Post-Rapture Blog Post

It's been a few weeks since my last post. I've started a new job and am taking the train downtown to Chicago (and back) everyday so my schedule is obviously in transition. Mark is doing a great job blogging our Sunday night DnD sessions (here). I am not participating in DnD Encounters this summer, but if you want to keep up with these sessions I suggest following them here. Scott is preparing a 4E Ravenloft adventure for us that we will attempt when Mark's dungeon is completed and I am hoping that later this summer I can get him to put together some notes on updating pre-4e Ravenloft modules to 4e. Maybe some of my Gencon attending friends will be kind enough to provide a trip report in August as well.

Character Builder Update ... Not So Fast There Partner

Wizards is releasing The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond boxed set tomorrow (05/17). There was a DDI CB update scheduled for tomorrow as well, one that would coordinate the latest tool updates and fixes with the release of the new material from the boxed set. As of last month Wizards finally gotten caught up by being able to provide updates to the CB tool in coordination with releases of new products and after several false starts appeared to finally be back on something resembling an actual release schedule.

DDE Season 4 Post-Mortem

With Season 4 (March of the Phantom Brigade) of Dungeons and Dragons Encounters (DDE) now completed I wanted to take a moment to collect my thoughts and write a review. I had previously participated one night during the Dark Sun season (DDE Season 3) at a Comic Connections in Oswego IL, but with job and family situations lining up as they did I was able to participate in all thirteen Wednesday night sessions of Season 4. Beyond that I have played DnD for 25+ years, almost exclusively with the same group of people, so it's always good to play something new with a different set of players every once in awhile.

DDE Season 4 Session 13 - The Finale (05/04/2011)

For the night of the finale to season 4 at The Gaming Goat we had a total of nine players in attendance. With this number of players it was decided to break into two groups so regular DM Jack ran with David, Dustin, Don and myself, and our occasional DM Steve ran with Kyle, Danny, Zach, and Daniel. Since tonight was to be the finale the groups were eager to get started so the maps were quickly placed and the evening's fun began.

DDE Season 4 Session 12 (04/27/2011)

The weekly encounters group at The Gaming Goat met this week with eager anticipation. All knew an encounter with a dragon was in the offing, but tonight the plan was to visit the room on the other side of the hallway and to not go down the stars to the supposed dragon's lair. It should be easy! Don, Steve, Daniel, Danny, Kyle, and Dustin ... uh-oh, we've got a problem - no magic users tonight. OK, maybe not so easy. Let's open the door anyway ...

DDE Season 4 Session 11 (04/20/2011)

Another series of college visits and a head cold has rendered another late posting for this past week's recap. We had seven players, the regulars that have been present from the beginning (Dave, Don, Steve, and myself) and the might-as-well-be-regulars-now (Zach, Kyle, and Dustin). We had reached the ancient dwarven monastery last week and had fought our way in, but we are also aware that an always dangerous dragon lay in our future.

Heroes of Shadow and DDI Update

Heroes of Shadow is due to be released this coming Tuesday (04/19/2011). The book goes back to the original hard cover and 8.5 x 11 size format of the DnD core books, but the content is to be a mix of original 4E and Essentials data. The next update for the on-line DDI Character Builder (CB) is to be released the same day and is supposed to include all of the data provided in Heroes of Shadow (read here). I have not seen any news concerning updates to the Adventure Tools and the monster builder tool. The next release of a new monster book, Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale, is due to be released in June, so hopefully we'll see significant updates and fixes before then.

DDE Season 4 Session 10 (04/13/2011)

After having had eleven players present last week at The Gaming Goat we were back down to only seven players this week. Our DM, Jack, has been doing a great job of working with the ebb and flow of players who show up, including making sure players who are being introduced to the game are having fun and getting a proper education at the same time. He does it all in good humor while successfully ignoring the distractions of DM'ing in an otherwise busy store.

DDE Season 4 Session 9 (04/06/2011)

DnD Encounters ran on Wednesday evening at The Gaming Goat and a good time was had by all. The regulars were present per usual, Anthony joined us as a first-timer, plus we had several of our part-timers join us this week, so with eleven people present the decision was made to split the group into two parts. After a brief discussion to ensure the two groups had an appropriate split of character types a night of double barreled fun was ensured. After the usual set-up with maps and miniature selection the two DM's (Jack and Steve) began to read through the adventure set-up, often in unison.

DDE Season 4 Session 8 (03/30/2011)

Despite making college visits to Iowa earlier in the week and to Michigan later in the week I was still able to make it to The Gaming Goat for the DDE session #8. Most of the usual suspects were present, but several of our part-timers were absent this night. Two newcomers, Kyle and Danny, joined us this week and performed admirably. We had printed out a nice color map of Castle Inverness last week and we knew looking forward to be able to use it again this week.