I am actually writing this on a Sunday night, early rather than later.

Been a busy weekend around DNAphil’s house.  Mrs. DNAphil is in Chicago for a family event, with the daughter, leaving DNAphil alone with the boy for the weekend.  All in all, we did fine, and I managed to a few blog and gaming related things done this weekend.

On Tuesday, Sargon lead a demo of the Star Wars Saga game.  Very nice.  I got to play a Jedi and had a so-so combat, mostly do to some really low rolls at first.  But I like the way the SW powers work, and the Jedi was a lot of fun to play.  We also did some space combat, and I really liked it.  I have played the other d20 versions of the starship combat rules, and this one was a lot better than the past ones.  This Tuesday we do character generation for the game.  I just need to decided on what race I am going to play, because there is no way I am not going to be a Jedi.

On Friday, I did some minor upgrades to the site.  Starting with puttin the search box on the side bar.  I had this turned off when I did the initial install for the site, because the sytlesheet mangled the box and the Search button, but after a little tinkering, I was able to fix them and install them.  I also added a plugin to allow you to edit your comments, something I picked up from my good friend Philippe (aka The Chatty DM).  Finally I activated Gravatars for comments.  So if you have a Gravatar, it will show up when you post comments.

Saturday and Sunday, I worked on my brainstorming for my Iron Heroes campaign.  We are starting the final big story arc that will take this campaign to its conclusion, at the end of the year.  The pressure is on now, as each one of these sessions has to be big… big combats, big reveals, the whole works.  This is going to be a big challenge for me, but I really want this campaign to end with the intensity that it has had all along, so I am putting everything I have into it.

Sunday night, we got to play some D&D 4e.  Mmmm….mmm…good.  I created a Dragonborn Warlord, and we played the Game Day adventure.  While I have not gotten too far into my new PHB, and we stumbled a bit on the rules, the game play was awesome.  I love 4e combat.  The final combat, against the golems, was great.  Our Paladin and Ranger both went down, and yet we were able to rally the remaining party members, cover our wounded and get them back up on their feet, and complete the encounter.  It was so cool.   I will be looking forward to playing this for some time.

This week is my writing week for Iron Heroes so I will try for some short posts during the week.  I won’t be writing a Gnome Stew article until next week.  So check our feeds, as I am sure I will get some post up later this week.

Among my friends, its well known that I cannot read EN World.  It’s not that there is anything wrong with the site, but I am really not into rules arguing, in the absnence of common sense and good judgement.  Every now and then I get sneak peeks into some of the 4e “discussions” from Spenser who sends me links with some of the more enlightened “discussions”.

But to show that there are people on EN World that share my feelings (and are braver than I, since they still read EN World), HP Dreadnought has posted a great pardoy (that was posted on Wired)that pokes great fun at all the “discussions” about 4e.

Enjoy.

Hey all. Going to cross-plug my own article. I just published an article on how some RPG’s are best suited to be run once for a group, and how others can be run over and over again. The article is up on Gnome Stew and called: Why You Can’t Always Go Home Again.

Enjoy.

w00t!  My D&D 4e Core Books arrvied yesterday!  I am still not speaking to Amazon.com yet, but I think that we will be friends again in the near future, but I will be weary of pre-ordering from them for now on.

So everyone has reviewed the Core Books, so I won’t even try to rehash that, but I will point you to a few of my friends, that have done a great job of reviewing the books:

• Martin Ralya’s review of the Core Books on Gnome Stew is fantastic.
• The Chatty DM’s Initial Thoughts and his Review of the Dungeon Masters Guide.

My own impressions are brief but I did want to make them:

• The books look amazing.  I was blown away when 3.0 came out, and how much better the artwork and books looked than the 2e blue and white artwork.  I have the same feelings about the 4e books.  The clean white pages, the headrers, the chapter artwork…all amazing.
• I love the Warlord!  Was the first character I made.  I love the concept, I love how he can fill in for the Cleric.
• Streamlined skills…still not 100% sure I love this, but I think I do.  I like that everyone gets better with their skills as they advance in levels.
• Rituals.  Yes!
• Power are just cool.  Being a fan of Iron Heroes the concept of Encounter Powers appeal to me.  Things that you can do every fight, is just fun.

I will be reading the PHB for the next few weeks, and if time permits before GenCon, I will read the DMG as well.  My excitement for 4e is at the same level all those years ago when 3e released.

Viva la 4e!

No gaming this weekend, due to Father’s Day, which I spent with my wife and kids. It was a very nice day.

Last week, I spent Thursday and Friday fighting with Amazon.com over my 4e Boxed Set. My Parents had pre-ordered the Boxed Set in March, as a birthday gift for me. On the release date (June 6th), there was a message that my set would be delayed until the 12th. Annoying, but I can wait. By the 12th there was no indication my set has shipped, so that night I called customer support, where I was told that the set was ready to ship, and I should see something on the website in the morning.

I got to work, the next morning, and checked Amazon, only to find my order had been delayed until JULY 18th !!!!!! At lunchtime I called Amazon again, and after some negotiating, I had them send me the three Core books as separates, with 2-day shipping, for the same price my Parents paid for the boxed set. After all the attractive slip cover was not the reason I wanted the books.

So last night I checked UPS and my books arrived in Buffalo in the afternoon, and should be out on the truck for delivery. I have my fingers crossed.

Over the weekend, I gave some thought about my slumping productivity at work and especially at home. I have started to put some things in place to help increase my productivity. At home, I have decided that it would be best if I focused my energies on one category of tasks each night. I divided up my efforts into the following areas:

• RPG’s (my campaigns)
• RPG’s (I am playing in)
• Blogging
• Computers

I have two nights were I do gaming, so those nights are used up.  That leaves me 4 topics in 5 nights.  So the 5th night is an open night where I work on other types of tasks/projects.   My goal is that each night, I work on that night’s topic for 1 hour, no interruptions, no distractions.  This way by the end of the week, I have advanced in each of those areas.

In addition to that, I have decided to reduce my level of noise, by hiding my RSS feeds, as they have become a very easy distraction.  I have also increased my sleep, as I was getting far too little of it, making me too fatigued to do the harder work.

We will see how the changes work.

As for this week, I will be finishing up a Gnome Stew post on Wednesday, and I will try to get another post out on DNAphil this week as well.

Have a good week, and good gaming to you.

…and to the rest of you, but I suspect only the Gamer Dads are reading.  Being a Gamer Dad is not that easy of a job.  Balancing your Fatherly duties and trying to be a good player or GM is no easy task.  Hats off to you Gamer Dads who have found that balance.   Here’s to raising a new generation of gamers, from our younglings.