The best four days in gaming begin next week. This will be my first trip to GenCon and I’m looking forward to the experience. I’ve heard all about it from Ameron and of course I’ve read about it through various other blogs. Still there is an aura of mystique that surrounds the event and I’m eager to arrive and investigate everything that GenCon and Indianapolis has to offer.

With that thought in mind I’ve put together a list of the top things I’d like to accomplish while at GenCon this year.

Ameron has already posted his schedule for Gen Con and mine is a mirror of his. I may skip an LFR game if I see something else of interest. With that said here’s what I’m looking to accomplish during GenCon.

Networking

One aspect of GenCon I’m looking forward to is meeting with our readers who may be in attendance and other RPG Bloggers. The great thing about conventions is the social aspect and the exchange of ideas. While Ameron and I have nothing solid planned for meeting up with folks, I’m sure that as the week progresses something will come together. As we get a better sense of our schedules and what we’ll be up to in between events we’ll post something here at Dungeon’s Master.

Playing D&D

We’re set to play some LFR games, along with the convention delve. Again great opportunities to meet with other players, see how others are enjoying the game and just relax doing something I love to do. Of course we are also playing the D&D Open Championship and are very excited about the challenge it represents.

Exploring The Vendors Hall

I have a list of items I want to come home with and I’m sure that the vendors hall will fulfill all my wishes and perhaps a few that I’m not yet aware of. What I’m really looking forward to is seeing what is out there beyond D&D. I’ve been playing D&D exclusively for more years than I can count at this point and it will be interesting to see what other great games are out there. If nothing else it should serve for some great inspiration at the gaming table.

Enjoying A Brew

I enjoy a pint as much as the next guy and I’m hoping that there is a decent pub or bar near the convention centre that serves some premium draught. Of course this part of the trip also encompasses the social aspect of the trip and I hope there are plenty of new friends to share a pint with.

So that’s it – play some D&D, pickup some swag and enjoy a pint with new friends. It really doesn’t get much simpler than that. If nothing else GenCon will be a great break from the regular grind for me. It’s been almost a year since my last vacation and it wasn’t much of a vacation, more like a week of home renovations.

What are your plans for Gen Con and do you have any suggestions to help me round out my week?

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What makes Dark Sun different from any other campaign setting? This question more than any other has motivated people to come out and try D&D Encounters over the past seven weeks. At first there was a lot of interest. People who used to play in Dark Sun came out to see the 4e version of their beloved campaign setting. Others were just curious to see what all the fuss was about. And for five weeks D&D Encounters did not disappoint.

Fury of the Wastewalker chapter 1 exposed the players and their characters to the harsh desert environment of Athas that makes Dark Sun so unique. The PCs struggled to survive in the blistering sun while trying to outrun a strange and vicious obsidian sand storm. Add to that the ever-present threats of the desert creatures determined to kill the PCs and take their food and water. Dark Sun quickly earned a reputation for its brutality and grit – and rightly so. This isn’t the light and fluffy D&D of the Forgotten Realms.

And then we moved on to Fury of the Wastewalker chapter 2. It began with the PCs entering the catacombs. It’s a very traditional-style dungeon delve. Suddenly there was very little Dark Sun and more of the D&D you find in every setting. What happened to all the Dark Sun flavour?

This season of D&D Encounters is, in part, supposed to be a showcase of the upcoming Dark Sun setting. Yet for the past two encounters it hasn’t done a very good job of showcasing Dark Sun. These past two encounters could easily have taken place in any D&D setting. Nothing about it seemed unique to Dark Sun.

None of the PCs have rolled a 1 since we began chapter two, so we haven’t had any opportunities to use the reckless breakage rules since going underground. This was one of the most significant and noticeable Dark Sun elements that came into play during chapter one. As long as the PCs keep rolling more than a 1 this chapter does not feel Dark Sun at all.

The encounters were still fun to run and fun to play, but the excitement for Dark Sun has certainly drifted. The evidence is in the numbers. We’ve gone from over 20 players in the first couple of weeks to just eight in last night’s game. And two of the players who showed up last night were experiencing D&D Encounters for the first time.

D&D Encounters has run for 19 straight weeks now. For experienced players, the excitement factor has worn off. Even I find that getting out every week is becoming somewhat of a chore. Looking ahead I don’t see a lot of Dark Sun elements in the next three encounters either. I hope that Fury of the Wastewalker chapter 3 puts more of the Dark Sun elements back into the forefront of the adventure, because it sure doesn’t for chapter 2.

This week’s encounter had the PCs venturing further into the catacombs. They could feel a fait breeze moving through the tunnels indicating that there was a way out further ahead. As they reached a larger room they noticed more undead. Being adventurers they naturally charged in and started hacking away. The undead posed minimal threat to the PCs, especially since the monsters rolled so poorly on initiative. Within two rounds all of the skeletons and the crawling gauntlets were destroyed – except for one particularly slippery crawling gauntlet that continued taunting the PCs with rude hand gestures.

At the top of the second round, after all of the PCs had moved into the room, a large spider moved into the fray and began attacking. It managed to blind half the party, but the half that could still see went to work to kill it. A second spider emerged from a pit in the floor and tried to help its companion, but this party of heroes was just too strong and in no time at all both spiders were hacked to bits.

This is the fist time as a DM I’d run an encounter with more than six PCs. The party ended up with eight PCs, including two Phyes to heal the two Castris. I doubled the number of monsters and they still had no problems. The fact that the crawling gauntlets and the skeletons were all minions certainly didn’t make the encounter any more difficult. At first I was hesitant to add the second spider, but seeing how quickly and easily they were destroying all the monsters I had to challenge them somehow. In retrospect I should have made the skeletons regular level 1 monsters and not just your standard 1 hit point minions. The entire encounter only took three rounds of combat, but with eight players that still took us about an hour and a half to play out.

I think the players were happy to get through the encounter with so few bumps and bruises. After two encounters most of the PCs have only used one or two healing surges – a far cry from chapter 1 where by this point some PCs were all out of healing surges. By moving the adventure out of the desert and into the more familiar underground, the PCs are not had anywhere near the difficulties they’d had in chapter one.

D&D World Wide Game Day

On Saturday, August 21, the week the Dark Sun Campaign Guide is released, Wizards of the Coast is running another D&D World Wide Game Day. Here’s what Wizards has to say about it.

The Lost Cistern of Aravek

A remarkable device has been discovered in the wastes near the city-state of Tyr – a magical cistern created by a long-dead preserver named Aravek. You are charged to journey through the harsh desert lands, brave fierce monsters, and retrieve the cistern before your enemies can claim it for their own cruel master. Can you bring a font of live-giving water to a parched populace? Or will you succumb to dangers beyond the gates of Tyr? A Dark Sun adventure for 4-6 pre-generated 4th-level characters.

If you live in the Greater Toronto Area, come on down to Dueling Grounds and join in the fun. If you’re interested in being a DM for D&D World Wide Game Day, please contact Wayne at Dueling Grounds and let him know. So far there’s lots of interest in playing but we need more DMs.

Check out our ongoing coverage of D&D Encounters Dark Sun every week.

• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 1)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 2)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 3)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 4)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 5)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 6)

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This week I’m going to share more of my experiences from D&D camp, but I’m going to focus on the things that I learned from the kids and offer some advice for getting younger people into D&D. See last week’s Confessions of a D&D Camp Councilor for an introduction to D&D Camp.

I was really proud of my kids this week. I was fortunate to have four of the six kids I worked with the previous week and two new kids who were very clever and eager. Since I knew the kids a little better I decided that I should branch the programming out a bit. So in addition to playing D&D we did 3D paper craft dungeons and monsters, monster building and a LARP (live action role-playing game).

The paper craft dungeon was a big success. First I got the kids to cooperatively design the layout for the complex and then render it in paper with details like barrels, broken down carts, and working doors and pitfall traps. They were very excited to adventure through the death trap that they had created. They decided that each person could secretly place one trap in the dungeon that only they and myself would know about. This had hilarious results. In one case Brraaalgh the Barbarian, after failing to lure the Wizard (named Dragon Man) into his trap, simply picked the spell caster up and threw him into the pit.

On the third day the party faithfully forgot their character sheets at home, all of them. Typically I insist on storing them over night but on this occasion they were all so excited about bringing them home to illustrate the portraits of their hero that I had to say yes. It all started with an owlbear mini. One of my campers, a girl of about ten, decided that she was going to play an owlbear because she liked the mini. After reading her the statistics for a level 8 owlbear from the monster manual the whole group was up in arms. The party went from two Clerics, a Barbarian, a Wizard, a Paladin and a Ranger, to an owlbear, a young red dragon, a zombie hulk, a gnoll demonic scourge, a werewolf and a riding horse. It was explained to me that despite the fact that the riding horse was level 1, it would “do well in combat because horses are so majestic.” Who am I to argue? The party built their dungeon again and waited for the delicious heroes arrived. The tension of anticipation was growing when a terrestrial octopus swarm attacked!

The last day we went a-LARPing. Lucky for us the camp is housed in a historic fortress that has been well preserved by a population that values its culture. As such the kids had battlements, trenches and structures from the 1800s to make use of. The quest I put them on was a simple one, the king was unfit to rule and his son had died of a sudden illness. A grand arena had be constructed and all the heroes in the realm were called to court to fight for the title of the general of the king’s army. The fortress’s orchard was the grey forest where hungry wolves lingered, the summer garden was the agricultural lands on the boarders of the grand capital city, the gates to the fort were those of the city, and the parade ground was where our heroes would test their might. In the end some of the reenactment soldiers joined in and played the part of city guards, though I couldn’t convince them to give us a 21-gun salute.

DMing for kids can be very difficult. When running a game for “mature” people there is an understanding that you can’t please everyone all the time. But a good DM will do their best to make sure everyone has a good time. When you’re DMing for kids the juggling act becomes a bit harder because their attention spans are much shorter. Eventually someone pulls out a Nintendo DS and you loose half your table because they want to see just how high Mario can jump. In these situations you have to ask yourself some important questions. Is the storyline too complicated for the kids to follow of their own accord? Would they have more fun being helped through a more in depth story or smashing the hell out of zombies? Do you owe the kids the experience of playing a really immersive game with interesting characters and plot hooks, or should you just aim to put smiles on their faces? The only insight I can offer is the old adage, “you win some, you loose some.” Kids can get cranky or sassy at the drop of a hat, and there will be times where they decide, seemingly telepathically, that they’re going to turn on you and test you (this is especially true with the 13-16 age group). The best you can do is roll with the punches and hope to come out of it all with a net gain.

Don’t sweat the small stuff. The fact of the matter is that most kids don’t know how to play. At face value it seems like having a table of people who don’t really know what they’re doing would be tedious, but in every instance where they don’t know the rule, you get to make it up. This can be very important when you are playing with mixed age groups where there is a very different awareness of the rules of the game.

With my last group I had four 14-year-olds and two 10-year-olds. I noticed early on that the little kids took longer to get through their turns and that the older kids were loosing interest due to their lack of patience. My solution was to take the older kids aside and tell them to not worry about the tactical disadvantage that their two younger party members caused; I would tailor the encounters so that they were built to challenge a party of four. Instead of trying to help teach the rules, I asked them if they would disregard any infringements and instead focus on helping the two youngest ones tell an exciting story. So instead of having the 10-year-old playing the Wizard get annoyed by constantly being corrected for forgetting a modifier (something I still can’t do) he got to cast fireball every turn and never had to worry about opportunity attacks. I would say “wow, what a fantastic hit, you burn the goblin and he jumps to the ground screaming,” and then mark down the hit as doing “minus boot” hit points or something silly just so that he would see my pencil moving. The game sped up and the whole table was interested given that they were all doing the things that they were interested in doing.

Kids really like visual and auditory aids. If you can provide drawings of the monsters they fight or the places they visit they will care much more about them. I found the dungeon tiles much more effective they penning my own maps because they kids like to touch them and play with them. People always talk about how imaginative kids are, but the fact of the matter is that they often can’t concentrate long enough on one topic to keep a game running smoothly. Though I didn’t use them, I can only expect that the kids would have loved to have had a recording of forest or cave sounds playing in the background when they were navigating those environments. If you think that it will pull their interest into the game, use it.

My last piece of advice is simply a matter of logistics, but it’s worth noting. Before you start playing for the first time, establish some simple table rules. If you don’t lay down the law early you’ll hear all manner of excuses for why each person ought to be able to misbehave. Simple rules like, “only one person speaks at a time,” keep your hands to yourselves,” and “no yelling,” will go long way to help preserve your sanity. Other rules can help prevent bullying, like having to ask permission of other players to include them in the area of effect of certain spells. This may seem a little silly, but some kids can be very sensitive about their character or by these means one kid may be subtly bullying another. You can also allow the group to establish a punishment for cheating. If the group creates the rule you will have a much easier time enforcing it.

Check out Bauxtehude’s actual play Shattered Sea podcast and visit the Shattered Seawebsite for recordings of D&D Encounters, the Shattered Sea Development Campaign and more. Due to privacy and security concerns, there are no actual play podcasts from D&D Camp.

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The PC began chapter two after an extended rest and a level bump. The desperation they felt during the previous couple of encounters was replaced with the confidence that accompanies power. Full hit points, maximum healing surges, better attack scores, better defense scores and best of all they’re out of the blazing sun and away from the obsidian storm. So began week 6 of D&D Encounters Dark Sun.

Before the combat began the PCs needed to overcome some basic survival hurdles. Being completely entombed in these catacombs meant that they had no light. They needed to create torches in order to see anything. Fortunately they (barely) made the necessary Dungeoneering check to fashion a torch from their gear. The adventure clearly indicated that the party has only enough material to make three torches, so the PCs need to use them sparingly.

The party ventured deeper into the cavern when there was an erry sense of déjà vu. Way back at the very beginning of D&D Encounters (the first season) the PCs found themselves on opposite sides of a gap, spanned only by a narrow bridge, with the villains on the opposite side. The PCs found themselves in a very similar scenario this week. The biggest difference this week over our experience back in season one was the presence of a ranged striker in the party. When we faced this scenario before, we only had melee combatants.

The party of four (Barcan, Phye, Shakirr and Castri) decided that Barcan should keep the torch and remain on the original perch while the rest of the party moved single file across the bridge, beginning with Shakirr. They did notice some movement on the other side of the gap as well as something shinny, possibly treasure. Shakirr proceeded cautiously. As he stepped off of the bridge the first Corruption Corpse arose and attacked him.

When the party identified the Corruption Corpse there was again déjà vu. These same creatures were part of our infamous TPK in week 8 of season one. Suddenly the players were really scared. Shakirr managed to take a solid hit before Castri and Phye ran across the bridge to help. Barcan remained safely on the other side of the gap and lobbed ranged attacks at the monsters.

After an initial onslaught on all of the PCs, the monsters hard a really had time connecting. Meanwhile the PCs scored two critical hits and before long the first Corruption Corpse was destroyed and the Grey Ooze attacking Castiri was in really bad shape. Upon learning that the undead were vulnerability radiant 5, Barcan used Blazing Starfall over and over again to its maximum efficiency.

The PCs found themselves in real peril when one of the monsters extinguished the torch. A round earlier Barcan attempted to throw the torch to Shakirr. Bacan is not known for his athletic prowess barely made the mark, but Shakirr fumbled the catch and the torch fell into the chasm. The intelligent undead realized the advantage of fighting in darkness and put out the torch on their turn. However, Blazing Starfall leaves the ground burning for one full round and that little bit of light lasted long enough for the PCs to finish the monsters before lighting a new torch.

When the combat was finished and the PCs took stock of their resources we were all very impressed with where the party stood. Phye, Barcan and Castir only expended one healing surge each. Shakirr used two. None of the PCs used daily powers and only two used action points. If this is any indication of things to come, the players at my table will be in very good shape for the next encounter, and likely the chapter. I realize that this is only one encounter, but after using these pre-generated characters for the previous five weeks the players are finally starting to get the hang of who these PCs are and what they’re capable of doing.

In last week’s post I mentioned that the DMs at my FLGS were going to tweak the pre-generated characters before running chapter two. I decided to have the players use the pre-generated characters as Wizards intended for the first week and then decided on how to proceed. After seeing this week’s encounter run so smoothly I’m likely to just have the players keep using the real versions of the PC. The other DM had revised versions of the PCs and let his players choose. They all opted for the revamped PCs. Over the next few games we’ll compare notes and see how much of an advantage the optimized PCs have over the normal versions.

The DMs kit for D&D Encounters comes with the adventure and a nice, full-colour glossy map. As a cheapskate who doesn’t own any dungeon tiles, I’m used to drawing all my maps by hand on graph paper. Until this week I felt that the presentation of the encounter has been top notch – until I saw the other table. The other DM pulled all the stops and put together a phenomenal 3D rendition of the map. It really gives the players a good sense of what the cavern looks like. No wonder I’m having trouble filling my table. I can’t compete with this kind of showmanship.

D&D Encounters Dark Sun Week 6 – Map (picture 1)

D&D Encounters Dark Sun Week 6 – Map (picture 2)

D&D Encounters Dark Sun Week 6 – Map (picture 3)

D&D Encounters Dark Sun Week 6 – Map (picture 4)

D&D Encounters Dark Sun Week 6 – Map (picture 5)

D&D Encounters Dark Sun Week 6 – Map (picture 6)

D&D Encounters Dark Sun Week 6 – Map (picture 7)

Check out our ongoing coverage of D&D Encounters Dark Sun every week.

• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 1)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 2)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 3)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 4)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 5)

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I have a great job, I’m a councilor at D&D camp, which is to say that I have the best job ever. I don’t mean to gloat, but my time as a D&D councilor has been incredibly enjoyable and I’m sure if you read along you’ll share in the fun of the last week.

Before camp began, I spent a week learning about how to spot child abuse (very important!) and care for kids. Before I met the kids I went over to the camp director’s house in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. Myself and the other councilors met up and we played some D&D; I taught the old schoolers how to play 4e, while the director of the camp gave me a refresher on how to play 3.5e. After four hours of being paid to play D&D and think up campaign ideas it was time to get ready for the first day of camp.

The first morning was spent creating characters. I quickly remembered that for children D&D is a very different game. If you’ve been reading Dungeon’s Master for any period of time or been listening to my actual play podcast you’ll know that I play with some of the most hopeless min/maxers in the universe and so it was refreshing to play with 10-year-olds. Some kids had a better idea of how to play than others and some of them really built their characters from the heart. One character, named Stealth Phoenix (who has a stealth score of -2), wanted to “be a dragon who dual wields flails.” Ok kid you’ve got it, you’re a Fighter, for so many reasons.

After staring at the PHB for about 15 seconds he declared “The words are too confusing!” so I just described the powers to him, ala “…with a sweep of your flail you tangle your enemy’s ankles with a rusty chain and pull their legs out from under them and strike them and they crash to the ground!” Every time his eyes lit up and he started acting out power rangers moves I wrote the attack down on his character sheet. I know that developing a mathematically perfect character and seeing it work as planned is satisfying, but I guarantee that this kid has more fun than you, you min/maxer you.

We broke for lunch and after a rousing game of Sphere of Annihilation (dodge ball) the adventure was underway. The first encounter ended up being a very in-depth social one and I was very impressed by my campers. An enemy adventuring party was threatening them and the tensions were high. Rosie, the party’s Rouge wanted to ambush them later to protect her pet camel, Spit, from combat, and as such convinced Super Jake the Wizard to be peaceful. Super Jake was created by someone who rolled up Wizard because he wanted to blow up everything in sight. So rather than being arrested for fighting in town they made their way to the bar and pretended to drink for 20 minutes, and then after they grew bored of describing the silly things that (apparently) drunk people do, it was back on the road to fulfill their quest.

Day two arrived and already. The Hunters (which was the name of their adventuring company) were starting to show some signs of teamwork. They saw the enemy party walking down the Old Silver Road, a dusty back woods trail, and created an extremely elaborate ambush. In the time span of 5 minutes they wanted to dig a 20-foot deep pit trap filled with giant spikes, that when triggered would cause the near by trees to collapse into the pit which they would then light on fire.

The party wanted to use Stealth Phoenix’s horse as bait for the ambush, at which time he informed us that his character had fused himself to his horse by way of powerful fire magic; he presented us with a huge sized figure he had sculpted out of clay the night before. After some debate we agreed that he could be a half-man/half-horse fire creature, provided that it gave him no mechanical benefits and that he was still a medium sized creature. They eventually defeated Skrall, the Dragonborn Sorceress. A cheer went out and it was time to loot, and argue for 15 minutes over who got the +1 magic dagger.

As the week progressed and the party’s characters better emerged, the plot line I had written became submerged. Instead of having kids ask leading questions about the next leg of the journey I started getting questions like “Can we fight Orcus?” and “Can I have a +1,000 sword?”. It’s hard to keep kids on track but every DM has to know his limitations and give way to the will of the players. As much as I am supposed to be the DM, exploring the depths of the mines was not as interesting a plot-line as seeing if Spit the camel is faster than Stealth Phoenix’s horse, which is also named Stealth Phoenix. At the end of the race track they found a dragon’s lair because they wanted to fight a dragon, and though it might seem unlikely, within the dragon’s hoard were two +2 flails of haste.

“+2 Flail of Haste?” you say. Don’t bother looking it up it’s not a “real” item. You know what these kids haven’t unlearned that a lot of the people I play D&D with have? Unless you’ve resigned to play a by-the-book kind of game with lots of rules and number crunching you don’t even need your rule books. You could do well to get rid of your character sheet as well. Instead of picking powers from the books, my kids made them up, and none of them cared about game balance. So what if the Rogue has a power where she blinds her enemies with the blood of someone she just beheaded with a dagger? The kids are more concerned about how awesome the things that happen are then the mechanical justification for their use.

Let’s not look back on our youth foolishly and claim that those days were better just because we were younger. Kids cheat, pretty much constantly. Most of the kids that I was DMing for were only in favour of the rules so long as they let them fly around with a magical lightning sword, they rest of the rules, like the rules for drowning, they didn’t like as much. One reason why the “rulebooks in the fireplace” style of DMing works so much better with these kids is that you have to cheat like crazy just to counteract their cheating, or else become the dice police, which is no fun at all.

On the final day of camp I held an all out no holds barred battle arena. The kids pitted their wits against each other in mortal combat, to the winner went the chance to face my character in a one-on-one duel. With level 5 characters they competed in games of capture the flag, king of the hill, team death match and a special elimination round against level 33 Orcus, where they gained points for each round of combat they survived. It was all very light hearted and a good time was had by all, what with people half my age screaming “CRIT!” in my ear, and with bonus points given out to those who would describe their attacks in as great detail as possible. In the end the Paladin named General Specific came out on top by a single point and it was time for head-to-head combat.

I bragged about how unbeatable my character was for the whole week and so the kids were really excited to see how things would unfold. Whenever we played kids vs. councilors capture the flag the kids would go ape with excitement, but I wasn’t really prepared for what I would experience. In the end the battle lasted three rounds, as my Dwarven dual-wielding axe Ranger (yeah you know the one) laid waste to the Paladin, but a grand time was had by all. And so, the campers begin their conspiring to build characters that can beat me for next week’s arena.

That was week one as a D&D councilor. I learned a lot about DMing and playing D&D from the kids that I spent the week with, and so you can understand why I’m looking forward to the next eight weeks of my full time employment. If you’re interested in hearing more about my experiences at D&D camp or would like to read more of the insights I gained from playing with kids, leave your comments below.

Dungeons & Dragons Camp runs from July 5 – September 3, 2010 at the Toronto Harbourfront Centre.

What happens next? Find out in More Confessions of a D&D Camp Councilor.

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The ENnie Award nominees were announced today. Regretfully, Dungeon’s Master did not make the final cut in the best blog category. We want to congratulate the great gaming blogs that did get nominated and we wish them all good luck in the Best Blog category.

Best Blog

• Critical Hits
• Gnome Stew
• Kobold Quarterly
• NewbieDM.com
• One Geek to Another
• Sarah Darkmagic (Honourable Mention)

Here’s the complete list of all the 2010 ENnie Award nominees.

If you have no idea what the ENnie Awards are then you should visit the ENnie Awards website.

“The Gen Con EN World RPG Awards (the “ENnies”) are an annual fan-based celebration of excellence in tabletop roleplaying gaming. The ENnies give game designers, writers and artists the recognition they deserve. It is a peoples’ choice award, and the final winners are voted upon online by the gaming public.”

Voting for the ENnies will begin on July 16 and runs through July 25.

It’s interesting (and a little bit disappointing) to see that only two 4e D&D products from Wizards of the Coast were nominated (three if you count minis). Last year 4e was represented in nine categories.

Best Cartography

• Aces and Eights: Judas Crossing (Kenzer & Company)
• Dungeon of Terror Virtual Box Set (0one Games)
• Maps of Mastery: Swamp Caves (Maps of Mastery)
• Pathfinder City Map Folio (Paizo Publishing)
• Revenge of the Giants (Wizards of the Coast)
• HM: Death Frost Doom (Lamentation of the Flame Princess)

Best Supplement

• Lucha Libre Hero (Hero Games)
• Mysteries of the Hollow Earth (Exile Game Studio)
• Nobis: The City-States (Pantheon Press)
• Player’s Handbook 3 (Wizards of the Coast)
• Rebellion Era Campaign Guide (Wizards of the Coast)
• HM: Cthulhutech: Damnation View (WildFire)

Again congratulations to all the nominees of this year’s ENnie Awards. The winners will be announced at GenCon on Friday, August 6. To all the fans, please be sure to vote, and to all the nominees good luck.

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The party survived. I was shocked. When I was reading the encounter in preparation for week 5 I was sure it would be a TPK. But as so often happens in D&D, the players did the unexpected and lived.

Since week 1 the PCs have had their butts kicked all over the place. They’ve taken exorbitant amounts of damage and use way more resources each week than one might expect to during a typical D&D encounter. Coming into week 5 they were literally down to their last legs. But after four weeks of hell, the PCs finally got lucky and that made all the difference.

The encounter began, as it has every week, with the ongoing skill challenge. The players continued to demonstrate creativity. I remembered to provide the skill cards this week and they worked exactly as I’d hoped they would. The players, upon realizing that they actually had 17 skills and not just the four or five on their character sheet, suddenly tried using different skills. I also let them know that a moderate check for level 1 PCs is DC 10. From there the skill challenge was easy. And everyone was grateful when I told them that they each regained one healing surge for completing the skill challenge. Suddenly they weren’t going into the last fight with zero surges.

As we moved onto the combat part of the encounter something unusual happened. The players got hot dice. For the first time in five encounters some of them actually rolled better initiatives than the monsters. Yuka immediately engaged one of the Poisonscale Slitherers. For the next three round these two “hugged” it out as Yuka continued grappling it.

Shakirr rushed the Ssuran Shaman and dealt a ton of damage. The Ssuran Shaman tried to dominate Shakirr but missed. He then climbed on top of the rocks to get a better vantage point for next round. It would end up being for not. During the next round Shakirr climbed up next to him, attacked, hit and pushed the Shaman off the rocks. The fall did max damage and the Shaman was killed before he could act in round two.

The two other Poisonscale Slitherers split their fire. One attacked Barcan and landed a solid blow bringing him to within a few hit points of unconsciousness. The other attacked Castri and also squarely connected. Phye, Barcan and Castri then went to work. The PCs hit with almost every attack which was helping tremendously. Unfortunately they weren’t doing a lot of damage (except for Barcan who was rolling amazing).

The real surprise was during the second round when a giant Ankheg emerged from the middle of the battlefield. I had Castri, the only PC trained in Nature, make a monster knowledge check. A successful check revealed that the Ankheg could be directed to attack with a high enough Nature check. After that everyone was trying to get the Ankheg to work for them. Shakirr was the victor for the next two rounds directing the Ankheg to attack the Poisonscale Slitherers.

After the party defeated two of the three the Poisonscale Slitherers, with the help of the Ankheg, the final combatant managed to get control of the Ankheg for one round. But by this time my dice were ice cold and I wasn’t hitting anything. When the last Poisonscale Slitherer was finally killed the PCs were in rough shape. With the exception of Shakiir they were all bloodied. Barcn had by that point climed on top of the rocks and was attacking the Ankheg for a safe distance. Castri, who had fallen unconscious twice already and was out of healing surged also climbed on top of some rocks. And then I did a bad thing.

I suggested to Castri that he climb on the rocks to the left and not those on the right like he indicated since he’d have a better firing arc if the Ankhag moved. What I didn’t realize until the Ankheg’s turn was that although Castri was out of melee range, he was still in range of the monster’s breath weapon. Had he climbed where the player wanted to, he would have been safe. Oh well, maybe my dice would stay cold. Nope. The creature spit acid on three of the PCs and Castri was down (again). Sorry.

Knowing this was the last encounter before an extended rest the PCs used all of their remaining daily powers and made short work of the Ankheg. In the end Castri was the only one making death saves and the party managed to stabilize him before he died. I was impressed with they groups tactics and was even more impressed that they all survived. I was sure it would be a TPK.

The encounter was listed as a level 2 encounter, but that was a misprint. It was really a level 4 encounter. The combined XP for the five monsters was 825, not 675 as listed. A level 4 encounter for five PCs is worth 875. Knowing how much difficulty the party had in the past four weeks I didn’t see how they could handle a level 4 encounter in their condition. But they did. My hats off to them. Good job, guys.

Leveling Up

Next week begins chapter two: Tomb of a Long, Lost Age. The PCs all begin fresh at level 2. Wizards of the Coast did not provide level two character sheets. Instead they provided a one-page handout with all of the level 2 adjustments.

• Pre-generated characters (level 1)
• Character upgrades (level 2)

Upon quick review of the level 2 changes the other DMs and I decided that we’re going to tweak the PCs a little bit. We’ll still have one version of the pre-generated characters ready to go, exactly as Wizards wants us to. However, we’re going to work together to create alternative, better optimized PCs. I’m not sure what they revised version of our six heroes will look like, but I’ll post the specific details next week.

Check out our ongoing coverage of D&D Encounters Dark Sun every week.

• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 1)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 2)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 3)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 4)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 5)

Did you manage to survive until the end of chapter one? Now that it’s over, what were your thoughts? Has Dark Sun won you over or are you fed up with the brutality of this campaign setting?

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GenCon 2010, the four best days in gaming, starts exactly one month from today on Thursday, August 5. This year both Wimwick and I are going to Indianapolis. It’s my third GenCon and his first.

Although we’ve both registered for as many events as we could, there were still a lot of question marks in our schedule. Some events, like the Wizards of the Coast seminars, do not have firm times and dates yet. Other events, like Dark Sun Arenas: Glory and Blood and the Convention Delve: Lair of the Dread Witch were not available for preregistration. So with that in mind, here’s what my schedule looks like so far.

Dungeons & Dragons

I’ll begin with the events that are confirmed. As anyone who reads this blog knows, we’re both hard-core 4e D&D guys and it should come as no surprised that all of our gaming events are D&D. We are registered and have tickets for these D&D events.

Thursday, August 5
8:00 a.m.
RPGA1016010
SPEC2-2 P1 – Tyranny’s Bleak Depths (level 11-14)
I’m playing a Warlord.

1:00 p.m.
RPGA1016086
D&D Open Championship: A Hole in the World (level epic)
The characters are pre-generated.

Friday, August 6
1:00 p.m.
RPGA1016034
SPEC2-2 P3 – Tyranny’s Perilous Bastion (level 17-20)
I’m playing a Paladin.

7:00 p.m.
RPGA1016080
D&D Classics: Curse of the Gray Hag (level heroic)
The characters are pre-generated.

Saturday, August 7
1:00 p.m.
RPGA1016027
SPEC2-2 P2 – Tyranny’s Bitter Frost (level 14-17)
I’m playing a Sorcerer.

7:00 p.m.
RPGA1016038
SPEC2-2 P3 – Tyranny’s Perilous Bastion (level 17-20)
I’m playing a Sorcerer.

Tentative

We’re interested in playing Dark Sun Arenas: Glory and Blood and the Convention Delve: Lair of the Dread Witch, but as mentioned above, you can’t sign up for these events in advance. With this in mind we’ve intentionally left a few holes in the schedule. As time permits we’ll fill any gaps with these short games. If the Dark Sun event is as great as it sounds, we may end up playing it more than once (which seems to be encouraged).

We’re also planning to win the D&D Open Championship. Last year my team made it to the finals and I had to shrug off a couple of other events. Call it over-confidence, arrogance, or shrewd planning, but we’ve left some slots open to make room for the final game.

Seminars

In addition to being a huge D&D nerd, I’m also a sucker for all things zombie. So I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to check out the Zombie Q&A and Survival Seminar (SEM1011272) on Friday, August 6 at 11:00 a.m.

Wizards of the Coast has finally announced the titles of their seminars, but they have yet to confirm the times and dates. I’m anticipating that the Dungeons & Dragons Preview Show will be held on Friday, August 6 at 12:00 p.m., as they’ve done the past few years. I’d like to check out these seminars as well, but it will all depend on when the fall during the four days.

• Monster Building Workshop
• Dark Sun Returns
• D&D Encounters

Social Events

One of the great things about GenCon is meeting new people who share our passion for D&D and role-playing games. I invite any of our readers who might happen to have the same games in the same time-slots to join us for some D&D during GenCon. We’re also interested in meeting you, the readers. We invite any of our readers who are going to GenCon to join us for a beer while you’re in Indy. We’ll post more details about this “event” as GenCon gets a little bit closer.

I look forward to meeting many of our readers and my fellow bloggers next month in Indianapolis. For those not lucky enough to be going to GenCon don’t worry, we’ll be posting updates throughout the convention.

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Today is Canada Day, a holiday across Canada, which meant that last night’s D&D Encounters Dark Sun had less than usual attendance. After three weeks with 20 or more participants, this week we were down to only 12 (including the two DMs). So with two tables of five, we returned to Athas.

Before we started the encounter itself, Jarvix performed a Comrades’ Succor ritual. This allowed the PCs to redistribute their remaining healing surges. So going into the encounter for week 4 everyone had full (or nearly full) hit points and at least one healing surge at their disposal during the combat. I want to thank the other DM running D&D Encounters for pointing out this ritual and explaining how to use it. Having never played an arcane character with Ritual Casting I had no idea. It made a huge difference.

The encounter began with the skill checks towards the ongoing skill challenge. My intent was to provide the players with the skill cards I created earlier in the week, however I left them sitting in my printer and didn’t realize it until I got to my FLGS. Well, hopefully some of you found these cards useful. I will certainly use them next week. As it turned out, all of the players at my table were fairly experienced 4e D&D players so they didn’t need the skill cards to know what other abilities their PCs were capable of doing (or attempting). Had my table been filled with newer players like it was last week, then the skill cards would have been a huge help.

After the skill checks were finished, the PCs came across a lone Dwarf named Ralo in the desert. He parleyed with the party and explained who he was and what he was doing in the desert alone. But before he could provide any other details the party was attacked by a Poisonscale Magus and three dust devils.

The monsters focused their initial attacks on Ralo. He was brought below 0 hit points and slid into the slit pool to suffocate to death by the end of the first round. The PCs ignored the plight of their new friend and engaged the enemies in combat.

The Magus managed to inflict a lot of damage to the bunched-up party with his burst 3 attack. Shikirr and Castri engaged the Magus in melee. By the second round, the Magus had only 4 hit points remaining and was pinned against a rocky outcropping. He desperately tried to use a ranged attack against the now poison-vulnerable PCs, but Castri rolled a 20 and soundly connected with his opportunity attack from the adjacent square.

Meanwhile the dust devils all managed to get multiple PCs in their close burst 3 attack inflicting 3d6+3 damage each. My d20 wasn’t as hot this week as it’s been, but my damage dice were on fire. When rolling the 3d6+3 for the dust devils damage I rolled 4, 5, 6 +3 = 18; 4, 6, 6 +3 =19; 5, 6, 6 +3 = 20. The PCs didn’t stand a chance. Or so I thought.

It’s refreshing to see players play smart and realize that they can do more than fight on their turn. Jarvix and Castri were both unconscious. When Phye’s turn came around she wasn’t close enough to engage any of the enemies in melee. So she did what a leader is beast at – healing. She used her Ardent Surge healing power as a minor action to bring Jarvix back to consciousness. Then, as a standard action, she made a successful Heal check on Castri who was unconscious in the adjacent square allowing him to use his second wind. Two comrades who were unconscious were now awake and were able to attack on their respective turns instead of just rolling another death save and hoping for a 20.

Smart combat tactics also made all the difference this week. The PCs worked together to focus fire on the Magus first. After he was down they all worked together on a single dust devil before engaging any of the others. Shikirr, the defender, marked the dust devil most likely to attack the weaker and vulnerable PCs. Had my damage dice not been red hot, this encounter would have ended after two rounds rather than the four it ended up taking.

Of the four encounters I’ve run in D&D Encounter season two so far, this week’s was the most fun (for me). It seemed appropriately balanced. The players finally have a good sense of what the pre-generated characters can do. They’ve seen what the party as a whole is good at and what it’s not so good at. They realize which characters should be engaging in melee and which ones should be diving for cover.

My only real complaint about this week’s encounter is that the monsters seem to do a lot of damage. And this is not just this week, but every week. I don’t think it’s right when the monsters can deal up to 21 damage in a single attack. Especially when that’s only one or two points less than Barcan, Jarvix and Castri’s maximum hit points (22, 22 and 23 respectively). I realize that this attack should deal about 12 points on average, but some poor players – like the guys at my table – will end up on the wrong side of that average and take a real pounding.

Next week is the final encounter of chapter one. The PCs will get an extended rest and level up at the conclusion of next week’s encounter. Only Shikirr, Yuka and Phye are going into the final battle with healing surges (one a piece). None of the PCs are at maximum hit points, although most are pretty close and no one is bloodied.

Check out our ongoing coverage of D&D Encounters Dark Sun every week.

• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 1)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 2)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 3)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 4)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 5)

How did you manage this week? Did the Magus manage to survive longer at your table and really do some damage? Were my players the only ones who just let Ralo die during the combat? How many of your party members do you expect will survive the next encounter?

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What do you get when four PCs are attacked by goblins from high atop a rocky outcropping? One hell of a tough encounter. Week 3 was another grueling session for the players at my table. They eventually defeated all of the monsters, but the toll on their personal resources was costly. If they thought encounter 3 was tough, encounters 4 and 5 will be nearly impossible without a significant turn of events.

There they were getting pelted from above when we took stock of party’s ranged attack options. Yuka, no ranged attacks. Phye, no ranged attacks. Shikirr, no ranged attacks. That left Barcan. The same Barcan with only 2 healing surges remaining. Barcan with the poorest defenses of all the pre-generated characters. After only 5 minutes we knew this was going to ugly.

The first attacks came from a goblin cursespewer. They hit Yuka right off the bat. This granted the other goblins combat advantage so the goblin cutters quickly jumped down from the rocks to engage in melee. Unfortunately a run of cold dice from Yuka meant that those pesky minions inflicted damage for three rounds before they were killed. Meanwhile the goblin archer and the other cursespewer concentrated fire on Yuka to help the minions on the ground. Yuka took a lot of damage.

After the minions were finally killed, the rest of the party, with the exception of Barcan had nothing to fight. The drake kept swooping down and stealing supplies. The party spent a lot of effort trying to hit the drake mid-dive. But since the drake wasn’t inflicting damage, just snatching supplies, this was not the best use of their attacks (easy to say in retrospect). They killed the drake, but they kept taking fire from the other ranged attackers in the process. Barcan was the only PC with a ranged attack so he tried to keep one of the cursespewers busy. The rest of the goblins stayed safely at the top of the rocks.

Finally Shikirr climbed up to engage the archer. Upon reaching the top of the rocks and learning that the brambles would inflict 5 damage at the beginning of every turn he knew he needed to handle things quickly. He used his action point to bull rush the archer off the ledge. The fall did more damage than any of the PCs. Phye was nearby on the ground and quickly attacked and bloodied the archer. Shikirr jumped off the rocks and landed on the archer. But that little goblin was tough and wouldn’t die. The cursespewers split their attacks between Phye and Yuka. Now Phye was taking as much damage as Yuka.

After finally killing the grounded archer, Shikirr decided to use the archers bow and return fire. But his attack scores were terrible. He let Yuka use the bow and moved closer to the rocks where the cursespewers were positioned. The PCs finally took cover behind the rocks and away from the cursespewers. One of the cursespewers climbed down and tried to take up a better position. Shikirr was fortunate enough to see the cursespewer running across the desert and made short work of him.

With everyone focusing on the remaining cursespewer things finally started going the party’s way. Barkan used Excise from Sight and tried to slide the cursespewer off the ledge. Unfortunately he made his save and grabbed the ledge. Phye decided that enough was enough and climbed up to handle things. It took her a double move to get up the rocks (thanks to a very fortunate Athletics check). On her next turn she bull rushed the cursespewers, knocking him off the ledge. One round later the goblins were all dead.

Here’s what the party looks like after being totally decimated for three straight encounters.

Phye

• 12 (of 29) hit points. 0 healing surges. 0 action points.
  1 daily power remaining.

Shikirr

• 29 (of 33) hit points. 7 healing surges. 0 action points.
  0 daily powers remaining.

Yuka

• 26 (of 29) hit points. 3 healing surges. 0 action points.
  1 daily power remaining.

Barcan

• 9 (of 22) hit points. 1 healing surge. 0 action points.
  1 daily power remaining.

Jarvix

• 6 (of 22) hit points. 0 healing surges. 1 action point.
  1 daily power remaining. (did not play encounter 3)

Castri

• 23 (of 23) hit points. 6 healing surges. 1 action point.
  1 daily power remaining. (did not play encounter 1, 2, 3)

I’m going to strongly recommend that they bring in Castri from the bench and let Jarvix or Barcan sit out the next encounter.

There’s been a lot of criticism about these characters and I’m going to add my two cents. How is it fair to create six character and not give three of them ranged attacks? At one point near the end of combat the PCs started looking for rocks to throw at the monsters. If not or some creative thinking by Shikirr to use the goblin archers bow the battle would have taken a lot longer and one or more of the PCs might have died.

My other criticism is about Yuka’s defenses. He’s got a Will of 10. The cursespewers used an attack that was +7 vs Will. If they hit the round before then the target grants combat advantage. So with two of them teaming up on Yuka they had combat advantage against him for almost the entire encounter. That meant he was getting hit on anything but a 1 and taking 1d6+3 damage every time. I was shocked when Yuka survived this encounter.

At the FLGS where we played there were two other tables and they both finished in about an hour. Our table took over two hours to finish. I’ll admit that fortunate (unfortunate) dice rolling had some impact on the outcome, but these characters and their questionable builds certainly factor into thing. I think one of the other reason my table is having such a tough time is that the players are all relatively new to 4e D&D. I forget that as the DM I need to provide some coaching regarding options. I’ve been trying to do this in such a way as to not play their characters for them. However, I’m not that familiar with the psionic classes so even my ability to suggest a course of action is limited. The players all say they’re having fun, even though they keep getting beat up so badly. So I guess at the end of the day that’s what matter most.

Check out our ongoing coverage of D&D Encounters every week.

• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 1)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 2)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 3)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 4)
• D&D Encounters Dark Sun (week 5)

How did encounter 3 go for you? Did your group have anywhere near the difficulties that my group did? What do you character’s resources look like compared to my groups? Are we beat up more, less or about the same amount as everyone else?

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