Megadungeons, epic character deathtraps that have made or broken a thousand RPG campaigns, are staging a comeback. While it’s been upwards of 25-30 years since we first crawled into Castle Greyhawk and Undermountain, the Oughts saw the release of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, World’s Largest Dungeon, Castle Whiterock, Maure Castle and now … Read more
Game Master’s Day is one of those great ideas that never quite seems to get enough love. It’s held on March 4th (“March Fourth for Game Master’s Day”), which means this is the first year I’ve actually had a post up about it on the day it was happening. The idea is that today’s the … Read more
Some of the second-stage books for D&D 4th Edition are hitting book stores, which has ignited a new wave of reviews among bloggers. I don’t think any of these new books are going to change hearts and minds among those who dislike 4E — that will have to wait for 2009’s Player’s Handbook II — … Read more
It’s been a while since I’ve talked about the podcasts I listen to, partly because for much of the late summer and early fall I really wasn’t listening to many of them (save the Order 66 podcast, which I’ve listened to slavishly since realizing my Star wars campaign was really going to happen). That’s changed … Read more
Nuketown Radio Active #72 contemplates the best way to organize a geeky bookshelf, takes another turn at chess with kids, finds out that Neutron Lad has a lot to talk about, and asks questions about Nuketown’s long-dormant RADIATIONS newsletter. Finally I review Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, the latest edition of the venerable role-playing game by … Read more
I slacked on my own game review duties at Nuketown this week (though I did pitch a review to a new market) but thankfully others remained on the ball, yielding a number of new reviews.
There are two more Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition reviews out this week. The Geek Gazette offers some initial thoughts on the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide and rants about the necessity of buying both a campaign guide and a player’s guide. This is undoubtedly great for WotC’s bottom line, he argues, but no so great for players.
My understanding is that Wizards is scaling back its campaign offerings, so these may be the only two FR books you get this year. I have to think they’ll publish additional Forgotten Realms source books in 2009, but at the same time they’ve been pretty upfront about releasing books for one campaign setting a year (FR this year, Eberron next, maybe Dark Sun after that).
I think the bigger question could end up being not “is this too much?” but “is it enough?”
RPG.net has a favorable review of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. Reviewer Eric Christian Berg liked the ease of building encounters and the dynamic nature of combat.
Now that it looks like my gaming group’s long-proposed Knights of the Old Republic campaign may actually be coming to fruition, I’ve been stocking up on source books. The first of these is Star Wars: Threats of the Galaxy, which I hoped would provide me with a toolbox of non-player characters, monsters and other challenges … Read more
It’s appropriate that the Pathfinder RPG Beta would be released while my gaming group’s taking a two-week break from our D&D 4th Edition playtest. During the hiatus we’re tying up some loose ends in our D&D 3.5 Dark City campaign, which is a role-playing intensive, urban campaign set in the World of Greyhawk. Dark City’s … Read more
This week’s game sees us returning to our Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition roots after weeks of beating up 4th Edition in our Planetorn playtest campaign. The playtest’s not over, just on hiatus because of real-world player obligations, and this pause is giving us a chance to go back and tie up some loose ends … Read more
After a brief respite in Sigil, where they were attacked by a cunning band of phase gnomes, last Friday’s D&D 4E playtest campaign saw my gaming group venture back out into the wilds of the planescape. This time they traveled to the Dire Forest of Yalzerth, an alternative material plane in the midst of … Read more