Tag: Wizards of the Coast

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Player Resources

GenCon 2012: The Year I Won D&D

Calling GenCon the best four days in gaming is an understatement. There’s a really good chance that this year’s GenCon was my best four days in gaming ever. For four days everything went right. This was my fifth straight GenCon and without a doubt it was my best so far.

Socializing

One of the most important parts of any convention is the people. You can play D&D at home, but you go to a con to meet other gamers. For me a big part of it is meeting other bloggers and touching base with some of the folks from Wizards of the Coast.

This year I managed to spend some time hanging out with a lot of my fellow bloggers. I played D&D with some of them, and I played board games with others. I had some good conversations about gaming and life in general with some, and I had drinks with a few others. Some I regretfully only got to say a quick hello to, and many more that I wasn’t able to meet in person at all (maybe next year).

Most of the bloggers and WotC staff were extremely active on Twitter throughout GenCon so even though I didn’t see everyone I certainly knew where they were and what they were doing.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Web of the Spider Queen (Week 3)

After taking a pretty severe beating from the Drow last week, the party took a short rest to lick their wounds. Once they were healed up they quickly searched the Twisted Tower for any signs of the Pendent of Ashaba. All evidence suggested that the Drow came, stole the item, and then left through the cellar door with it. The PCs immediately began their pursuit.

Our numbers at my FLGS continue to hold steady at 14; two DMs with six players are each table. My group was back down to the original six. The party was badly wounded after last week’s ugliness and most were dangerously low on healing surges. Here’s the party breakdown along with their current number of healing surges.

  • Drow Wizard (Bladesinger) [3/8]
  • Drow Rogue #1 [4/7 ]
  • Drow Fighter [12/14]
  • Drow Druid [6/9]
  • Drow Rogue #2 [4/6]
  • Drow Cleric [4/9]
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Player Resources

Playing Drow Part 2 – Know Where You Came From

One of the toughest parts of role-playing a non-human character is to give that PC a distinct cultural identity. We often play ever character of every race as if they were born and raised in the Human world. For many races this isn’t a big deal because their societies will parallel Humans’ in many ways. However, Drow are very different from Humans and this should be reflected in the way they are played.

Although your character is an individual and you have the freedom to play him as you see fit, it’s important to consider his upbringing and how that has shaped his personality and attitudes. He might have forsaken his heritage to become an adventurer, but if he was raised in Drow society there are a lot of little details that you should keep in mind when running him. Use these differences to make your Drow stand out from the Elves and Humans in the party.

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D&D Encounters Player Resources

It’s Here! – Lair Assault: Spiderkiller

You’ve braved the Forge, retrieved the Talon and slain the Tyrantclaw, now it’s time to stick it to the Drow! On June 1 Rise of the Underdark continues with Lair Assault: Spiderkiller. Season 4 has the PCs facing off against a small but powerful band of Drow that are up to no good in the Undermountain.

Lair Assault is the Top Gun of D&D. It’s for the best of the best. Normally you don’t win at D&D, but Lair Assault changes that. You create the most optimized character possible (within the confines of the challenge parameters) and try your best to accomplish the goal. It’s not easy and Wizard expects 80% of parties to suffer a TPK during their first attempt to complete the challenge. So if you think you’re a D&D Top Gun than Lair Assault is the adventure series for you.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Web of the Spider Queen – Preview

The Drow are coming. On May 16 Rise of the Underdark gets into full swing as the Drow take over D&D Encounters season 9 when Web of the Spider Queen begins. This season of D&D Encounters is tied closely to Wizards’ latest product offering Into the Unknown: The Dungeon Survival Handbook which will be available on May 15 (coincidentally the day before the slot 0 character creation week). Below is a high-level overview of what you can expect during the coming season of D&D Encounters. It relatively spoiler-free.

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Editorial

D&D Next and the Fate of Character Builder

Can you imagine creating a 4e character without using the character builder? I can’t. It’s become such an important and integral part of character creation that I don’t know what I’d do without it. And that got me thinking about how D&D Next will handle character builder? Will it be revamped to work with the new rule-set? Will Wizards support 4e and D&D Next versions of character builder concurrently? Or will character builder be scrapped all together? If such decisions have been made by the brass at Wizards they’re not sharing the secret with us. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t look at the possibilities and make recommendations.

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Player Resources

Playing Drow Part 1 – Embracing the Evil

The Drow are an evil race. This is a fact. The overwhelming majority of dark Elves live and thrive in evil societies, and are led by the most evil of their ilk. Yet no matter how often I’ve repeated this most players who create Drow PCs choose to make them good, or at least not as evil as you’d expect them to be and it drives me crazy. I realize that this is your character and that you can ultimately determine their outlook on life as you see fit, but you’re ruining the best aspects of being Drow by making them all good. Play evil! Relish in playing evil!

All of this grief surrounding good rebel Drow adventurers can be traced back to Drizzt Do’Urden. What most players forget is that Drizzt Do’Urden is not your typical Drow. This is a big part of what makes him so endearing to his fans. The early books in the Legend of Drizzt series constantly juxtaposed Drizzt’s atypical behaviour and misaligned morale compass when compared to the overwhelming majority of other Drow. Practically every other Drow you meet in Salvatore’s books is clearly evil.

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D&D Encounters Player Resources

The Drow Are Coming!

“Sightings of dark elves on the surface have grown steadily—turning from dismissible rumors into disturbing reports. Brave heroes are needed to discover what plot or purpose is driving the children of Lolth to so boldly intrude upon our realm.”

This is the teaser Wizards gave us Monday when they launched their Rise of the Underdark website hub. It looks like 2012 is going to be the Year of the Drow. In 2011 everything revolved around Neverwinter, in 2012 it’s all about the Drow and the Rise of the Underdark. According to Wizards this cohesive storyline will run through 2012 in three distinct phases, one of which is the next season of D&D Encounters (more on that below).

I thought Drow were cool from the very first time I saw them in the original Fiend Folio. Like so many others my admiration grew when R.A. Salvatore introduced us to Drizzt and the world of the dark elves. Since then I’ve devoured anything and everything Drow that I could get my hands on. When I visited Wizard of the Coast in December one of the things they revealed was their plans for the Drow in 2012. I was simultaneously ecstatic to hear what they have in store for the Drow and frustrated that I was bound to the NDA. But now that the cat’s out of the bag I can finally start to talk about it. In the coming week’s we’ll have multiple articles here at Dungeon’s Master featuring Drow.

If you haven’t already visited the Wizards Rise of the Underdark website hub I strongly encourage you to do so (as soon as you finish reading this article). There’s a load of information about what’s coming up including product descriptions, novel previews, and Drow wallpapers for download. If you’re not excited yet, you will be when you watch the preview video which we’ve copied below.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye (Week 5)

After defeating the elemental guardians last week, the party descended the staircase where they disarmed the trap and opened the door to the Sunset Shrine. Before them was a long, downward sloping corridor. On either side of the hallway were statues. The statues nearest the door looked somewhat humanoid, but as the party proceeded downward they noticed the statues became more aberrant.

As the party continued down the hallway they could see light flickering and smell smoke from burning fire in the room ahead. When the slopped passage finally leveled out the PCs stood before a vast room. In the centre were two huge rolling fires, and in-between them stood a Dwarf with fiery red hair wearing yellow robes.

Throughout the room was rubble from collapsed pillars. The party also noted several doors leading out of the chamber, all of which were closed. At the far end of the chamber two scaffolds provide Dwarven crossbow men with clear shots at the party. Between the platforms was an iron portcullis that bared passage to another long hallway beyond. Behind the gate was a Dwarf in Purple Robes who said “Your arrival has been foretold.”

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye (Week 2)

Last week the adventure began with the Merchant Council and Lady Bron of Iriaebor asking the PCs to travel to the village of Easting and investigate rumours of an outbreak of the Abyssal Plague. When the PCs arrived in Easting they discovered the rumours were true and those infected were already quarantined in a barn. When the PCs tried to enter the barn to assess the extent of the outbreak they were attacked by four people that had already transformed into demons.

They managed to defeat the demons and none of the heroes got infected in the process. During the battle in the barn a Dwarf emerged from the shadows and attacked the party before they knocked him unconscious. The village priest suggested brining the captured Dwarf back to the church where he could be questioned.

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