Dungeons and Dragons Blog

Alright, it’s been a while since I’ve even thought of Dungeons and Dragons and I haven’t bought a single 4E product.  With that, I’m putting the site on permanent hiatus.  With that, if someone wanted, I’d be willing to sell this domain with the content.  It’s made me a little bit of money over the years and if someone is a good writer and an active D&D player, then they could probably take this site to the next level.

If you’re interested, send me an email.  The address can be found on the left sidebar.

Just two more days until the official release of the 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons.  I was annoyed then hestitant about the new rule set but like anything, I’m now both intrigiued and excited.  Even enough to where I might fire back up this site in the next couple of weeks.  Good gaming.

While his name isn’t quite as recognizable to the 3E crowd, Gary Gygax’s name was commonly thrown about when I grew up playing D&D.  On top of that, his name was on just about everything and I still break open my 1E Dungeon Master’s Guide on occasion.  This is the guy who put role playing on the map so whether you play tabletop D&D or World of Warcraft on the computer, it was Gary Gygax who helped pave the way.  I wish his family the best.

Amazon.com has all three 4th Edition Core Rule Books available for preorder at a solid discount.  All have a June 6, 2008 release date.  I’m getting a little more excited about the new set of rules.  I guess had I gotten further into designing my campaign I’d be annoyed but now I figure I have a good seven or eight years before a new edition to get things squared away.

Of course in the meantime, I’m staying away from a lot of the newer products.  So I’m basically saving the money for when the new stuff comes out.  I wish I had more time to follow the progress their making but my disposable time for D&D has been minimal recently.  I’m obviously most interested in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

Anyway, here are links to the preoder pages for the Core Rule Books.

4th Edition Players Handbook
4th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide
4th Edition Monster Manual

There’s also a Deluxe Edition of the Players Handbook but I’m not sure what that entails.  I’m not sure if it’s leatherbound or if it comes with extras or what.  Based on the price, it looks like it’ll be leatherbound but I’ll find some clarification to make sure.

Alright, we’re about a month and a half removed from the announcement that the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons is coming out soon.  Since that time, this blog has remained dormant.  It’s part because I’ve had a limited amount of time and then part that I’m kind of hamstrung with a brand new set of rules coming out.  I have a large campaign that’s still mostly in 2E form so the question is, do I put off 4E and move forward with what I’m doing, or do I wait and start over, again.  I’m leaning towards starting over but I’m also hesitant to delve into 4E too much.  I dodged a bullet with 3E because I was stubborn and resisted.  It wasn’t until 3.5 came out that I bought the rules books and got into it.

I’ve also read through the Star Wars Role Playing Game Saga Edition to get a feel for what’s coming and it’s kind of a mixed bag.  The publishers say it’s not dumbed down, but in a lot of ways it is.  Some of it is definitely for the better but I’m worried D&D is going to turn more and more into a Warhammer type of game, which is minatures/combat oriented as opposed to a true role playing game.

Of course I can’t judge yet until everything comes out.  I’ll probably pick up the core rule books out of curiousity, then decide where to take my campaign and this website.

Well this is kind of a kick in the you know what, and it means I probably won’t be buying much stuff from here on out.  Fourth edition is coming.  And it’s coming in May 2008.

Dungeon and Dragon Magazine will now be online and Dungeon starts out like a bang with a converted Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, which is one of my favorite adventures from way back on first edition.  It mixes some outdoor adventure then a terrific dungeon crawl.  For now it looks like things will be free but eventually there will be a charge.

I got my copy of Dungeon Magazine #150 the other day and while I didn’t shed any tears, I did think about the issue a lot more then I normally would.  There was some neat stuff in there like indexes of all of the adventures in all of the magazines and if you buy one issue, this is the one to pick up.  Now we get to see what Pathfinder is all about.

While there’s been no official announcement, Dungeon and Dragon will now be internet provided.  No word as far as I know on when things kick off but we’re definitely treading into some interesting waters.

Wolfgang Baur, the creator of Open Design, has started a new quarterly D&D publication called Kobold Quarterly.  It looks very cool and for just $12, it looks like a deal.  I’m looking forward to the first issue.

The writing has been pretty spotty the past couple of months but if you’ve followed this site, you know the trend.  I get a big head of steam in the winter and once March hits, things get pretty thin.  My job revolves around the baseball season so that’s the explanation and as usual, there were some things that I never got around too (namely the Queen of the Demonweb Pit Blast From the Past).

My next purchase will most likely be Expedition to Undermountain.  I passed on the other two installments in this series but I’ve always been a fan of this dungeon crawl and as soon as it’s in my hands, I’ll be sure to write up a review for you.  I promise.

Wizards of the Coast announced that they won’t be extending their relationship with Paizo to keep Dragon and Dungeon Magazine going.  In some ways this is a surprise because Dragon Magazine has been around for 30 years.  On the other hand, they can accomplish the same thing on their website, and they’ve been doing so for quite some time.  You wonder if this is going to set things up for Wizards.com to have a subscription based premium service on their website to try to make a little bit more cash.  If the price is right, I’d go for it.

Both magazines will run through Septemeber and Dungeon will finish up their Savage Tide Campaign Path.  In the meantime, Paizo is going to put out a high end publication called Pathfinder.  I’ll be getting the first three issues come August so I’ll let you know what I think.  Because my subscription ran through the date things were ending I had a few choices and I decided to check this out.  They’re going to start a new adventure path (Rise of the RuneLords) and it looks like it’s more geared towards the DM.  At $20 ($14 if you subscribe) an issue, I’ll have to think about picking this up regulary.  It’s a bummer though because I’m most interested in issue four which features Wolfgang Baur and I’m only getting the first three because of my previous deal.

***UPDATE***

Here’s Owen Stephens take on the end of Dragon and Dungeon magazine.  Good stuff from one of the professionals.