It's January, time to think about Gen Con again.

The winter feels longer than it really is; the weather is bad and it's not a lot of fun to be outside. I've neglected this blog for a while, because reporting no news does not make for a very exciting read.  Now, however, we've reached January and that's Gen Con badge pre-order and housing time.

Yes...I have a 4 day badge for Gen Con 2011 and I have a room at the Westin downtown.  I really wanted to book the new J. W. Marriott, but it was a little more expensive and I can use the extra $40 or so to have more fun.  Ideally I'll just be in my room when it's time to sleep and clean up.  Overall cost for Gen Con should be about $1100.  I think I can swing that.  It'll be even cheaper for me if I can find a roommate, but I'm picky there.

D&D Encounters is almost at the end of the season.  I've been playing fairly regularly, and with one week to go in this season, I think I've had enough of the format for now.  It's served its purpose of getting me used to 4E while having a good time, but now I'm ready for full games with more than one encounter per session and more roleplaying opportunities between combat encounters.  Last week though, encounters did something for me that I didn't really expect...it gave my anti-D&D roommate a chance to see what the game was all about.

I've tried to describe how D&D plays to her in the past, but she just didn't really get the picture.  She kept wanting to pigeon hole the game in a boardgame shaped hole.  Out of nowhere last week, she announced that she would like to come watch me play.  After picking my jaw up off the floor, I gave her the address of the game store, and met her there.  Remember, this is the girl who is opposed to D&D for religious reasons.  I'd actually turned her to being open to at least checking the game out.

Naturally, it was the lamest session of the whole season.  The poor DM tried to make it fun, but the players were me, a 10 year old, his 13 year old sister and their mother.  None of them really wanted to be there that night, and play just suffered.  We had a TPK, which I felt was actually a merciful end to a bad session.  I thought that would probably end it for my roommate.  Fortunately, she picked up on the fact that the particular session sucked.  She got to see how the game plays from a mechanics point of view, and left with a much better understanding of the game.  Turns out it was still a positive thing for her to watch.  I think she accepts it a lot more now that she understands the game a little better, and this will make selling me spending money on Gen Con a lot easier.

Anyway, that's the news.  Now that we are moving back into con season and people are thinking about Gen Con again, I'll be posting a lot more I hope.  I've got a couple of  local eatery reviews lined up, and hope that will be valuable for those attending.

Getting in the Groove for D&D Encounters

Oh blog, how I've neglected thee...

Actually it's just been really busy around here.  That's not a bad thing.  I'm going to do a much longer post soon concerning some observations I've made about how far DMing has come since I last played seriously, but until I can finish that, I'm going to talk a little here about getting in the swing of playing D&D 4E.

Role playing is old hat for me.  I can RP as little, or as much as the group I'm in wants.  Personally, I prefer a little at least, if just because it adds opportunities for fun and humor.  Role playing hasn't changed much.

The game, however, really has.  AD&D was always a mini game to a degree, but they were there to allow for better visualization and some minor positioning.  Now, where you are on the grid is everything.  That took some getting used to.  I'm happy to say that I've gotten used to it.

I am playing a knight (fighter/defender).  My character is all about keeping the enemy away from the more delicate characters that hit harder than I do, but can't take the damage.  This last session, I finally got myself in a position where just about everything that tried to get around me got punished for the attempt.  Of course having some good rolls helped too, but I wouldn't have gotten to even try to roll the dice if my position was wrong.

Yes, my discovery for the day is that in 4E combat position is a high percentage of the battle.

Dungeons & Dragons Encounters: My First Game in...Many Years

Dug this guy out of my old minis...
I think I'll use him.

One of the more interesting ideas that Wizards of the Coast has had to promote D&D is the weekly D&D Encounters game.  The idea is simple:  local game stores run a weekly D&D game from a set package that covers one encounter per week.  This results in a game of about 2 hours or less.  The games are designed such that a player can come when they have time, but missing sessions is no big deal.  This sort of schedule is very convenient for those who would like to play, but just don't have the time to be involved with a regular 4 hour game group.  It's also a great way to get into the game if you're a new player who doesn't have a group yet and hasn't met any local gamers.  The Encounters sessions run in seasons which seem to last about 2 months.

Doing a very minimal amount of research (namely going to the D&D Encounters page and putting in my zip code to find the games available in the area), I discovered that not only was there a weekly game at the Arsenal Game Room, which is about 5 minutes from my workplace in downtown Indy, but a new season was about to start.  The new season was an introduction to D&D Essentials running a rewritten version of The Keep on the Borderlands (re-imagined by Chris Sims, @chrisssims who I follow in twitter).  How perfect is this?  First, I wanted to get back into playing with 4E style rules, but I had no idea who the local gamers near me are.  Second, I just won the red box essentials starter set.  Finally, Keep on the Borderlands is the adventure module that came with my original box set, and the very first adventure I ever played.  This was too good to be true, yet there is was.  I signed up to play.

I cleared my schedule by taking three hours of after hours work on Monday of that week.  This let me get out of work two hours early on Wednesday so I could go home, take care of my pets, grab some dinner and head back to the city for a night of D&D:  My first in 12 or so years.

The Arsenal Game Room is a decent sized place just outside of downtown.  It's basically a cafe that caters to gamers.  There's a full kitchen, and small section that sells games, dice, and such, and tables or private rooms to game in.  I'm not sure how they stay afloat in this city, but I hope they do.  It's a great idea.  The game selection in the store is small, but it's clearly not their primary business.

For this night, there were seven players, so we decided that we'd form one large party rather than split up and hope others came.  Turns out that was the correct decision.  Five of the players were very similar to me:  They were looking to play 4E, but had not done so yet.  Some had not played since 1E, just like me.  The other two were the dungeon master's children.  Yes, we had a group with ages ranging from 10 to over 40.  This could have ended very badly, but it turned out working very well.  We all got along and worked well together.  The adults made special efforts to make sure the kids got included, and the kids were polite and knew how to have fun with adults.  I was going to play either the cleric or the wizard from the pre-made characters, but we ended up short of fighters, so I played Quinn the fighter.

Things took a few minutes to really get going, as is normal with a totally new group of players.  You need to figure out who the others at the table are and how they play.  We were clearly not a group of hard core RP types, but some very fun role playing occurred anyway.  Right from the start several of us horribly missed a skill check and determined that the keep, controlled by a powerful good paladin, was infested with evil.  This became a running role playing joke as we took every opportunity to question the motives of the inhabitants of the keep and the surroundings.  Some fairly absurd and incorrect conclusions were drawn, always with the excuse of "..because of, you know, the evvvilllll."  Having that inside joke really help cement the group and made us play together far better.

When we got to the actual encounter for the evening, we had a rough time of it.  I joked on twitter later that our dice rolls were worse than Lindsay Lohan trying to make diplomacy checks.  We couldn't roll well no matter how we switched dice and modified our tactics.  In the end though, we made just enough rolls to come out on top without losing any characters.  Sure, we blew through our action points for the day, and some of our daily powers, but we made it.

I had a great time, and it was a wonderful way to get back into the game.  Essentials is a pared down set of rules, so that made relearning easy.  The hardest part of the whole system was trying to remember all the bonuses and negatives that applied to each dice roll.  I think next game I'll be better at that, now that I know what to look for.  Chris's interpretation of The Keep on the Borderlands has so far been both challenging and fun.  It hasn't really triggered any memories of the original yet, but we're only one encounter in.  If it never looks familiar, I won't care...I'm having fun.

Wednesday will now be a regular D&D night for me.  My roommate is fine with my playing one night a week, which I was concerned about.  It's all worked out well, and I look forward to continuing with this season of Dungeons & Dragons Encounters, and playing in future seasons as well.  I'm also keeping on the lookout for local gamers to eventually form a full 4E group with.  By the time Gen Con rolls around next year, I think I will be very comfortable with the 4E and Essentials rules and I'll be ready for the con.

First D&D Game in12 Years

I'm all lined up to play D&D Encounters at my FLGS tomorrow night, and I'm damn excited. It's been about 12 years since my last game, and that was 1E. I'm even more excited because the timing is so good. Tomorrow marks the opening game of season 3 of encounters, which will be Chris Sims' reimagining of The Keep on the Borderlands. KotB was the adventure module included in my very first basic box set, so it feels a bit like coming full circle.
I took my first look at the pregens a few minutes ago, and I'm thinking I'll try for either the human warpriest, or the eldarin wizard.
I'll update this soon with my experiences from the game. As long as I get to play, it'll be a big step in prepping for Gen Con next year.

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