Tag: Wizards of the Coast

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Editorial

A DM’s Debut: The Story of a First Time GenCon Judge

While Ameron and I were at GenCon we met a lot of other players and DMs. Some of these folks were very experienced and others were coming to D&D for the first time. One experienced DM judging at GenCon for the first time was Shawn O’Leary. We played at his table during our first crack at the D&D Convention Delve. After the adventure we shamelessly plugged our website and asked Shawn if he’d be interested in writing an article for Dungeon’s Master about being a first time DM at GenCon. Shawn was kind enough to take us up on our offer and today we’re happy to share Shawn’s experiences with you.

I’ve been a Dungeon Master for a long time. The first RPG I ran as the DM was D&D, of course. I can’t recall if I started with the blue box or the red box but D&D started it all for me. After that there was Gamma World and then various other role playing games published by TSR such as Marvel Super Heroes and Star Frontiers. But my favorite game, first and foremost, was and still is Dungeons & Dragons.

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Editorial Player Resources

The 2010 D&D Open Championship

Last weekend at GenCon a new champion was crowned at the D&D Open Championship. Regretfully it was not us. We didn’t even make it to the finals, which was sorely disappointing. However, we still had a lot of fun playing and a lot of fun preparing for the competition. We like to think of this as a learning experience and want to share our findings with you.

This year’s Championship was an adventure called A Hole in the World. Five level 25 pre-generated PCs, were provided. Each team had to complete five encounters, each encounter with a 45-minute time limit. If you didn’t complete an encounter in 45 minutes you were eliminated. If the party decided to take an extended rest you were eliminated. It was designed to challenge the best and most experienced D&D players and it certainly did just that.

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Editorial

GenCon: D&D Adventure Builder’s Workshop

Every good DM enjoys dreaming up new campaigns, adventures and encounters. With this in mind I descended upon GenCon with the intent of attending the D&D Adventure Builder’s Workshop. I wanted to hear how the pros built encounters, how they designed their traps and what inspired their campaigns. I must say I wasn’t disappointed and while I didn’t get exactly what I was looking for, what I did get was that much better.

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Player Resources

The Future of D&D Encounters

During GenCon I attended the D&D Encounters seminar. Not only do we have details about season 3, but there’s big news for the rest of season 2. We also have the dates for seasons 4-6 as well as information about upcoming World Wide Game Days through 2010 and 2011.

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Book Reviews Player Resources

Wizards of the Coast: 2010-2011 Preview (Part 2)

Wizards of the Coast shared some highlights of their upcoming release schedule through the next year. We already covered D&D Essentials in our 2010-2011 Preview (Part 1). This installment is for the experienced gamers who want more materials for their existing campaign and characters. We’ll also share the limited details provided about D&D Gamma World. You may want to bookmark these articles and keep coming back throughout the next year to find out what Wizards is releasing next.

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Book Reviews Player Resources

Wizards of the Coast: 2010-2011 Preview (Part 1: D&D Essentials)

Wizards of the Coast shared some highlights of their upcoming release schedule through the next year. Since there is so much coming out over the next 12 months we’re breaking this into two articles. Part 1 focuses on the upcoming D&D Essentials products. Part 2 covers everything else. You may want to bookmark these articles and keep coming back throughout the next year to find out what Wizards is releasing next.

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Editorial

GenCon: D&D Convention Delve – Lair of the Dread Witch

After a lot of meticulous planning about what to do and which games to play at GenCon we made an accidental discovery that changed everything. Originally we registered for a few LFR games, the D&D Championship and the D&D Classic. We intentionally left some time open to take in a couple of seminars and to try out the Dark Sun Arenas tournament. But last night we discovered the D&D Convention Delve and that changed everything.

After being eliminated form the D&D Championship after three encounters (more on that in a later article) we felt deflated. We grabbed a bite to eat and drown our sorrows in the bottom of a pint (or two or three). We then headed back to the Convention Centre to wander the halls and it was then we learned more about the D&D Convention Delve.

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Player Resources

Characters for the D&D Open Championship

The pre-generated characters for the D&D Open Championship: A Hole in the World are now available for download from Wizards of the Coast. If you’re going to GenCon and you plan to participate in the D&D Championship, then you’re about to get very excited.

Until yesterday we knew very little about the tournament. Now we know just about everything. The characters begin the adventure at level 25. Anyone fortunate enough to advance to the finals gets to use the level 30 versions of those same characters. Wizards of the Coast not only gave us the pre-gens ahead of time, they provided the character builder files. This is a huge relief. I was really worried that they would provide same crappy little truncated cards like they have for almost every other game using pre-generated characters. (If you’ve been reading our weekly write-up on D&D Encounters Dark Sun you know all about the issues with those pre-gens).

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DM Resources

LFR Magic Item Treasure Bundle List (July 2010)

We’ve updated our LFR Treasure Bundle List. We’ve added 23 new adventures to the list bringing the total to 124. Among the new entries are 13 paragon adventures. That brings us to 18 adventures in the P1 band (level 11-14) and 4 adventures in the P2 band (level 14-17). With GenCon only a few weeks away, our list can help you decide what adventures to play in order to get that special item you’ve always wanted before you get to Indianapolis.

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Editorial Humour

More Confessions of a D&D Camp Counselor

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 Counselor 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).

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