Legacy D&D

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Our thoughts on D&D 5th Edition

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January 11, 2012
by Stargazer in , , , ,

D&DI have to admit that I was totally oblivious to WotC’s big announcement (which was first published by the NY Times) until my team member Youseph told me about it. But I don’t really follow D&D news for quite a while now. But since D&D is the grand daddy of all roleplaying games out there you can’t really ignore it either.

So, what the news at WotC? What the community suspected for quite some time now, is actually true: WotC is already working on a new edition of D&D.  If it will be called D&D 5th Edition or something else is still unclear, but Mike Mearls obviously likes the idea of just calling it “Dungeons & Dragons” and drop the edition number altogether.

This time they want to do it right and bring back the highly fragmented D&D community. This also more or less proves that D&D 4th Edition wasn’t as successful as the decision makers at WotC and Hasbro hoped for. I suspect the success of Paizo’s Pathfinder and probably even the Old-School Revolution are responsible for that.

While their goals are laudable I fear they are doomed to fail. They plan to create a new edition of D&D that shall please both fans of the recent D&D 4E but also bring back the OSR crowd. They intend to manage this by creating a modular ruleset and community involvement during the design and playtest phases. I have to admit that a highly modular D&D game could be quite interesting. The Unearthed Arcana book for D&D 3.5 was one of my favorite books back when I still played D&D. Being able to pick and choose the rules options you like in your D&D game might be pretty nifty, but in my opinion it’s very hard to pull off.

Community involvement in the design phase may also be pretty problematic. Only a small portion of gamers does participate in online communities or attend gaming convention. How do you make sure that the game appeals to this silent majority and not only to the quite vocal minority that actively participates in the design process?

I have to admit that I’m not that invested in that topic as I was a couple of years back. I wish WotC all the best and if the next iteration of D&D is a roleplaying game that sounds fun to play, I might give it a try. But if it’s not my cup of tea I’ll just play something else. There are so many interesting games out there, so that I am not dependent on Dungeons & Dragons.

Before I let the team speak their thoughts, let me share you some interesting links for you to check out later:

So, what are my fellow team members’ thoughts on that topic? How do you feel about WotC’s announcement?

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New Year’s Gaming Resolutions

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January 10, 2012
by Stargazer in , , , , ,

calvin-and-hobbesBefore talking about the plans for 2012 let’s have a look back at the last year. Back in January 2011 I set one goal for 2011: play more. And while I discovered Google+ Hangouts as a perfect medium for online gaming, I didn’t actually achieve that goal. When I am not totally mistaken I did actually play less than in 2010. Scheduling has been more difficult than ever and a lot of the plans I made fell flat in the end.

But that doesn’t mean I have given up. So my first gaming related resolution for 2012 is the same as last year: play more. We actually scheduled our first game for the second weekend in January where I want to wrap up the Call of Cthulhu game from New Year’s Eve.

But aside from that I want to run a campaign from start to finish in 2012. It doesn’t need to be long, but a story arc that covers at least a dozen sessions would be a nice change. I have a couple of ideas what I would love to run in the new year, but before making any plans I should consult my players. More than once I’ve made plans for a game that I never ran because I couldn’t interest my players in it.

One of the things I would love to do is running a sandbox campaign with Lamentations of the Flame Princess. I recently got my print copy of Carcosa and I utterly love that book. The setting is extremely weird, has a lot of Lovecraft influences and looks and reads great. I’ll also have to think of a way on how to make use of Vornheim, too, since it’s another book I would like to use someday. I am not sure if my players are into old-school D&D, but it might be worth a try.

When it comes to game design I still have a couple of unfinished projects on my harddrive that need some more work. So another goal for 2012 is to at least finish one of those projects. Heck, perhaps I should resurrect the Gearbox project or finally finish that game I’ve been working on in secret for way too long…

So what are your gaming resolutions for 2012? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

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First Look: Carcosa

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December 16, 2011
by Stargazer in , , ,

Carcosa cover I don’t remember when I first heard about Carcosa. I think someone mentioned it on Twitter or I discovered a link to some preview somewhere. But I was immediately intrigued. Carcosa is a weird science-fantasy horror setting by Geoffrey McKinney and published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

There seems to be some controversy around this product. I have to admit I haven’t bothered to look deeper into this, but I believe one reason is that Carcosa is not what you would consider family friendly. Like LotFP it doesn’t hide the fact that it is for adults only. Among Carcosa’s inspirations the author lists the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E.Howard, Lin Carter and Michael Moorcock. And a setting inspired by the writings of these people can’t be all bad. And trust me, it isn’t.

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Dark Dungeons – The Animated Film

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November 1, 2011
by Stargazer in , , ,

As a roleplayer you surely know the Jack Chick tract “Dark Dungeons” and if you don’t you definitely need to check it out. It still baffles me that there are people out there who believe in magic and think D&D (and other roleplaying games) can teach you how to cast spells. Heck, if I could mind control people using magic, I wouldn’t probably need a day job but I would rule the world … or at least a small European country. But I digress. ;)

Last year a group called “Boolean Union” created an animated film based on said Chick tract. That may actually be old news to some of you. I don’t actually know what reminded me of the existence of said movie, I think someone mentioned it on Twitter or Google+ the other day. Alas I can’t remember who it was. Nevertheless, the animated film based on the Chick tract is fun to watch even though the animation looks very old school. But hey, it fits the source material.

 

Enjoy!

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Get 20% off of selected titles at DriveThruRPG

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September 30, 2011
by Stargazer in , , , , ,

DriveThruRPG If you have been following this blog you probably have seen these discounts before. Every month DriveThruRPG provides us with a discount code and a list of eligible products. As you may have noticed the new code arrived a bit late but this time we get a longer list of discounted products than usual. Without further ado, here’s the list of the stuff you can get 20% off until November 10th:

In order to benefit from the discount you need to enter the coupon code DiceInTheFall during checkout! There’s definitely a lot of good stuff on this list.

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Almost as good as the real deal: playing RPGs over Google+ Hangout

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September 23, 2011
by Stargazer in , , , , ,

This is not an actual screenshot. Yesterday I joined Chris McDowall and a group of three players I didn’t know before that in a game of “Into the Odd” over Google+ Hangout. In this post I want to talk a little bit about both. Let’s start with “Into the Odd”.

“Into the Odd” is basically a highly streamlined and simplified version of D&D that did away with classes, three of the attributes and includes a totally new magic system. In this game magic is not fully understood and based on artifacts left behind by some race that supposedly came from the stars. While it’s a fantasy games it brings a lot of horror and SF themes to the table. The focus of the game is exploration and in our game we explored the “Iron Coral”.

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My edition of D&D

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September 22, 2011
by Stargazer in , , , , ,

The beholder is not amused!Recently it was announced that Monte Cook is working for WotC again. And of course the rumors that they are already working on D&D 5th Edition flared up again. But that’s not what I want to write about today.

Sometimes I think about what would I have done if I was in charge of the development of D&D. Luckily I am not in that position so I can freely think about what I would like to design and play instead of worrying about what the fans would like to see. Because – you can trust me on this – I love to slaughter sacred cows. Zwinkerndes Smiley

Let me start by a disclaimer: I haven’t been a fan of D&D before third edition and while OD&D in form of the retro clones has a certain charm for me, there are many other games I prefer.

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