It's Been A While....

Oh do I fucking hate that song!

So yea, I apparently haven't posted anything since August, after Gencon, lol. Talk about a hiatus.... So what have I been up to since then? I'll give you the Cliff notes version.

So I started a 5th Edition D&D campaign that lasted all of one day. 5th Ed is awesome and I love it, but between being stuck on midnights and the holiday season being a living hell, I had absolutely no motivation to DM. I fell into WoW, again, because of that new expansion that came out. That lasted all of one month, fuck that game. Same shit over and over again but now with more Farmville thrown in! I got into the World of Warships beta and that's been a lot of fun. For the most part I've been doing a lot of PC gaming and pretty much zero tabletop gaming.

So Adepticon was last weekend, and I didn't go for the first time in 5 years. Since I haven't touched a tabletop in quite some time I didn't feel like burning all the vacation time to go (was scheduled to work that weekend). I also got sick on Saturday so that really screwed things up. Looking back I do regret not going, even if it was just for a few hours. I missed out on seeing all the people I normally hang out with at Adepticon, like Carl from the IC's, Phil from Firebase Delta (the Podfather), and Big Jim was even there! That's the part that sucked the most, missing out on meeting Big Jim :(

For some reason my interest in 40K and even Warhammer Fantasy slightly came back. Thinking about Adepticon made me go back to reading the Guant's Ghosts books that I still haven't finished. Those new Adeptius Mechanicus models looking freaking amazing, so I'm sure that had something to do with it as well.

The other thing that got me slightly back into GW are the rumors I read about Fantasy. One word in particular, SKIRMISH! Please be true, please be true! GW desperately needs to go in that direction. Their fanbase is just getting older, kids are not getting into WH as much as they thought and us older gamers don't have the time to paint 200 models or play 3 hour long games. So as you can see I really hope this pans out.

So I'll try to post here and there, depends on my gaming habits I guess.

Gencon 2014 Review!

Man O Wars are bigger then Spesh Mehrines, GAME OVER!

So now that's it's almost been a week and you probably have read 50 billion other Gencon reviews, here's mine!

I drove down to Indy from the greater Chicagoland area on Wednesday and it was only a 3 hour drive. It felt longer because it's such a boring drive, there's nothing except a decent sized wind farm on the way there. I had my brother with me in the car and he kept me sane thankfully. This was also his first time going to Gencon so he was full of nothing but excitement the entire time. My wife was unable to make it due to lack of vacation time at work, and that sucked because things didn't feel the same without her there.

Thursday I hit the vendor hall with my brother and we walked up and down every single aisle in the span of about 3 hours. The vendor hall actually grew this year, they added about 4 more aisles. If they make tabletop games or anything associated with them, they were there. Apparently they also made the aisles wider, but it was still asses to elbows almost the entire time. The attendance record was crushed on the very first day and I totally believe it, the sea of humanity was endless. I got to witness a mad Black Friday eque run on the Wizkids booth. People were pushing, elbowing, yelling, screaming and trying to do anything they could to get a better spot to get their Gencon exclusive Zombie Galactus. There were like 6 employees standing around screaming at people trying to keep things organized. It was pretty damn chaotic but luckily no one got hurt.

There was quite a bit to see and I could write a novel on everything that I did see. Privateer Press was busy the entire time. I picked up some pins and got the new Circle Warlock which looks freaking amazing. Bad news is you can only take Wolds with him and I own none :(. Wyrd on the other hand had a huge ghost town looking booth, by huge I mean it was as big as Privateer's. I think they regret using the ghost town theme because with the exception of opening time on Thursday and raffle time on Sunday, it was a ghost town. All the henchmen could be seen sitting at the same table together because no on was getting demos. Kind of shows how things went for Malifaux ever since their edition change and art style chance (which I actually hate more). I can honestly say Wyrd was the only booth I saw that had very little foot traffic. Every other booth had steady foot traffic the entire time.

Fantasy Flight Games probably had the largest booth (again). The things that got me excited over there was Armada, which is the Star Wars fleet battle game that should be out at the end of the year. The models were beautiful and the game looked very fun. They also showed off the 3rd faction for X-Wing, Scum and Villainy! You get to play as either criminals or bounty hunters and some of the ships look very cool. They also had a beta for The Witcher Adventure Board Game and the designer from Poland came out to do demos. He was a super cool guy and he loved tormenting and killing the players, why? Because (in his words) Adventure, that's why!

One booth had what I call the hit of the show, Golem Arcana. I say that because they totally sold out by Saturday. It's a war game with prepainted Golem figs that are about the size of a Warjack or Dreadnought. The game is played on a board that has squares on it. The gimmick to the game is that there's a pen that scans the base of the mini, the board and the cards that correspond with the minis. The pen syncs up to a tablet or iPhone through bluetooth and the app handles everything else, or you can choose to roll attack dice instead of having the app do it. It seemed like an awesome idea in theory but then I had a demo. The game plays very very quick because the app does everything for you, but that's the thing I don't like about it, I felt detached from the game. I didn't know if I was playing a tabletop game or a video game. The mechanics felt overly simple and I don't know if it's because of the rules or just because that app does everything for you. I can see how they can say that you have more time to think about tactics, but the game didn't feel very deep to me.

Obsidian's partnership with Paizo yielded an iPad game of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game which looked very sweet. That should be coming out in the fall. I also saw Hex, which is an online card game by Cryptozioc. It seems to be more like Magic The Gathering then Hearthstone. There were also video games for Shadowrun and a few other games that I can't think of off the top of my head, but this year's Gencon by far had the largest video game presence I have ever seen.

D&D was gangbusters as well at Gencon. They had their booth separate from the vendor hall and it was constantly packed. My panels that I signed up for were super fun. Storytelling with Greenword, Evans, Salvatore and Zubb was a ton of fun. It was great to finally met Salvatore and I was cool about it, all I did was shake his hand and say thank you for all you've done. Rolling a 5th Ed Character with Mike Mearls looking over my shoulder was awesome. My brother was in on that as well so he got to roll up his first character with the lead designer helping him through it. Kobold Press' panel on Tyranny of Dragons was an excellent panel as well. I've been a big fan of Wolfgang's work and he's such a cool and funny dude. Hearing how Kobold got recruited to write the adventure path and how they did it was very informative and shows that WoTC is being smart about things now by having other studios do some of the work for them. I also got to hear about some of the stuff that didn't make the final cut into the book, and some of those I'm using in my own campaign once I get it started.

Spin a Yarn with Greenwood and Evans was not quite what I expected. I thought it was a 2 hour panel on how to become a better story teller. What it actually was was a group brainstorming session that consisted of everyone in the crowd throwing ideas at Greenwood and Evans. They take all those ideas and take what they can from it and they collaborate on a story that will be published (not sure if in print or online) and it will be Forgotten Realms lore. Pretty cool huh? Needless to say I had a blast in this panel. My pyro side even came out because Greenwood asked for a certain spell and I immediately shouted out DELAYED FIREBALL!

I surprisingly didn't spend too much money on goods at the con, maybe $300 total (which is very low for me, ask my wife lol). As I mentioned I got some pins and a new Warlock from PP. I picked up World of Tanks Rush (deck building game) which also gave me a free premium tank in the game! Also picked up Ascension: Realms Unravelled. I always loved the artwork for this game so I finally gave it a try and it was super fun. I bought a couple of books, notably the Kobold Press Guide to World Building. Bought some dice and other nick nacks as well. I know Joe from the Screaming Heretics picked up the source book for Numenera and I hope he actually runs that game because I would love to try it out!

So overall it was a great Gencon. I would have had a ton more fun with my wife was with me, but what can ya do? It seems that video games are starting to have a larger presence at Gencon and I'm ok with that. D&D is awesome and it seems like WoTC feels like they're underdogs now because they're very very grass roots now. Pathfinder is easily the big 10 ton gorilla in the room, but competition only makes things better for us! There were so many other games I could have mentioned but this article is long as it is.

9/10, will go again!

It's Here!!!!!!!!!!!

The Free D&D 5th Edition Basic Rules PDF has been released! Get it here!

https://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/basicrules

Thank you WoTC for taking things in a new, and IMO correct, direction!

Going to Gencon!

I know I said in an earlier post that I will probably take the year off from Gencon, oops! Guess not! I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and I finally decided that I should just go anyways. I have the vacation time already approved, have enough time to spend and hopefully will have someone to split the cost of the room with (looking at you Fletch!).

My brother will also be going to Gencon for the first time so I wanted to go so I could show him around. I also want to get him hooked on D&D. He's shown interest in it before and he's said he always wanted to try it but he would back out at the last second whenever I invited him. Now since he's going to the RPG mecha, there will be no way he can say no!

Which gets to the last reason why I want to go, D&D 5th edition! It'll be out right before the Con and they have a decent amount of events going on that I want to partake in. I just wish I made up my mind sooner so I could have gotten one of those WoTC Con passes that get's you into all WoTC games, along with swag. I did however sign up for quite a few events, 11 total, and hopefully I can get into a 12th with generic tickets. So here's what I signed up for so far...

Thursday:
Hitting up the vendor hall, hopefully I'll find my fill of stuff to buy before 3pm when my first event starts.
I have D&D Ready, Set, Play which is a basic intro to 5th ed and they go over rolling up characters with you. Should hopefully be pretty in depth since it's 2 hours. I'm dragging my brother and his friends to this because that should be a good intro to get them sucked it.
Cost: Only $2!
After that I have Story Telling in the Reams which is kind of self explanatory. The kicker to this is Ed Greenwood (creator of the Forgotten Realms) and R A Salvatore (my favorite author of all time!) will be there for 2 hours talking about Realms Lore and what's to come. Kind of hard to pass this up, especially considering the Ready Set Play takes place in the same room and ends right before Story Telling beings.
Cost: Free

Friday:
My day will start with the Tabletop Panel of Awesome. Cmon, it's Tabletop (Wil Wheaton's show) and it's in my hotel!
Cost: Free
I then have to walk over to the Crowne Plaza for Tyranny of Dragons with Wolfgang Bauer from Kobold Press (the guys writing the first adventure path for 5th ed). I'm really glad WoTC is letting other publishers make adventures for them again and this panel is supposed to shine some light on how Kobold got picked for this and what's to come in the future
Cost: Free
I then go back to the main Convention Center for Defiance in Phlan. This is 1 of the many D&D adventures that were written just for Gencon. I don't know if I can talk my brother and company into doing this with me because odds are we will be at a table with people we don't know, but I'll be willing to give it a shot. I've never done roleplaying at a Con before so hopefully my first time will be fun.
Cost $2
Later on in the night WoTC is throwing a Tyranny of Dragons launch party at that Georgia St area. It's like an outdoor festival area and there will be drinks there too! I've been to a launch party, but never a RPG launch party so this should be pretty fun. I'm sure all the big wigs and writers and designers will be there too.
Cost: Free

Saturday:
First I have Auntie Lisa's Story Hour. You might be thinking "WTF is that?" It's an hour sit down chat with Lisa Stevens, who is current CEO of Paizo and was in charge of D&D back in her WoTC days. As you can see, she's a pretty big deal so I jumped on the chance to sit and hear her story for an hour.
Cost: Free
I then have something called Play Better Games, Dammit! From what I've read it seems to be a panel discussion about making your gaming group and gaming sessions better. Problem solving, dealing with drama, etc which should help a n00b DM like myself. This might be one of the few events I would consider skipping if I'm too tired, hungry or still need to buy stuff
Cost: Free
I then get to see Mr Ed Greenwood again and this time he's bringing Erin Evans (another D&D author) with him and this is called Spin a Yarn. This goes over how to tell better stories. My goal as a DM is to weave awesome stories, not just facilitate combat and hand out loot and exp, so this is right up my alley. I also can't turn down another chance to listen to Mr Greenwood
Cost: Free
Now here is where I run from Crowne Plaza back to the main Convention Center to hopefully get into Corruption of Kryptgarden with generic tickets. This is a 3 hour mega rpg session with over 100 people total. This sold out pretty quick and was one of the main reasons to get the Con pass. From what I've heard, the mega sessions like this are pretty awesome and they are a must do. If I can't get in there's always next year I guess.
Cost: $18
Right after that WoTC is throwing some type of celebration thing. It's not listed on the events schedule but the Gencon forums mentioned something about this. I don't know what goes on at these, but hey, I'll swing by to check it out.
Cost: Free
Sunday
Only thing I signed up for (pickings are slim) is Secrets of Golarion. Golarion is the world setting made by Paizo for Pathfinder. Granted, I'm all about D&D right now but I still like Pathfinder and learning more about the world it takes place in is always a plus.
Cost: Free

As for any tabletop gaming, I'm taking a pass this year. I had a blast playing Dreadball last year at Gencon but it took a lot out of me. Tournaments just drain me, and there's so much to do at Gencon I would hate to wear myself out again on something like a Tournament. There's only 1 40K event going on (Apoc) which is 1 more then last year, lol. There is a lot of Warmachine, Malifaux and almost any other system you can think of going on at Gencon.

So as you can see once you get past the cost for the 4 day pass, travel, lodging and food most events that you can do at Gencon are free. Most of the seminars you can just walk into and nobody minds at all. They just think the more the merrier. I can understand the costs for the RPG sessions but that probably covers materials they give you. And in all honesty the prices aren't that bad. $2 to have people from WoTC teach me how to roll a character where the materials are provided? Sure I'm fine with that, it's cheaper than a bottle of water down there! $18 for a 3 hour mega RPG session? Sure why not, $6 an hour where I'm sure I'll get handouts and maps and stuff of the adventure, that's definitely reasonable.

The $150 for the WoTC Con pass seems a bit high. It was $100 last year and there was 28 hours or so of gaming that it covered and you got swag as well. This year's pass only covers 18 hours of gaming but you still get swag. Hopefully the amount of swag is worth the extra money. I'll be keeping an eye out for that.

So yea, I'm pretty damn excited! I'm kind of shocked I went from going to 1 event last year to 11 this year but I'm going in with a different mentality. I want to learn as much as I can from the pros, play with people I've never played before and hopefully get my brother and friends hooked on RPGs. I'll still be with the Screaming Heretic crew down there, but after 3 years of going and only attending 1 event, I really wanted to broaden my horizons.

This will hopefully prevent me from spending too much money in the vendor hall, which is easier said then done!

Old Schooling It Up!

So I've been pretty busy lately. Work has been kicking my ass and I am starting my journey in BBQing with my new smoker. By this time next week I should be slow cooking a pork shoulder for 12 hours and hopefully it'll be edible.

Anyways.... I haven't been able to really do to much gaming lately. One thing did catch my eye yesterday, and I feel bad not being able to post about it until today. There is there awesome website that I hope most of you have heard about, but if you haven't prepare to read about something awesome.

GOG.com, or Good Old Games is a site run by CD Projekt Red (makers of The Witcher) that sells old school games with no DRM for a very fair price. A lot of these games are a pain in the ass to run on newer PCs but GOG has gone through the trouble to update these games to make they run easily on newer Windows OSes and sometimes even on OSX.

The reason I wish I could have posted about it yesterday is because they are currently running their summer sale. I picked up their entire Dungeons & Dragons game collection last night for $22. The collection includes Balder's Gate 1 and 2, Icewind Dale 1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, Planescape Torment, Dragonshard, Demonstone and The Temple of Elemental Evil. That's an insane deal! I have spent countless hours playing most of these games back in the day and I'm extremely excited about being able to delve back into these classics.

If D&D isn't your thing they have a ton of the old Ultima games, the old Fallout games, the old Wing Commander games, and even newer indie titles like FTL. All of them DRM free.

I hate to sound like I'm making a pitch, but I hope most of you know my style, I don't give lip service to anyone. If I go out and say something good about a product or company, it's because I genuinely love the product and want to share my thoughts about it with everyone. So go check out GOG, it's a pretty great site!

In other video gaming news, I let my subscription to Elder Scrolls Online expire. I liked the game and intend on going back to it but I guess I got burned out of questing. I got up to level 32 and finally made it to Windhelm (my favorite town in Skyrim) but I just needed a break.

I've also been keeping up with all of the D&D 5th edition news coming out of Origins and what I've heard just makes me more excited. But that's grounds for a different post.

So, enjoy the nice weather outside, feel free to BBQ and don't forget that it's World Cup Time! My money's on Uruguay!

Dungeons and Dragons On My Mind

Dungeons and Dragons, the grandaddy of all RPGs, has been on my mind quite a bit as of late. If it wasn't for D&D I probably would have never turned into a tabletop gamer, it was basically the game that started it all for me.

I started playing D&D back in the glory days of 2nd Edition (AD&D with Skills and Powers FTW!) and played 3.0, 3.5 and most recently Pathfinder. I understand that nostalgia often clouds your vision, but I felt that I had the most fun back in 2nd Ed. Granted, it was the first system I played under and the campaign we all had back then was beyond epic (I'll do a post about it later), but it just felt simpler. 3.0, 3.5 and Pathfinder were good but it felt like there was sooooo many options that it began to weigh things down.

Pathfinder wasn't as bad as 3.0/3.5 but when I took my first steps into DMing Pathfinder I felt overwhelmed. Part of it could be the group I was DMing for consisted of 8 people (yea, I know, insane) but at times I felt like I was always fighting an uphill battle trying to keep track of multiple things at once and how certain mechanics worked. Tons of charts, prestige classes up the wazoo, Dan rolling a character that did nothing but grapple (I still hate him for that) and stat blocks for enemies that were waaay too wordy in my opinion made me take a step back from DMing for the time being. I would love to do it again, even with Pathfinder, but I would have to run it with a much smaller group.

Anyone and everyone that has played or is currently playing Dungeons and Dragons knows that 5th Edition, or D&D Next, or Basic D&D or whatever the hell they are going to call it is coming out this year. I was mildly interested at first but the more I read about it, and the playtest I was part of, the more and more I became interested.

For those who don't know, the beginner box is being released in July. The other cool thing is there will be a basic PDF released at the same time for FREE! I think Wizards of the Coast made a really smart move by doing this. It will let old timers who were not part of the playtest to see what the new rules are all about. It will also let people who play other systems or have never even played a tabletop RPG to check out the rules as well. WoTC claims that the free PDF will let you go up to level 5 with your character and everything you need (to some extent I would assume) will be in there.

As for the other books, WoTC is doing a staggered release. The Players Handbook is coming out in August and the Dungeon Masters Guide is coming out in November. WoTC clams they are doing this to make sure they get every book done right before it hits the shelves. Some are disappointed with this but I can see where they are coming from. WoTC only has 15 people (not counting playtesters) working on D&D at this time, and only half are working on D&D 5th. That's a pretty small development team compared to what they had in the past. Even Paizo has double the amount of people working on Pathfinder then WoTC has working on D&D at this moment. WoTC claims that a DM won't need the DMG to run things, but who knows how that will really turn out. I hope their claim is true but I would also like them to get things right before it hits the shelves, so hopefully it's worth the wait?

WoTC also has a 2 part adventure path coming out at the same time called Rise of Tiamat that takes place in the Forgotten Realms. Two cool things about this. First, it's being written by the awesome team at Kobold Press. WoTC outsourcing things to reputable companies is a really good sign because there was barely any of that going on in 4th edition. The second is the Kobold Press guys said that the Realms will not be as high magic as it was in the past. There will be no players walking around glowing like a Christmas tree because they have a ton of magic items. A much needed change of pace IMO.

D&D 5th, from what I've gleamed so far, is a bit of a throwback to 2nd Ed. There are still elements of 3.0/3.5 and even 4th (which I never played) in it, but it dials things back a bit. There are not as many charts, countless feats and prestige classes. I understand this can change in the future but from what I've seen it's much simpler. The rules also get rid of a lot of the + and - modifiers to rolls. Instead there is Advantage and Disadvantage. Instead of having to check the DM screen or rule books to see what bonuses you get when someone is stunned or prone or dazed you just get to roll 2 D20s and you take the highest roll out of the two. Disadvantage is reversed where you take the lowest of the 2. Things like this cut out a lot of clutter and would help speed things along. I had a rough time with remembered all the bonuses and penalties in Pathfinder so you can just imagine how much I love the Advantage/Disadvantage system. Every other part of game has been either condensed or simplified.

The feeling I got from the new direction WoTC is taking is they want the game to revolve around the story and narrative more than the combat. Combat isn't really taking a step back IMO, it will just run smoother and not take up as much time as previous editions. There seems to be more of an emphasis on Role Playing then killing as many bad guys as possible.

All in all, I'm very excited and can't wait to get my hands on the rules when they come out. Hopefully I can find enough time to cut my teeth on this edition with a small, dedicated group so I can get the feel of things. If D&D 5th does indeed feel more like 2nd Ed, I will be one happy nerd!