The Roleplay of Dylan

My thoughts about the D&D Experience announcements

So, I live just outside of Fort Wayne, Indiana and some of the biggest news from Wizard of the Coast happened today some 25 miles from me at the D&D Experience

I just wanted to post some thoughts on some of the major bullet points (Stealing the major bullet points from Chris at Icosahedrophilia. )

• D&D Miniatures line continues in a different packaging format. Visible minis are gone. Six miniatures per blind package, sixty miniatures per set. August 2010 set “Lords of Madness” includes huge miniatures and introduces a new “very rare” frequency category. 2010 releases: Orcus, Lords of Madness, and a surprise.
  • Not happy with the current path of minis. I don’t have the tons of  money need to chase down rares and Wotc following this path means I’m using paper figures or tokens to represent the hard to find figures. I’d like to see a packaging for the broke – a package of 30-40 figures for $14.99. Some of the larger dragons and rare monsters could be sold separately for a fixed price. However, this collectors game was one of the main reasons that I quit playing Magic the Gathering. I couldn’t continue to keep buying the ultra rare cards to have the best unbeatable deck.
• New “master sets” for Dungeon Tiles (The Dungeon in July, The City in October) will be kept in print to provide consistent access to a core set of tiles for new purchasers/players. Look for The Wilderness in December 2010. Expansions like March 2010’s Harrowing Halls will provide more variety but will still come one printing at a time, as currently.
  • Since I haven’t really played 4e yet, I’ve not got into buying tiles although I like having a selection of them and they aren’t really too pricey.
• Monster Manual 3 (June) will contain more story elements (fluff).
  • Nice! I like fluff, but I need enough stats to keep my “needing to buy DDI subscription to play” out of the equation.
• New line of “essentials” products such as the starter kit (September 2010) and Dungeon Master’s Kit (October 2010) are like “quick start” products for new players and DMs.
  • I am looking forward to these. I don’t have alot of the books yet and look forward to these to help me get up to speed as a wanna-be DM and get some friends into playing (including my wife.)
• Gamma World will also have a collectible card component.
  • I’m looking forward to Gamma World, but not another collectible card component – this leads back to hunting of rare items and paying outrageous amounts.
• A second D&D board game ships in November, Dungeons of Dragonfire Mountain, with mechanics similar to the Ravenloft board game.
  • Yawn. Not my cup of tea.

Some other things that were announced today:

• D&D Encounters: an in-store weekly adventure series coming soon to Wizards Play Network retail locations worldwide.
  • Sounds fun – a great introduction for a few week span of 1-2 hours play sessions. I wonder if any flgs within 15 miles of me will be hosting it. I might have to stop by and play some.
• The announcement that Wotc was not renewing the Star Wars licence with Lucasfilm.
  • To me, this was the biggest announcement of the day, even if it came out of the West Coast and not the D&D experience. I got into playing RPGs recently because of Star Wars Saga. I found a great group of guys that I play with and I’ve learned more than just Star Wars Saga. But I’ve just started scratching the surface of SWSE and I can’t wait to dig deeper. I’m saddened that the end of the line has come for Saga and I look forward to trying to complete my collection prior to everything disappearing off the shelves. Thanks Wotc for the great books and I look forward to being able to use them for many years to come!

I do look forward to reading more about the upcoming products, but I need to see what would be the right purchases for me.

RPG Kids – Star Wars Style

Ean and I have played Star Wars Minis as a very simple RPG system before. We used a d20 for all of the success and failures in a very simple system. At the time, I felt that was enough for Ean to get interested in playing rpgs and miniatures.

He asked me the other day if we could bring out “those little Star Wars guys” and play again. So, I started thinking about what I could do to liven up our mini games.

I have been following @newbiedm on twitter and have read several of his blog posts about dungeon mastering and recently he had posted about developing a game system for his four year old daughter. I download his rule-set and began thinking on adapting it for Star Wars.

Today was game day for Ean and I and I broke out the Kids RPG rule-set. I created a new character sheet based off of newbiedm’s sheet. I changed the character roles to Jedi (sword guy), Blaster (Bow & Arrow), Droid (Magic User), and Dark Side(All of the bad guys). I should have changed the “Medicine” field to “MedPack”, but that is an afterthought.

House rules:

Before I get into the game play description, I did come up with some house rules.

A critical roll of 12 is 2x damage (i.e. take down baddie in one shot)

A Jedi gets a force roll when they are knocked out. A roll of 8+ on d12 gets a health step back

Some of the roleplay actions were rolled on d12. 8+ was successful

If it was on the map (or thought up), you could use it.

I placed 3 Medpacks on each map as extra’s to keep the game going a little longer. If the PCs moved over the medpack, they got to pick it up.

Game 1:

Basic Plot: Yoda contacts Obi-Wan, Captain Rex, and R2D2 (Ean said he had a laser to shoot with) to inform them that Count Dooku had stolen a secret code to the Jedi Temple and was headed back to his hideout so he could plot the destruction of the Jedi Temple.

The game:

Ean’s group won first initiative and came out running into the train station. He quickly located the super battle droid and R2 and Captain Rex made an attempt to take out the battle droids, while Obi-Wan cut through the train cars to flank Dooku. After taking out the Super Battle Droid, Rex discovered a speeder bike and hopped on it. I gave the speeder bike a movement of 9 and could also fire 9 squares as well.

He quickly took out the other battle droid, while Dooku started to make a break for it from Obi-Wan. Rex came flying up at Dooku and Dooku made a successful roll when slicing off the front of the speeder bike. Rex jumped cleared, but was dazed. Obi-Wan then found the second speeder bike and attempted to close in on Dooku. As Obi-Wan got close, he leaped from his speeder bike and attempted to slice Dooku down. The roll was a 2, so Obi-Wan missed and went flying off to the ground.

Dooku, who had been hit, was trying to reach the closest medpack, when the recovered Rex shot Dooku in the back effectively taking him down.

Then Yoda contacted Obi-Wan asking the status of the code recovery. R2-D2 in the meantime was picking out the code from Dooku’s pocket with his small mechanical arm. Obi-Wan reported success and Yoda thanked Obi-Wan and his group for a job well done.

Game 2:

Main plot: Luke, Han Solo, Chewbacca and R2-D2 were on a mission for the Rebel Alliance. Their ship was overtaken by a Star Destroyer. While Luke, Han and Chewie were hiding in the ship when the stormtroopers investigated the ship, R2-D2 was captured and placed in a holding cell. The gang then had to rescue R2-D2 and escape from the Star Destroyer. As they get ready to enter the airlock, Luke feels the presence of Darth Vader onboard.

Gameplay:

This game played out a little longer because I increased the number of baddies. I had two main baddies (Vader and a Stormtrooper commander) and four 1-hit stormtroopers and the dice didn’t go very well for Ean in the beginning of this game. As soon as the gang opened the airlock, the surprised stormtrooper rolled a critical 12 and took out Chewbacca. Han Solo then played medic and tried to dispense a Medpack was having a hard time rolling an even number. Meanwhile, Luke (using Ean’s roleplaying) cut a hole in the wall into the next room to get out of the airlock being undetected. Luke crept around and went behind a stormtrooper and took him out. Ean then said “Luke takes the armor off the stormtrooper and puts it on so they don’t know he is a Jedi.”

Han finally revives Chewie, but the stormtrooper has already triggered the alarm so additional troopers come run. Chewie and Han don’t have much of an issue taking out the rest of them, but Luke comes face to face with Vader, who dispatches Luke easily (with a critical 12). Vader then starts heading out to get the other two, but they sneak through Luke’s airlock hole trying to get to Luke.

Luke successfully rolls an 11, when I gave him a force check for force recovery. He recovers to a “hurt” status and re-joins his gang. Then they all attack Darth Vader and force him to flee.

They complete their mission of rescuing R2-D2 and escape successfully.

If was a fun day and I know that it was a success because Ean was asking to play again, but we had to stop for lunch and Ella’s naptime. After lunch, Ean pulled out his Star Wars action figures and played for quite some time. We will be playing again and I’m thinking about going fantasy this time or even using of his Indiana Jones Legos for an adventure as well.

You can find more on the Kids RPG rules and other DM goodness at newbieDM’s website.

Documenting RPG thoughts

I’ve been heading back into the world of Pen and Paper RPG – I’ll use this blog as a place to document my thoughts, the introduction of RPGs to Ean and others in the family as well as some recaps of games that I do play.