But, I *want* to spend an hour equipping my Ranger!

I saw this sneak peek article about D&D Next's PC generation process, focusing on equipment, and had to laugh.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20140324

I think back to many of the games I ran at a local comic book shop, years ago, and the amount of time lost to each player taking a browse through the Arms and Equipment section of the Player's Handbook, to perfectly equip the party bard or ranger...

The new system sounds great - especially the idea of trinket items that have no inherent worth, but can be good hooks for adventures or character background.  One of my more successful PC's had grown up in a fishing community, and brought his fishing net into the dungeon on his first adventure.  Surprisingly, it proved useful, preventing a trap from going off.

Wow, I find myself getting excited for yet another new edition of Dungeons & Dragons...

Resurrecting old gaming materials

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Last week, Sly Flourish posted an article about how to dust off your older edition Dungeons & Dragons materials - especially with the advent of dndclassics.com as a source for Basic D&D, 1E, 2E and other systems of old.

I thought the analysis was rather well done, emphasizing what to keep and what to revise, if you upgrade the materials to a rules edition of your choice.  Enjoy!

http://slyflourish.com/converting_adventures.html

As the 40th anniversary of D&D approaches...

...Behold!(er) - an early draft of Gary Gygax's first version of Dungeons & Dragons!!!

http://playingattheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/gary-gygaxs-1973-d-working-draft.html

Interactive Greyhawk Map

Hey, retro gaming fans!

Check this out!  Ever want to see a really cool, zoomable map of the early D&D campaign setting of Greyhawk?  Well, now you can.

Zoomable Greyhawk Map

Sad tale for comic book speculators

See the Businessweek article below, if you'd been saving onto non-key issues of your favorite comics from childhood.

Ouch $3 for one guy's seemingly top pick.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/those-comics-basement-probably-worthless-095537403.html

Ravenloft walk-through map from WotC site

I ran an updated version of Ravenloft twice.

The first time, I read the module through and through, prepared for an epic campaign, and the players decided to do a frontal assault of the castle after I completed the introductory text, and were dead within 15 minutes of rolling way too many dice.  

The second time, a different party decided that becoming vampires would be more fun and the game lasted about 20 minutes.  We then watched a Christopher Lee Dracula movie, which at least made for a better evening than the first game that went bust.

WotC has put together the below walk through map of dozens of other permutations of things that could have gone badly:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/toon/Ravenloft

Good post on EnWorld about the benefits of recounting RPG adventures

Saw this post and it made me think of the exercise my colleagues and I undertook when we created our Obsidian Portal blog for our Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons game, years ago.  Keeping an online log, which we all contributed to, helped us keep perspective on where we were in the campaign and our goals, but it also helped as a way to flesh out character development and story.

Some good ideas, in here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?1268-7-Advantages-to-Retelling-your-Adventures

Ed Greenwood has officially written about every aspect of the Forgotten Realms, now

Wow.

There are no words.

Ed Greenwood on the vendors that dispose of Chamber Pots in the Forgotten Realms

Holy ****....

Space Hog

Watch "Spacehog - In the Meantime (Music Video)" on YouTube

I had this song stuck in my head from the moment I got up, today.  Watching the video, I remember how representative this song was of college radio in the 90s.

Roll20 in Google+ Hangouts

A long while back I'd asked if anybody had tips for using Google+ Hangouts for gaming.  Looks like the folks from Roll20 have put together a pretty bitchin' integration to use Google Hangouts for gaming.  Anybody had a chance to use it yet?  Any advice?