John's blog

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Getting Ready for DDXP

Posted Wed, 01/20/2010 - 11:31 by John

 This time next week, I'll be getting on a plane to fly to scenic Fort Wayne, indiana for D&D Experience.  This will be my second time at this particular show -- I went a couple of years ago as a preview judge for 4e.  

This year I'm going to be splitting my time -- I'll be judging the Delve for four sessions, and playing for five.  I don't get to be  player very much.  I'm looking forward to dusting off Fathom, my 4th level gnome rogue, and even trying out a couple new characters at the con.  

 

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Theme got hosed . . . somehow

Posted Wed, 01/06/2010 - 14:21 by John

So, my site's old theme got hosed, and I had to quickly find something that would work in the short term, while I try to get something else cooking.  

 

I"m working on a couple of different drupal projects, as usual -- using Drupal in a couple of different extreme ends of the spectrum.  I'll post more about them on my new Drupal blog site, drupaleverything.com -- so look for it there.  

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Test of the Sea Monkey Cam

Posted Wed, 12/16/2009 - 11:46 by John
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giant problems session 1

Posted Sun, 10/04/2009 - 17:22 by John

image1274410097.jpgFirst session of Tom's minicampaign, Giant Problems. More notes later.....

 

This pic was the first encounter at the giant fortress -- we managed to fight past the sentries without alerting anyone outside the keep.  

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planning final session, thinking ahead to epic level play

Posted Fri, 09/11/2009 - 10:57 by John

image694174155.jpgSo, doing some thinking these days. I gave some time, but I really need to think about Epic level play. What is it going to mean to me as a DM? How do I challengey players at that level -- and, more appropriately, what sort of stories can I tell that can ONLY be told at that level?

I have time. 6 months. Roughly. But I just don't know.

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Session 9 is History

Posted Tue, 09/08/2009 - 09:30 by John

Session 9 of the Deadmen campaign is history; only one more to go.

The session felt like a success, but I found that it was necessary to build totally broken encounters with totally not-fair elements to challenge the party of 15th level characters. Every encounter was complicated, and every time there was at least one scary moment that the PCs recovered from . . . so, all in all, it was a very good day.

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What should I play Next?

Posted Mon, 08/24/2009 - 14:13 by John

I'm making myself crazy. 

I have two sessions left in my current minicampaign, the Deadmen.  Once that ends, it's my turn to be a player again, and this time the campaign will start at level 16. 

I can't imagine trying to whip up a couple of 16th level characters in such a short amount of time without the character builder.  Even with it, it can take a while if you're really thinking about your choices.  

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riding home

Posted Sun, 08/16/2009 - 21:37 by John

With a trophy in my lap. It's a cheesy bowling-style trophy with a knight at the top instead of a bowler. And I'm actually pretty damn proud of it.

We had a GREAT time this year. We enjoyed all of our games, etc. I wish I had been doing a better job blogging stuff as we went, but I was having trouble uploading blog entries with pictures, and there just wasn't a lot of time. I'll have to try to reconstruct more of it later, as I get those pictures posted.

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start of a long day

Posted Sun, 08/16/2009 - 09:57 by John

Well, I'm sitting in the lobby of the hotel, looking forward to a long day. We have one more game, the Goodman Dungeon Crawl Classics tournament final round.

Even if we tank it, we will go home with a trophy, but we really want to take first place to salvage some pride after last night's debacle.

Then, it's the drive home, in the overcrowded Sequoia. We will end up having to bungee some luggage onto the roof, probable, because we are picking up a sixth passenge in St Louis for the second half of the trip.



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disappointed

Posted Sun, 08/16/2009 - 05:09 by John

Trying to sleep after failing to get into the D&D championship is hard. We still have the Goodman dungeon crawl classics tournament finals tomorrow. Hoping for a mitigating good shoeing there.



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