Dungeons and Dragons Blog

Dave Noonan over at Wizards.com wrote an excellent column on the flow of the game. While it’s been a while, I’ve taken the whole “It’s 3 am??” a step further to “It’s 6 am.” With a wife and kid that doesn’t happen any longer, but in my teenage years, I definately had some power gaming sessions.

Mostly with my cousin, who I haven’t even talked to in probably four years. He lived a city over and every few months we’d get together for a weekend and roleplay. Early on it was mostly D&D and my cousin was the first person I ever played D&D with, or any roleplaying game for that matter. When we’d get together, there really wasn’t a dungeon master per se, it was more of a cooperative effort, which I know probably took away from the game, but it was just the two of us. And on a few occassions, we played 12-14 hours straight through the wee hours of the morning.

And it’s nice to see from the column that I’m not alone. Although now that we’re older (mid-30s), my thinking is the game would have to be a lot more involved to keep people’s attention like that. Not that I’ll ever get a chance…..

And since I’m on the subject, at least from the side, of age, how many dads DM for their kids? I’m just curious. i have a very young son who’s probably at least seven or eight years away. I was wondering when you got your son started and how it went.

I’m going to change gears. Originally I was going to review the Stronghold Builders Guidebook, and then I was going to do my first installment of Blast from the Past with a look at the very first issue of Dragon magazine. I’m going to flip those, so check back later this week and I should have a nice narrative of the first ever issue of Dragon magazine.

Looks like they’re done filling up the rooms.  Wizards.com recently posted Room 22 in the Return to Undermountain series, which now takes you out of the general dungeon level and out into the caverns.

You can view the comprehensive Return to Undermountain list here.  I’m curious to hear how, or if, anyones been using these rooms in their campaign.

Alright, this is the new, and permanent, home of the Dungeons and Dragons Blog.  Next week, I’ll kick things off with a look at the Stronghold Builder’s Guidebook.  The following week I’ll take a look at the very first issue of Dragon magazine as part of a regular monthly series I’ve called Blast From the Past.  And as always, I’ll be commenting on things as I see them, whether they’re at Wizards.com official site, or around the internet.

WOTC put out their latest monthly product preview and there’s some good, some so-so stuff coming up.

This month we have Races of the Dragon and the Players Guide to Eberron. I’m more into a traditional party (mostly humans, maybe an Elf ranger or a halfing rogue mixed in) so Races of the Dragon probably won’t be something I want to pick up. I have Draconomicon so anything related to dragons is squared away. And I haven’t yet purchased the Eberron Campaign Setting yet, so I won’t be running out to get the Players Guide.

In February, we have Red Hand of Doom. It’s a pretty extensive module and these days, a canned adventure is hard to come by as WOTC seems more focused on source material. Looks interesting but I’ll probably flip through it before I pick it up. I like incorporating canned modules strategically into my campaign, but something this big probably wouldn’t fit. There’s a d20 Modern supplement coming out as well.

In March, we finally get to something that I’m kind of looking forward to. Tome of Magic: Pact, Shadow and Truename will introduce three new forms of magic. Shadow magic looks the most interesting to me. I’m always on the lookout for a different kind of Wizard to throw into a campaign and it looks like this will give me three. Also coming out is Power of Faerun. This looks like it gives the DM epic-level campaign ideas. I’ll reserve my judgement until they announce more about the product.

I was hoping to break out my campaign and do a walk through in a narrative (so I’d play the game behind the scenes and then I’d tell you what happened in a story) but work is heating up so I don’t see that happening too soon.

Alright, I’ve thought about this blog a lot and my general conclusion is, I like D&D so I’m going to stick with it. On monthly basis, here’s what you’ll be getting from here on out:

One Current Product Review – I’ll pick something in my library and write a review about it. Pretty simple. I’ll have links on the right so you can find them pretty easily.

One Blast From the Past – Here, I’ll either take an old adventure from 1E or 2E or an old issue of Dragon Magazine and write it up.

Then in the weeks I don’t do one of the above, I’ll report on news as it comes out and I might mix in writeups and questions regarding my campaign along with a survey or two. The plan is to post at least once a week. I’m also going to move the site to a unique URL so it’s easier to find (I never liked this URL but a lot of the better ones were taken).

So bookmark the site and check back every week.