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So, it looks like I've sort of finished the "gather players" phase of my upcoming D&D game. I've just heard from my 4th player that he is very interested and wants to join up. We have a fifth person possibly joining us, but I doubt that will come off. I might have to settle with a group of four players which probably means I will have to either inject a companion (if anyone wants one), run an NPC myself (which I really, really don't want to do) or scale back the encounters a bit to compensate for not having all roles filled by the party.

While I don't want to run an NPC myself as a member of the party, I can't help but love the effort Hal over at RPGMP3.com put into Splug (a goblin in Keep on the Shadowfell).  If you haven't heard of RPGMP3.com, I suggest you take a look. They have loads of recorded RP session using various systems, and the DM and site owner Hal did an amazing job with Splug. He provided lots of laughs and turned out to be, not only a valuable party member, but also a great incentive to roleplay. Problem is, I could never run a character anywhere near as good as Hal, so that is not much of an option.

That leaves scaling back the encounters a bit. I suppose I have to wait and see which roles my players chose. Based on that I guess the DMG's will provide me with insightful tips on what to do to make the encounter balance a bit better. But if you have any ideas on how to adjust the encounters in Rescue at Rivenroar, please let me know.

Just got accepted for a play-by-post game over at D&D Online Games. I'll be playing Kavan Tor, a Goliath Barbarian which I think will be a fun character to play. Really looking forward to since play by post usually provides for lots of excellent roleplaying opportunities. It will also serve me well in inspiring me for the upcoming IRL game session (still trying to find a few more players). I'm still prepping for that obviously, but I think we've settled on running keep on the Shadowfell for our first adventure. I talked it through with the two players currently on board and we all agreed that it would probably be interesting to run such an encounter intensive module as a first.

None of us have played tabletop rpg's for a couple of years (many, actually) and it might be easier to get into it with a more fight-focused adventure to get everyone comfortable with the actual roleplaying part. We're still interested in suggestions, so feel free to leave them in the comments section!

As I said in my last post, we are now actively recruting more players for the upcoming game. It will be my first IRL experience with D&D 4E, and it will be my first experience DM-ing any edition of the game. Again, it might not come to fruition, but I just can't help myself. I really want this to come off, so I need to prepare.

I sort wrote off the acquisition of minis in my previous blog entry, but after having looked around a bit on the net I have to say that I'm tempted to at least try and get minis for the PC's. I think that will help them get into it and increase our chances of actually having a good enough experience to keep going afterwards. If we manage to get enough people interested we can roll up a group and I'll get the needed minis once that is done. That way I don't have to get too many of of the Player's Handbook Heroes pack beforehand.

I do intend to purchase a battlemat. The only one I've been able to find so far is the Chessex double sided 66X60 (centimeters) with 1" hexes and 1" squares, but that will suffice for us until we know if we're going to continue after the first adventure. With minis for the PC's, I was thinking of making my own monster tokens. For effects and marks, multi-coloured pipe cleaners looks like a really neat solution. 

So after a couple of hours research, the purchase list I've assembled looks like this

• Battlemat with pencils
• Minis for the PC's
• Multi-coloured pipe cleaners
• An extra set of dice (if my old collection isn't miraculously recovered from some old box in the basement)

Looks doable! And most of the stuff can be found for a reasonable prices from online stores located in my country (faster shipment). I'm getting a little excited over the prospects of running a game!

So, it looks like I might actually get to play a real life D&D 4E game after all! In fact, since I got the most books (good reason, eh?) I'm the DM for this one. I mentioned to a friend of mine that I was trying to get a few interested people together and try a few sessions. I know I will like it, so I guess I'll have to really up my game to get the players hooked enough to actually want to continue playing.

Assuming we actually manage to get together that is. Talk is cheap and all that, but I will certainly do my best to make this happen. A nice little battle map is at the top of my purchase list. Minis are way, way down to be honest. We'll get by with some tokens, poker chips, coins or whatever until I'm certain we'll be doing this on a regular basis.

Also a high priority is the adventure we will play. Preferably, I'd like to find something really good, showing off the strengths of 4E while being engaging and easy to weave into a larger campaign if we decide to continue on after the first few tries.

So, any suggestions as to what adventure to run? Is Scales of War fun? Any other ideas on where to start?

I haven't really played pen and paper RPG's since my early to mid teen years. I loved it. I loved it for all the reasons you love role-playing games. Being part of a grand tale of adventure and daring, perils and courage as well as deceit and cowardice. My main experience comes from long sessions as a DM or player in the Swedish RPG Drakar och Demoner. A low fantasy setting that was especially popular when I was growing up.

When I finally did grow up (as in reaching an age where people around you started to expect that you should behave responsibly and stop playing around with games and other such childish activities) my interest shifted a bit. Mainly due to time constraints and the fact that finiding a group to play with became close to impossible. I left the low-fantasy world of Drakar och Demoner in favour of the grandfather of RPG's; Dungeons & Dragons.

My interest became a theoretical exploration of the game system itself, not so much the experience of living within the worlds the system delivered or creating worlds using the framework of the game. The creative aspects of role-playing were certainly still there, but of a more abstract character, and I think my interest was piqued by the potential the system delivered more than what I in fact achieved as a potential DM or player.

The launch of 4th Edition D&D drove my interest far enough to actually get the books. It turned out a friend of mine had done the same, and we talked briefly about getting a group together and try it out. It came to nothing due to real world commitments, but I feel that we might actually manage to get a session going in the future. Instead, I turned to play-by-post and even got in on two online sessions using MapTools. It turned out to be too time consuming and I once again had to go back to studying the system itself, and fantasise about the potential it has and what I could do with it if I ever get the time to actually play.

But the itch is back. I've read and re-read the Dungeon Masters Guide, The Players Handbook and The Players Handbook 2 over and over, and there's just no two ways about it. I need to play. Soon. Only questions is; when will I be able to make the time.