So Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition will be coming out in eight days. You're probably wondering why I'm talking about this and not Tycho, seeing as I never played editions one through three. That's a good question, so here's what's up.
Wizards of the Coast came to us months ago and wanted to run some ads for 4th edition. They wanted to do something more than just banner ads though and they asked us if we had any cool ideas. What we came up with is probably one of my favorite projects to date. Tycho and I sat down at a table with Scott Kurtz from PvP and a DM from WOTC and we played 4th edition. That probably doesn't sound awesome to you except that we also recorded the entire thing as a podcast.
So you have Tycho who is the old pro, you have Scott who hasn't played since he was a kid and you have me the complete newb. If you've played D&D before but you're curious about the changes in 4th edition the podcast will cover a ton of the new rules. If you've never played and your curious if it's something you'd like, I think this is a really good example of the game. For me personally is was an extremely positive experience. There was some frustration at first as I tried to wrap my head around the rules but once I got into it I had a really good time. I think I actually enjoyed the adventuring/role playing portions of the game more than the actuall combat. The comabt was fun but it was the puzzle solving and interaction with the rest of the party that really made the game for me. At any rate if you're curious about D&D in general or 4th edition specifically I think these podcasts will be helpful and hopefully funny.
We ended up playing all day and then broke the podcast up into multiple chunks. The first of which went live today. Not only will WOTC be posting a new podcast each week but Scott and I will be creating a comic that follows the events of the adventure. There will be two panels accompanying each podcast, one drawn by me and one drawn by Scott. Today's podcast covers the start of the game as we name our characters and get our group set up. It also includes our first taste of combat and my very first official d20 roll ever. If you hit the WOTC site here you can grab the first show and see the first two panels of the comic. If you don't have one already, you will need to sign up for an account. It's free and pretty quick.
Collaborating with Scott on the comic has been a real blast. I've known Scott and admired his work for ten years now. I'm not sure why it took us this long to finally work together on something but I'm glad we are. We're alternating panels and I think we're both trying to out do the other with each new drawing. He'll send me the inks for a panel and I'll feel like a hack and so I'll have to push even harder on my piece. I think the end result is going to be something pretty special. Anyway, check it out and please let me know what you think.
Also don't forget that Target is still selling 1600 MS points for $14.99 until May 31st. Essentially they're selling you twenty dollars for fifteen dollars. So if you liked the demo for Rain Slick but $20 was just too steep, here's an opportunity to pick it up for $15. Not a bad deal.
Oh and did you know that Delicious Library two is out? There is a screenshot over on the site and I gotta say, Wil has pretty good taste in books.
-Gabe out
