Randy's Gaming Links Episode 4

Two links of note:

The Cartographer's Guild, a message board where folks post up maps they've made. Invaluable if you're using a projector, and while you have to join to be able to read the group, it's a painless join-up process and they've got a ton of great maps and mapmakers.

The Eberron Wiki, a resource for Eberron players and GMs.

Getting My Map On

Can you tell:

• Which creature is bloodied?
• Which creature is healthy?
• Which creature has initiative?

Crossposted at austingame

Randy's Gaming Links Episode 3

This is someone's rundown on GenCon, which was most interesting to me for this:

"4. Hunter’s Quarry and Sneak Attack Do Max Damage on a Crit – I have a signed statement to that effect. Take that, Dungeon Masters who have been robbing me of damage"

Isn't this completely contradicted in the Player's Handbook, or have I been playing the game wrong? If this is correct, I have cheated numerous players out of crit damage. And as I'm about to play a Rogue, I want to make sure I know if I get to max out my Sneak Attack damage. :)

Dark Sun?

I was a huge fan of Dark Sun back in the day. I'm really curious to see if they can do it as well as they handled Eberron's Campaign Guide.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20090814

What do you guys think?

Cool idea for more narrative combat

Killing Minions with Style, which I got to from another good post, 4th Edition and the Case of the Hideously Long Combat. Both worth a read. (They're short.)

Old... what's his name...

"So you approach the table enveloped in shadows near the back of the tavern. The figure at the table leans slowly forward and the guttering lamp's light reaches up to his face. He can see the many scars on his bare arms and the trace of elf linage around his eyes. He cocks his head and rasps, "Ah, the salvage team finally arrives in Stormreach. Well, welcome my name is... uh... uhmm... Gai... no wait... Titts... oh god... no... Kalistrumfilisthanatol... *sigh*."

Ok, so maybe you guys won't slip up that badly, but I have and I quickly found an easy cure for quick NPC names. Since I tend to think of NPCs uses first and names second I have frequently shown up to the table with major NPCs being nameless. It's all part of the illusionist play style to cover with a handy name that fits perfectly after the fact. It looks like you've had that name ready all along. This is where random name generators and a little prep time comes into play.

Here's my short list:

http://www.squid.org/rpg-random-generator
http://unique-names.com/word-mixer.php
http://www.namemasher.com/default.aspx
http://www.degraeve.com/invent-a-word/index.php
http://www.wordconstructor.com/index.php
http://www.unled.net/

As you can tell I'm a big fan of "realistic" sounding names. If the NPC has to be called some huge polysyllabic word everytime they show up it gets old quick. Also, player's will tend to nick name those NPCs and nothing makes your Titan Beholderlich Lord named Sparualiziltikk, seem more silly than having it renamed "Spunky". Of course a Titan Beholderlich Lord is pretty silly anyway.

So I like word combiners. It also lets me put in concepts and phrases. So I can put

• Zug
• Loktar
• Kek
• Thull
• Axe

Into http://unique-names.com/word-mixer.php and get back the awesome Ulthu. Now add a title like Orc Chieftain Ulthu and you're set. Maybe I'd throw an umlaut in there for extra awesome, but you get the point. The main thing I watch out for here is names that sound like snicker inducing mood breaks. The Medusa horror that has been terrorizing the village of Omletle being named Labias is going to possibly look fine on paper, but when the players arrive in the village they are going to be rolling. Then when the Medusa hisses out "You will pay for trespassing on the lair of Labias!" you might as well put away the Cheetos and call it a night. Learn from my pain.

Then there are name generators that try to be "authentic" that just always seem... well cheesy. Or unpronounceable. However, I still go to them now and then for base words.

http://rinkworks.com/namegen/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20010208b
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~pound/

Finally I also like to generate a few hundred names now and then. I'll take the list and cull it for obvious problems and then save it somewhere so that if I need a name quickly I don't need to find my generator and hammer out a name. I'll just keep this giant pool of plausible names handy and when the time comes they are ready.

4 Ed Eberron: The Stormhawks

Well, we had our first adventure and after throwing out a mock combat (the team against a group of 3-5 level Kobolds) that allowed our new players to essentially see the mechanics of the thing and get a sense for what combat in D&D is like, we started up the campaign.

And of course things quickly went sideways.

What was supposed to be a night composed of a skill challenge, some general roleplay and 2 (possibly 3) encounters instead turned out to be a skill challenge and around 4 hours of roleplay as the party did some CSI like investigation into the death of a doppleganger that was following them and general exploration of the city of Sharn. This wasn't my intent but they circumvented the two encounters by either going in the opposite direction or talking their way out of combat.

It was pretty cool, all said, and the party seemed to be really enjoying themselves. They really loved the hybrid version of the Skill Challenge that I've swiped from Dave.

All in all, my players kept me on my toes, did things I wasn't expecting and roleplayed like we never have. Despite not getting to the Encounters that I was looking forward to seeing played out, I'm putting this night in the win column.