mandisaw's page

I tried finding an existing thread where this might fit, but it's all tangled up...

Regardless of what new system rules the designers and playtesters come up with, I truly feel like the base marketing/business approach is going awry here, or at least not adapting well.

Clearly 4th edition caused issues among people familiar with D&D already, but maybe an even bigger issue was that it didn't bring in a flood-tide of people who haven't played pen and paper RPGs at all. Many existing players, myself included, taught some new people how to play D&D using 4th edition (or using 3.5 or Pathfinder), but that's still an organic growth process. You can only run so many groups at a time.

I clearly remember kids back in elementary school & (J) high school playing RPGs on looseleaf in the cafeteria (usually assumed to be D&D, even if it was homebrewed into something completely different). They had maybe 1 rulebook in their bag, or maybe just a module and some jotted-down notes. My kid brother's notebooks were more full of D&D (and his Final Fantasy/D&D hybrid) than actual school notes for most of 6-8th grade. D&D was set up as something kids could do on the cheap, without electronics, without parental involvement (maybe a drive to the gaming/comic store?), and with the tools they already had at hand. A more "grown-up" version of make-believe.

And for folks with more resources? My DH got into D&D by way of the Gold Box games and the early Salvatore & Dragonlance books. Friends swapping (and yes, copying) games became a gaming group, and later a LAN-party group in the days of Neverwinter Nights. There was even the cartoon. And for the budding writers, you had the letters/submissions to Dragon & Dungeon. You could literally find D&D in every form of media entertainment, all feeding people into the game to become new players (or even better, DMs).

3.5 had the OGL, and it kinda(*) had NWN2 and DDO, and the Realms at least still had novels. LFR was good for some, but gaming shops were starting to close up or get smaller/further away, and not everyone can afford to go to conventions (or likes con-style gaming). 4e closed ranks even further, with way fewer novels, no video games (the FB game is cute, but feels incomplete w/o playing with friends), no video projects beyond the initial YouTube promos, and serious curtailment of updated/original settings. (Rolling your own adventure/campaign is fine, but rolling your own world is much harder, let alone finding ppl interested enough to play in it.)

Established PnP gamers have lots of systems, past & present, mainstream & indie, to choose from, which is great, and people should play what they like, as they like. Clearly though, you only find out about things like Pathfinder, or GURPS, or Cthulhu after a friend tells you or you know to seek it out from some other source.

However you personally play/feel, very few new-to-PnP people are being actively roped into the hobby, esp. kids/teens, and I think that's way more important to the sustained growth of PnP RPGs (as an industry and as a group of gamers) than rules systems. And I don't hear much of anything from Wizards or from the fans about how to address that fundamental issue.

(* I say kinda, because you could never play more than a few races/classes, and they all focused on a very small slice of the spectrum of D&D settings and adventure-types.)

After taking a chance on the show in the summer, I was pleasantly surprised to find the now-rare combo of good writing, good acting, and real sci-fi television - especially on the oft-disappointing Syfy Channel. Here's the Wiki link.

It's set in Stephen King's usual haunt of a sleepy Maine town, that of course has unspoken mysteries beneath the surface. In this case that's various townsfolk who break out with dangerous/tragic powers in times of hardship or stress/anxiety - the "Troubled". Apparently it's a generational thing & runs in families, which compounds the usual small-town issues of everyone knowing everyone's business & family history.

Enter a fiesty, competent(!) female FBI agent whose ties to the town become the main arc-plot, and her new townie partners - a "troubled" cop who can't physically feel anything, even injuries/lover's touch/etc, and the local get-anything smuggler guy. The show has kind of a sci-fi in-joke/genre-bending overlay, which livens up the troubled-person-of-the-week stories.

The series finished it's full season run this week, and thankfully got picked up for a 2nd run (unlike Dresden Files, the last good show SFC aired that I liked until they pulled the plug on it). Anybody else catch it?

This Maximum PC article on internet television (specifically Google TV) mentions a "Poker Night" concept by the folks at Intel that is basically a webcam-enhanced virtual tabletop on the television. There's a picture (about 1/3 down) that basically features a scenario that could easily be MapTools-on-TV, enhanced by headsets, webcams, and linked-in tablet computers (or smartphones) to show player-specific information.

The article has the folks at Intel and Google gushing about how this could be the future, with their upcoming proprietary hardware/software. But it seems to me like most of the technology exists already:
- internet-connected home-theater PCs (or app-running set-tops like Boxee)
- headsets w/ optional webcams
- and either a port of current VTT software (MapTools, but there are others) or an as-yet-unwritten mobile/TV app.

Honestly, it looked to me like a ramped-up version of co-op games on Xbox Live (or a private LAN server).

Anybody else think this is feasible with current tech? And if so, could the software be cobbled together from existing sources, or is this something to watch out for on the horizon?

I enjoyed the article on tieflings in Bastards of Erebus, and will certainly refer to it for guidance on tiefling characters born or traveling through the various lands beyond Chelish influence. However, the anti-tiefling hatred and second-class citizen status doesn't ring true IMO with the state-mandated devil-worshiping, "all-things-fiendish are a-okay with us" Chelaxians.

I mean it doesn't seem like a stretch to think that some noble family hard on its luck would try to get a social boost by way of an infusion of fiendish blood. Or to get tricked into it by way of a Faustian bargain, or as a result of a foolhardy indiscretion. And the children of those circumstances probably wouldn't just accept an oppressed lot in life, at least not the interesting ones we're concerned with - prominent NPCs & PC-adventurers.

Shouldn't there be a different attitude about and among tieflings in Cheliax from the rest of the world? Sure, any tiefling, accidental or intended, should have a seriously tragic, "David Copperfield" childhood everywhere else, but in Cheliax they should be different. Perhaps some kind of "favored servant" class status, where they could at best attain "power behind the powerful" positions, or where human-flavored tieflings would be preferred over presumably "less trustworthy" non-human outsiders. [EDIT: I mean outsiders as in other races, not specifically planar outsiders.]

I plan to play it that way in my sandbox, but I wanted to see what others thought on the matter.

The July Ampersand article included a screenshot of the new Monster Builder, presumably the first of the DDI Campaign Tools (a.k.a. Adventure Tools, DM Tools). It's designed to be a more robust hybrid of the web-based custom monster-maker and the published creatures in the Compendium. The image size is small (Firefox'ers can use 'Ctrl-+' to zoom in) but it looks like it'll be pretty handy and robust for building your own personal Monster Manual. (The article is DDI-exclusive, but the picture seems intended for sharing & discussion.)

I've checked out some of the fan-made tools that have similar functionality (MasterPlan is a good one along those lines) but of course, they don't have access to the WotC content, and they don't always let you save/export the monsters for trading or later use elsewhere. I've found the web-based custom monster-maker to be very useful, and it would be a significant improvement to integrate the custom/homebrew with the pre-existing monster database.

I read the article as implying that we'll be able to mix-and-match monster abilities, although I don't know if that includes previously-created custom abilities. I'm also unsure if we'll be able to trade custom monsters in some form, or whether there'll be a hobbled demo version of the final Builder. Anybody heard more on this? Anyone else excited/interested?

I'm looking to start up a weekly D&D 4e/Golarion game for the summer, either after-work one evening per week or Saturday afternoons.

The game's a fey-heavy wilderness adventure set in the Bloodsworn Vale using 4e rules. If you've played the Bloodsworn Vale module (W1), the premise will be familiar, but the plot's different, so feel free to join us anyway.

This will be a first 4e game for most of us, so if you're looking for a patient introduction to the new system, we're learner-friendly. We're also a "grown-up friendly" bunch of 30-somethings.

We'll do a hybrid of in-person meetups (in the city, probably at the Citicorp Atrium) and online sessions, likely using MapTools (with text or voice chat - whatever works best for people).

If you're interested, just drop me a line at (my Paizo username) at rpg.flowerstorm.net, or post any questions here on the thread. (Player questions feed my hungry pet sphinx. *grin*)

The PHB says that rituals can be acquired as treasure, either as single-use scrolls, or as spellbooks that can be copied/mastered later. But the DMG is mum on the subject of dispensing rituals to PCs. Clearly, PCs can simply buy rituals from their Friendly Local Wand Waver, but it seems like DMs are supposed to be making rituals available in other ways as well.

So should DMs just include the occasional scroll or spellbook in the treasure calculation in a straight exchange for currency, keeping to the "party level or lower" restriction? Or should rituals be treated like magic items, and offer some level+n enrichment and enticement to successful PCs? Any advice?

So a recent closeout sale at a FLGS finally prompted me to buy a couple of Map Packs, and I'm hooked. *yeah* Ancient Forest and Elven City will work quite nicely in a wilderness adventure I'm cooking up. But why is there no love for other wilderness settings?

There are enough urban-related packs to run the entire city of Korvosa or Absalom without lifting a sharpie (which I'll probably do next). But aside from a sampling in Campsites, I don't see any packs on the lineup featuring other less-than-civilized locales. Are these coming up in sync with future adventures in Garund & Kelesh?

Interesting Dragon article about items that are less important than artifacts, but still liven things up a little. I haven't poked through all the nitty gritty, but it seems to hybridize the rules for NPC creation with standard magic item creation, with the caveat that this is probably GM-creation-only gear.

For some reason, I find myself wanting to write up a female paladin bearing a shield with her father's skull embedded in it, a la The Bowler's Daughter from "Mystery Men".

- "Shut up, Galen, I'm not a little girl anymore, I *know* what I'm doing", seemingly talking into her own shield on the eve of battle, to the consternation of her companions.

Ah, the possibilities...

Just looking for an update on when/if thumbnail pictures would be available for the Map Packs. There was some talk about it last year, but no info since. With the line ever-expanding (pre-orders, FTW!), it's hard to decide which Packs to get without some kind of basis for comparison. (We really can't buy 'em all, unfortunately.)

Would it be possible to get naming conventions for the different cultures of Golarion? While the RotRL Players' Guide had some suggestions for Varisian and Shoanti names, I haven't found any since, even in the Gazetteer.

I'm assuming the Campaign Guide will probably have some info in this regard, but a handy selection of male/female names for the different cultures would be useful as a separate entity (a blog entry, perhaps?).

Wanting to spice up my social/sneaky Half-Elf Beguiler a bit with some racial enhancements, I'm considering including fey-related elements. But the question is whether to go with the Fey Heritage feat chain from C. Mage, or one of the Fey Bloodlines from Unearthed Arcana (or neither).

Here are the pros & cons as I see 'em:

Heritage Feats
- can obtain full benefits using only 3-4 feats, by 9-10th level (depending on the rest of the build)
- only the base feat is required, all others are open-selection
- open to any race/caster type, including non-casters
- several useful spells from the Beguiler spell list as spell-like abilities
- a couple of potentially powerful spells (as Sp-abilities) that would be otherwise unobtainable within the class: dimension door & summon nature's ally V
- (Con) as a Half-Elf Beguiler, the Will save bonus from the base feat stacks, but may be unnecessary with the existing racial bonus and the good Will save progression for the class

Bloodline
- benefits are evenly distributed over 20 levels
- open to any race/caster type, including non-casters
- includes skill & ability boosts
- provides "affinity" improvements to social dealings with fey creatures (usefulness depends on campaign)
- also has several useful spells from the Beguiler spell list as spell-like abilities
- at levels 2 & 3, has a couple of potentially useful spells that are unattainable within the class (as Sp-abilities): speak with plants/animals
- (Con) must take 1-3 bloodline levels over your career, which sets back "normal" level progression
- (Con) must declare up-front how many bloodline levels you intend to take, there's an XP penalty for non-compliance

So, what benefits/drawbacks have I missed, and how important are the ones above, relatively? So far, our campaign has seen a 30/70 mix of social interaction and dungeon delving, with the DM throwing some undead and constructs our way so I can't *sleep* my party's way through every encounter.