General Update #4

Ugh.  As of this Thursday, it will be six weeks since my last blog post, six!  That’s not very good considering that I’m only just getting started.  Part of that delay has been an increased demand from my job, being ill for five weeks running and the fact that I have been struggling to get my map together.  I’ve always done this sort of thing by hand before and learning to use GIMP and trying to work with real-world sources has been harder than I thought.  Old dog, new tricks and all that jazz.

The good news is I’m finally feeling better and work is getting back on an even keel.  So, presented for your perusal is my work-in-progress (wip) map of Bramblewood.  Hex scale is six miles per hex as most movement rates in Expert D&D is divisible by six.

Also expect more magic items… Immediately!

General Update #3

When did this get so hard?  When I was younger and playing and running in the Islandverse (The meta name for my weekend group’s multi-dm campaign) I was crafting a new campaign setting every time I ran, which was every couple of weeks.  The Isle of Ice, the Haunted Jungles of Pirate's Haven (home of my infamous Sea Liches), the Lands of the Witch Queen, etc.  Now I can’t seem to get a coherent thought together, never mind on paper.
 

The why is complicated, even from my perspective, partly the pressure I’m feeling comes from the fact that I’d like this setting to be my masterpiece, the home to all my future campaigns or one-shots.  So, no pressure there, right?  Really?  Sheesh, talk about your own worst enemy.  Worried about being able to fit everything I want in a fantasy game into this setting and not even sure I should try.  Of course, this has caused a lot of hesitancy and procrastination on my part and hence the flood of gaming material and not so much campaign stuff.  Just need to kick my imagination in the butt...

So the only real news today is that the Basic D&D Expert Rules was released as a PDF.  Get it at dndclassics.com.  Don't miss out; I got mine already so now I can start on my dream project - combining the two rules sets into one document.

General Update #2 and News About Basic Edition D&D

I had hoped to bring you a substantive post today, but the one I was working on was a look back at previous campaigns in an attempt to draw out the things I did right, but it wasn't feeling right for some reason.  Still can't really put my finger on it but in part I believe it's because I want this blog to be about moving forward and moving on, not the past.  So that rather massive post is history, in every sense of the word.

So that decision has left me without a post and for that I apologize.  And perhaps I should have just let that be, and not posted this filler piece, but while looking around on the web for some inspiration on what to write about I dropped by my favorite online shops and was delighted to see that the Basic Edition D&D rulebook is a top seller; No.1 and No. 2 respectively at RPGNow.com and DriveThruRPG.com.

I am so amazed and happy about that, I just had to say something.

General Update #1

You're probably wondering where the posts about the campaign are, after all that's what it says at the top, right?  I'm buying time with these posts while I try to absorb the material in Matt Finch's Tome of Adventure Design (ToAD) and the sandbox stuff from Kevin Crawford's Red Tide.  Buying or wasting it, I can't be sure which.  I do know that several of the blogs I read have said very complimentary thing about the ToAD book.  I am also working on answers for Jeff Rients' and Brendan's Twenty Quick Questions (making it Forty Quick Questions really) before committing anything to blog.  So I guess the truth is I'm still trying to get it straight in my head first.

In the meantime, I hope you'll settle for another player character class that I know I want to use...