Search Posts
So let's say you buy a book. A book with hard covers. A book with hard covers filled with awesome about a fantasy world. And in that book, let's say there's a section about time, the calendar, and holy days. And in that section, let's say there's a list of the months of this fantasy world, and in each month are listed things like dates that different fantasy nations celebrate their independence from other fantasy nations and the holy days of the fantasy deities. Let's say you wanted to see some other kinds of days marked on this fantasy calendar... what other kinds of days would you want to see?
My friend, whose work blocks him from Paizo.com (alas!), asked me to put up these ideas: As it is now, after 1st level, your race doesn't really matter all that much. What if there was a scaling ability for races? His first idea would be abilities you gain at higher levels: 1st: Normal bonuses.
His second idea was a set of feats a race can gain at certain levels. Like this: Dwarven Health
Dwarven Resistance
Dwarven Rock
Dwarven Stone Affinity
Increased Dwarven Stone Affinity
Dwarven Strength
Heart of the Dwarven Lord
Blessing of the Earth Mother
Thoughts? :)
Assuming that...
Assuming all of that, what kinds of information (as general or specific as you like) would you be interested in seeing in Guide to Darkmoon Vale?
Swooping in on my vacation just long enough to post this. Depending on the nation in which you live, today is one of the following holidays: Armistice Day (France)
May the sacrifices of those for whom this day honors never be forgotten, and may the world someday embrace the peaceful hopes of those who chose this day to end the War to End All Wars. Thank you veterans. And thank you to those who fought eight decades ago.
A couple months ago, we put up a blog post wherein all the members of R&D answered the same burning question (a question I have long-since forgotten). Anyway, we're thinking you might enjoy more such blog posts (yes? no? maybe?). If you would like to see more posts where we all answer the same question, provide us some questions! Yes, that's right! Post your questions here for us to potentially answer on the blog. We might not get through all the questions y'all post, but we'll answer as many as we have time for. So if you like those kinds of blog posts, put up your questions here.
:D
So according to animenewsnetwork.com, Marvelous Entertainment announced a sequel to the super-excellent 13-episode Gunslinger Girl anime. Scuttlebutt has it that Funimation (the American distributor) pushed hard for more GG anime, because apparently it did really well for them. Whatever the cause, I'm just ecstatic to know that my favorite anime is going to get a continuation. This just a month after hearing ADV Manga is going to pick up the manga series from where they left off a couple years ago. It's a great month to be a GG fan! :D
Inspired by the Paizonian Guild thread for WoW, I bring you THIS thread! Do any of you play Guild Wars or City of Heroes? I have all three GW campaigns, although I'm not terribly fond of the first one. Factions and Nightfall FTW, however. I tend to tromp around on the Virtue server of CoH, although I have characters spread out all over the place. ... So... sound off, people! WoW ain't the only (or funnest) MMO on the block! ;D
Now that I have more than a dozen pages (including a half-dozen maps or so) filled out in my old version of the Campaign Workbook (which, by the way, has yet to lose a page), do I continue using it or do I transfer all that work into the newer, snazzier, spiral-bound version? Because I knew about the binding problem before I started using my CW, I've been able to keep it intact. I wonder, though, if that's going to last through to the end of the campaign? Do I dare risk losing pages by taking the lazy route or do I spend the energy to transfer my campaign over to the new CW before it gets even more filled in? Hmm... decisions, decision... What are you going to do? :)
Ladies and gentlemen of the contributing community. When you send in an article please, please, please put your name in the document. Preferably at the beginning. Including your address and phone number earns you bonus points you can later redeem for cookies*. It is better to over-saturate your article with your name (such as including it in a header or footer) than to under-represent yourself (or to not represent yourself at all). That is all. ... *Bonus points cannot be redeemed for cookies. This is a lie.
In America, November 11th is set aside as Veteran's Day, a day to honor those who have served. To those who have served and to those who are currently serving: Thank you. :) In the rest of the world, November 11th is called Remembrance Day, a day that honors the end of the Great War and—as I understand it—a yearly call for peace across the globe. Amen to that! :)
So for my campaign I'm beginning to consider starting PCs at 4th level instead of 1st. Why 4th? Because we're going to use the gestalt character rules from Unearthed Arcana, with one class a d20 Modern class and one class from D&D. And since the d20 Modern basic classes suck I'd like the PCs to have a chance to start off with an advance class, which they can qualify for at 4th level. But is starting at a level higher than 1st robbing my players of something? I personally dislike DMing 1st-level characters, because I tend to kill them or bore them, but I can imagine some players who absolutely love playing weaklings. What do you think? :)
So I'm going to start up a game in late October or early November, and while I have all the plot and setting and all that worked out, I'm still stymied by the character creation rules I want to use. Question
Reasonings
• My current thought is to start characters at 1st level with advanced classes from d20 Modern but as the campaign progresses allow them to multiclass (freely! none of this 20% XP penalty crap!) into D&D standard classes. In theory, that should work, but I just want to make sure those characters who stick with d20 Modern standard classes aren't going to get completely overwhelmed by not making the switch. Other Considerations
• One feat per Hit Die for everyone (PCs, NPCs, and monsters). This will require some retrofitting of printed characters and monsters, but ce la vie. On the other hand, lots of options! • Gestalt characters for PCs (from Unearthed Arcana). This will require slightly tougher opponents, but that's not a challenge ("Oh, you killed my single guard, eh? Well, here are two more. Yeah, take that!"). (No, I don't really DM like that.) (Usually.) This would allow a nice chance to mix d20 Modern and D&D classes. • Maximum hit points at each level. D&D is more fun when your character doesn't die. D&D is a lot more fun when you don't roll a 1 on hit point rolls. Other Systems
Thanks for your input! :)
So! We're switching to the longer magic item format, as you might know. If you're interested in sending me a query for Bazaar of the Bizarre, I have some advice here that will help all of us. :) There are three item design philosophies running through Wizards of the Coast right now that also run through Dragon.
So I've been told to be a lot more stingy with the Bazaar of the Bizarre articles I accept. Thus, a Bazaar of the Bizarre query should include a list of 9-20 items with a name (placeholder or "final") and a sentence describing its function for each one. I will then take your list and number the items. When you're writing your final article, after you do your intro, start with the item numbered #1 and work your way down through the list until you hit ~2,000 words. Speaking of intros: I've allowed a couple bazaars to begin with a short story. This is not a practice I want to continue. Make your introduction as short as possible (to leave more words for items), but make sure it covers the important stuff—namely, how the items are connected. The intro can still run as long as 300 words if you need that much space, but in general I'd like to aim for less than 200 words. That's it for now. Please feel free to add comments, questions, or "bump" posts to the thread. :)
You might have noticed that in the last year or so Wizards of the Coast's books have been using a newer, fuller stat block format for magic items. You might have also noticed that we have not. That changes now! Grab any recent Wizards of the Coast book and look at the magic items. If you're writing BotB articles from now on, you'll want to emulate that style. This means fewer, more detailed items. So what if you already have an article in with me? Well, I'll handle that on a case-by-case basis, as I get to your article. If you've sent me a Bazaar of the Bizarre article in the past few weeks I haven't looked at it yet, so feel free to redo it in the new format and then re-send it to me. :) Otherwise, you might get an email from me asking for an update. Or not. It depends on how easy I think it'll be for me to do it.
The never-ending editorial tweaking that keeps Class Acts fresh, interesting, and useful continues unabated. The switch from eleven to four articles each month has made my job an enjoyable challenge. I have to choose the absolutely best articles available to me for inclusion. The competition is becoming increasingly fierce, and the acceptance percentage continues to drop (a glance at my poor overstuffed Inbox tells me that I probably have a lot of bad news to distribute in the coming noncommittal timeframe). The department has simply become more challenging, both for me and for the hopeful writers out there looking to write for it. I welcome that challenge. Do you? Once again, I'm putting out a general free call to anyone who wants to try his or her hand at writing for Class Acts (and getting your name in Dragon and getting paid a little for your effort). Want some guidelines to improve your chance of acceptance? Here you go! The Basics
Ideas to Avoid
Neutral Ideas
Ideas to Embrace
Archetype Distribution
Yesterday we had our inaugural 1/month session of a Call of Cthulhu game run by Dungeon Managing Editor James Jacobs. Yes, I know the GM of a CoC game is called a Keeper, but the title "James Jacobs Keepers Call of Cthulhu" just doesn't sound right. :P So! CoC! I've never played it before, and I'm not big into horror, but I wasn't about to pass up a chance to play a game run by James. And the CoC game is pretty easy to learn. I went in expecting chills and thrills and excellent GMing. I certainly got excellent GMing, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The group consists of James Jacobs as Keeper, his friend Steve (who doesn't work in the industry and thus get his privacy protected by excluding his last name), Eric Haddock (former web editor for Wizards of the Coast), Erik Mona, Jason Bulmahn, Wesley Schneider, and myself (duh). Wes and I had never played CoC, but everyone else had and they were all very helpful. We sat down and made our characters. James brought us all together by declaring that we lived in Boston and that we had been invited to join a gentleman's club out on the outskirts of the city. The year was 1928. The history majors and history goobs in the group immediately set about making our characters as realistically tied into the era as possible. Jason Bulmahn and I independently came up with the idea of creating a Tsarist exile, which immediately bonded our characters. I thought I'd be playing the old man of the group (my character is 63), but Steve trumped me with his Civil War-veteran of 81 years. Erik created a smarmy Southern lawyer. Eric made up a small-press publisher with a misshapen body. Wes created a former Doughboy turned photographer. After creation, James had us make Luck rolls. Each character in turn arrived at the gentleman's club in order of the Luck roll results (low to high), and my 93% near-botch made me almost late. Which was pretty fairly in character, actually. ;) So one by one each character arrived and met the others, and it quickly became apparent that there would not be a homogenous mass of PCs. The two crazy Russians (because why play a Tsarist exile if he's not crazy?) formed a bloc (you'll excuse the pun) with Eric's publisher. Wes and Steve's quiet characters kinda did their own things, acting as the glue that held the group together. Erik's lawyer was fairly antagonistic toward much of the group (and pretty much everyone he met who wasn't obviously wealthy or in need of lawyerly services), including the Crazy Bloc (which was another reason the three of us banded together). Without going into too many details, the session involved a great deal of investigation (as I am led to believe CoC games do), some Prohibition-Era under-the-table drinking, and the random discharge of a firearm (contributed to by said under-the-table drinking). Oh yeah, and there was a ton of laughter at the session. We didn't meet anything scary, so we basically spent the whole time roleplaying our wacky characters to the hilt. Character List! Boston, Massachusetts. February 1st-11th, 1928.
Know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see a whole Bazaar of the Bizarre dedicated to magic rings. Hmm... good thing I'm editor of the department... If you think you might want to tackle that idea, pop me an email (mike dot mcartor at paizo dot com) with 7-8 ring ideas. I have a couple in mind that I'd like to see, so if I like your query I'll let you know about those. :) 2,000 words. 7-8 rings. Blah blah blah... *readies himself for about 30 queries*
I just responded to an email from one of my newer contributors asking me what sorts of Class Acts articles I want. That got me thinking: I should post something to our boards to let everyone (who reads our boards) know what I'd like to see. Just in case someone is interested in writing Class Acts (and I know a lot of my best contributors visit these boards). So! Class Acts... The basics:
More specific:
I don't want:
I like but I'm not sure I can run many:
I want:
Editing the Dragon Compendium. Erik Mona approached me in July and asked if I'd be interested in doing a little freelance editing. Well, I love to edit, so I said sure. He then pointed me to the Dragon Compendium's raw text files that Mike Mearls had developed. I chuckled nervously, gave it a few seconds' thought, and agreed. I plunged right in and started whipping that text into shape. The actual editing of text went pretty smoothly. Mearls delivered good, clean copy, as usual, and some of the articles even originated from issues that Wes and I started working on (Dragon #316 for those of you keeping score at home). It didn't hurt that the book contains tons of cool stuff that kept my interest piqued: races (including a couple done by me!), standard classes, prestige classes, magic items, and monsters. As anyone who knows me will tell you, though, feats are my favorite part of the game. The Dragon Compendium does not fail me, offering a hefty 77 feats for me to peruse. Reading through them, new and "old," gave me inspiration for new character ideas I want to try some day, and I hope they do the same for you. In addition to loving the feats chapter, I enjoyed going through all the great old—and not so old—articles updated for third edition. The oldest article I could remember reading in my very own copy of the magazine came from Dragon #184: "The 7-Sentence NPC." Of course, the Classics chapter and the Appendices contain much older articles—articles from an era before I had even heard of Dragon. Editing through those older articles forced me to slow down and tread more carefully. D&D—and Dragon along with it—has become linguistically more precise and exacting with the newest edition. The nostalgia I felt reading articles from the days before and after I first discovered D&D put a smile on my face. We can't go back to those halcyon days of our youth, but the Dragon Compendium can remind us of our earliest memories of D&D. It gives us a little window back to our first experiences with the game we love.
Wes kindly felt that I might get lonely this week, being the only editor of either magazine not at Gen Con. In order to alleviate that, he and Jason decided that I needed someone (or something) to keep me company. Thus my surprise Wednesday morning when I walked into the editorial area and saw this. Yep, that's my cube. It's the first one you see when walking into the editorial area. Yes, those are all the little plush animals and monsters and some of the plastic figurines from the area, taken from the desks of James, Jason, Jeremy, Wes, and myself. This is what's behind me. Jason's desk is there on the left and Wes's on the right. The fat yellow chicken's name is Tumor. This is my cube wall. All the little beanies from the squirrel right are Jeremy's. Those from the leapard left are mine. That's right, you'll recognize Disney characters on that wall. :) And here we see George W., the vorpal bunny, and the red devil ducky (all from Jason's desk) overlooking my Player's Handbook. Yes, I cropped this to show off my precious CMS. My Precioussssssss... The wackiness of the editorial department knows no bounds! Now to return all these little guys to their proper cubes... :D
Wes kindly felt that I might get lonely this week, being the only editor of either magazine not at Gen Con. In order to alleviate that, he and Jason decided that I needed someone (or something) to keep me company. Thus my surprise Wednesday morning when I walked into the editorial area and saw this. Yep, that's my cube. It's the first one you see when walking into the editorial area. Yes, those are all the little plush animals and monsters and some of the plastic figurines from the area, taken from the desks of James, Jason, Jeremy, Wes, and myself. This is what's behind me. Jason's desk is there on the left and Wes's on the right. The fat yellow chicken's name is Tumor. This is my cube wall. All the little beanies from the squirrel right are Jeremy's. Those from the leapard left are mine. That's right, you'll recognize Disney characters on that wall. :) [url="http://www.mkmcartor.com/images/cube-mine-zoom.JPG"]And here we see George W., the vorpal bunny, and the red devil ducky (all from Jason's desk) overlooking my Player's Handbook. Yes, I cropped this to show off my precious CMS. My Precioussssssss... The wackiness of the editorial department knows no bounds! Now to return all these little guys to their proper cubes... :D
D'oh! My moneys! {sob} Before you put DVDs up on the frontpage I was moderately safe from seeing all my moneys disappear (I could only buy the anime DVDs I knew about). Now, however... :( Rob and Gary, the new frontpage (with its new sections, including the Paizo one) looks excellent! Keep up the great work! :)
Last night we had another session of Jason Bulmahn's every-other-Wednesday Eberron game. In attendence were Amber Scott (Medesha on these boards), James Jacobs (James Jacobs on these boards), Tim Nightingale (uh...not on these boards?), and me (obviously). Rather than go into all the gruesome details (actually, we roleplayed all night with nary an initiative check), I figured some at least mildly humorous quotes would be in order (they aren't necessarily exact quotes, since I didn't actually write any of these down, but they give you the gist of what was said). To place these at least a little in context, we finally arrived in Sharn on the lightning rail. None of us had ever been to Sharn (except Tim's character, who has amnesia and doesn't remember being there). Amber (as Ursula, a shifter barbarian), as we approached Sharn on the lightning rail: "I think I'm going to be afraid of heights." James (as Chuko, a kenku scout): "Wark!" Mike (as Sim, a changeling brd/sor/rog of questionable morals), trying to get his sword identified: "And what about my sword?"
James, as Chuko and the others are whisked around in an air chariot: "Wark wark wark wark wark wark!" Amber, after we picked up some crazy stone square: "It looks Incan."
James, at random intervals: "Wark!" I invite James, Amber, Jason, and Tim to toss in any others they remember. Everyone else, feel free to comment. :)
Last night the collected editorial staffs for Dragon and Dungeon got together, along with Sean Glenn (senior art director), Sarah Robinson (Dragon's graphic designer--i.e. the person who makes it pretty), and Kyle Hunter (of Downer and Undefeated art director fame). What did we do? We played D&D of course! With Erik Mona as DM! In Greyhawk! Talk about your awesome roleplaying experience! My character did three notable things last night: Went last in the initiative order (despite my +6 initiative bonus), took the first damage of the campaign (3 of my 6 hit points), and used my 1337 ninja skilz to avoid a horrendous death. Others in the game can tell your their exploits, if they so choose. Hey look, it's a chance for us to tell you about our characters! Isn't that thrilling? ;D ...wait...where did everybody go? ;)
Whether you want to write for us or already do, check out our new and improved Writers Guidelines! You can find the link on the main Dragon page, paizo.com/dragon. This is a good thread to ask us any questions you might have about them, although you might note that there is a new FAQ section at the end.
Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Mt. St. Helens is all riled up again. Maybe she'll do a pyroclastic eruption this time. Of course, I'd be happy with another dust and ash cataclysm. If she does go off again, I'm takin' a personal day and my camera and heading down for the show! :D ...now if we could just get Rainier to do something...
So I moved to the Seattle area last November, and I currently live about 20 minutes from Wizards of the Coast headquarters. My office is full of gamers, and even a few who play Games You Can Win. Although I left most of my cards with my best friend down in Vancouver, I still have a small but respectable collection of Magic cards up here. I prefer to play casually, although I'll jump in a prerelease tournament if I know a friend is going (where I actually win packs on occasion). So you'd think I'd play Magic like there was no tommorow. I have played Magic once in the last ten months. Once. AND I had to go back home to do it! Grrr... Well anyway, James Jacobs has promised to play Magic with me sometime, and hmm...I'm going over to his place this weekend to watch movies... So anybody else ever have trouble finding gaming friends to play games with? Maybe those who live near you don't play the same style you do, or maybe they play different TCGs. Share your experiences! :)
|