Kickstarter reward progress!

April 18th, 2012

I’ve been working hard in the random dungeon mines, mining random dungeons! I’ve got a few bits and pieces to show you.

First, here’s a small version of the Random Dungeon poster file I sent to the printers:

All the backers will eventually get a big PDF of this, and most of you will get one, two, or more paper copies as well. The printer schedule is later than I’d like: I’m still hoping for late April delivery. We’ll see. I’d planned for the poster to be available for WOTC’s reprintings of the First Edition books. It looks like WOTC has pushed the reprints to June, so even if I’m late, I’ll still beat them.

I’m working hard on all the other backer rewards too! I’ve got a lot of draft versions of things: I’ll show you some samples of what’s coming.

Dungeon Robber: I spent all this weekend playtesting Dungeon Robber, the solo board game played on the poster. (As a reminder, everyone who donated $5+ will get a PDF of Dungeon Robber.) Here’s a sample table from the Treasure section:

USELESS ITEMS TABLE (roll 1d6)
1: Bad Art. Heavy. You are convinced it is worth 500 GP and will carry it in preference to any Heavy treasure of lesser value. You will only drop it if you are fleeing from a monster; while carrying it, you will not flee if you are at full health. If you get it out of the dungeon, you’ll be unable to sell it. Still, you’re convinced it’s a masterpiece. You’ll keep it in your house, and no one will ever appreciate it like you do. High Wisdom: You recognize this item as worthless and leave it where it is.
2: Moldy clothes. They’re worth 1gp, but when you pick them up, you must save or take 1d4 damage.
3: Flawed weapon. It does 1d6 damage, and breaks the first time you hit with it. Worth 1gp.
4: Spoiled food. You can only throw away spoiled food if you’re being pursued by a nonintelligent monster, and you’ll throw away good food first. If you leave the dungeon with it, you get sick for 1d6 days, during which time you will not heal hit point damage. Worth 0gp. High wisdom: You recognize this food as spoiled and leave it where it is.
5: 1d20 cp.
6: 1d20 sp.

And here are 9 ways I died while playtesting:

  • After killing two skeletons and finding a 500 GP piece of jewelry, I was killed by a third skeleton. Stupid skeletons!
  • I used a Charm spell to gain a troglodyte henchman, but then we were both killed by an arrow trap.
  • Unarmed, I was pursued by a kobold. I was trapped and slaughtered in a dead end.
  • On level 3, I was crushed by a falling-door trap.
  • My level-one dungeon robber found himself lost on level 8, through an unfortunate succession of chutes and elevator rooms. I managed to find the stairs to level 7, where I was paralyzed and eaten by a carrion crawler.
  • After a successful dungeon run where I romped down to level 3 and came home with 500 GP, I went back in the dungeon and was killed on level 1 by a kobold.
  • Delved to level 3, where I ran from a bandit. He cornered me in a dead end, and in desperation I attacked him with my flawed short sword. I killed him with a critical hit, but my sword broke. I quickly headed for the exit, but I was killed on level 1 by a skeleton.
  • Fell in a pit with closing walls. Because I was wearing plate mail and I refused to drop my heavy stone coffer full of nigh-worthless copper coins, I was unable to climb out before the walls crushed me.
  • Took my 5th-level thief down to level 8, snuck up on and killed a su monster and manticores, and fought, sneaked, and fled my way back upstairs with 10450 cp, 3300 sp, 5000 gp, 700 pp (6,834 GP total), and only 2 hp left. A few rooms away from the stairs, I fell in a spiked pit and died.

    Conclusion: The most dangerous place in the dungeon is level 1 when you’re returning with treasure!

    Interactive version of the poster: Haven’t started on this yet. Eventually, $5+ backers will get it.

    All-Star Dungeon Master book: $17+ backers will get this PDF containing adventures and rules from heavyweight DMs Mike Shea, Mike Mornard, Tracy Hurley, Tavis Allison, Jared von Hindman and James Maliszewski. James Mal has shared with me a rough draft of level 1 of Dwimmermount: as a preview, I’ll send that separately to you $17+ backers. Players from my campaign, DON’T LOOK! Actually, go ahead: it will do you little good, now that we’re on LEVEL TWO of Dwimmermount!

    D&D Stickers! $22+ backers are all getting a sheet of 20 stickers by various awesome artists. The guy at Stickeryou.com was so excited about how the stickers looked that he sent me a blurry photo from his cameraphone of them on the assembly line. It doesn’t do them justice, so I’ll wait to show you a scan of the actual stickers. But, on a related note…

    Virtual Table tokens! If you’re getting stickers, you can also get WOTC Virtual Table versions of all the stickers as hero and monster icons. Most of the icons are cropped portraits of the original stickers. Here are a few!

    Paul’s DM Notebook: This is an ever-growing reward for $22+ backers: I keep on thinking of things to add. Here are two pages from my current draft (click for PDFs):

    That’s where I am right now. I’m going to keep working on every reward until it’s time to put posters in tubes!

    • Posted in 4e D&D, fluff/inspiration, news, RPG Hub | 4 Comments »

    new category of magic item: magical map

    April 16th, 2012

    At the foot of the little rise there was a map of the world, carte du monde, mappamondo, karte der welt, with the countries marked on it in brilliant colors. I knew that if I wanted to go anywhere, from Angola to Paphlagonia, all I had to do was put my foot on the spot.

    This quote from Sign of the Labrys got me thinking about how few magical maps there are in D&D. (Between proofing my Random Dungeon poster and working on my stretch-goal board game rules, I’m in a mappy place right now anyway.)

    Maps are very important to the play of OD&D. Graph-paper maps are the primary archaeological product of an old-school D&D game, along with empty Mountain Dew bottles. Furthermore, in-game maps (treasure maps) are a big part of OD&D treasure. Nevertheless, there are virtually no magical maps. There might be one or two in splatbooks, but I don’t think any core Dungeon Master’s Guide has ever featured a magical map. (The 1e DMG, on the other hand, has four different magical periapts.)

    Contrast this with computer games. A magical map is one of the ubiquitous items in computer RPGS: so common that it’s part of the user interface. Nearly every game comes with an auto-map. I’m splitting hairs here a little: I know that, within the fiction of the game, most auto-maps represent the cartographic efforts of the main character. Still, if you’ve played old games like The Bard’s Tale where you did your own mapping on graph paper, auto-maps feel pretty darn magical.

    Here are some magical maps for D&D. They join a proud tradition of D&D’s brilliant “you now have permission to ignore the rules” magic items. They don’t really give the players new powers: they enable a free-and-easy play style that some prefer. Don’t like encumbrance? Have a Bag of Holding! Don’t like tracking light sources? Everburning torch!

    Along with each magic map are notes about what play style it might support.

    AUTOMAP PAPER

    Automap paper looks like ordinary paper until a drop of ink is applied to it. The ink will crawl of its own accord, drawing a small overhead map view of the PC’s current location. If the PCs are inside a structure, the picture will be scaled so that the entire floor of the building could be drawn on one sheet of paper. If the PCs are outside, it will be scaled so that the entire island or continent can be drawn. Detail level will be appropriate to the scale.

    Once the map has been started, it will automatically update itself whenever it’s in a new location. It can’t map while it’s inside a container: it needs to be held in a hand or otherwise out in the open.

    Players can draw annotations on the map if they like.

    Using automap paper in a game: Start a campaign for a new-school D&D group (3e or 4e) and make them map the dungeons. If they haven’t done so before, every group should map a few dungeons. However, not every campaign is dungeon-crawl focused, and so, once the players have run the gauntlet a few times, let them find a sheaf of, say, 50 sheets of automap paper. From then on, let the players peek at your DM map if they ever get lost. This strategy goes with the general progression of level-based games: start with lots of restrictions, and slowly lift them.

    This item also works well in games where the DM draws out the important locations on a battlemat.

    Because every magical item should have a leveled version, here are some improved versions of Automap Paper:

    Architect’s Map: This superior version of automap paper is blue, and requires white chalk to activate it instead of ink. It draws a whole dungeon level at once, without requiring you to visit each part, and automatically shows hidden and concealed doors, as well as any trap that was built as part of a building’s original construction.

    Using the Architect’s Map in a game: Give the PCs a copy of the DM map. It’s up to them to track their journey and to notice your notations for traps and secret doors. While automap paper can be given freely to PCs, an Architect’s Map might be a limited resource: players might find 1d4 sheets at a time. An architect’s map is especially good when you don’t mind letting the players making informed decisions about where to go.

    Living Map: This is the Harry Potter version of the automap. It uses moving dots of ink to represent all living things on the map. A cluster of 10 hobgoblins might look like one large dot, and be indistinguishable from five hobgoblins, or from a dragon.

    Using the Living Map in a game: Like the Architect’s Map, this should be an expendable resource. It’s handy in an ordinary dungeon: it’s nice to be able to check the map to see if there’s an ambush behind the door. It’s even more useful for heist, stealth, or chase adventures. It’s a nice magic item for groups that like to outthink obstacles instead of killing everyone in their way: in other words, give it to your Shadowrun group when they’re playing D&D for a change. Keep in mind that a single piece of map paper only graphs one floor. If a creature goes upstairs, it’s off the map.

    Travel Map: If a character touches a point on this automap, he or she will instantly travel to that location. Keep in mind that the automap only charts visited places, so a character cannot use it to travel somewhere new. Also, a travel map can only teleport a single player: since the map travels with the player, it can’t be used for party travel.

    This map’s special properties are only available if its owner is in the mapped area: in other words, a player can’t use a travel map of a dungeon to teleport into the dungeon. He or she may only teleport from one point in the dungeon to another.

    This map is especially useful as an outdoor map: travel between cities is usually more time-consuming and difficult than travel between different rooms in a dungeon.

    Using a travel map in a game: A single piece of travel map paper, used as a continental map, can expedite the kind of fast-travel used in most computer RPGs. The first time you go somewhere, you have to go there the hard way. Once you’ve been there, you can hand-wave any future travel to or from that location. A single travel map allows a single character to take intra-continental jaunts, allowing for lots of communication and resupply options; more useful fast travel requires enough maps for the whole party. A pack of travel-map paper is a pretty good find for a high-level party which is outgrowing wilderness adventures.

    A fun trick: Don’t let the players know that their map is of the “travel map” variety. Watch the players during the game. When someone touches a spot on the map to make a point, tell everyone that that player’s character has disappeared.

    Tags:
    Posted in 4e D&D, advice/tools, game design, legacy D&D, RPG Hub | 15 Comments »

    Mass Effect 3 and the plight of the Information Age

    April 13th, 2012
    Mass Effect 3

    My Shepard was female AND an infiltrator!

    MASS EFFECT 3 SPOILERS AHEAD

    This article is only kind of about Mass Effect 3:

    Why didn’t they like it? My principle theory: The ending was too grim. People felt like they put all this hard work into their character and made all the “right” choices only to end up having to sacrifice Shepard in the end. Essentially, the ending was too sad and there’s a perception that if you can change a bunch of other parts of the story, why shouldn’t you be able to achieve an ideal happy ending?

    This got me thinking about how there are certain kinds of computer/video games “choices” that kind of don’t work. Or rather they don’t work for me or, I imagine, most people I know:

    • If a game has a “sad” ending or choice that could be avoided, and I can reload to prevent that sad ending, 90% of the time I will do so. The only time I won’t do so is if neither ending is “correct”; i.e. maybe I have a choice between sacrificing myself or others, for example. Neither choice is obviously correct, so I will go with the one that feels best to me.
    • If a game has a “sad” ending or choice that could be avoided, and I can’t reload BUT I can look up a guide to preventing the sad ending on the internet, I will do so, providing I have warning ahead of time, such as by reading a review or talking to a friend. Or at least I imagine I will; I’ve never really played a game that has those kinds of choices and doesn’t give you the opportunity to reload.

    Essentially, when it comes to storytelling in a computer game/video game format, I can’t stand a sad ending or outcome IF I HAVE A CHOICE to change it. Basically, I feel like a failure in those situations. I’m playing a game after all, and I will choose the ending or course of action that feels most like winning to me, reloading or checking the internet if necessary. I use this kind of thought process in most tabletop RPGs too (the exception being some indie rpgs); however, in those cases I do not have the luxury of reloading or checking the internet for the correct course of action.

    To return to Mass Effect 3, I think it was okay that the endings were so grim no matter what actions you took. That is the ONLY real way to craft a narrative in a computer/video game if you want the vast majority of players to experience a less than perfect ending.

    Why not just offer a perfect happy ending if that’s what everyone wants? Short answer: it’s bad storytelling. Sometimes a story, even one presented through a game that gives you choices to affect the events of the story, works best if it ends on a bittersweet or downright depressing note. For an obvious example, look at the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex; he has already killed his father and married his mother at the beginning of the story, and so there is no way for it to end happily!

    I felt like that was the case with Mass Effect 3, which is incredibly dark from the beginning, a desperate struggle against seemingly insurmountable odds; while not Greek tragedy level inevitable, ending the story with the sacrifice of the main character (in all but one of the endings) seems quite appropriate.

    So what’s the take-away from all of this? Craft computer games with nuanced endings and consequences! Instead of having an obvious success or failure (you save the peasant’s life or let him die) make the consequences cool and interesting (the peasant dies but he stops the fire from spreading across the village or he lives but many more homes in the village burn down, leaving villagers without homes). If you don’t, then keep in mind that most people will just reload to get the happy ending.

    I feel like Mass Effect 3 achieved this with its endings. Even the so called “perfect” ending where Shepard lives has her (I played a female Shepard) destroying all synthetic life in the galaxy! Not exactly a happy ending. Mass Effect 3 also achieved this dynamic with some of the choices you are presented with. For example, since I played with a new character my first time around, I was presented with the choice to to cure the genophage and risk the Krogans being the next big threat when the war dies down or pretend to cure it and curse the Krogans to eventually die off as a species. For me the choice was obvious, but this was a legitimate ethical choice with pros and cons! In contrast, some of the Mass Effect 3 outcomes felt more like rewards or punishments based on your paragon score, which were definitely not as interesting and left me disappointed that I didn’t import my character fully Paragon character from Mass Effect 2 so I could succeed.

    Maybe I am not giving people enough credit, and a lot of people play games without reloading often and without checking on the internet for hints when presented with choices that could dramatically alter the flow of the game or result in less than perfect outcomes. In some ways, I kind of wish I played games that way, but I don’t! I’d kind of like to be forced to play a game that way, and in fact, that is one of the things I like about traditional table-top rpgs, that there is someone running the game ensuring that choices have permanent consequences. However, in the world we live in, I think creating computer games that present cool nuanced choices and outcomes without incredibly obvious “right” answers is the way to go.

    Posted in game design, RPG Hub | 4 Comments »

    Sign of the Labrys: Oh, so THAT’S where dungeon levels are from!

    April 12th, 2012

    I bought Sign of the Labrys because it’s on the Appendix N reading list, and because Mike Mornard recommended that I read it to understand where the D&D “dungeon” came from. Its bizarre 1960’s back-cover blurb was icing on the cake:

    This blurb merits further discussion, but right now, I want to talk about dungeon levels.

    Pages one through 19 of Sign of the Labrys are fairly ordinary post-apocalyptic science fiction. Then on page 20, Margaret St. Clair gets down to business and explains exactly how dungeons work in D&D:

    It is important to understand what a level is. It is not much like a floor in an office building. A level may be a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet deep, and subdivided into several tiers. Also, access to them is not uniform. The upper levels are simple and straightforward; one gets to and from them by stairs, escalators, or elevators. […] But the upper levels are easy. As one goes down, it gets difficult. Entrances and exits are usually concealed.

    It is interesting to note that just going down a set of stairs doesn’t guarantee that you’re going into a deeper “level”: a complex that’s 150 feet deep, and composed of several tiers, can be considered a single level if it’s part of the same ecosystem. And that is, I think, how early dungeons were designed. Each level was its own conceptual unit: it might or might not be composed of several floors.

    The author goes on to explain something else puzzling about Gygaxian dungeon design: levels aren’t always stacked one above another.

    F had been designed as the laboratory level, but there had been a foul-up in its construction. F1 and F2, the partial levels, or tiers, which had been meant to house the lab workers of F, had been constructed above it and on the bias, like the two arms of a Y.

    Compare that to a side view of a dungeon from OD&D’s Underworld and Wilderness Adventures:

    It’s important to Gygax that the dungeon levels have the same sort of complex relationships to each other that they do in the above St. Clair quote. Look at levels 4a and 4b, above level 5 like the two arms of a Y.

    James Mal, ever a careful OD&D scholar, makes sure to do something similar in his Dwimmermount megadungeon: level 1 has two stairs down, leading to levels 2A and 2B. Who knows if Dwimmermount would be designed thus if there had not been a “foulup in the construction” of Level F in Sign of the Labrys!

    High five, guys! We squeezed a lot of D&D out of that single page. But page 20’s bounties are not yet exhausted. Here’s some prototypical dungeon exploration, still on page 20 (and running to page 21):

    The corridor was narrow and high. It ran straight for six or eight feet, and then seemed to descend a couple of steps… I walked along the corridor to where it changed level… the space in front of me was large, perhaps twenty by fifty feet, and it was carpeted with a dense deep covering of shining white… the space before me, from wall to wall, was filled with white rats.

    Change the first person past tense to present second, and you have something that sounds a lot like a DM’s monologue, even down to the obsession with measurements. So much, in fact, that I stole this room and put it into Dwimmermount when I ran the Lawful Evil event – along with a sinister glowing gem that turned people into rats. The party members, Lawful Evil as they were, went to great lengths to convince other characters to touch the gem.

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    Posted in legacy D&D, RPG Hub | 11 Comments »

    you shall know the monsters by their traces

    April 10th, 2012

    OK, back to D&D!

    I’ve been thinking about monsters that leave signs of their passing: creepy clues that mystify the PCs the first time they’re encountered. After the PCs have fought the monsters once, these clues allow the PCs to make informed choices about what’s behind the next dungeon door.

    This was inspired a little by Mike Mornard’s tales of the original Gygax dungeons: outside a particularly dangerous part of the dungeon, the PCs might notice skulls and gnawed bones. Skulls and bones are so generic, though. Here are some extremely specific monsters and the strange trails they leave:

    the teeth and buckles man

    The party comes upon a pile of scattered metal bits: belt buckles, coins, and a sword blade. Besides the metal items, there are a few dozen human teeth on the ground, along with a few splotches of blood. A hundred yards later, the party finds a similar pile of metal and teeth.

    Later, the PCs encounter a few leather-clad human guards. The weaponless guards wave the heroes, grinning, their pink mouths empty of teeth.

    So here’s my idea: this monster, which is sort of like an extra-creepy doppelganger, eats people and then takes their form. It hates to touch metal, and it can’t do teeth: it can’t digest them and it can’t imitate them.

    In battle, the Teeth and Buckles Man grabs and absorbs its prey. Its attacks are AC attacks that ignore the armor bonus of non-metal armor: it’s perfectly happy to eat leather. The creature’s grab does damage every round until the creature or the target are killed, or the target escapes. If a target is killed by the Teeth and Buckles Man, it takes the victim’s form: it sheds all metal and spits out the victim’s teeth before it continues.

    The Teeth and Buckles Man is resistant to wooden weapons, like staves, and natural weapons like claws. Metal weapons and teeth do full damage.

    I think that the Teeth and Buckles Man does its best to masquerade as its victim, the better to take any companions unawares. It’s not a very effective ruse, though, because the monster can’t talk, and is unaware that its toothless smile is unnerving.

    The Red Unicorn

    The PCs find that a section of the dungeon is criss-crossed with many thin trails of dried blood, like one of those fancy desserts drizzled with chocolate. Eventually, the PCs find that a blood trail down one of the corridors is fresh and red.

    The players might well freak out and refuse to investigate. If they follow the trail, they’ll eventually corner a white unicorn. From the beast’s mouth drips an endless rope of bloody drool. The unicorn will attack in a panicked frenzy.

    If the PCs incapacitate or kill the unicorn and investigate, they will find that something strange is lodged in the unicorn’s throat: maybe a black iron burr, or a wide-eyed silent toad, or a small dancing man with arrowheads instead of feet. If this object is placed into any creature’s mouth, that creature will drool endless blood and attack all creatures on sight.

    It’s always tempting to use unicorns as victims of the tragic and grotesque. Maybe one of these days I’ll include a healthy, happy unicorn in one of my games.

    Here’s why I think this is a good idea: Bizarre monster details aside, I think it is good to give players some basis on which to make decisions. “Do you turn right or left?” and “Do you open the door or not?” are not compelling decisions unless you have an inkling what’s to the right or what’s behind the door. Many wandering monsters could profitably be exchanged for signs of the wandering monsters’ presence, enticing or warning the PCs about what’s ahead.

    Posted in fluff/inspiration, RPG Hub | 6 Comments »

    A thousand (and more) thanks!

    April 9th, 2012

    The Random Dungeon kickstarter is over: it ended up with almost $28,000 dollars and more than 1000 backers. That’s a far cry from the $2,000 I expected to earn.

    In fact, I thought $2,000 was going to be a stretch. I was way off base: I vastly underestimated the generosity and enthusiasm of D&D fans. You guys saw my project and didn’t just say “I like that;” you said, “I’m going to make that happen.” That’s pretty awesome, and I’m hugely grateful to everyone who pledged, linked, commented, or just approved. I really hope that the finished project will make everyone happy.

    Along the way, I got swept up in the excitement, and I came up with a lot of backer rewards! They’re all coming: I’ll be working an extra 40 hours a week (or more) until everything is finished. The posters are off to the printers, and I’m happy with how the DM’s notebook is coming out. All the work I’ve seen from my all-star DMs and artists looks great.

    Speaking of rewards, here’s a little business to take care of:

  • Tavis and James at the Dwimmermount kickstarter are going to give us the Dwimmermount dungeon level: either because we really caught up to them sometime during the day or in celebration of the great day Dwimmermount had on Friday, thanks in part, I believe, to a little boost from our amazing backers. So that means that, by one means or another, we made every one of our goals!
  • If you wish you could still raise your pledge, or you missed your chance to pledge, no problem! For the next week or so, until we’re getting ready to mail, you can paypal me (paul at blogofholding dot com) the amount for your desired pledge level. Tell me what you want for your extra poster and/or extra swag, if applicable, and your address. If we run out of posters, or if we’ve already mailed, I’ll refund any orders I can’t fulfill.
  • If you want to keep talking D&D with me, I hope you’ll join me at Blog of Holding, where I post several times a week. Now that this kickstarter is done, I’ll get back to mining books for adventure hooks, rewriting rules, talking about my campaigns, and figuring out Bill Gates’ Armor Class.

    Finally, I’d like to give one more colossal THANK YOU! to you all, for one outstanding Kickstarter!

    • Posted in RPG Hub | 9 Comments »

    12 hours left! Second Burlew Point! Last-minute goal: catch James Mal for a Dwimmermount level!

    April 6th, 2012

    Today is the last day of the Random Dungeon kickstarter! We hit our second Burlew Point. I can’t talk about this reward quite yet, but it is more a “make the world a better place” than a “more swag” reward, it’s something that Rich Burlew and I believe in, and it does involve giant statues and pandas. More details soon!

    Also, I think we have time for one more “free swag” reward!

    James Maliszewski’s Grognardia is probably the best old-school D&D blog out there, and James is doing a fantastic kickstarter to publish Dwimmermount, his long-running megadungeon campaign. I’ve had the good luck to play in Dwimmermount a few times, and it’s filled with everything that’s good about old-school D&D: tricks, mystery, exploration, and battles against classic D&D monsters, each reimagined to be uniquely creepy.

    Because our kickstarter is at its end and James’ still has 8 days to go, we’re, for the moment, only $1000 behind James’ astronomical pledge total of around $27,000.

    So here’s our very last reward: if our kickstarter total catches Dwimmermount, even for a minute, James will donate Level 1 of Dwimmermount to our $17+ All-Star DM Adventures PDF, along with Mike Mornard, Mike Shea, and Tracy Hurley. Since James’ kickstarter total is constantly increasing, this reward is a moving target. You should contribute to both kickstarters to make it extra exciting!

    Seriously, do yourself a favor and back Dwimmermount. I’ve only seen level 1 of Dwimmermount, and it’s been enough fuel for 5 or so great D&D sessions. I can’t wait to see what’s on the lower levels.

    Posted in RPG Hub | No Comments »

    Jared von Hindman unlocked! D&D Game Table unlocked!

    April 5th, 2012

    We’re into the final stretch of the Dungeon Generator kickstarter: the countdown is measured in hours, and we’ve achieved all our goals! Jared von Hindman is already at work on his dungeon art (he sent me a sketch of one of the pieces: check it out below) and I’m putting together the PC and monster art to give to Rory for the D&D Virtual Table.

    What’s left after this but two Burlew Points ($25,082)? Can we make it before midnight Friday? If we do, we’ll achieve the Secret Goal, which is veiled in mystery but might involve the construction of a statue in Lake Geneva? And maybe some pandas?

    Here’s a sketch of one of Jared’s dungeons. See if you can figure out what is going on without the accompanying DM notes. (Oh – straw poll: Jared and I are trying to figure out how to make the watercolor dungeons available as a series of prints. How many people would be interested in getting prints?)

    Posted in RPG Hub | 4 Comments »

    $23k reward: Random Dungeon characters on D&D’s Virtual Table! Also, let’s review all the swag!

    April 3rd, 2012

    Another great day, another milestone achieved! We’ve passed $20,622, so Tavis will give us rules for the AD&D dungeoneers as high-level adventurers. And we’re less than $1000 away from amazing Jared von Hindman art. And the bonus rewards bonanza rolls on! Stay tuned for details on EXACTLY WHAT YOU’RE GETTING.

    If we hit $23,000, Rory from the D&D Virtual Table (also known as Rory, my co-writer at Blog of Holding) will make 20 custom PC and monster tokens and give them to all $22+ backers to use in the application. The tokens will include the art for the five iconic AD&D dungeoneers and all the other characters and monsters from our 20 stickers. Artists include Rich Burlew, Anna-Maria Jung, Rusty Axe Games, me, and half a dozen more real artists who have had real gallery shows and are probably too good for this sort of thing.

    The D&D Virtual Table is WOTC’s official tool for playing D&D online. The D&D VT has all the tools for running a D&D campaign: a dice roller, map & dungeon creator, character & monster token system, initiative tracker, campaign notebook, character sheets, integrated voice chat, as well as integration with other official D&D digital tools, such as the D&D Character Builder and Monster Builder. It has support for playing D&D over the internet with friends or jumping into pick-up games with other users.

    When the D&D VT launches, backers can email Rory with their usernames, and Rory will give them the bonus PC and Monster tokens to use in the application. The D&D VT is currently in beta for DDI Subscribers and their friends; check it out at vt.wizards.com. If you don’t have a DDI account and still want to check out the beta, email Rory: rory at blogofholding d0t com.

    Hold on now. What exactly is everyone getting?

    I may have overwhelmed you with bonus rewards. Let me lay out exactly what everyone’s getting. There are a few changes from previous announcements, including new print options.

    $5+ backers: $5 backers started with a PDF of the poster. As bonus rewards, they’re now getting:

  • A PDF copy of a D&D-compatible board game, Dungeon Robber, which uses the poster as a board. It’s now got rules for statting up YOURSELF as a Dungeon Robber: did you get straight As? Intelligence bonus! Can you bench your weight (or 150% your weight for men)? Strength bonus! (Note: as a $17 backer, you’ll have the option to get a print copy.)
  • Access to an interactive, online version of the poster: like the poster, you can use it to generate random dungeons. It’ll move you around the dungeon and roll the dice for you. This will be exclusive to backers for a few months, then I’ll make it a free web app.

    $17+ backers: $17 backers started with a Random Dungeon poster and a PDF of the poster. As bonus rewards, they get:

  • EVERY BONUS REWARD THAT $5+ BACKERS GET (Dungeon Robber, online poster)
  • A giant PDF containing a) dungeon adventures by master DMs Mike Mornard, Mike Shea and Tracy Hurley; b) Adventurer Conqueror King (ACKS) rules for the dungeon by Tavis Allison; c) Dungeon Robber game rules. All told, this should be a pretty hefty PDF: since it will also be useful at the game table, I’ll make it available for backers only as a super-cheap lulu book for $5.

    $22+ backers: Besides the various pledge levels at or above $22, all $22+ backers get a PDF of the poster. As bonus rewards, they get:

  • EVERY BONUS REWARD THAT $5+ BACKERS GET (Dungeon Robber, online poster)
  • EVERY BONUS REWARD THAT $17+ BACKERS GET (all-star dungeon adventures and ACKS rules, pdf and lulu)
  • a signed bonus poster: either a second Random Dungeon poster or a Wandering Monsters poster.
  • A sheet of 20 stickers inspired by the poster, by a dozen artists.
  • A PDF copy of Paul’s DM Notebook, an all-editions D&D resource, containing art, adventures, DM advice, rules, and settings, that will be 75-100 pages. It’s too big to send in poster tubes, but I’ll make a print version available on Lulu for $5 for backers only. To save shipping, I’ll also make a single print book that contains the DM notebook and the various-authors lulubook in one volume.
  • If we reach $22k: a PDF of five watercolor dungeon-adventure paintings by Jared von Hindman. If possible, I would love to make these available as prints as well!
  • If we reach $23k: Custom tokens from the D&D Virtual Table!

    Bonus reward for posterity: I’ve agreed to donate my original artwork to Tim Hutchinson, the curator of D&D history, for PlaGMaDA.

    Delivery Dates:

    I’ll do my best to have mailed stuff (posters and stickers) arrive in April. I’m on the pace, as long as no shipping/printing roadblocks develop.

    Most PDFs will be available in April as well, probably around the same time as the posters are mailed. The Paul’s DM Notebook lulubook will also be available in April.

    The all-star dungeon adventures PDF and lulubook will be ready later: it’s scheduled for May, but it depends on the availability of the authors.

    The online dungeon crawler should be ready in May or June or so. One thing I’ve learned as a programmer is not to guarantee software delivery dates :-)

    One more thing…

  • There is a secret bonus goal if we reach 2 Burlew Points ($25,082)!

    • Posted in RPG Hub | 1 Comment »

    $20k goal reached! At $22k, mind-melting dungeon art from Jared von Hindman!

    April 2nd, 2012

    We’re 1000% funded! That means that we’ll be seeing dungeons from Mike Shea, Mike Mornard and Sarah Darkmagic. Let’s continue the Backer Reward Bonanza!

    You’re probably familiar with the work of Jared von Hindman. You might know him from that Stupid Monsters article you just read yesterday, or his regular column, D&D Outsider. Or, if you’ve spent a lot of time on the official D&D site, their 404 page. Or, if you’re classy, these cartoons about opera.

    Jared’s going to do some art for Dungeon Poster backers! If we hit $22k by the end of the week, everyone who pledged at least $22 will get a PDF of an original project – call it Jared’s DM Sketchbook – which will contain five separate dungeons, each with its own theme, each rendered as a watercolor painting. I can guarantee that anyone who reads all five cursed pages is guaranteed to lose at least one sanity point.

    Here’s a rough sketch Jared sent me. Tell me you don’t want to roll this out in front of your players and tell them its the map of this session’s dungeon.

    Posted in fluff/inspiration, news, RPG Hub | No Comments »

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