look at the problem based a small amount of research, and clearly there would be many many issues and details to resolve, but the fact that products are definitely out there that could fulfil a significant proportion of the required use cases does lead me to believe the problem is solvable … if Wizards really want to 🙂

I for one, hope they do, and can …

And if not …

I mentioned in Part 1 that WOTC might be looking at other forms of electronic distribution, like eBooks, but that these formats weren’t really suitable for publications with complex layout requirements…

… Well, recently Apple released a software product called iBooks Author, aimed primarily at producing interactive textbooks. Might it be applicable to RPG products? Lets take a look at this in another column 🙂

Posted in Columns, RPG Tech Talk, RPG Technology | 6 Comments

DM for Kids: DM Style

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Tolrendordm

GM Merit badges are cool! After coming across this neat set of icons (I know, quite late compared to everyone else…) intended to reflect a GM’s approach to their game, I thought it would be fun to consider my style when running a 4E D&D game for my kids.

In general, I don’t think my style would be massively different in an ‘adult’ campaign (I’m not currently running a regular one), but there are definitely some things to consider when running a kids’ game. So here goes my take on the ‘DM for Kids’ Style:

Story Based	I certainly hope this is the case! To me, D&D is about creating worlds and telling stories using game mechanics. My daughter, especially, is very much into the story aspect of the game, so this is definitely something I aim for. Quite often she will be disappointed when ‘Roll Initiative’ is called, if she thinks it’s interuppting the flow…
Tactics	However, I’ve got to keep my son happy too, so combat is an important aspect of my game. As I’ve mentioned before, they both love the battle-maps and minis etc associated with D&D combat, so its follows that Tactics are important. My son has started Warhammer Fanstasy as well, so he loves all this!
Maps	It would be a bit hard with even a cursory read of this blog to miss the fact that I think battle-maps are cool 🙂 In fact, all maps are cool! Back in 1E days, I still used a grid and minis for combat regularly, but with the tools available now … well I’m probably a bit over the top in terms of my encounter and props preparation! It is one aspect of the game that I enjoy a lot, although I am trying to cut back a bit, just to get a bit more efficient!
Safe	This probably goes without saying for a kids’ campaign, certainly on the content side! Not that I shy away from popular fantasy concepts – at 12 and 10 they’re old enough to be reading and watching a fairly wide range of material – but clearly there are some concepts I avoid 🙂 On the character death aspect, there are times when one of the PC’s has been dropped to negative hit points in a fight, and this definitely comes with the chance of tears! The kids do invest heavily in their characters, so while I like to crank the tension up, care is needed…
Rule 0	Of course I’m in charge, I’m DM Dad 🙂
Animals	This is an extra ‘badge’ I just had to add for my kids campaign!! As I’ve posted before, my kids characters are steadily amassing a large menagerie: beast companions, war dogs, horses, and a fervent desire to acquire a baby griffon! It isn’t an aspect of my game that I had planned, so this is definitely rolling with the kids’ input. Great fun though, and an obvious source of adventure …

So there you have it, my DM for Kids style. Works for my campaign so far 🙂

Posted in 4E D&D, Columns, DM for Kids, Roleplaying with Kids | Leave a comment

Getting out there…

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Tolrendordm

I’m very pleased to share that this blog now a member of the RPG Blog Alliance!

The site started pulling TolrendorDM’s RSS feed last night – it came as a bit of a surprise, as I’d been having issues with my email address and had never got the certification email, but hey who cares!

Anyway, I’m very pleased to be in the list with a huge number of great blogs – I can’t pretend that I’ve visited them all, but quite a few are familiar. This all adds to the (positive) pressure to keep up with my more consistent posting schedule!

Happy Gaming!

Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment

Content Corner: Spider Fey

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Tolrendordm

Recently in the 4E campaign I’m running for my kids, the party had a little detour to the Feywild, to rescue a unicorn foal from some evil fey brigands. When designing the short adventure, I was casting around for a suitable ‘nasty’ to be the boss of the bandits. I wanted to bring out a specific aspect of the Feywild – the concept that you can never quite trust what you see; that all is potentially a glamour or trick of the mind.

Not being able to find exactly what I wanted, I decided to design my own, and after a little brainstorming came up with the idea of a type of intelligent giant spider which could also take on other forms in order to deceive the characters, and would be masters of illusion – and so the Spider Fey were born.

One of the things I like best about 4E is the ease of creating new monsters using the Adventure Tools, and the ability to pillage neat powers from throughout the Monster List or Compendium. There are so many available that you seldom have to create a power from scratch, but simply give it a little twist perhaps to find the right flavour. The Spider Fey have powers drawn from other types of spider and from creatures with similar powers (e.g. Gnome arcanist …) to to the style I was looking for. I also took some inspiration from the recent Heroes of the Feywild book to give one type of Spider Fey some cool evil witchcraft powers!

And so I’m pleased to present the first Monster offerring for the Content Corner column! Hope you enjoy it. If you do, let me know in the comments 🙂

Tolrendor Bestiary: Spider Fey

Posted in 4E D&D, Columns, Content Corner, Monsters, Roleplaying with Kids, Self-publishing | 3 Comments

Wizards Watch: DnD Next Round-up…

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Tolrendordm

Right now, the main DnD Next activity is centred around the new ‘hub‘ that’s been created on the Wizards website. All the Legends and Lore columns are accessed here, as well as a number of blog posts by the design team. These columns all have one thing in common – a poll at the end, where interested people can vote on some question raised in the poll.

I’m not sure this is working! There is a lot of noise being generated, both in the comments on the blog, or in the wider blogosphere, that the polls are not very well thought out (“how can we vote on how many hit points a fighter should have at first level if we don’t know average damage…”), or that the blogs are biased in some way versus 4E or any particular edition.

In my opinion, one issue is that snippets of information (and lets be honest, none of this is real information, its just trying to seek feedback) are being released, which in turn generates lots of discussion (and angst…) because there isn’t enough context available within which to evaluate the blog posts. I understand WOTC want to generate interest, and not go silent, but my friends, the problem is with the D&D internet community is that discussion in a near vacuum generates as much vitriol as it does constructive ideas… and that’s not necessarily a good thing for D&D Next!

For my part, I haven’t been reading too much into these blogs and polls, as I think they are more about keeping engagement and feedback going than any real decision making. I certainly haven’t got the anti-4E vibe that a number of people are highlighting, although its clear that if you’re firmly of the belief that 4E was a flexible well-balanced game (as I am), then D&D Next is definitely going to have some things to get used to …

In some ways, I think WOTC would have been better to go a bit silent at this point, and concentrate on getting out the first playtest material. I assume this will largely be the stripped down core (Basic D&D?), but it will be enough to give a solid framework on which to gather further feedback.

As usual, open mind firmly engaged …

Posted in Columns, DnD Next, Miscellaneous, Reviews, Wizards Watch | Leave a comment

March Update

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Tolrendordm

February in review …

February turned out to be a very successful month. I once again managed to post regularly (9 in total), and published the second instalment of each of my new columns (5).

Very pleasing also were my viewing stats! I had my best month ever in terms of hits (35% greater my previous best), and my best day ever. Now the numbers are still very low in absolute terms, but in relative terms I’ve had almost 40% of hits so far in 2012 than I had in the whole of 2011. So that’s progress!

Onwards to March …

I certainly hope I can continue the progress in March with another set of solid posts – as usual my publication targets are shown in the Content Calendar!

Happy Gaming!!

TolrendorDM

Posted in Columns, Miscellaneous | Leave a comment

Content Corner: Havenscoast Overview

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Tolrendordm

Back in the day, the D&D products I used to like more than any other were ‘Gazetteer’ style guides, like the original Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms products. I used to peruse these voraciously. Strangely, I seldom ran adventures using these products, but more used them as inspiration for building my own world, Tolrendor!

The Havenscoast Project is my personal project to update all the reams of notes I created for one region of my world into the 4E (and I guess eventually D&D Next…) rule-set. This is quite a big task, and has taken a bit of back-seat lately as I’ve tried to concentrate on both this blog, and my kids’ campaign. However I hope in the coming months that this project will contribute quite a lot to this column!

This month’s Map of the Month column showed off my latest map of the Havenscoast region. I’ve now started on a Gazetteer of the region, which I’ll be looking to update over a number of columns. It’s only an ‘Overview’ at the moment, but I’m looking forward to this growing:

Havenscoast Gazetteer

Posted in Area Map B4: The Havenscoast, Columns, Content Corner, Self-publishing, The Havenscoast Project, Tolrendor Gazetter, World Building | 2 Comments