Edge of the Empire – A New Saga Begins – Beginner Game Unboxing and Review

Just over a year ago Fantasy Flight Games announced that it acquired the Star Wars license that WotC had passed on previously, ending it’s critically successful Star Wars Saga roleplaying game. With that announcement came the news of two new games, the Star Wars Living Card game and the X-Wing miniatures game. Back then I thought to myself: this license must be crazy expensive, surely they’re gonna capitalize as much as they can and release a roleplaying game as well. Come GenCon 2012 and Christian T. Petersen announces the Edge of the Empire roleplaying game, with an imminent Beta to come in a limited softcover format. I got the beta as soon as I could (it took some time to get to the UK), and was excited at the prospect of playing. What I found was a 220 page rulebook full of crunch and nothing else (ed. note – crunch = rules). I dove in bravely but found the rulebook quite daunting. It had separate rules for regular combat and vehicular combat, various item stats, force powers, talent trees – the game was huge. It looked as complex as DnD but with a slightly more narrative driven focus. That, lack of time, and constant errata made me make a decision I wasn’t very keen on – I had to put off playing Star Wars.

Till now! Enter the newly released Star Wars Edge of the Empire Beginner Game, an entry level product designed for novice roleplayers and people new to the system. So what’s inside? Well, let’s have a look in my unboxing video.

I’m going to try and refrain from making this into a review of the beta and try and focus on the beginner game. All I’ll say about the core game is that I’m not entirely sure what I think about it in general. My feelings are definitely positive, but it’s hard to define where this game fits yet. As for the beginner game, I am almost sold. I say almost because I haven’t finished exploring the main rulebook yet (the basic rules are explained in the intro adventure – enough to run your first session). The game has a lot of promise but minor issues do crop up here and there. The first being the quality of the contents. Aside from the box itself, the quality isn’t really bad, but I feel like a comparison to similar products might shine a brighter light on the matter. The recommended retail price of the package is £24.99 (29.95$ for my American readers). This is right in between the Red Box which retails at £16.99 and the Pathfinder Beginner box which retails at £29.99. Content wise, it is almost the equivalent of the Red Box – you get a map, some character sheets, two booklets, a sheet of tokens and some dice. Overall you get more dice than in the Red Box and the character sheets are vastly superior, but it is no comparison to the amount of stuff you get in the Pathfinder equivalent (an erasable battlemat and a 90 page rulebook with character creation and rules up to level 5). So looking at the content to price ratio, Edge of the Empire seems to be the more expensive one – however, it must be said that some of that definitely goes to cover the Star Wars licensing fees, and the price is still very reasonable. The second problem is that there are no rules for character creation. This is a major selling point for some people, and those who love to dabble with characters will either have to get their hands on the beta, or wait for the release of the core rulebook.

The core of the game (same as in the beta) revolves around the dice mechanics. As I’ve mentioned in the video, there are 7 different kinds of dice. Ability dice (green d8) represent your basic skill and generate success and advantage. They can be upgraded to proficiency dice (yellow d12) which have better success and advantage results, and can also produce a Triumph – a sort of critical success. These are rolled simultaneously with difficulty dice (purple d8) which generate failures and threat, results that cancel out successes and advantages respectively. They can be upgraded to challenge dice (red d12), which have greater amounts of failures and threat and can also produce a despair result (a sort of crit failure). Ok. Still with me? So what ends up happening is you roll a bunch of dice and you’ll get various degrees of success and failure. For example, you could succeed at a task but generate threat, which nets you a success but with a negative side-effect. You hit the stormtrooper that was chasing you down a corridor with your blaster pistol but it overheated and became unusable for a round for example. You could also fail, but with an advantage, and so on and on and on. After our playthrough of the beginner adventure my friends commented that the dice mechanic makes it feel very much like Star Wars. Most of the time, even if you succeed – you never get away scot free, which is very much in line with the feel of the galaxy far far away.

Edge of the Empire focuses on the scum and villainy aspect of Star Wars. It’s set within the original trilogy (post Battle of Yaving I believe). The beginner adventure carries that feel across very well. There’s an evil Hutt crimelord hot on our trail, we’re in the dusty streets of Mos Shuuta, Tatooine, there are bounty hunters on our trail and eventually we even get to nab a YT-1300. What I liked about the way the beginner adventure is written, is how it allowed everyone to learn the rules of the game as the adventure progressed. It eliminated the need to just do a massive rules info-dump and allowed them to develop naturally as an extension of the game. Which was great when it worked, but it didn’t always. The rules for Critical Injuries are very vague and even after we consulted the main rulebook we felt a little baffled. Also, the rules for vehicle combat are severely lacking in detail and raised more questions than answers. But these are minor quibbles. After all, Edge of the Empire is meant to be a narrative game and the rules are only a crutch.

One of the best parts were the character sheets. These were done much like the Pathfinder character folios, but with leveling up in mind. The sheet explains everything that players can do during their turn, and after they complete the first half of the adventure they are given some xp and allowed to spend it on new talents or skills. We encountered one minor error in our playthrough, 41-VEX, the droid characater is able to upgrade his Ranged (Light) skill which should upgrade his dice when firing a blaster and throwing a grenade, however the upgrade on the grenade part isn’t accounted for. It’s a minor oversight and won’t affect the game much, and I don’t think I’ve encountered an error-free roleplaying game yet, so this is not a surprise really, more of an FIY to future players of 41-VEX.

After you’re done playing an intro adventure, there’s a link to a much bigger adventure in PDF format. There are also two extra characters giving players some variety of choice and creates the possibility of accommodating a larger game. You can find these resources by going on the Fantasy Flight Games webpage.

One of my favorite parts of the box has to be the map, specifically the YT-1300 interior side, which I can see myself using over and over again in many games to come. It really sparked the imagination of my players and made me really glad  I got the box.

The gameplay itself felt smooth and the innovative dice mechanics forced us to think outside of the box narrative wise. As a GM, I felt like I needed to provide a good amount of description behind every dice roll, which meant that the game was always full of detail – definitely a good thing in my book. Most importantly, it felt very much like we were having a Star Wars adventure and my players looked like they were having fun. So the game was definitely a hit. My only concern is the amount of structure within rules – it is definitely rules-heavy. Thankfully, the gameplay can easily adapt to the style of every group and the focus can easily shift towards narrative. I’d also like to note that the mere fact that the Beginner Game exists says that FFG want this game to be big. DnD big. And I think it’s well on the way to be just that.

Elminster’s Forgotten Realms and Farewell to Fourth

Just a while ago, Elminster’s Forgotten Realms was released. It’s a great, well written sourcebook. It’s ‘crunch’ free, and written by the guy who created the setting, Ed Greenwood. But aside from all those things – it’s a signal. Not only is it edition-free, but it’s also the first new Dungeons and Dragons release that bears a difference in cover style and layout design. Put that and the upcoming product page on the WotC website together and you have this equation. Fourth edition is done. Over. That’s it folks.

Sad, isn’t it? In a way, I feel really nostalgic, but I also feel like I took a lot out of fourth. More than I ever thought I would. I played in a campaign spanning nine levels and DM’ed one that took my players all the way from one to seventeen, ran countless seasons of DnD Encounters (actually, they are very much countable) and quite a few one-shots. But it’s time to move on to other things, new and old, and Elminster’s Forgotten Realms should pave the way and bring us back to a style of DnD much forgotten but not at all lost. It’s a style steeped in detail and lore and, frankly, I couldn’t think of a better book to guide us on our path.

I want to thank Wizards of the Coast Europe for sending me all the wonderful material to review, and I was going to originally post a review of the 3.5 Premium Reprints, and then review this book, but I’ve done that mistake where I opened a book and got so absorbed that I couldn’t put it down. Unlike any other roleplaying game sourcebook, I read this cover to cover. Mostly because I wanted to immerse myself in it and take everything it had to offer.

I think that anyone who has listened, watched or actually met Ed Greenwood knows that the man does not live on this planet anymore. He has written Forgotten Realms for decades and after reading this I’m more than ever convinced that he sees, breathes, eats and lives Forgotten Realms. The man is there, telling us all about it through extended sending rituals. Some sourcebooks I’ve read try to take on an observer’s view point, but this is not quite the same. Ed Greenwood is not just an observer, he is an undeniable part of his imaginary world.

The book is split into six six chapters: Life in the Realms, Laws and Orders, Hearth and Home, Money Matters, Gods and Followers and The Art. Each chapter goes into various aspects of living in Faerun, and it delves so deep into the nitty gritty and mundane, that the mundane becomes fascinating. Whether it’s Cormyrian fashion you’re interested in, or an actual recipe for Baked Stirge on Toast – you’ll find it. Naturally, the book has a slant towards the adventuring career, as, after all, that’s what most player characters are.

But don’t mistake the book for one that’s just Forgotten Realms lore. It’s also Mr Greenwood’s way of sharing his DMing experience with us. He talks about his past campaigns, what preparation he’d done and how he kept on top of things. It’s a vault of knowledge and it addresses some very key issues that have arisen after fourth edition. A particular quote struck very close to heart:

When every player read every rulebook, “module”, and The Dragon issue, all too often every last spell, magic item, and monster would be part of players’ metagame knowledge. So, drown them in too much Realmslore for anyone to keep track of – and presto, it’s real roleplaying time again.

And I think, personally, that’s what I’ve really missed. Real roleplaying time. I’ve missed books that delve deep into lore and don’t let you go and Elminster’s Forgotten Realms is definitely it. What I want, I think, is for anyone who’s ever played fourth edition to pick up this book. And not just pick it up – read it. It brought me back to when I was twelve years old and read Lord of the Rings for the first time and got completely overwhelmed with that wonderful world. It’s the same feeling here. It’s overwhelming – in a good way.

Loremaster’s Screen and the Lake-Town Sourcebook Review

The One Ring roleplaying game is currently in my list of favorite games. I’ve recently ran a mini campaign in my FLGS, Chaos City Comics to a lot of success and after the current season of DnD Encounters is complete we are looking to possibly resume it. What I really like about The One Ring is that, in essence, it is a narrative driven game, but provides a few rules for character customization and advancement to make it interesting to those of us who still like to spend countless hours slaying monsters in dungeons. Loremaster’s Screen and the Lake-Town Sourcebook is a double packaged product that provides exactly what it says on the tin.

The game isn’t without it’s faults (but what game is?). And it might seem strange to release two diverse products packaged into one. What if I don’t want the screen? Or I’m not that bothered about the sourcebook? Well, to be honest, both are  needed. As someone who’s run the game before, having these in my hands feels kind of like a relief. For one, The One Ring is a narrative heavy game but within itself doesn’t include a lot of information on how to build narratives for GMs. Yes, the Loremaster’s Book has some general information on locales, movers and shakers and the world history. But when it comes to specifics the game is lacking. There are many locations within the world like Dale, Woodland Hall or Esgaroth, the Lake-Town itself, but none are thoroughly detailed. Whilst this is really not a problem for someone who’s heavy on Tolkien lore, I myself know very little in comparison. I’ve seen the films, I’ve read the books a few times (ages ago), and I stared at the Silmarillion very hard in hopes of penetrating it with my mind. Still I found myself clearly in need of information about the inner workings of locales. It’s not a detrimental problem as all it takes is a bit of creativity on one’s part. But sometimes it’s just nice to open up a book and let it do all the hard work for you.

And this is exactly what the Lake-Town Sourcebook does. And then some. We get a lovely detailed map of the city, with various locations marked on the map with numbers. Those numbers are then referenced within the text, describing the places of interest. The descriptions themselves provide pretty much what you would expect, some detail on the visuals and information on various NPCs that you might find and relevant mini stat blocks with a few skills per character type. The book then proceeds to offer various other little fixes to the game. The one thing my players were always confused about was treasure. The problem for them was not only that it wasn’t tangible (it’s literally just measured in points of treasure), but that there wasn’t that much to do with it. I understand why it’s been written like that. The focus of the game shouldn’t be on monetary gain. The type of characters played in The One Ring are all bold heroes that put material wealth behind them. But I would argue though that it would need to be either removed altogether or given some purpose. To my delight, there’s not only a system that converts treasure points into a form of currency, but also provides new fellowship phase undertakings (for those unfamiliar with the fellowship phase, it’s meant to represent downtime between adventures and allows you to improve your character) that enables you to spend the treasure within the market to purchase items that improve certain skills, which have otherwise been very difficult to improve.

The sourcebook isn’t all patches though. For such a small book there’s a wealth of material and exciting additions to the game. First of all we get a new culture, The Men of the Lake, which itself is a derivative of the Bardings. There’s also cultural rewards and virtues to accompany the new ‘race’, providing some neat abilities for various types of characters. We also get some information on the Day of the Black Arrow, an archery event meant to honor Bard the Dragonslayer. A chunk of the book is devoted to this event and rules are presented on how to GM this specific archery competition with various skill challenges. A fellowship undertaking of herb gathering in the marshes will allow access to various herbs described in the book, with potential bonuses that aid the party. For the adventurers who like to stray too far into the marshes three new monsters appearing in the booklet might pose a big threat, including a hulking Marsh-ogre, who’s mangle ability allows him to hit twice. The book is finished off with a sample player character belonging to the new culture, and a blank character sheet with the Lake-men specifics pre-filled.

The screen is beautiful. That’s it. It’s just gorgeous.

Oh, that’s not enough you say? What’s behind the screen you say? Well, EVERYTHING. Everything is behind the screen. Every little rule thing that you couldn’t remember before is there.  From healing, to roleplaying, to monster abilites, to corruption tests. Rules for combat. It’s all there. I can see this screen simply becoming invaluable. I have a love-hate relationship with them as I hate having a barrier between me and my players. But this is just so useful, barriers-be-damned. The quality of the manufacturing is great; the cardboard is possibly the sturdiest I’ve encountered in a screen.

Overall, I’m very pleased with the product because it addresses all the little issues that have been nagging me since I started GMing The One Ring. This is clear evidence that the people at Cubicle 7 listen to their players’ concerns and provide answers. Which is all anyone could ask for from a games publishing company. I can’t wait to find out what’s in store for The One Ring in the future and highly recommend the Loremaster’s Screen and Lake-Town Sourcebook.

p.s. To those of you who do own the game (or are looking at owning it), here are a few handy links that you might have not yet discovered.

If you GMed this game before, you know that the index isn’t quite up to scratch. Here’s an updated index from the developer’s website – Index (right-click to save)

The rules for journeys have been revised and now work much better. If you haven’t yet, check out the new journey rules – Journeys revised (right-click to save)

There’s a thread on the Cubicle 7 forum that combines a lot of useful information + fan made content. Definitely worth checking out.

Australia in Space, or My Report of Durance

When I say Australia, I don’t mean the semi-successful Baz Lurhmann musical featuring Nicole Kidman and Wolverine, I mean actual Australia. Or the act of colonizing it to be precise. This is what Durance, the new indie role-playing game from Jason Morningstar, is all about. Here’s the premise: the future has too many delinquents. They aren’t bad enough to murder, but too irredeemable to reprogram. So the government has a genius idea of putting them all on a ship and sending them to some far flung planet in order to settle it and, hopefully, in the future it will generate profit. As all government plans, it’s executed badly and people on the colony face starvation and other difficulties.

If you’ve read my previous post, you know that I’ve facilitated this game at Indie Con 2012. I’ve done it with minimal preparation – the plan to run it came together only the day before. I’ve read the rulebook once, and whilst it seemed like I had a pretty good grasp on the concept and rules, I was still a little unsure of how it would all play out (if at all). But this is a general feeling I get with all indie games, and they always work out so I worried needlessly. Here’s what it’s all about.

You start by completing a planetary survey and a colony record. Passing a leaflet around you mark things that you think are true or false about the planet and colony, then you pick a unifying drive, such as status or control, for example. You create a list of notables, characters representing the social strata of the power-ladders for Authority and Convicts and give them oaths, things that they swear to never ever do. Then everyone spends some time fleshing out the details and voila, you have yourself a planet, a colony and some characters, all ready to participate in a story that is played out in scenes, much like Fiasco. The difference though is that one player is always the guide, and his notables mostly don’t participate in scenes (a rotating role). Instead, she asks a formulated question that should help other players decide what the scene is about, what notables participate, and how the oaths might be pushed towards a breaking point. Whenever there is uncertainty in the scene, some dice are rolled to determine which drives take precedence and the scene is played out accordingly. It’s all very clever but I kind of don’t really want to get into the mechanics, they’re there, in the book. If you wanna find out more – go and get it. It’s great.

I really want to talk about my personal experience of playing the game, expectations, outcomes, etc. So, when you hear the phrase ‘the new Jason Morningstar game’, you instantly think: the new Fiasco!, right? Well, as you’re reading the book, you quickly realize that that simply isn’t the case. It has similarities yes. In both games you spend some time creating an ensemble of characters and then play out scenes to determine their fate. That’s about as close as it gets though. Whilst Fiasco has a unifying theme of corrupt characters, it’s genres are broad and settings nearly limitless. Durance is what it is, space colonization with convicts.

My other three players weren’t familiar with Durance at all. I explained the rules for the setup and off we went creating our planet and colony. The book said it would take about fifteen minutes. The book lied. It took us over an hour. Yup. Over an hour. Which is great really. And I imagine that the setup time decreases as you become more accustomed to the game. We’ve ended up with an oil rich planet that ‘changes’ you if you spend too much time outside of the colony. The base itself was a strictly regimented authoritative nightmare that focused solely on expansion and food production was non-existent. Our Governor was a man who didn’t tolerate incompetence and the Dimber Damber, the dismissively named shadow criminal overlord, was deliberately slowing down all production. And the colony was naturally driven by control.

The game itself mechanically is all about breaking oaths. As soon as a number of them equal to the number of players are broken, the game ends. And as soon as one is broken, the dynamics of the planet/colony/status/drives changes. The governor was the first to fall. After numerous incidents he stormed out to arrest the Dimber Damber only to find out that he couldn’t even do that. He tolerated his own incompetence long enough. He broke his oath. The colony fell under corrupt criminal control. Whatever was ‘out there’, started to seem much better. People started to leave. At the end of the game, most of the colony escaped, and the last scene was between the Dimber Damber’s lieutenant and the leader of the bolters, the mutated men and women who have adapted to the environment and became ‘something else’.

Because players always get to establish what the scene is about before it begins, there was always a heavy amount of discussion. We usually dismissed the first idea that came to the table. The instinct was to dig deeper, find something a little more interesting. Whereas Fiasco games are ‘Yes, and’, this was more ‘No, but how about’. And then ‘no’ was usually targeted at self. As in, no, I can think of something better. Which is actually something I prefer I think. The gonzo aspect was almost non-existent. Instead we had hard-hitting drama in a tough environment. You can usually tell a good game apart in the convention by how much cheering and laughter there is. Ours must have looked like the dullest of them all. But we, the players, knew better. We were experiencing a gritty story and it had us captivated.

Every scene usually ended up as a confrontation in dialogue between two characters. It would reach a certain point when we didn’t know which character should give in. We then rolled for Uncertainty (a game mechanic meant to move the game along and suggest options), and proceeded accordingly. If at any point two of the dice return with the same result, an event happens. Strangely enough, every time it happened in our game, the event was ridiculously apt for the current situation. I guess it was partly luck but probably some clever design techniques were involved in writing those events.

The game ended fairly soon. I’d say the total playtime was around three and a half hours. I think we were conscious of the fact that we had a limited time slot and all pushed for a slightly quicker game, resolving character arcs fairly quickly. In fact, two of the oaths were broken in a single scene. A lag (convict) broke her oath of never trusting again when she was trying to escape the colony into the wilderness and encountered an unsure marine perimeter guard, who decided to break his oath of never going ‘out there’ and left together with her. Quickly the last scene followed, giving us a glimpse of the life outside and letting us know that the colony would never be the same again. And then the game just ended. We decided to narrate a little followup on all our notables, talking about their fates. And now I just want to find out what the next story is. What will our next planet be like? How will the power dynamics shift? Durance has me captivated and I simply want more.

Indie Con 2012 report.

This was my second time. That is to say, I was no Indie virgin. So I kind of knew what I was doing, what games to look out for. It was good to wave hello to people I’ve met last year and to meet new ones as well. It was good to be back.

Indie con is a hard sell to people who haven’t been to it or don’t know much about indie role playing games. The term ‘indie’ is easy to dismiss, as in they are games that weren’t good enough for major publishers. I won’t try and convince you otherwise. I’ll just say that I’ve had the best weekend this year and played some of the best games to date.

This year it wasn’t just me and Elaine, we took some cohorts with us to share a lodge. The convention worked out at 60 pounds per person with pretty neat accommodation included for four nights and a total of  10 gaming slots ( I only went to 6 and was pretty shattered afterwards (yes, gaming can be knackering especially if you forgo sleep in favor of preparation for GMing)). Aside from Elaine, my other lodgemates were new to Indie con and all of them attested to having a great experience.

It’s hard to single out any game I’ve played/GMed/facilitated as the best one, so I’ll try and briefly talk about each of them. I kicked the con off with Jaws of the Six Serpents, a sword and sorcery style setting governed by a FATE-like system where a character sheet consists of a number of vague descriptors and invoking them in role play allows you to add bonuses to dice rolls. It was fairly straightforward, and a good cast of players plus a  more than competent GM meant that we were well on our way to an amazing game. I checked out the core book later and it quickly went on my shopping list, although I found the art somewhat lacking. Not that aesthetics are really important, but some inspirational artwork can go a long way.

Next I GMed a World of Darkness adventure, which went quite well, but as far as I’m concerned it’s old news so we’re  moving straight on to Fiasco, and specifically the October play set of the month – Back to the Old House, written by Sean Buckley from Leisure Games. I decided to take the observers seat on that one and simply facilitated the game by clarifying rules to first-time players and asking a question or two to move the plot along. It was a joy to watch, the game played out like no other Fiasco game I’ve seen before. Whilst the play set certainly delivers for those who are looking for gonzo, the players went for a more low-key approach and before I knew it, a great Stephen King style story emerged, with a poignant and heartfelt ending.

Afterwards I found myself on a table with a demo of the now revamped 6d6 system and a campaign setting titled 6d6 Hellenic. I’ve played the older version of 6d6 and wasn’t really taken by it, although to be fair, I am not really a fan of generic systems. The new version is definitely and improvement but I still think the game is lacking. It simply didn’t feel finished, many aspects were lacking necessary polish. Kudos to the guys who wrote the Hellenic setting, James and Mark Foster. They’ve certainly done their research and it felt like the world building was carefully executed. The new version has now been fully funded on Kickstarter and I’m really happy for the publishers – my only hope is that the game sees some much needed revision before it hits the printers.

And then I had a chance to play Durance – the new Jason Morningstar (acclaimed Fiasco developer) game of space colonisation gone wrong. This kickstarter funded game has a lot of things going for it. I want to analyse the game thoroughly in a proper review so all I’m going to say is that if you’re expecting another Fiasco – you’re not gonna get it. And the game is all better for it. Durance provides a deep, low-key drama experience with some clever development techniques.

My last game was a yet to be published Sci-Fi Beta Kappa. The premise is simple: you are Alien students trapped in a lousy university on Earth, or Terra, and all you wanna do is throw a crazy party of epic proportions. This is pretty much National Lampoon’s with extra-terrestrials. The game is very gonzo and has an interesting ‘never fail at anything’ mechanic, allowing for the most improbable to come true. Our game, for example, featured, amongst other crazy things, six pink painted elephants pulling the dean’s car as a sleigh whilst we slew a sacrificial x-mas dinner (university mascot and last eagle on earth). I felt like a GM was an unnecessary element and the writer was nice enough to hear out my criticism and promised to send me a copy of the game document so I could try out a GMless variant.

The ones that got away: I really wanted to play Hillfolk, the new drama focused game from Robin D. Laws. Unfortunately, the game I signed up for was cancelled. I also never got a chance to play Microscope, which was a big hit at the convention. My lodgemates also highly enjoyed Dead of Night, Icons, Tenra Bansho Zero and Squadron UK. I’m sure I’ll get a chance to play them on my trip next year. See you there.

Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue Review and Competition

It’s been a few weeks since GenCon, and I don’t know how about you, but I’m still trying to figure out how the big news has affected me. It was 12am here when the keynote was supposed to start, but with inevitable delays it was closer to 00:30am. Me and a few buddies where huddled at our respective PC screens, chatting over Steam, wondering what the big announcement was going to be.

And then it came. No, not Ed Greenwood announcing a series of novels that will reboot Forgotten Realms, nor the confirmation that the default campaign setting will indeed be Forgotten Realms (although important in its own right). And no, it wasn’t the addition of two new classes to the DnD Next playtest. It came matter-of-factly, as if not really that important. A kind of ‘oh and by the way’ thing, uttered by Mike Mearls. It’s going to be two years until they publish DnD Next.

Believe it or not, this fact, might even influence our day to day lives. Some of us run campaigns, they last years. We play them every week. A new edition release date is seen by many as a good day to aim to end a campaign at. So that statement kind of makes a difference. Specifically, I know now I have two years in which I could run a campaign, start to finish, and still make it in time for the new edition. Oh look, WotC have released a campaign book, how convenient.

Sorry, I’m not really being sarcastic, it makes perfect sense. Menzoberranzan has quite a few things going for it, and it is in fact good enough to make me consider using it as a basis for my next DnD campaign. So what’s inside that’s making me like it?

Let’s have a look:

This. Yes, this. I mean, I know we’ve come to expect a large poster map in our campaign books but oh how do I love the maps that WotC makes. It’s gorgeous all over, and I don’t think I need to say anything more about it. Oh wait, there’s another side to it! Effectively a color version of the first one, it comes with location markers that point to certain places within the book, becoming a handy reference for the DM or players.

But it’s not just aesthetics, it’s the content that shines as well. 4^th edition books seemed to have this thing where they were completely oblivious to the existence of previous editions. Yes, they would re-use material from them but only as a recycled kind of thing. Even the Forgotten Realms book was deliberately vague on past events. Finally, Menzoberranzan embraces all the Forgotten history of the Realms (see what I did there? Eh? Eh?) and, for example, events that happened during the Time of Troubles see a lot of discussion, not just the post-Spellplague stuff. I am aware that this is due to an internal shift of how WotC are going to approach DnD lore material and I am very happy about this.

Whilst there is a chapter on playing Drow and choosing your house and creating a good background, this book shouldn’t be mistaken for anything else but a DM tool. Almost all of the recent DnD books, even the DM ones have recently featured themes, and this is not the case now. Which is a good thing I believe, there is enough theme support through Dragon magazine and the previous sourcebook, Into the Unknown. This way the supplement gets to stay on focus and provide enough material to spark DM creativity.

I was mostly impressed with the information on all the Drow houses. There’s a table on how they interact with each other and how high they have ranked over various periods of history. Don’t like the current houses? Twist and shape FR history and make your own with a section that’s focused solely on that. But then every house gets royal treatment with a good amount of information provided on them, including membership numbers, strength, affiliation, rivals, outlook, beliefs – anything you’d ever need to know about them. The book treats the Drow houses as campaign factions, suggesting to include three in the forefront of your game for a good amount of intrigue. But why stop there? Include seven and you’ve got a Drow version of Game of Thrones going in your living room once every week, as long as you think you and your players can juggle the amount of information.

Geography takes up as much space in the sourcebook as the factions, and I am happy to say that it’s written just as well as in any previous WotC supplement. Quality is what we’ve come to expect and what we’ve got. In addition to scrutinizing Menzoberranzan itself, it explores the Northdark in detail, providing plenty of locations for your ‘heroes’ to travel and explore.

This book goes hand in hand with the Book of Vile Darkness. There’s no escaping the fact that most Drow are evil, and if you’re playing a group of them, chances are that your character is evil too. This book explores how to handle ‘evil’ characters and ‘evil’ campaigns, but the Book of Vile Darkness was written to accommodate a game like that. Having said that, I’d also like to warn some groups about running a game where every character is an evil scheming Drow out to get other players. Make sure all your players are good friends, and understand that you’re all roleplaying, and not bringing your antisocial agendas to the table. It seems like an obvious thing to say, but so many times I’ve seen players who just want to ‘kill’ other characters or wreak havoc. This sort of person spells campaign doom to me.

It’s competition time! I’d like to give away a copy of Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue to my readers. I’d also like to have new readers discover my blog! So I’m giving out one brand new copy of the book to one lucky person who retweets this tweet! I’ll mail the book to any part of the world, free of charge, no ifs no buts. In addition, as a bonus, anyone who subscribes to my blog will be entered into the raffle twice. Good luck!

5 Unusual Literary Inspirations for my DnD Games.

No big secret, we use other stories for our games all the time. Especially me, since a lot of my ‘original’ creative thinking goes into writing fiction. I worry a lot less whether a plot idea for my game is more or less original. But I’ve discovered that even ‘borrowing’ can be an inspired choice. I have to admit, I’m not an avid reader of fantasy fiction. I don’t dislike it or anything, it’s just that lately there has been very little that captivated me strongly. Sure, I’m reading A Song of Ice and Fire, but then again, who isn’t? My reading pursuits lean more heavily towards literary fiction, especially the realms of magical realism, and I’ve stolen borrowed most of my plot elements from there. Sometimes the thing I end up using is mood or theme, instead of plot, but no matter what I end up taking, those choices always prove to be interesting. Why am I sharing this? Well, I feel like everyone could learn a trick or two from these books, and anyway, they’re all a great read. So, read, and borrow heavily. I hope these enrich your games.

1. Jorge Luis Borges – The book of Imaginary Beings.

This is an easy one to recommend. Garry Gygax read this book. I mean, I have no evidence to support this statement, but I could bet my right foot that he did. Guess what the book is about? Well, it describes mythical beings. A book of fantastical zoology if you will. And it literally reads like the first edition monster manual. DnD monsters have always been known to be on the ‘weirder’ side, and this here tome my ladies and germs is the culprit. Not only does it list what is by now ‘the mundane’,  like elves and dragons, but more DnD related beings like Chimaeras, Griphons and Krakens. Did you think that a Catoblepas is perhaps only a DnD monster? What about the Lamia? No. All mentioned here. This book is filled to the brim with strange beings, well described and as fantastical as it gets in literary fic. Should be on any gamer’s shelf.

2. Angela Carter – The Bloody Chamber

This collection of short stories is known for strong feminist undertones and descriptive text, and essentially consists of Carter’s own versions of widely known fairy tales, such as Beauty and the Beast, Puss in Boots and others. The titular Bloody Chamber story, involving a re-imagined version of the story of Blue Beard served as an inspiration for a DnD adventure I wrote, titled The Bloodiest Chamber (an obvious nod to the original), but much like Carter made the fairy tale her own story, so did I, and little of the source text remains. Carter warned us that her stories shouldn’t be dismissed as ‘adult versions’ of popular classics, and rightly so. Her imagination inspires to re-create and will definitely provide plenty of ideas for various styles of gaming.

3. Haruki Murakami – Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

I don’t even know where to begin with this one. It has two naratives, a trope that has become very common for Mr. Murakami, one set in a near-future cyberpunkish Japan, where a Johny Mnemonic type character struggles for survival in a skirmish between the System and the Factory. The second one is set in a more fantastical landscape, a place only known as the Town, a more secluded walled-off settlement, one that feels devoid of technology, strangely barren – a place where your shadow is taken away and you learn to read dreams from unicorn skulls. Yes, it is as strange as it sounds, and believe it or not, in the end it all makes sense. Sort of. The idea of losing one’s shadow is what I ended up borrowing from this book, and also what follows afterwards, which is completely speculative even when armed with such magical literature to inspire.

4. David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas

Unless you’ve been living in Timbuktu (read: middle-of-nowhere) you’ve probably already seen the trailer for the new Watchowski/Tykwer film (apologies to those of you who do live in Timbuktu and have actually seen the trailer, I imagine the hyperbole was completely lost on you). But even if you have, a repeat viewing certainly won’t hurt. Some have accused Mitchell of being complicated for complicated’s sake, or simply being show-offy, but the guy does have skill. His woven narrative spans centuries and touches lives connected by strands of fate. The centre of the book, set in a post-apocalyptic earth, where technology has been forgotten, is what provided me with most ideas for my DnD campaign, especially when fleshing out the fluff for Goliaths and examining where their race came from. But it’s not plot that’s the best part you can utilize from Mitchell, it’s his delivery and an alternate way to tell a story.

5. Neil Gaiman – Sandman

I am not going to pretend that Neil Gaiman is literary fic in any way shape or form. It is however, unconventional fantasy and full of concepts ripe for the plucking. His idea of ‘deities’ in Sandman was something I’ve decided to borrow for a campaign setting I’ve been working on, and so far it’s been a blast to write. He is a man with great imagination and playing around with the creations of his mind is a joy. My fondest one is the ‘Fox’ from dream hunters, a character I’ve adapted as my own. Whilst a scorned woman in love, out for revenge, isn’t exactly a novel idea in itself, but the shell he wraps it in I find very aesthetically appealing.

Bonus – Haruki Murakami – 1Q84

I can’t help but mention Murakami twice, my love for his fiction cannot be hidden. But I do mention it because I’ve borrowed the ‘air chyrsalis’ from this particular novel. My githzerai monks plucked strands of air from… well… air, and weaved them into a chrysalis. The players were most fascinated by this and even decided to help weave it. When it was in danger, even without knowing what it is or what it does (if anything at all) they wanted to protect it. All is as it should be in magical realism.

I say that these sources are unusual, but they are not at all. Fantasy or not, roleplaying games are, after all, about getting together and telling stories. Stories that we love and cherish and share, no matter the genre or medium. But I hope that for some, this will prove at least as a distraction from the mundane and the usual, and will inspire to tell more stories.

Gaming Will Get You to Win

It’s a strange concept, winning. As a term, it recently evolved to mean new things. In part, because of Charlie Sheen. But if you think about it, victory is more often conceptual rather than something tangible. For example, winning an actual game can sometimes feel more like a loss due to various factors, whether it’s because you don’t feel you’ve played a fair game, or maybe the disappointed face of a friend, who you feel should have won instead of you. But today, probably for the first time in my life, I feel like I’ve actually won at gaming. It’s a strange feeling. But let me tell you more about it.

Specifically, let me tell you what I do, gaming wise. Big shout out to my FLGS, Chaos City Comics, in St. Albans, UK. This is where I organise board game nights, Magic: the Gathering, and DnD Encounters. Many different people come to these events, and, as you probably imagine, all those people are very different, and in many ways, very strong individuals. ‘The Weird and Wonderful’ as I like to call them. But this story is about one of them. It’s not a long story, because there’s not much to say really. It’s simple and self-explanatory.

One of the kids that come to the events that I organise, let’s call him Roger, has Asperger’s. He’s not the first kid who has Asperger’s that I have gamed with, and his condition is definitely not severe. But as you can imagine, Roger finds it hard to fit in. He’s been coming to our events for at least six months now, and today I had a chance to talk with his mother. According to her, he finally found a place where he belongs and since he started gaming with us, his condition became less severe. He is more aware of others, more patient, more understanding, more involved. He reads more and engages with things with a more positive attitude. And, according to his mother, our gaming nights have been the best thing that ever happened to him.

Often I wondered if gaming is a waste of time. If it’s just a dead hobby that eats up my effort. Well, I think it’s safe to say my doubts have been erased. I’ve made a positive change in a person’s life just by playing games, and made him feel accepted. Could I ever ask for more?

Introductory Post

Hello,

(It’s appropriate to say Hello first, right? I mean, it’s just not polite if you don’t). My name is Efka (I feel like I’ve done this already in the About section, but hey, again, it’s not really polite to not introduce yourself (oh look a double negative)). I like to overthink things (have you noticed?). I also really like DnD and with my experience in DnD I feel like I finally have enough to say to merit a blog. So here it is! Exciting? You bet it is. So what’s in this blog-a-magig, apart from this first post? Well not much at the moment, but I can tell you what to look forward to:

An adventure by yours truly and Elaine Bladukiene (my wife), titled The Bloodiest Chamber (sounds gruesome huh?)

A few Encounters to enrich your game

Play reports

Product previews (including early previews for the yet unreleased The Dungeon Survival Handbook and Dungeon Command: Sting of Lolth)

General musings on the game and helpful DM tips.

Analysis of my Home Campaign where the adventurers have been fighting the Elder Elemental Eye for 17 levels now.

So if the Blog Elves haven’t gotten to you yet, I hope you stick around for what’s bound to be the most amazing blog in the entire known and unknown muliverse, throughout all time and existence (ok maybe not but it’s gonna be pretty damn neat).