What's Up With D&D? for Monday, October 3, 2011

This week we had a lot of great things offered to us by Wizards of the Coast for our Dungeons & Dragons game. There is so much in fact to share with you that we will get right into it.

• Rich Baker answers your questions in Rule of Three every week. This week he tackles questions about the upcoming Book of Vile Darkness and its tie-in to the Syfy Channel movie, skill rolls, and upcoming campaign settings. You didn't know there was a Book of Vile Darkness movie? Well don't remain in the dark any longer, the way to knowledge is here.
  
• Monte Cook started out his return by talking about perception in Legends and Lore article, Very Perceptive. In the piece, Monte discusses a new rank system and passive perception. Is there something here I am not noticing?
  
• A new class acts in Dragon 403 Strange Constellations by Bruce Cordell gives a star pact warlock a few options with their Constitution instead of Charisma. If you love warlocks and what Bruce did with them in Wish Upon A Star then this DDI article featuring nine new powers is just what you wished for.
  
• In House of the Mind from the Eye on Dark Sun series in Dungeon 194 by Rodney Thompson you are introduced to a new psionic-based organization. Whether you play in Athas or use this in your home brew campaign, the two non-item rewards will get stuck in your head.
  
• In Thormil's Secret in Ed Greenwood's Eye on the Realms in Dungeon 194 we are introduced to Nars Thormil and his thimdror ranch in Cormyr. To find out what is really going on in the land of the Purple Dragons you are going to have to read.
  
• For the content calendar of Dragon and Dungeon for October go here.
  
• Stephen Radney-MacFarland hands out some great advice for DM's who are running a long-term campaign in Starting Over, his new offering for Save My Game. If you are running a campaign or are about to begin one you really need to read this. Have your players read it as well so they can get some idea of what you do every week to run the game.
  
• In Design & Development, Greg Bilsland talks Lair Assault and what went into getting the Forge of the Dawn Titan challenge perfect for kicking your butt 95% of the time. It is more work than you would think to grind PC's into dust.
  
• In The Dungeon Master Experience by Chris Perkins we are treated to The Covenant of the Arcs. Chris details how to keep your campaign from derailing by weaving story arcs together. There are a lot of great tips and examples to help you out and make sure that your game, story, and players are all on the same track.
  
• This month in Open Window, an editorial for Dragon Magazine 404, Chris Perkins discusses what we can expect from the magazine in the future in regards to featuring themes every month again. But, he also discusses what Dungeon and Dragon magazines are looking for and how to get noticed during their open submissions. If you have submission ideas read this before you submit them and good luck.
  
• If you love Drizzt then this is your week as we have two offerings from R.A. Salvatore to tell you about. The second book in the Neverwinter saga, Neverwinter hits stores Tuesday and you can see how the crushing events in book one, Gauntlgrym, affects everybody's favorite drow ranger. All three novels in the Transitions series, Orc King, Pirate King, and Ghost King are boxed in a gift set. That should hold you over until the release of The Legend of Drizzt Board Game in the middle of October.
  
• Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium has many offerings for your games. Neuroglyph tells you all that the new book by has to offer with this review. I have to tell you that I love this book, especially the section on hirelings and companions.
  
• If you haven't had a chance to play the Heroes of Neverwinter beta game over on Facebook then stop missing out. I have played it and it is awesome. Keep checking the home page here at ENWorld for codes to let you get started early.
  
• If you have any plans on surviving Lair Assault then you should check out the Lair Assault Thread on the boards here at enworld.org. I warn you there are spoilers. I checked with my local game shop in an informal poll and it seems to be following the 1 party in 20 survival statistics.
  
• Don't forget that open submissions for both Dragon and Dungeon Magazines started October 1st and will be open until November 30th, 2011. You can look at the submission guidelines here.
  
• In case you needed some new adventure plans, Into the Unknown: The Dungeon Survival Handbook has appeared on Amazon for a May 15, 2012 release. I can't wait to see what the authors, Logan Bonner, Matt James, and Jeff Morgenroth have come up with to help us survive our next deadly dungeon descent.

Great review, thanks!

Should it be of help, I wrote up some advice on submitting DDI articles here.

Also, the October theme for DDI is Kara-Tur. The table of contents for Dragon and Dungeon now show the articles that will become available in October.

Gaming Tonic said:

• In case you needed some new adventure plans, Into the Unknown: The Dungeon Survival Handbook has appeared on Amazon for a May 15, 2012 release. I can't wait to see what the authors, Logan Bonner, Matt James, and Jeff Morgenroth have come up with to help us survive our next deadly dungeon descent.

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OMG! They aren't even pretending that we're in edition makeover phase any longer. Let's keep our thumbs crossed it doesn't hit rock bottom as hard as its predecessor 'We at WotC can't be bothered at this point' aka DSG 3.5 did:

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Dungeon-Survival-Dragons-Fantasy-Roleplaying/dp/0786947306/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317663762&sr=1-1"]Amazon.com: Dungeon Survival Guide (Dungeon & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying) (9780786947300): Bill Slavicsek, Christopher Perkins: Books[/ame]

Windjammer said:

OMG! They aren't even pretending that we're in edition makeover phase any longer. Let's keep our thumbs crossed it doesn't hit rock bottom as hard as its predecessor 'We at WotC can't be bothered at this point' aka DSG 3.5 did:

Amazon.com: Dungeon Survival Guide (Dungeon & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying) (9780786947300): Bill Slavicsek, Christopher Perkins: Books

Click to expand...

Um, what? I don't understand your crazy moon language here . . . what about this book says WotC is in an "edition makeover" phase or that they "can't be bothered". I'm confused.

He's assuming that since the title also appeared at the end of the 3E era, it heralds the doom of the 4E era. It's actually a 1E title that appeared several years before 2E did, as I recall.

Dire Bare said:

Um, what? I don't understand your crazy moon language here . . . what about this book says WotC is in an "edition makeover" phase or that they "can't be bothered". I'm confused.

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At the end of 3.5, after 4E had been announced, WotC published a "Dungeoneer's Survival Guide" (borrowing the name from a 1E sourcebook)... except that the 3.5 version was all of 64 pages long and briefly described past D&D adventure products. It was marketed as a "D&D retrospective" rather than a rulebook, and it was entirely useless to gamers.

In short, the poster is speculating that this product is nothing more than catalogue filler for WotC, like the last product with a name like this was.

The book has unspeakable things in it that are very awesome. I am eager to see everyone dive in once it is released.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

He's assuming that since the title also appeared at the end of the 3E era, it heralds the doom of the 4E era. It's actually a 1E title that appeared several years before 2E did, as I recall.

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doctorhook said:

At the end of 3.5, after 4E had been announced, WotC published a "Dungeoneer's Survival Guide" (borrowing the name from a 1E sourcebook)... except that the 3.5 version was all of 64 pages long and briefly described past D&D adventure products. It was marketed as a "D&D retrospective" rather than a rulebook, and it was entirely useless to gamers.

In short, the poster is speculating that this product is nothing more than catalogue filler for WotC, like the last product with a name like this was.

Click to expand...

Seems like unnecessary doomsaying to me, but I understand the reference now.

Still, the title leaves me uninterested. Which is why I don't have very clear memories of the 1st Ed version, and never purchased or looked through the 3rd Ed version. Do we need a separate dungeon survival guide in a game that is traditionally set in dungeons? Wouldn't that be the Player's Handbook?

I'll have to see some really good previews and reviews to purchase this one.

I was a bit worried when I saw the Shadowfell product announced a while back. It felt to me like the kind of product released in the later stages of an edition. And yet, it was really very good. We have since seen a number of products that could easily have bombed. A one-city setting with Neverwinter? Another book of magic items when it is widely acknowledged there are too many? Another book of monsters, set around the not-so-sure-people-are-using-it setting of Nentir Vale? And yet, each and every one of these has been really well received and added new innovation to the game.

Dungeoneers can surely seem like that kind of unneeded book. But it could also be something cool that advances the game. Swimming, climbing, jumping, rope use, falling... these all received treatment in the AD&D version of the book that were innovative to D&D. In the DM portion of the AD&D book there were surprisingly good tips on creating campaigns, particularly story design. The section on the Matrix Campaign is comparable to today's ideas around sandbox campaigns. I think the AD&D version, and the Wilderness Survival Guide as well, added layers of rules that didn't quite fit in a typical AD&D game. Most DMs really just used them for inspiration rather than repeated reference. The benefit of those books really was in influencing future versions of the game. I would not expect that problem with the 4E versions. But, it will be interesting to see if the 4E versions also advance the game in some way.

Back to my earlier post, the Kara-Tur content in DDI has so far been really good. Rules for honor and that backdrop article were really excellent. The backdrop article was called one of the finest articles to be published in recent years and I can't disagree.

Very interesting indeed! I really like what they are doing with 4e now. With everyone speculating about what this means or what that means, Im just looking forward to some more quality gaming with my group, and their product releases this year have been really keeping it interesting!