Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The other campaign I want to run

The other campaign I want to run on my Gleemax blog...

See, the advantage of my Gleemax blog is that when a weird and random thought pops into my head, I can just throw it out on the Internet. Or else that's the disadvantage. I can't remember which.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Dragon Forge: Rules of Writing

There it is! The other article I wrote to support Dragon Forge is up on the Wizards site—an exploration of the relationship between the rules of the game and the writing of a novel, seen through the lens of the transition from 3rd Edition to 4th. Check it out!

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Dragon Forge Interview Is Live

The interview I did for the Wizards website is live at last. Check it out!

The Stephen King question was interesting. It's clear to me that the market doesn't support my answer—it's full of clunky bestsellers that tell good stories in inelegant prose. I just finished The Judas Strain, by James Rollins, which I wouldn't call an old clunker of a car, was making some funny knocking noises throughout the first third. Nah, throughout the book actually. 

Requires more thought. But not now. Now is for sleep.

Except that I have to mention that in this week's fight against a barlgura, Baredd got a crit with martyr's retribution, dishing out 48 points of damage and knocking it dead. Good times.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Posts at Gleemax.com


I've added this category to point to posts on my Gleemax blog. As I said over there, I feel like my life will be easier if I put links here to posts I make over there, and vice versa. As if, somehow, that will make easier the decision of which blog to put a particular random thought on. 

Recent posts there include:
"You keep using that word" 
In praise of the 1-meter square 
and D&D 4e = WoW 

And the one I fear will get lost: Funny confluence of ideas

Monday, June 9, 2008

Taking a turn behind the DM screen...

...is a lot more appealing when the screen looks like this: 


We had a D&D-filled weekend after the Seattle Game Day, but my son wasn't eager to take a turn behind the DM screen—despite the fact that I think he'd be a natural at evocative description and exciting encounters. Well, then today I got one of those awesome resin castle "screens" from Alliance and Gale Force Nine, which he had been drooling over at the Game Day event. (The picture doesn't show the center section—one tower was broken off in shipping, and the Krazy Glue was drying when I took this shot.) That made DMing a lot more appealing. So we had an encounter in the inn—an evil wizard animated a sculptor's statue, which attacked and then turned into rocky minions when we destroyed it. It was great.

The kids, they love the toys.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Dragon Forge . . . and 4E!

Dragon Forge is out, and it's featured prominently on the Wizards Books site. You can download chapter 1, which—even if I say it myself—is a pretty awesome chapter. I'm hoping that the interview and article I did will also show up there soon.

Fourth Edition is also out. Sales are awesome, I'm told. Response has been equally awesome. Our employee game day yesterday was totally awesome, and I can't wait to run the adventure again tomorrow. Bill's game last night was also awesome. Baredd perfectly tanked a barlgura—it never attacked anyone but me! And I managed not to drop once, though my repeatedly laying hands on myself provoked some snickers. (Especially from Biggie Smalls...)

Have fun playing D&D this weekend! 

Man, I forgot to publish my last entry. Well, two new ones for the price of one...

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

SFX

I did an interview for SFX as part of their annual Pulp Idol fiction competition, which D&D is sponsoring this year. Check it out!

Keep an eye on the Wizards of the Coast Books site for another interview, and hopefully another article to celebrate the conjunction of the release of Dragon Forge and the launch of 4th Edition, coming up in just 2 days!

This week, Greg Bilsland (one of our able editors) has been joining me at Starbucks around 7:30 A.M. to write. We're serving each other as incentive—I'm more likely to roll out of bed when the alarm goes off at 6:10 if I know Greg will be waiting for me. So Dragon War is coming along...

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
38,953 / 100,000
(39.0%)


Speaking of the launch of 4th Edition:

• Thursday we're having a company-wide celebration of the launch with our own little game day. I'll be running a session in the morning and then teaching a lunchtime workshop on DMing 4th Edition.
• Friday we're having a little departmental celebration of a slightly different sort. Between the Thursday event and the Saturday one, just about everyone in R&D will have one or more opportunities to run straightforward D&D adventures. On Thursday, we're giving most of the department a chance to play some D&D that's a little less straightforward. My scenario is the most straightforward, involving two white dragons, demons frozen in ice and spawning undead, heroes frozen in ice whose spirits grant boons, treasure frozen in ice, and a Dudley Doright snowball sweeping across the battlefield, carrying characters off with it (hands, feet, and head sticking out as it goes).
• Saturday, of course, is Worldwide D&D Game Day, and I'll be celebrating (with most of the rest of R&D) at Neumo's in Seattle.