So I couldn't resist the urge to get a new toy. I'm a sucker for game aids, custom or purchased, and these color coded counters just seemed too cool to pass up. I probably should have gotten a small assortment and tried them first, but I ended up picking up quite a few. Each of the three GM packs, and then an extra 10-pack of red, medium blue, and white. I also got some peel-n-stick bases to convert my DDM minis.

My first impressions...
Despite the many reviews and posts indicating the issues with attraction/repulsion; I wasn't expecting the magnets to be so strong. I messed around with them a bit and I'm definately thinking that I'll need to adjust how I use them so minimize the effect. I may need to cut back on the number of things I use them to mark.

I'm looking at "magnetic reactive" materials right now. I found some that are wet or dry erase friendly, so I could possibly make a battle mat that the counters would slide each other around on less. Or just lay it under a normal battlemat for similar affect. I'll figure it out one way or another as the benefit these counters provide seems to be worth a little effort to sort out.

Also, I don't need smaller or larger counters for small and large creatures, but I'd sure like the peel-n-stick bases to come in those sizes. Getting my kobolds and goblins ready for my first few adventures left me with lots of sticky overhang. Sure I could cut my own, but there is no chance it would look as good as the precut ones.

Aristotle

I've got pre game jitters. Tomorrow is my first session running 4e, and I'm a bit nervous. I'm not as prepared as I had hoped to be, but I should be fine for 4 or 5 first level encounters.

My campaign, City of Fortune, focuses on a city-state founded by pilgrims, from a northern land the encompasses much of the implied D&D setting, on a tropical continent that draws inspiration from central and south america, africa, and the near and far east. I'm trying to imply a bit of a colonial feel with a vast dark continent that is largely unexplored as well as a western feel with an unclaimed frontier where settlers head to try their luck at striking it rich. I'll log some more info regarding the setting as I go, but I'll try to focus more on what's going on behind the screen as I think that kind of info is usually more interesting to other game masters.

I've got power cards, characters on sheets, a basic understanding of the rules, and a couple of pages of stat blocks and a rough outline for my first adventure. I guess it's time to start rolling dice...

Aristotle

Power cards aren't a new idea, but I wanted to share my experience. I discovered that my printer has settings for index cards so, rather than expensive 'punch out' cards, I can put a stack of 3"x5" index cards in the paper bin and print out exactly what I need. I spent last evening typing up cards for all of the powers my players' characters have. I color coded the borders to indicate at-will, encounter, or daily. I'm thinking of how I might mark cards for items' powers so the player knows if they can use them or not... It's nothing fancy. Just the writeup from the book, but I was kind of proud of how they turned out. And $3 in index cards should last me a loooong time.

Only quirk is that Adobe Reader doesn't seem to like my .25" margin, so it prints off-center. InDesign doesn't do that though. It prints it as it appears on the screen, so I'm just keeping them all in that format.

I'll try posting a sample. Maybe pick a power I know I've seen on all of the forums, in the hopes of keeping it quasi-legal.

It works so well that now I'm itching to find other ways I can use cards to enhance my game. Quest cards? Actual item cards (rather than just item power cards)? It doesn't take much to amuse me.

Aristotle

I never really bought Dungeon, though I ended up with a few over the years. I did buy Dragon pretty often as a kid and have fond memories of paging through the magazine looking for interesting new character ideas. I remember an article on magic lamps that inspired me to make a wizard who carried a lamp that worked like a magic staff. I loved how just calling my staff a lamp seemed to make the character all the more unique. I stopped collecting the magazine a long time ago though. It was just too much clutter after a while, so I leaned to do without it.

Now, with digital magazines, I don't have to worry about where to put my collection of flimsy magazines. They'll all be kept out of the way in a directory on my hard drive. Maybe it's just the shine of a new edition making everything seem so neat to me, but these first few articles have proven that I'm going to want access to these digital magazines. I'm getting ready to run my first 4e adventure filled with kobolds and goblins (of course) and the first set of articles gave me more of those monsters, not to mention some higher level kobolds for the tie-in adventure I am planning a little later. Nice! One of the adventures has something to do with Foulspawn and, while I'm not planning to use that article, I've got plans for a 'hills have eyes' Foulspawn adventure later too. I'll be mining that puppy for ideas.

I guess I just forgot how cool a resource the periodicals could be. I hope to continue to see well-done, relevant, articles moving forward. I have to wonder how I went so long without this regular source of addons and updates.

Aristotle

Bah. I'm not sure if it's cool to post a bio here, or how interested anyone might be in reading it but... Hello. I'm Aristotle. I'm a 31 year old gamer originally from southern Pennsylvania and now living in northern Virginia. I've been gaming about 16 years now, so officially over half my life. Man, time flies.

I'm not the hip game designer (because all game designers are 'hip' right?) I thought I'd be when I grow up. I'm not published at all. I don't think my mind works on the right level for that level of game design. *shrug* I still love to game. D&D was my gateway game, starting with an amalgam of 1st and 2nd edition. I've since played a dozen others. My most memorable campaign was uder the Storyteller system, set in the World of Darkness. I'm also a huge fan of Shadowrun or any science fiction type game with room for a little of the paranormal. I still hold a special place in my heart for D&D though.

I came from a deeply religous family that believed all the hype about role playing games. They were evil, they promoted devil worship, and so on. I had to hide my books and play at friends' houses for years. My parents actually found my books a week before I turned 18. It was a huge blowout, but it ended with me agreeing not to play under their roof and them agreeing that as an adult it was time for me to make my own decisions. Pretty cool of them actually, considering what they felt the books represented.

What's funny is what would have likely come of me without role playing games. I really feel that it saved my life. I hung with as wrong a crowd as they come as a kid. We did all sorts of illegal things as kids but as we got older drugs and real criminal activity entered the picture. I won't say I was an angel and, despite gaming, I still had a pretty unstable period in my late teens; but gaming kept me off the streets more nights than I was on them. I saw friends off to prison or carried them to their graves, far before they should've passed, but I often avoided the darker side of my life by living out the life of a hero in a fantasy game. I found something that held my attention and was every bit as cool to me as the other stuff I could've been doing, and I made it out... I really do attribute that to our hobby, not to mention my career in IT that stemmed from me getting a computer so I could play games via IRC. I owe this hobby so much, and someday I'll figure out how to settle the bill.

Aristotle