of Dice and Dragons

Role-playing Tips issue #353 is available - How To Leave Your Players Hanging - 4 Cliffhanger Tips

In this issue Johnn gives us four (plus a bonus one) different methods of building in cliffhangers to our games - all worth a look and as always he gives some solid examples to guide you.

I also liked the PC Rumor Mill Reader Tip - some good information and a number of examples.

Enjoy!

Contents:
–> A Brief Word From Johnn

–> This Week’s Tips:
1. Prepare Intercept Encounters
2. Use Encounter Complications
3. Develop A Sense Of Time Awareness
4. Develop An Eye For Impromptu Cliffhangers
5. The Last Encounter

–> Readers’ Tips Of The Week:
1. The PC Rumor Mill
2. Clearing The Table
3. Classic Tip: Late Players

You can read it online here.

If you don’t already subscribe I would recommend it, you can do that here.

May your dice roll well.

Many of us have spreadsheets, text files, documents and so on for our role-playing endeavors regardless of whether we’re a GM or a player.

I thought it would be nice to have a backup plan in case my laptop wasn’t available during a session so I thought I would print out my character’s sheet and the spell list I created for him and I’d be all set. Then I got to thinking, maybe there’s a way I can put all this in a more portable format.

There is a way, it’s called Pocket Mod.

The actual use for Pocket Mod is to allow you to create a disposable planner - you create it and then once it’s used you can throw it away. It’s also portable, it creates a single sheet layout that when folded (with one small cut) creates an eight page booklet.

The best part is that the creator has released a version that will convert PDF files into this format.

Now the tricky part for me as that I couldn’t use the PDF export function in OpenOffice, it is an older engine, so I downloaded and installed doPDF 5 and printed both the character sheet and the spell list (doPDF once installed is used just like an installed printer).

Now I had two files and needed to put then together so I installed PDFill’s Free Tools which allowed me to put the two files together and then I ran it through PDF to Pocket Mod utility and I had wanted I was looking for.

The results, while not the most stellar, accomplished what I was looking for, a portable version of my character with the information I wanted to have with me. Here’s the PDF.

I should point out that all the tools mentioned are Windows based and are freeware.

May your dice roll well.

The folks over at Wizards released their latest preview article and I have to say some of the items definitely look interesting.

Among the upcoming offerings are City of Peril which is part of their Fantastic Locations series, and a couple of what they are calling super-adventures, Expedition to the Demonweb Pits and Eyes of the Lich Queen, the latter for the Eberron Campaign Setting. The write-ups for each are included in the article.

However, the upcoming item that I think most of us that play D&D will most likely enjoy is the release of Drow of the Underdark. There is a significant amount of information included in the article over at Wizards but here’s the summary from the site:

At last, a 224-page supplement focused on the most infamous race of baddies to ever skulk beneath the surface of any Dungeons & Dragons world — the drow. Whether you’re a DM wanting to create a horrifyingly deadly Underdark experience, or a player that’s interested in playing a lethal dark elf, this is going to be an invaluable reference. Last month, I showed you the back cover text (and gave you a short list of words that rhyme with “drow” — just to help settle any discussions about pronunciation).

This month, I get to pass along a chunk from the book’s Introduction that gives you the always-handy, chapter-by-chapter run-down of the book’s contents.

I’m thinking it will go quite nicely next to my copy of the Dragonomicom.

If you pick up any of the books please feel free to post your opinion as I’m sure everyone would be interested in it.

May your dice roll well.