Worldwide Dungeons & Dragons Game Day 2007

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Uh, why. . .?

Because the last time I was in a gaming store during one of those events, it was filled with smelly hyperactive kids who never learned how to use their 'inside voice' and liked to kibitz at the RPG tables in between matches. The store was more interested in running the event than in anything else, and showed little inclination to reign in the chaos. I understand that -- I know they were making far more off of that stuff than they ever would off of me. Any other weekend, I'd be happy to poke my head in and see what's going on for WWDDGD, I just don't think I would find a repeat of past experiences enjoyable.

 

[takasi]

The prerelease tournament is the weekend before, so you probably don't have too much to worry about.

Has anyone received the retailer kits with the adventures yet? What's the adventure?

I was thinking of bringing in my laptop and flat screen and using MapTools to supplement to experience. (I'm also trying to get people to play online.) Does anyone know what town it starts in? I have some maps of Easthaven and Targos from the Icewind Dale games. I also have the North, Savage Frontier and the Accursed Tower. Are there any other books that might be useful for running something in Ten Towns?

 

[delericho]

I know last year a bunch of us decided to put together an adventure for this years because last years was very lame. I dropped out when the majority went in a direction I was very non-enthused about. I think the discussion petered out after that.

Partly, it petered out because there was a full year to go, and not much work to be done in the interim.

I got as far as writing a first draft of an adventure, and got some feedback on it. My plan was to revise it and finish it off a bit closer to the time. So, I put it on the back-burner, and promptly forgot about it until recently. Time permitting, I'm hoping to finish it this weekend, in case anyone wants an alternative to the official adventure.

Speaking of which, has the official adventure been made available yet? What about the pregenerated characters? I know that those, in particular, were quite weak last year, and so it would be good to at least have a set of characters that people can use, just in case.

Edit: I've found the characters, at: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4dnd/gameday. Thoughts?

 

[RangerWickett]

Wow, that is some underwhelming art. I figure if you're trying to get people to play your game, and this is your one chance to hook them, you'd at least re-use some of the quality art from the books, instead of mining Elfwood.

(My apologies for the presumptive and disparaging comment above.)

Also, they totally should've been 4e characters.

 

[CharlesRyan]

I'm not defending the artwork, but I don't think WWDDGD is really an acquisition event. The overwhelming majority of participants are existing fans, and I think the event is geared toward them.

Not that that's any reason for poor artwork. . .

 

[shaylon]

I might attend. I called the two dominant gamestores in town. One said to look on their website in the next couple of days for info. Their website clearly hasn't been updated in weeks. The other said that the guy that usually runs D&D in their store doesn't feel like it this year so they won't be doing anything.

It's like the local game stores don't want my business! I am considering heading over to Dayton Ohio. There is a game store there that does a pretty good job with these kinds of things.

 

[delericho]

Wow, that is some underwhelming art.

Agreed.

Having had a chance to look at the characters in some detail, I've got to say I'm impressed. It's obvious that this year they have been built by someone who both knows the game and dedicated enough time to the task. They're pretty well-built, with a solid 28-point buy, appropriate classes, skills and feats. I do find it a bit surprising that the only rogue is multi-classed, or that they'd expose a potentially new player to idea of multiclassing right away.

I do have a couple of nitpicks: the Dwarf Paladin's flat-footed AC is too high (should be 19), and both the Sorcerer and Cleric have mistakes in their skill allocation (the Sorcerer has 10 ranks in Spellcraft at 4th level; the Cleric's Int penalty is not applied to his skill points). Still, these are very minor nitpicks.

Also, I do like the format in which the characters are presented - all the information is easily available, and there aren't huge amounts of unnecessary data (aka clutter). Two small things I would have done differently: change the background colour for ease of printing, and provide PHB page references for the feats and spells.

 

[FunkBGR]

DND Gameday -

I also ran the GenCon delve last year, and had much fun.

This year, I planned on either running a similar thing with Icingdeath, and/or Seven Swords of Sin (less module, more of the traps) like what Paizo did for GenCon. Even thought about making a big board to put "death stickers" on.

My local game store though has not received it's promo stuff yet (according to about a week ago), which sucks 'cuz it's next weekend.

Critical Hit Games, in Coralville, Iowa.

 

[Ghostwind]

My store got its package this week. No pregen character sheets so now I have to download and print off the ones online. The adventure is a straight-forward dungeon crawl into an abandoned dwarven complex (only 12 pages). Probably take about two hours to run, give or take.

 

[delericho]

The adventure is a straight-forward dungeon crawl into an abandoned dwarven complex (only 12 pages). Probably take about two hours to run, give or take.

If I may: how many encounters are there? And how do they break down into combats, role-playing (that is, creatures that the party are expected not to slaughter immediately), traps and puzzles?