of Dice and Dragons

This is no small announcement in my book, in a break from Wizards the folks at Paizo have decided to publish their own RPG based on the 3.5 OGL and SRD - Pathfinder RPG.

I caught this “little” piece of news first on Critical Hits and then saw it again on Trollsmyth so I figured I had better take a look.

After reading through the press release, CEO, Publisher and Lead Designer’s comments I’ve decided to at least take a look at the alpha product (I’ll post again after getting a chance to read through the 65 pages). There are a couple of key points here that cause me to want to look at it - first is of course, the leverage of all that 3.5 material I have sitting on shelves and hard disk. By making the system compatible with that set of rules there won’t be a need to sink tons of money into a new version which of course will make my wallet (and wife) happier.

The other item that I was pleased to see is that fact that Paizo has decided to have OPEN playtesting. This is absolutely huge in my opinion - gamers will have a chance to test out not only the alpha product but also the beta, due in August (which will also be available as a free download) and give feedback through an online forum community.

Only time will tell if this was a good move or not for Paizo, but I for one am glad to see that there’s a major player out there interested in giving us gamers more choices in the market place.

May your dice roll well.

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I had hoped to post something over the last few days but was unable to due to the workload at my job but in the midst of my reading tonight I came across the announcement that Arthur C. Clarke passed away.

Most will remember him for his outstanding science fiction contributions, in particular 2001: A Space Odyssey which I think just about anyone that’s enjoyed the genre has enjoyed and even more saw the film.

There’s a nice write up on Bloomberg for those that are interested in learning a bit more about the man behind who gave us HAL.

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It is with sadness that I pass along this bit of news to those that may not have heard yet - Gary Gygax one of the co-creators of D&D has passed away.

I think I can speak for many that without him our hobby and outlook on gaming would be very different and he will be sorely missed.

Cnet news has a nice write up located at http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9885383-7.html?tag=head and according to that article Troll Lord Games will post more information later today.

Farewell Gary.

(photo from Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Gygax)

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As much as I try to stay away from the 4th Edition discussions that are out there, I felt I needed to pass along that the folks over at Wizards have released a Rules Primer for those of us that will not be able to attend D&D Experience 2008. You can pull a copy from http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20080228a.

It’s only two pages but it does shed light on a number of the mechanics that will be changing in the next edition, take healing for example:

Hit points still measure your ability to stay in the fight, but
healing’s no longer just the burden of one character
anymore. Each character has a certain number of healing
surges. Once during each encounter, you can take a
standard action called a second wind; this gives you a certain
amount of hit points back equal to your healing surge value
and gives you a +2 bonus to all your defenses until the start
of your next turn.

In addition after an extended rest, which is defined as 6 hours, you’ll be fully healed - big change from 3rd.

I have to admit some of the things I’ve ready are encouraging and may just make it into my next run as GM even if we don’t make the move to 4th Edition - but as for our group making the move, I’m thinking it won’t happen in the near future.

So, what are your thoughts? Do you like what you’ve seen so far?

May your dice roll well.

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At this point most everyone is aware of the announcement made at GenCon about the release of 4th Edition D&D, for those that haven’t and need a quick overview check out the write up at Gaming Report.

I would like to hear thoughts and opinions on this - will your group rush out and pick it up as soon as it hits the shelves (PHB in May, MM in June and DMG in July)? Or will your group wait? Maybe you’re group will decided to stick with 3.5 over move to a different system entirely.

I have to admit I’m intrigued by online components, not just the online versions Dungeon and Dragon magazines but also the tools that Wizards will be adding for online play, character creation and campaign management - which will also supposedly work will Gleemax.com. It’ll also be interesting to see what they price it at and what this will do to all homegrown tools that are out there for our use.

So please, take a minute and post your thoughts on this one - I for one would be interested to hear what everyone say on this topic.

May your dice roll well.

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