Icosahedrophilia Podcast, Episode 100: The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 5

I fell a couple of days behind schedule, adventure fans, but here for your listening pleasure is the monumental, historic 100th episode of the Icosahedrophilia podcast, presenting “The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 5,” played on August 14, 2010! Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

  • Weighing Anchor: I call for your initiative roll myself on the occasion of this 100th episode.
  • The Staging Area: I briefly summarize the campaign backstory (referring listeners to the “Story Thus Far” recap episode for a more detailed history of the campaign), giving a more extensive summary of “Well Met in Markathesh” and parts 1–4 of “The Valley of the Shadow of Death.”
  • The Weather Report: The explorers emerge victorious from their clash with the Shadowgate guardians.
  • The Prop Shop: I briefly report on my use of DM Toolkit, an iPad/iPhone app by Brad Talton for Level 99 Games, to run this adventure. Brad has also graciously provided me with three coupons for free copies of DM Toolkit, which I will passed on to the first three listeners who requested them. For those of you who prefer lower-tech solutions, my Noble Knight pick of the episode is the GameMastery Combat Pad Initiative Tracker by Paizo.
  • Sea Shanties: This episode features the following theme and background music, used by permission of the copyright holders:

I hope that you enjoy(ed) listening to “The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 5,” and that you’ll join us when the campaign continues in “The Nameless City, Part 1″!

I forgot to mention this in the audio, but if you shop at DriveThruRPG between now and September 10 (my brother’s birthday), enter the coupon code DTRPGAugust2010BlogPCast to receive a 20% discount on all products from the following publishers:

Don’t miss out on this great offer!

September 01st, 2010 | Category: D&D 4e,RPG,play,podcast | 11 comments

Icosahedrophilia Podcast, Episode 99: The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 4

Once more into the breach, adventure fans! Episode 99 of the Icosahedrophilia podcast presents “The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 4,” played on August 14, 2010! Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

  • Weighing Anchor: Chris Tulach of the RPGA calls for your initiative roll.
  • The Staging Area: I briefly summarize the campaign backstory (referring listeners to the “Story Thus Far” recap episode for a more detailed history of the campaign), giving a more extensive summary of “Well Met in Markathesh” and parts 1–3 of “The Valley of the Shadow of Death.”
  • The Weather Report: The guardians of the Shadowgate attempt to repel the PCs … violently.
  • The Prop Shop: I describe the miniatures that I used to portray the Shadowgate’s guardians (see below for pictures). These minis are my Noble Knight picks of the episode.
  • Sea Shanties: This episode features the following theme and background music, used by permission of the copyright holders:

Apparently I haven’t downloaded the photos of the Shadowgate guardians from my digital camera yet. When I get a chance, I’ll put them right here.

I hope that you enjoy(ed) listening to “The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 4,” and that you’ll join us when the adventure concludes in “The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 5″! I plan to publish part 5 after the weekend, in order to give the players a chance to record any shout-outs they wish to put into episode 100!

I forgot to mention this in the audio, but if you shop at DriveThruRPG between now and September 10 (my brother’s birthday), enter the coupon code DTRPGAugust2010BlogPCast to receive a 20% discount on all products from the following publishers:

Don’t miss out on this great offer!

August 27th, 2010 | Category: D&D 4e,RPG,Stormhaven,play,podcast | No comments

What’s in the (fortune) cards?

Having spent far too much time today reading and reacting to other people’s opinions about the forthcoming fortune cards for D&D from Wizards of the Coast—including opinions from people who don’t play D&D 4e and just see another opportunity to bash WotC—I hereby embark on writing a blog post on the topic. I really should spend my time in better ways, such as getting episode 99 of the Icosahedrophilia podcast out the door. However, I feel a need to vent a little, and to speculate wildly about why some D&D aficionados have such a strong negative reaction to them.

For those of you who don’t already know, the WotC contingent announced at GenCon that WotC would publish, in the first quarter of 2011, a new product called fortune cards. Fortune cards will be sold in booster packs like the Gamma World mutation cards; each card will allow a player to influence the in-game action in some way. As far as I know, WotC has not publicly previewed any of the actual cards. However, imagine that card effects would be buffs, debuffs, and little effects like, “An enemy stumbles over loose rubble; slide the target one square.” Fortune cards add randomness, a kind of “fog of war,” to D&D encounters (with a lower-case e). In a typical use case (from early in the product’s life cycle), each player would bring a sealed booster pack of fortune cards to a D&D session. During that session, the player could use the cards in that pack to affect the action at the table.

Some of the D&D players—and non-4e-players who love to opine about 4e—who post on ENWorld and the Wizards Community forums have gone ballistic, or perhaps apoplectic.

Calm down, people.

As Matt James (I think) and others have pointed out in their tweets today, if Gary Gygax had put fortune card effects on a random table in the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide, such tables would be part of the treasured shared nostalgia informing the gaming experience for those of us who cut our gaming teeth on white, blue, or red-then-blue boxed sets in the 1970s and early 1980s. Let the manufacturers of Magic: The Gathering print them on cards and randomize them dicelessly, and it’s like the Abyssal Plague has already reached pandemic levels. I shall now attempt to diagnose this hysteria, relying solely on my own intuitions and guesses about gamer psychology.

Folk who already love to hate 4e love to hate every innovation that relates to 4e, so I’m not really going to address that segment of fandom. Those players—and may their gaming experience of choice give them many hours of great fun—have already removed themselves from the 4e target market, and most of them aren’t coming back … unless, perhaps, the more 3e-like class builds in Heroes of the Fallen Lands (etc.) draw some of them in.

Among folk who actively play 4e, I can imagine that DMs might object to the loss of control that fortune cards represent. Fortune cards put part of the story in the players’ hands. “What do you mean one of the monsters hears a sound behind it, gets distracted, and takes a –2 penalty to its next attack roll? I’m the DM! I’ll say what sounds are in the area and how they affect my precious monsters!” (If you read that previous sentence aloud, try to make your voice sound like that of Napoleon the bloodhound from The Aristocats.) The obvious answer to such DMs is, “If you don’t want fortune cards at your table, don’t allow them at your table.”

I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple, however. The fact that fortune cards will be an official D&D product published by Wizards of the Coast—an official product with actual mechanical consequences, unlike D&D MIniatures or Dungeon Tiles—may lead some DMs to fear a sense of “player entitlement.” I’m privileged to play with a group that exhibits a high level of DM empowerment; even when I adjudicate the rules incorrectly, my group usually goes along with it at least until the next potty break, instead of bogging the game down in rules lookups. And the players in my campaign are great about taking the “it’s your world” attitude with regard to what’s in the world and what’s not. One of the players, Steve, runs a warforged barbarian, but if I had said, “No, there are no warforged in my campaign world,” he probably just would have said “Bummer” and run a dragonborn or half-orc barbarian instead. However, I can imagine players who use WotC’s new-with-4e “everything is core” sensibility as a lever to try to force a DM to accept something the DM doesn’t want in his or her world. “You have to let me play a minotaur! It’s a standard race right here in Player’s Handbook 3!” Anxiety about feelings of player entitlement might be one reason that some 4e DMs who don’t want to use fortune cards don’t find “if you don’t want them, don’t use them” to be an unsatisfactory answer.

By the way, the kind of extreme control over the world represented by the attitude described above seems to me to run counter to some of the best DMing advice that I’m hearing these days on my favorite 4e-centric podcasts and blogs. Of course, there’s probably a selection bias operating here, but so many of the sources to which I look for DMing tips recommend giving players more, not less, control over the campaign world, specifically as a way to get the players more invested in the world and more invested in role-playing. Some of my players seemed a little confused in a recent session when they wanted to know whether the town they were visiting had a certain kind of establishment. My response was “Should there be, in a town this size?” After a few moments of silence and a tentative, “Uh, I think so,” I responded, “Okay. There is!” (These are not exact quotations, of course, just the gist of more or less how I kind of remember the conversation. You can hear the exact exchange on the podcast.) If fortune cards give players a little bit of control over the terrain, the weather, or even the monsters’ actions, I actually see that as a good thing.

A different kind of sense of player entitlement might explain why some 4e players would object to fortune cards. You might think that players would enthusiastically embrace more control over the story world. Sure, but players also embrace control over their money, and no player wants to be told that he or she must spend $3.95 per session on “accessory X” (unless “accessory X” is pizza). Some players may fear that their DMs will require sealed packs of fortune cards, thus imposing a kind of “entry fee” on even home games of D&D. Again, the only reasonable entry fee for a home game of D&D is bag of the DM’s favorite snack food.

Most of you who read the previous paragraph will already have thought of the obvious solution: the DM should allow, but not require, fortune cards. Despite the common-sense appeal of this proposal, it introduces another reason that enthusiastic 4e players might reasonably object to power cards: power balance among PCs. If Joe can afford $3.95 per week or fortnight or month or however often his group plays, but Jim can only afford $3.95 every other session, and Jack really doesn’t want to lay out the $3.95 at all, we have reached a point where you can buy, with real-world money, a mechanical advantage in-game … and many players will find that most distasteful.

Personally, I like the idea of fortune cards, but I would have preferred a different implementation. As the DM for my group, I would gladly purchase a deck of fortune cards to deal out to players at appropriate times. I’m less excited about the random booster scheme, but still very interested in finding a way to use fortune cards at my table in a way that bypasses the potential player frustrations described above.

As always, the comment thread is open for your thoughts.

August 27th, 2010 | Category: D&D 4e,RPG,tools | 15 comments

Icosahedrophilia Podcast, Episode 98: The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 3

Episode 98 of the Icosahedrophilia podcast is here, adventure fans, to present you with “The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 3,” played and recorded on August 14, 2010! Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

  • Weighing Anchor: Jeff Greiner, host of the Tome Show, calls for your initiative roll.
  • The Staging Area: I briefly summarize the campaign backstory (referring listeners to the “Story Thus Far” recap episode for a more detailed history of the campaign), giving a more extensive summary of “Well Met in Markathesh” and parts 1–2 of “The Valley of the Shadow of Death.”
  • The Weather Report: The adventurers defeat Gnash and his crew, then turn their attention to the Shadowgate—ultimately summoning and provoking its undead guardians.
  • The Prop Shop: I describe the prop that I used to allow the players to interact physically with the runic cubes, and announce the winner of the runic cubes contest. (Nathaniel, if you’re reading this, please contact me with your postal address so I can send your the prize!) Since solving the puzzle required the players to use the power of their minds, I make Psionic Power by Wizards of the Coast my Noble Knight pick of the episode.
  • Sea Shanties: This episode features the following theme and background music, used by permission of the copyright holders:
    • “Racing the Wind” and “Gallows Jig” from the album Phantoms of the High Seas by Nox Arcana, ©2006 Monolith Graphics
    • “Desert Battle” by Erika Lieberman, ©2009 Sonic Legends
    • “Spirit of the Rainbow Serpent” by Terry Oldfield, from the album Australia: Twilight of the Dreamtime, ©1994 by New World Music

Here are the PCs’ guess as to the Shadowgate runic cube sequence, along with the “key”:

The PCs’ guess The correct sequence

I hope that you enjoy(ed) listening to “The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 3,” and that you’ll join us when the adventure continues in “The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 4″!

I forgot to mention this in the audio, but if you shop at DriveThruRPG between now and September 10 (my brother’s birthday), enter the coupon code DTRPGAugust2010BlogPCast to receive a 20% discount on all products from the following publishers:

Don’t miss out on this great offer!

August 23rd, 2010 | Category: D&D 4e,RPG,Stormhaven,play,podcast | 5 comments

Icosahedrophilia Podcast, Episode 97: The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 2

Let the good times—and dice—roll, adventure fans! Episode 97 of the Icosahedrophilia podcast presents “The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 2,” played and recorded on August 14, 2010! Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

  • Weighing Anchor: Erika Lieberman of Sonic Legends calls for your initiative roll. You can hear Erika’s music in the background throughout this episode.
  • The Staging Area: I briefly summarize the campaign backstory (referring listeners to the “Story Thus Far” recap episode for a more detailed history of the campaign), giving a more extensive summary of “Well Met in Markathesh” and part 1 of “The Valley of the Shadow of Death.”
  • The Weather Report: The combat between Gnash and the crew of the Broken Promise—which Gnash had previously commandeered—continues.
  • The Prop Shop: I describe the miniatures I used to represent Gnash, Kuurog, and their allies, and confess to two rules errors. My Noble Knight picks of the episode are two miniatures from Reaper Miniatures’ Dark Heavens line: Gronk Spliteye, Bugbear Hero (whom I used to represent Gnash) and Skrug, Bugbear Shaman (the miniature I used for Kuurog). See pictures of my painted versions below.
  • Sea Shanties: This episode features the following theme and background music, used by permission of the copyright holders:

As best I can recall, here are the goblins and hobgoblins that I used to stage the fight:

And here are front and rear photos of Gnash and Kuurog:

I hope that you enjoy(ed) listening to “The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 2,” and that you’ll join us when the adventure continues in “The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 3″!

I forgot to mention this in the audio, but if you shop at DriveThruRPG between now and September 10 (my brother’s birthday), enter the coupon code DTRPGAugust2010BlogPCast to receive a 20% discount on all products from the following publishers:

  • A Terrible Idea
  • Aethereal Forge
  • Bailey Records
  • Crucifiction Games
  • Dream Pod 9
  • Fantasy Games Unlimited
  • Final Redoubt Press
  • Gold Rush Games
  • Goodman Games
  • Highmoon Games
  • Morbid Games
  • OtherWorld Creations
  • Palladium Books
  • Rogue Games
  • RPG Objects
  • Savage Mojo
  • Tricky Owlbear
  • Vigilance Press

This is, in my opinion, absolutely the best lineup of publishers who have offered such discounts since the blog/podcast discount program began a few months ago. Don’t miss out on this great offer!

August 19th, 2010 | Category: D&D 4e,D&D Miniatures,RPG,Stormhaven,miniatures,play,podcast | 2 comments

Icosahedrophilia Podcast, Episode 96: The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 1

It’s an exciting day, adventure fans! This hasn’t happened since episode 1—in episode 95 of the Icosahedrophilia podcast, you’ll hear actual play published only a few days after the actual game session! Episode 95 presents part 1 of our adventure “The Valley of the Shadow of Death,” played and recorded on August 14, 2010! Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

  • Weighing Anchor: Sean Patrick Fannon of DriveThruRPG calls for your initiative roll.
  • The Staging Area: I briefly summarize the campaign backstory (referring listeners to the “Story Thus Far” recap episode for a more detailed history of the campaign), giving a more extensive summary of “Well Met in Markathesh.”
  • The Weather Report: The PCs attack Gnash and his companions in the shadow of the mysterious desert “gate.”
  • The Prop Shop: I discuss my use of the following products to assemble the scenery on the table:

  • Sea Shanties: This episode features the following theme and background music, used by permission of the copyright holders:
    • “Racing the Wind” and “Gallows Jig” from the album Phantoms of the High Seas by Nox Arcana, ©2006 Monolith Graphics
    • “Awakening the Seed Dreamer” by Terry Oldfield, from the Album Australia: Twilight of the Dreamtime, ©1994 New World Music
    • “Desert Battle” by Erika Lieberman, ©2009 Sonic Legends

Here’s how the table looked when the players arrived for the session:

And here’s a photo illustrating how we show miniatures on mounts, using small bits of museum putty and 50mm miniatures bases:

I hope that you enjoy(ed) listening to “The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 1,” and that you’ll join us when the adventure continues in “The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 2″!

August 19th, 2010 | Category: D&D 4e,RPG,Stormhaven,play,podcast,props | 4 comments

Icosahedrophilia Podcast, Episode 95: Well Met in Markathesh, Part 4

Welcome back, adventure fans! Episode 94 of the Icosahedrophilia podcast presents part 4 of our adventure “Well Met in Markathesh, Part 4,” played and recorded on May 15, 2010! Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

  • Weighing Anchor: Samuel Dillon (DMSamuel on Twitter) of the RPG Musings blog and the 4 Geeks 4e podcast calls for your initiative roll.
  • The Staging Area: I briefly summarize the campaign backstory, giving more attention to “Keeping the Promise” and the first three parts of “Well Met in Markathesh.” As usual, I also refer new listeners to the “Story Thus Far” recap episode for a more detailed history of the campaign.
  • The Weather Report: Zebith and Lithian conclude their initial conversation with Father Murphy, and invite him to dinner aboard the Broken Promise for further conversation before they head back into the Taworri Desert.
  • The Prop Shop: I make Wizards of the Coast’s recent hardback, the Demonomicon, my pick of the episode.
  • Sea Shanties: This episode features “Racing the Wind” and “Gallows Jig” from the album Phantoms of the High Seas by Nox Arcana, ©2006 Monolith Graphics. All tracks were used by permission of the copyright holders.

I hope that you enjoy(ed) listening to “Well Met in Markathesh, Part 4,” and that you’ll join us when the campaign continues in “The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 1″!

August 17th, 2010 | Category: D&D 4e,RPG,Stormhaven,play,podcast | 1 comment

Icosahedrophilia Podcast, Episode 94: Well Met in Markathesh, Part 3

I fell behind, adventure fans—but I didn’t fall overboard! I had intended to publish this podcast on August 12 or 13, 2010, but I ended up spending extra time preparing for the August 14 play session instead of working with the podcast files. I trust we’ll catch up easily. Episode 94 continues our adventure in “Well Met in Markathesh, Part 3,” played and recorded on May 15, 2010! Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

  • Weighing Anchor: Aeryn “Blackdirge” Rudel of Blackdirge Publishing and Goodman Games is responsible for some of the best third-party 4e material out there—and on this episode he calls for your initiative roll.
  • The Staging Area: I briefly summarize the campaign backstory, giving more attention to “Keeping the Promise” and the first two parts of “Well Met in Markathesh.” As usual, I also refer new listeners to the “Story Thus Far” recap episode for a more detailed history of the campaign.
  • The Weather Report: The PCs haggle with outfitter Godfrey “Captain” Morgan, Tyria visits city hall, and Zebith and Lithian take a remedial course in D&D 4e cosmology at the local temple of Ioun.

  • The Prop Shop: I identify the Paizo Face Cards used for major NPCs in this play segment, and peel back the curtain for a look at some of the inspiration behind Father Murphy. My Noble Knight pick of the episode is Harrowing Halls, a Dungeon Tiles set by Wizards of the Coast.
  • Sea Shanties: This episode features “Racing the Wind” and “Gallows Jig” from the album Phantoms of the High Seas by Nox Arcana, ©2006 Monolith Graphics. All tracks were used by permission of the copyright holders.

Here’s a look at the Paizo Face Cards I mentioned in the Prop Shop:

I hope that you enjoy(ed) listening to “Well Met in Markathesh, Part 3,” and that you’ll join us when the adventure continues in “Well Met in Markathesh, Part 4″!

August 15th, 2010 | Category: D&D 4e,RPG,Stormhaven,play,podcast | No comments

Icosahedrophilia Podcast, Episode 93: Well Met in Markathesh, Part 2

Ahoy there, adventure fans! The latest adventure—and I really mean that this time—of the crew of the Broken Promisecontinues in “Well Met in Markathesh, Part 2,” played and recorded on May 15, 2010 and presented in episode 93 of the Icosahedrophilia podcast! Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

  • Weighing Anchor: Mike Shea of the Sly Flourish blog, who tweets daily D&D tips and recently published a book full of good advice for DMs, calls for your initiative roll.
  • The Staging Area: I briefly summarize the campaign backstory, giving more attention to “Keeping the Promise” and “Well Met in Markathesh, Part 1.” As usual, I also refer new listeners to the “Story Thus Far” recap episode for a more detailed history of the campaign.
  • The Weather Report: The PCs finish their interrogation of the goblinoid pirates, and Tyria arranges for their disposition. Meanwhile, Zebith and S3rv0 pay a visit to the Markathesh library.
  • The Prop Shop: I describe my use of Paizo publishing’s Face Cards: Friends & Foes to represent notable NPCs. Since the Vorpal Network’s sponsor for August, Noble Knight, doesn’t list this item in its current catalog, I make Paizo’s GameMastery Map Pack: Town my Noble Knight pick of the episode. In the audio, I failed to mention that the librarian, Astrid Tepeora, owes her first name to the character Astrid Farnsworth on the television show Fringe, played by Jasika Nicole.
  • Sea Shanties: This episode features “Racing the Wind” and “Gallows Jig” from the album Phantoms of the High Seas by Nox Arcana, ©2006 Monolith Graphics. All tracks were used by permission of the copyright holders.

Here’s a look at the Paizo Face Cards I mentioned in the Prop Shop:

I hope that you enjoy(ed) listening to “Well Met in Markathesh, Part 2,” and that you’ll join us when the adventure continues in “Well Met in Markathesh, Part 3″!

If the fair winds hold, mateys, we’ll reach convergence before the next Stormhaven campaign game session on August 14, 2010:

  • Well Met in Markathesh (2 more episodes)
  • The Valley of the Shadow of Death (tentative title; to be played on August 14, 2010)

August 11th, 2010 | Category: D&D 4e,RPG,Stormhaven,play,podcast | 1 comment

Can you solve the runic cubes?

In episode 86 of the Icosahedrophilia podcast, the adventurers noticed a strange structure in the desert—a structure that resembled a large stone hoop standing perpendicular to the ground. I used a printable model from WorldWorks, slightly modified, to represent this structure:

In the face of the structure, the PCs beheld eight runes:

Please note that the directions don’t actually correspond to directions on the campaign map; they are just for convenience in referring to the different runes. If the vertical stone circle were a clock, due north would be 12:00. Upon closer inspection, the PCs noticed that the grooves around three of the runes—the ones whose positions are annotated in yellow text on the picture—were shallower than the ones around the other runes—the ones with positions annotated in orange. This suggested to the PCs that five of the runes might actually be inscribed on blocks that could be removed and repositioned, but the PCs did not investigate further at that time. At the end of episode 95, however, the PCs returned to the mysterious structure. On Saturday, August 14, 2010, the players and I will gather to find out what happens when the PCs confront Gnash near the stone structure, and what the PCs can learn about the structure.

In the course of that adventure, I expect the PCs to learn that the five sets of deep grooves do indicate precisely that those runes are carved on blocks that can be removed from the structure. Those blocks are actually cubes with runes inscribed on each face. The shallow-grooved runes are actually carved into the face of the structure itself and can’t be removed or reoriented. I’ve randomly assigned the cubes numbers from 1 through 5, and I’ve arbitrarily numbered the sides 1 through 6. Here are the cubes and their runes:

Cube Sides 1–3 Sides 4–6
1
2
3
4
5

In the actual game session, the PCs will have the opportunity to make “get a clue” checks, drawing on their various knowledge skills. For you, however, this is a “real-life” skill challenge, with no dice. Can you put the cubes in order? The first person outside of my local gaming group to leave a comment here detailing the solution—with all blocks positioned and oriented properly—will win a set of five custom-made Litko Aerosystems action point tokens (slightly smaller than the samples shown here; note that the prizes are five identical red gear-shaped action point tokens, not including the other tokens depicted). Please limit yourself to one entry. I will not respond to any comments on this post until our game session on August 14, 2010 has concluded.

August 10th, 2010 | Category: D&D 4e,RPG,Stormhaven,handouts,props | 14 comments

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