Community

This Thursday, from 1 to 2 p.m. Pacific Time, we’ll be hosting a live chat with Richard Baker about the upcoming “Dark Legacy of Evard” encounter season. Rich wrote the adventure, so no one knows better than him what it holds in store. Of course, he can’t spill too many beans about that or he’d spoil the adventure’s many surprises, but he can talk about the origins of the story, what goes into designing an Encounters season, how it differs from other sorts of adventure writing, and the trials and tribulations of a Design Manager and bestselling author.

The chat will occur here -- community.wizards.com/go/chat/live. (You can get into that room anytime, if you’d like to have a look around or use it to chat with your BFFs.)

The room will be moderated, which means that we’ll be fielding questions on the side and feeding them to Rich. In the meantime, this is your chance to propose some questions in advance. Use this thread to kick around ideas of what you’d like Rich to discuss and explain. You can submit questions during the chat, too, but the best way to get noticed is to raise your hand when things are quiet, like now.

Steve

This is a cool idea. Here are some questions, should I not be able to make it due to work.

I am very curious how hard Rich finds it to encourage RP within the format. Encounters needs to have each session be fairly brief for DMs to be able to quickly review the encounter. When we look at any given session and take out the space used for terrain and stat blocks... that doesn't leave much. With the limited space of the format, how does Rich work to create good RP? Is this a struggle design-wise, or does he have a method he can share?

I am also curious how Rich worked to create a feel of continuity between sessions. This seems like a challenge, since players can forget details in a week's time.

With Encounters, is there a feel for what portion of players want to just roll dice vs. really RP and enjoy the story?

Some of the Encounters seasons have ended with a few adventure seeds, should players and DM want to continue. Has Wizards considered providing more within the adventure itself that could foster home games or separate in-store play? For example, an optional encounter that can be done if desired to explore more of the story? A bonus 3-encounter adventure given as a judge reward, which DMs could use to start a home game?

A topic that comes up often is the Essentials-only rule. Will Encounters reach the maturity level where it makes sense to allow all 4E PC options? I see players "graduate" and want to use these other books the game store sells, but they can't use them in Encounters.

Another common topic is how to foster play in living campaigns. Many of us would like to see something that encourages players to play Encounters but also try out LFR and other living campaigns... even go to conventions. Season 1 allowed PCs to transition to LFR... might we see more of that in the future?

Thanks!

Although I've been loving playing and DMing Encounters, my question is about Rich's latest novels, the Blades of the Moonsea.

I really enjoyed this trilogy, especially the second book.  I remember laughing and grinning madly as I read it at the park during lunch breaks last summer.  I really love the characters, and was a little sad to finish the third book.  I think Rich detailed a great little setting along the Moonsea, with the characters, groups and cities interacting well to create good D&D stories.

Will we be seeing more of the adventures of Geran, Hamil and Sarth?  In other words, are there any plans for a sequel to the Blades of the Moonsea?

Why is there so little support for playing a character from the Heros of Shadow book in the adventure?

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