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Listening to Major Spoilers/Critical Hit and also remembering back to my high school and college AD&D games I used to run, I urge for that long running campaign of a consistent, cohesive group of player characters.  But being over 40 and married with kids and a travel job, that isn't on the horozin.  Judgeing by the players that show up at the game store on Wednesday night, it is not just me with those challenges.  More than one has missed due to business trips, another had a buyer for a vehicle that could only meet him on game night, another was involved in a community play production and even the young one that is still a student has had to miss to get school work done.  So I am learning about casual gaming.

To this renewed Dungeon Master, casual gaming is where...

This group is going to continue to grow.  Eventually we will come across those who wish, for whatever reason, not to join our group.  Those people need to walk away from us knowing who we are.  The struggles and losses we have endured at the hands of Orcus have forged an alliance.  We are more than that we are an accord.  The Damascus Accord.  This council that strives for a safe haven in the mountains.  Commanded by the divine emissaries of five dieties and their allies.  People must know there is a change coming and this change begins here, with us.  The Damascus Accord travels to the titan city of Damascus and there we will begin again.  Orcus must be stopped.  Life must endure.  We must prevail.

Now that I have the time to gather my thoughts I can be more complete in my writing.  I suppose I should introduce the entire troop as it is thus far.

Nihlus Niamfel, Human Avenger of Ioun.
 
Lord Bruenor Hammerfist, Dwarven Paladin of Moradin.

Modoch, Dwarven Cleric of Moradin(there is more to him than meets the eye).

Daryl Dixon, Human Ranger

Draknos Silverflame, Dragonborn Sorcerer

Lady Dannae Balum, Half-Elven Cleric of Vecna

Aa'thezz Von Brimstone Valkesh, Tiefling Warlock

Gulong, Goliath Invoker of Pelor

Alessandra Relcara, Human Swordmage

Vincent Von Hellstorm Valkesh, Tiefling Paladin/Warlock of Pelor

Connor Ashnon, Human Warlord 

     These names are those that sit in council of the pact.  There will be more names added I am sure.  I tried...

Hey there,
New to the game of D&D, just started actually.
I don't know the whole culture behind what everyone else finds acceptable, but here is how my startup group is playing.
4th edition, not everyone is too knowledgable so we are trying to learn as we play.
Making up our own lore/storyline/world to play in  for fun and to add a more creative spin to it. 
Really loving it so far but could use all the pointers I could get, my friends and I take turns being the DM per game but I'm kind of the head of our D&D group, so I can use all the help I can get, we all enjoy the game and want to play it right.
Feel free to add me or message me with any help/suggestions/amything. 

Finals at my college and final papers. Ugh. I got a part in a summer festival musical though. Looking forward to performing again in July.

Regarding monster design for my game in construction:

Whenever I DM'd for the local DnD Meetup Group, I got some of my most positive responses from players when I added narrative to the actions taken by enemies rather than just a simple "it hits you for X damage".

This reminded me of when I was first introduced to DnD through ADnD 2nd edition, when my brother would spout out awesome descriptions of what was going on during combat (it was always gridless when we played).

What if sample narratives were built into the design of monsters, for DMs to describe the action? This could benefit new and old DMs greatly and enrich the experience for the entire table....

Hi,

Some of you might know that I've been running a 4e campaign set in the cosmopolitan city of Parsantium for some time. Since January I've been working on turning this into a decent-sized city sourcebook suitable for use with D&D Next, 4e, Pathfinder and any other D&D edition/variant you like. I'm about two weeks from finishing the first draft and have written over 70,000 words so far. I am planning to self-publish the book later this year, all being well.

If you're interested in reading some more about it, [url=http://richgreen01.livejournal.com/tag/parsantium#asset-richgreen01-237862]this post[/url] gives you an overview, and I've been [url=http://richgreen01.livejournal.com/tag/design%20diary]posting design diaries to my blog[/url] too.

Let me know what you think

Cheers


Rich...

Hello, I am long time event writer as well as a long time GM. I am anxoiusly awaiting D&D next. I started running events on 2 and left D&D for pathfinder at version 4 becuase i felt it was too pre sorted for me not enough room to make characters all that different. I would like to come back to D&D if the next is worth my time and i hope it is. I try to run events at every GENCON but the failing health of my Father the last few years have kept me away a year. He passed recently and this should mean i return to GENCON. John

The first real Dungeons & Dragons video game in years is out. It’s called Neverwinter, the most recent in a long line of D&D video games to be centered on that city starting with the oft-overlooked SSI game Neverwinter Nights released in 1991. The name was recycled by BioWare hot off the success of their Baldur’s   Gate  series, who released Neverwinter Nights in 2002. A sequel was released by Obsidian Entertainment, unsurprisingly called Neverwinter Nights 2 . And now we have Neverwinter by Cryptic Studios.

TL;DR

This is long. So if you want the sound bite, here it is: Neverwinter is an action RPG that doesn’t provide solid enough action to really satisfy action aficionados. Similarly 

...

 

Where to Begin

(AOA1-1 The Worth of a Slave)

Good news! Wizards of the Coast has allowed the campaign admins to share the Ashes of Athas campaign adventures (20 adventures organized into 7 chapters). To order the adventures, just send me a PM with your e-mail address. We can't begin to describe how glad we are to be able to share the campaign with you!

Now, back to the purpose of this blog series. I wanted to review each adventure from a design perspective, sharing some insight into how the adventure was created, highlighting areas where we tried new things, and sharing what we learned in going from concept to draft to actual play. 

In the Beginning

Note: As with all parts of this blog series, there are spoilers within!

I've shared how the campaign started up both on ...