Halfway through the month and I’m only just starting! As I mentioned here, there is a least a good excuse, but its certainly taken longer to get back on track than I’d hoped.
Still the Content Calendar is updated with May’s plans, so hopefully I’m on the way back…
It will also be a big month in the DnD Next multiverse, with the release of the first play test materials on the 24th. Excited …?? 🙂
When I put the Content Calendar publication schedule for April together, I kind of neglected one thing! 🙂
At the end April, we’re moving house (well, actually, back into our house … long story…) and my schedule has gone to pot! Some of the posts I had planned simply aren’t going to happen, and certainly not quite on time …
Note I still hope to get a post for each of monthly columns done, it just may be a different (and possibly simpler…) topic.
Hopefully May will see me back on track … assuming of course that Virgin Media move my broadband correctly …
What with PAX East seminars and and a rush of blogs its been a busy time in DnD Next land. That of course launches a cascade on comment in the blogosphere! 🙂
Actually I’m beginning to think WOTC have made a bit of a rod for their own back with perhaps too early an announcement of DnD Next and the playtest programme: they’re now being criticised for seeking feedback without opening it up to playtest – when clearly they’re nowhere near ready for that. To have any sort of meaningful testing, they’ve got to have a system, and it seems they’re a long way from that yet. However, this in turn implies that despite what many are saying, they are seemingly using the various polls and columns as genuine input, rather than just as ‘leaking’ decisions already made.
I think a lot of people out there are comparing the situation (unfavourably normally…) to the Pazio Pathfinder RPG play-test programme – without remembering that this was a upgrade to an already well-known product i.e D&D 3.5!!
There was a recent Legends and Lore column by Mike Mearls that presented the original DnD Next goals. This was interesting to read, but to me made it pretty clear that the aims are more about combating market fragmentation than feeling this is anything fundamentally wrong with the 4E ruleset. This is clearly a valid target for a commercial company, but it does make me wonder. A large part of the fragmentation happened with 4E and Pathfinder RPG … And with the momentum of Paizo’s product it’s hard to see that reversing. And then there is the OSR market, where it seems to me that a large part of the attraction is playing with the actual original rulesets – so is a DnD Next system, however closely it achieves the ‘feel’ goal, really going to change the situation?
Another interesting post by Rob Schwalb touched on a proposed concept of themes and backgrounds being used to choose skills and feats – almost packaged up like fast food … but still allowing for more discrete choices if desired. I’m not against this concept – what I do find strange though is the interweb angst that it generates, and why this is such a big issue for DnD Next. To me, character choices aren’t rules, they’re content … rules determine how a power (or a skill, or a feat, or a combat tactic, or a spell/attack) works in the game … what powers (etc …) a character has is content!! I realise this might be my DM bias (as I’ve mentioned before …), but I still think it a valid point! 🙂
Then came a very interesting post about ‘the Grid‘ i.e. the range of combat options between full imagination to full grid based tactical combat. Again, this generated a lot of comment/blog inches … and is a topic I might explore further in another post!
In summary, some interesting information out there recently, and on the whole I think the direction is still positive … but I can’t help thinking that everything they’re looking to do could be achieved essentially with the 4E game engine … again, a concept I might explore further…
And lastly, its great to see that even though lots of people
are thinking (and stressing…??) about DnD Next, there is still plenty to look forward to on the 4E content front. The last few 4E releases (e.g. Heroes of the Feywild) have been top notch, and I’m really looking forward to the Dungeon Survival Handbook. I’ve been a big fan of the Underdark ever since the original Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide (which unfortunately I no longer have my copy of …).
Following all this up with the ‘Rise of the Underdark‘ set of products and tie-ins should make for an interesting summer!
Happy Gaming,
TolrendorDM
And as I mentioned just this morning re Henrik Wielink’s Dungeon style for CC3 … how cool does this look … 🙂
The Cartographer Annual (from Profantasy) April Issue shipped last week, with yet another great overland style, based on the work of Herwin Wielink. I hadn’t come across this cartographer before, but his work is really stunning.
His own site, Fantasy Maps, contain lots of great maps, from an example created using the CC3 style:
Cartographer's Annual - April 2012 Issue
.. as well as some great freebie dungeon maps e.g:
… and also some tutorials (I love the Compass Rose one…) and a stunning gallery!!
Definitely worth checking out, and the best news is that apparently during 2012 the Annual will also include his ‘Dungeon’ style for CC3 – can’t wait!!
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:
TolrendorDM (to the kids!)
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!
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!
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:
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:
The above is a feature list from a user’s point of view. I can imagine WOTC might have an expanded list of requirements:
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:
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.
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 …
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 🙂
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 🙂
