It has been a privilege to work with so many wonderfully talented and dedicated individuals over the past fourteen years.

At the risk of forgetting more names than I can remember, here's a list of just some of the amazing folks I've had the honor to sit near at one point or another:

Tim Shields, Rob Voce, Joe Hauck, Judy Holman, Chris Galvin, RE Dalrymple, Monty Ashley, Jason Carl, David Hoppe, Skaff Elias, Andrew Finch and the many others who helped create the innovative Organized Play division and its many programs.

Jim Butler, Rich Baker, Duane Maxwell, and David Eckelberry: thanks for welcoming me to the Alternity team!

I joined an R&D department that already boasted names such as Bill Slavicsek, Jeff Grubb, Ed Stark, Thomas Reid, Kim Mohan, Mike Selinker, Shawn Carnes, Mike Donais, Teeuwynn Woodruff, Wolfgang Baur, Cindi Rice, Keith Strohm, Monte Cook, Sue Cook, Bruce Cordell, Miranda Horner, Julia Martin, Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, Michele Carter, Skip Williams, Penny Williams, John Rateliff, Chris Perkins, and of course Stan! How's that for a challenging situation for a 26-year-old would-be game designer to face?

And then, over the next dozen years, I had the pleasure of helping to welcome plenty of amazing folks into R&D (and the larger company as well): JD Wiker, Rich Redman, James Wyatt, Erik Mona, Jeff Quick, Rob Heinsoo, Jesse Decker, Matt Sernett, Chris Youngs, David Noonan, Logan Bonner, Owen K.C. Stephens, Charles Ryan, Stephen Schubert, Mike Mearls, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Chris Sims, Peter Schaefer, Peter Lee, Torah Cottrill, Jeremy Crawford, Greg Bilsland, Cal Moore, Steve Winter, Chris Tulach, Scott Larabee, Scott Rouse, Sara Girard, Kierin Chase, Shelly Mazzanoble, Marty Durham, and dozens more whose names will come to me as soon as I hit "submit post."

And then there's all the tremendously talented freelancers who I've been able to help earn a little money doing what they love, such as Rob Schwalb, Ari Marmell, Scott Gray, Alex Jurkat, Ray Vallese, and Dawn Geluso, to name just a few.

Last but not least, I also had the great fortune of working in the same building as my brother Greg, and of course, of meeting my future wife Gwendolyn Kestrel.

I've lived the dream for fourteen years, one month, and nine days. When I think of all the folks who don't even get a fraction of that luck...well, I certainly can't feel sorry for myself for very long.

Many have asked what's next for me. For now let's just leave it as "Answer Hazy. Ask Again Later." Keep your eyes out...you never know where I might show up.

Good Gaming!

tbe.taleo.net/NA4/ats/careers/requisitio...

This person reports directly to me, so I have a vested interest in (and significant influence on) the result of this hiring process.

I want to hire a talented, experienced editor with a love of games and at least a basic knowledge of D&D (or similar games).

I'll be honest: I'm not looking to hire someone for their first editing job. I don't require you to have professional RPG editing experience, but if you can't cite something related to the job duties on your resume, I advise you to look elsewhere for your opportunity to "break into the industry."

If you think you have what it takes, submit your resume now!

Good luck!

I'll be joined by James Wyatt and Jeremy Crawford; together we'll talk about working on D&D, tell you our favorite parts of the game, and even answer a few of your burning questions. I'm also told that the event will feature some gamer swag, but I have no details on that. ;)

The event starts at 7 PM and runs about an hour or so.

Here's the address: University Bookstore, 4326 University Way NE, Seattle WA 98105.

If you haven't yet picked up your holiday bundle--that's the PH and PH2 for the price of a single book--this is a great opportunity. It's also a great gift for that stingy player who won't keep his greasy fingers off your books, or for that special gamer in your life.

See you next Tuesday!

As mentioned previously on this blog, we brought all three groups playing in my current D&D campaign together recently for one massive session. Each of the previous sessions ended with the group stepping through a portal to the Elemental Chaos, where they stood before a great obsidian tower floating on a sea of fire.

Due to some illnesses & other conflicts, we ended up with 12 players (plus 2 Dungeon Masters) for most of the game, with one player leaving before the final battle.

We began with an hour of pure role-playing, as the 14 characters (Greg & I each play in each other's games) got to know each other. I've been comparing this to "Avengers meet X-Men meet Fantastic Four" but it's really more like when DC would run their "Justice League of Earth-1 meets Justice Society of Earth-2" crossovers (and yes, I understand how old that makes me).

To incent conversation and sleuthing during this hour, each player received a note card with some tidbit about another one of the characters. These notes were designed to pique their interest--"So-and-so seems familiar to you, as if you've met her before" or "While standing near so-and-so, you get a very bad feeling."

In a couple of cases, however, the interest didn't really have to be manufactured.

The characters from the Depths campaign recognized Boldrik (the dwarf cleric with the Echoes group) as having adventured with them a couple months earlier, during their explorations of a ruined keep. They described watching Boldrik being pulled into a dark portal by inky black tendrils of shadow, never to be seen again...until now! 

When confronted with this recognition, Boldrik's player simply looked blankly at them. "I've never met you people before. What are you talking about?"

But that mystery would have to wait, because Boldrik and his allies in turn recognized a member of the Depths team: Talerron, the eladrin swordmage who had tried to kill them several weeks ago while working for the dark creeper named Modra!

A tense standoff occurred, with the two teams of adventurers poised to draw weapons. Talerron claimed no memory of his accusers, but even his allies know very little about the eladrin's background before showing up in town a month ago, and what they've heard hasn't exactly made them comfortable.

Still, he's been a loyal comrade, and they weren't ready to turn him over to a bunch of complete strangers.

Eventually, Boldrik and his allies realized that they had more important work in front of them, and agreed merely to keep a close eye on the eladrin.

At that point, a wounded tiefling staggered toward the characters from the direction of the tower. Hammoth, the warforged fighter from the Echoes group, recognized the newcomer as Akmenos, a tiefling warlord who had briefly adventured alongside them before returning to the Shadowfell to insert himself into the Emissary's service and learn more about the vile shadar-kai's plans.

Akmenos described the challenges that lay before the characters:

1) To stem the tide of blood chaos flowing into the world, they must destroy the central controls. This task would require a team of smart, stealthy types (to slip past the many guards, deactivate the traps, and then destroy the controls).

2) To locate the prisoners they sought to rescue, they must descend into the toxic caverns beneath the tower and defeat the many tough guards. This task would require not only muscle, but physical stamina to survive the poisonous vapors and boiling magma.

To make matters more difficult, destroying the blood chaos controls would flood the lower caverns, killing all the prisoners, while rescuing the prisoners would raise an alarm throughout the tower, bringing many more guards to protect the controls.

The two tasks would have to be accomplished...simultaneously.

Throwing D&D Rule #1 (Never Split the Party) out the window, the group divided itself into two strike teams:

Team Heavy Metal: Vargach (dragonborn paladin of Kord), Hammoth (warforged fighter), Boldrik (dwarf cleric), Midgard (dragonborn paladin of the Raven Queen), Bahamus (dragonborn fighter), Alandir (half-elf warlord), and Einaar (dragonborn paladin of the Raven Queen).

Team Discovery Channel: Brinjac (human warlock), Cyrik Bloodweaver (eladrin wizard), Indulgence (tiefling warlock), Talerron (eladrin swordmage), Urendil (eladrin wizard), Skarakas (tiefling warlock), and Ash (human ranger).

I served as DM for Team DC, while Greg ran Team HM. We'd expected a split more-or-less like the one they came up with, and crafted the upcoming encounters accordingly (for instance, lots of minions for my group, lots of soldiers and brutes for Greg's).

Each team ran through two combat encounters (I added a skill challenge to my session to represent sneaking through the tower), culminating in the achievement of their team's goal. Amazingly, the two groups finished within 60 SECONDS of one another.

Then the two groups came together for one last knock-down, drag-out fight with the Emissary and various goons and allies, including five elites, nine standards, and 20 minions.

After about 4-1/2 hours of speedy play--early rounds took about 20 minutes, late rounds about 10--the battle was over and the characters victorious.

After saying a few farewells, they realigned the teleportation circles that had brought them to the Elemental Chaos and returned to their respective homes. The threat of the Emissary that had plagued each of the campaigns was ended...but the mystery of what entity lay behind these plans still remained.

Overall, the game was a great success. It ran even more smoothly than we'd hoped (I'd feared 30+ minute delays between turns for the final combat). While it's not something I'd want to do often, I can definitely see running another game like this in the future.

But that drought came to an end last night, when I played the new Pegasus expansion for the Battlestar Galactica board game, published by Fantasy Flight Games.

To put things in perspective: I find BSG to be the most fun, entertaining, exciting, and tense of the various cooperative board games that have come out since Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings revitalized this sub-genre. I've played LotR, Shadows over Camelot, Fury of Dracula, and of course Pandemic--see my separate blog post on that last one--and while I enjoy each and every one of those games, BSG beats them all.

Part of this love is due to the masterful ways in which the game designers (Corey Konieczka, Eric M. Lang, Jeff Tidball, and Mark O'Connor) have captured the essence of the compelling BSG intellectual property. Based on the recent reboot of the venerable sci-fi series, this game represents the best marriage of licensed property and gameplay experience that I've seen in a long time, maybe ever. (TSR's Marvel Super Heroes game comes to mind as a potential competitor.)

In a nutshell: Each player takes the role of one of the significant characters from the show, such as Adama, Roslin, Baltar, or Starbuck. (The Pegasus expansion includes additional characters, some of them significant--such as Caprica Six--and others secondary at best, such as Kat or Dualla.) Theoretically, all the players are human members of the fleet, working together to escape the Cylons and survive various crises--from the mundane-but-costly Water Shortages and Looming Elections to the more serious saboteurs and mutinies--long enough to reach Earth. That's the cooperative part.

Of course, it's not quite that simple. One or more of the players WILL turn out to be a frakkin' toaster (or in board game parlance, a traitor). That isn't such a big twist--plenty of cooperative board games use a traitor mechanic--but the twist comes in how the designers match this mechanic to the tropes of the show.

In most games, the traitor's identity is determined (secretly) at the start of the game. That means you know there's a traitor from turn 1, and once you determine a player's loyal, you can trust them for the rest of the game.

But BSG is all about paranoia and turning your trust against you...so the game adds a second phase, roughly halfway through, in which every player receives a second "loyal or traitor" identity card. If EITHER of your loyalty cards indicate that you're a Cylon, it trumps any "you are not a Cylon" card you have.

This means that you can play half the game believing you're on the human side, working loyally and diligently to destroy Cylons and save humanity, only to find out to your horror that you've been on the wrong side the whole time.

This, frankly, is brilliant game design. If you've watched the show, you know that one of its big hooks is the reveal when a seemingly human character learns that he or she is actually a Cylon. To capture that in a relatively simple and straightforward game mechanic is the kind of thing that designers dream of accomplishing.

If that were the only example of matching good design to the IP, the game would be able to hold its head high. But it's only the tip of the iceberg. From specialized character abilities and drawbacks that capture the essence of the characters' identities--Tigh's a drunk, so he has trouble holding on to skill cards, Kat's a stim junkie, so she can't stay in one place for more than a turn--to a truckload of crises drawn straight from the show and translated into challenges that the players must work together to solve, playing this game feels like recreating a season (or more) of the TV show.

While I haven't seen this in person, I'm told that even gamers who haven't watched BSG commonly enjoy the game due to its great design and playability. Your mileage may vary, but I certainly give the game my highest recommendation. It's not the best cooperative game for less-experienced gamers (IMO, that's Pandemic), and you'd better set aside 3-4 hours to get through it, but at the end you'll want to pick a new character and play again.

As for the new Pegasus expansion, by designers Corey Konieczka, Daniel Clark, and Tim Uren, I was also pleased at its gameplay. The new mechanics, while daunting at first glance, proved quite well explained in the rulebook and relatively intuitive to the four experienced BSG players at the table. 

Key additions include Cylon leaders as characters (and if you're dubious about being able to play a character who's openly a Cylon, trust that the designers have good answers for that) and a tense new endgame scenario (escaping from New Caprica) that really amped up what can sometimes feel like a foregone conclusion. It also throws in plenty of new Crisis cards, Super Crisis cards, Quorum cards, and even new skill cards, to keep even the basic game scenario feeling fresh and new.

Play BSG a few times before adding the expansion, but if you're looking for new challenges and twists to your BSG game, I definitely recommend picking up Pegasus.