Welcome to Monday. It was a fun weekend here at Encoded Designs. Not to ring my own bell, but Saturday was my birthday and it was a nice low-key evening, spent with family. My parents were kind enough to pre-order my 4th Edition D&D Box Set. With some birthday money, I did a little shopping at RPGNow.com and picked up Qin: The Warring States. My wife, picked me up a great new pen, that I have been obsessing over for the last few days. All in all it was a very fun Birthday, even if it signals that I am now closer to 40 than to 30.

On Sunday, after a day of Easter Egg hunts and baskets, I got together with Spenser and we played some 4th Edition D&D, that we cobbled from all the releases on the Net (thanks Critical Hits), as well as some fan-made adventure from the guys at ENWorld. My first impressions of 4th Edition are quite positive. I now understand why people are saying that playing it is not like playing “D&D”. It’s really more like playing Iron Heroes. With all the moves and powers, combat reminds me of playing Iron Heroes, which is about the best endorsement that I could give the game. We played two encounters, using the 1st level characters from D&DXP. It was the most exciting 1st level combat I have played. I am more excited for 4e now.

This week, Thom is getting together an online chat to go over his Dresden game. Then on Saturday, Sargon’s Cyberpunk game is up in the rotation. For me, this is my Brainstorming week for Iron Heroes, and I am in a good position, as my last session was all setup for the coming session, so I pretty much know what I need to do. I do need to stat out some things, and that will be my work for the week.

As for some blogging, well it seems that everything from last week got skipped. I did hear about a thread on ENWorld that may require a Rant. I also want to get some writing done about low prep gaming, something that I am actually not very good at, and am planning on working on in the next few months.

So that is it for the past week. Stop by later this week, and I will see what I can do about getting some content up.

Hello, and sorry for being a day late.  It was a busy day around my office and house yesterday, and this post did not make it to light.  Nevertheless, here I am and ready to update you all.  First, this past Sunday, I got to run my Iron Heroes game.  It has only been the second time I have been back behind the screen, since coming off our long hiatus, but it felt great.  My session went of, just as planned.  It was far more narrative, than combat, but it was the setup for a much more action packed session, coming up.  The session, had a big reveal, that stunned one of the players, when his long lost love, whom he thought died at the hands of the Demons 30 years ago, appeared in a remote village he was visiting.  The reveal, left both the character, and his player Sargon, speechless.  It was a great scene.  The session also introduced Dr. J’s character, Arion, to the fact that he has living family, an Aunt and a Cousin.  These two characters will become major NPC’s in the months to come.  All in all it was a good session, and a great set up for the next session: Into the Fortress of the Chain Maiden.

Yesterday, I got word that the GM-Fu workshop was accepted.  Information about that can be found here.   There is a lot of work to do, in getting the workshop ready, but my fellow GM-Fu Masters and I are up to the challenge.  Time is on our side, but Geography is not.  Philippe is in Canada, Vicki is in the Midwest, Zach is in Indy, and I am in Buffalo.  We will be relying on a lot of email and the use of Google Docs to help us get the material together for the workshop.  Details on the workshop, and updates on our progress will be listed on the page mentioned above.

This week, we have Thom’s Dresden Game (handed over to Thom from Spenser).  I worked last night on putting my new character, a Knight of The Cross, into Google Docs, so that I would have an updatedable character sheet for him.  I am big fan of computer-editable character sheets.  I don’t need to run my character from my computer,  but I like to create them on one.  Later this week, I may post my Top 5 reasons for computer-editable character sheets.   I am not sure what else I will write on this week, but this is a light week for me, commitment-wise, so I hope to put some extra material on the site this week.

So stop by and see what I come up with….

So I am suppose to be writing my Iron Heroes session, for this weekend, and I was skimming my RSS feeds, and saw my fellow GM-Fu Master, and blogger Zach has posted an article about White Wolf’s offer to Graduate to Exalted. Graduated? I think I just threw up in my mouth a bit.

Read more

Another game night this past Sunday; the second session of Sargon’s Cyberpunk campaign.  The game went well, and we had a lot of fun. There were a few jokes at the table and a string of them that led to a 5 minute break while we all collected ourselves.  We had our first firefight in the game, and Paws learned the importance of full body armor.  He lucked out, and we did not need to buy him a replacement arm.  The campaign has had a solid start, and the next session will be our first mission.

This week is my writing week, as my Iron Heroes game is this Sunday.  I spent all last week doing my brainstorming for the game, and my ideas came much easier then my last session.  I was still a bit unsure about my concept until I ran it past my wife, my GM Confidant, who gave me the thumbs up.

This week, I am going to be a bit sparse on the writing, as I need to get my Iron Heroes notes together.  I will try to put up the Cast of Character page this week; to put some faces to the names that I have used in various posts.   I will also try to make a smaller posts, commenting on some of this weeks articles from my favorite blogs.

So come around this week and I will introduce you to some of my friends.

With the sneak peeks at D&D 4e, coming out on different web sites, I have been hearing a phrase coming up, that has been annoying me. On more than one post and discussion thread, I have heard people talking about how the mechanics for 4e is killing the ability for players to properly role play; that 4e is so crunchy that it is now all roll and not role.

Pure rubbish. Want to know why? Keep reading.

Read more

It is with great sadness that I report, that Gary Gygax, the original Dungeon Master, creator of Dungeons & Dragons, and founder of GenCon, has passed away. The story is circulating slowly across the Internet and blogosphere.

I had the honor at this past GenCon to bump into Gary on the convention floor, and have my picture taken with him. I thanked him for everything he had done. D&D was far more than a game for me. It was an escape during a very difficult time in my childhood, a time that I am not sure I would have endured if it had not been for the chance to escape into D&D, and think of fighters and wizards battling monsters for treasure and magical items.

In later years, RPG’s would be the common thread between my friends and I. We gamed all through middle and high school. To this day, nearly 20 years later, I am still friends with all my gaming buddies from high school, and when we can, we get together and game. When we can’t we, sit around and talk about all the games we played in the past.

Fourteen years ago, when I left college for grad school, once again, my love of Role Playing helped me to meet a new group of friends, who became my current gaming group. Over the years we have shared all sorts of adventures together, though Role Playing.

Most recently, I have been attending GenCon with my current gaming group, my high school friend, as well as both my Brother In Laws, and my 8 yr old Nephew. For us GenCon has been more than just a gaming convention, it is a time to bring friends and family together, and a time for us to instill the love of gaming and the sense of adventure into our children.

None of this would have been possible if not for the work and imagination of Gary Gygax.

Tonight I will roll my first d20 in silence….in honor of Gary.

Thanks again Gary….thanks for everything.