Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Consequential by Chris Cieslik Gen Con demos

Earth and Laris share a future fate: The Cataclysm. Protect both in this story-driven co-op board game. Step into our world...
  • Launched:Aug 14, 2012
  • Funding ends:Sep 18, 2012
  • Don't want to forget? We'll remind you by email 48 hours before funding ends.

GenCon Demos

We are in booth 1033 in the expo hall. Come play! Look for the crazy people throwing FlowerFall cards around...or the big Consequential banner.


Consequential by Chris Cieslik — Kickstarter

Friday, August 10, 2012

Friday Gems by Johnn Four

Happy Friday!
Welcome to another edition of Friday Gems.
As a Roleplaying Tips subscriber, you'll receive an email on Fridays with interesting GM links.
This includes sites, tools and articles sent in by you and your fellow GMs. Thanks for the link suggestions!
Now, on with Friday's Gems....

Medieval Demographics Made Easy: Numbers For Fantasy Worlds

This link comes from RPT subscriber David Lundy.
"I found this site to be very helpful with building my fledgling world."
Created by John S. Ross, Medieval Demographics Made Easy will help you figure out realistic populations for your setting:
http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm

How to Make Your Own Dice Tower From Formboard

I love dice towers. Remind me someday to tell you how I earned a Boy Scout badge by making a dice tower out of a 2 litre milk carton.Eric Gosselin shared this great tutorial:
"I made mine from cardboard, it's a fun project and the result is fun to use. :) "
http://www.instructables.com/id/Making-a-Formboard-Dice-Tower/

NPC Factions (Or how to be a lazy DM)

This short blog post advocates a technique I also use in my games: factions.
"The vast majority of the two hours of prep work I have done recently was statting up a few different groups that the PCs have been interacting with.
"I first come up with the leaders of the group and write a sentence or two describing their personalities and motivations.
"Then I stat up a sample member of the group, a tough member of the group, and make a few notes about different weapons or armor that I can use to make members of the group seem unique."
Read more >>
http://mutagenicsubstance.blogspot.ca/2009/11/npc-factions-or-how-to-be-lazy-dm.html

D&D Aides Downloads

Some great downloads on this page:
  • 3.5 Edition Character Sheet with Formulas (Excel)
  • Party Tracking Worksheet (Excel)
  • Blank Item Cards
  • Monster Cards
  • 2 Fonts (Centaur, Morpheus)
http://www.educatedgamer.net/downloads.htm


That wraps up this week's 1d4 Friday Gems.
Cheers,
Johnn Four
Have more fun at every game!
roleplayingtips.com

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Braille Dice by Dana Jorgensen — Kickstarter

Braille Dice

byDana Jorgensen

Funded!This project successfully raised its funding goal just now.
Photo-full
Tactile dice allowing the visually impaired to roll and read their own dice.
  • Launched:Jul 18, 2012
  • Funding ends:Aug 31, 2012
  • Don't want to forget? We'll remind you by email 48 hours before funding ends.
Braille Dice.
About five years ago, I recognized a long-standing problem in the adventure gaming industry. In spite the fact that the vision impaired could quite readily participate in the vast plethora of imagination-based games produced over the past 40 years, there are still some things lacking in providing satisfaction. Can you imagine playing and never having the satisfaction of rolling your own dice and reading the results?
So I approached a known dice manufacturer in regards to the problem and after much discussion, things sounded like they thought it was a grand idea and wanted to add these tactile dice as a regular product. I even provided simple, straightforward plans for the dice. That was five years ago.
Recently, the issue was raised again. Admittedly, I'm partly at fault here, as I never followed up on the earlier attempt. However, this time around, things are very different. In the last five years, my circle of friends and associates has changed drastically, and my skill set has expanded. This time around, I don't have to turn to a dice manufacturer to get the job done. Today, I have the know-how to see it through to the end myself.
As I write this, many things are coming together. Raw materials for prototyping are in the mail. Orders for materials to make the mass production molds have been written up. Blueprints for machinery have been drawn up. Now is the time to search for funding.
About the dice: The dice are designed for the visually impaired. As such, rather than numerals, they are marked with braille pips. To allow the owner to distinguish between dice by touch, we rely first on shape, then on size. For example, D100 means rolling 2D10. We provide two D10 dice, the smaller for the ones digit and the larger for the tens digit. Below are descriptions of the dice.
D4: This will be a standard sized pyramidal die. There will be two styles. The first will follow the visual version, marking each corner to read the point facing up, while the second will mark each face with a single braille character, with the roll result being the side facing down.
D6: This will be a standard 15mm sized cubic die.
D8: This will be a standard sized diamond die.
D10: This will be a standard sized and shaped die, denoting the ones.
D10s: This will be an enlarged 10-sided die, denoting the tens. Paired with the above to roll D100.
D12: This will be a standard sized die.
D20: This will be enlarged from 0.75 inches to 1.25 inches
Die sizes are tentative. Because braille is tactile, further enlargement of the die designs may be necessary to provide fast, reliable reading ability. We'll determine that and make the necessary changes in the prototype phase.
The faces and pips are formed by removal of material from the facing surface, forming a depression the braille pips rise in. As a result, a rim exists on each die face. To provide a "bottom" to orient the die for correct reading, one side of this lip will be rippled along the side of the depression, while the other sides of the lip will remain smooth.
The dice will be cast from polyester resin. They will probably be left in the resin's natural color and uninked. After all, if you need braille markings, color isn't a big concern, right? But then again, if enough of you say you want color, we'll add color.
6-die set: 4d6, 1d10, 1d10s
8-die set: 2d4 (1 of each style), 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d10s, 1d12, 1d20.
Bonus die: 1d3 (D6 marked 1-3 twice, enlarged to 25mm).
Bonus Die: 1d2 (thick coin slug marked in braille on each side)
Bonus die: 1d30 (enlarged to 3 inches/75mm)
The bonus dice will not be mass produced for general distribution.

Braille Dice by Dana Jorgensen — Kickstarter

D&D Next Q&A 8/9

D&D Next Q&A 8/9

Thursday, August 9, 2012, 8:01 AM
Posted By: WotC_Rodney


You've got questions—we've got answers! Here's how it works—each week, our Community Manager will be scouring all available sources to find whatever D&D Next questions you're asking.
There are certain business and legal questions we can't answer (for business and legal reasons). And if you have a specific rules question, we'd rather point you to Customer Service, where representatives are ready and waiting to help guide you through the rules of the game. That said, our goal is provide you with as much information we can—in this and other venues.
____________________________________
1 Mike mentioned that the combat superiority dice could be used to deal more damage, soak damage, defend an ally, or some other interesting combat tricks. Could you give us some more examples of any of those combat tricks you’re looking at now?
Sure. Right now, we’re looking at the ability to knock people prone, to push people around (think tide of iron, 4E players), to shift around the battlefield, to make quick jabs that deal less damage, to be able to damage multiple enemies with a single attack, to riposte when an enemy misses, and so forth. We’re still working out the details for how many of them would work, but we think there’s a lot of potential for building your own fighting style based on how you use your dice.
2 How quickly will a fighter be able to emulate multiple fighting styles? For example, can a 1st-level fighter choose to use combat superiority in combat to do more damage one round, and then defend an ally the next? Or is that versatility something that comes after a few levels?
Every fighter starts out with two “freebie” uses of the dice: adding damage onto your attacks, and reducing damage from incoming attacks. We’re also looking at giving you a third right out of the gate, based on the fighting style you selected. As you gain levels, you’ll periodically gain access to new uses for your combat superiority dice. So, you’re likely to have a growing array of options, we just need to peg the right number of options for a 1st-level character. Luckily, we have lots of active playtesters who will help us gather data on what that correct number really is.
3 What do the fighter's combat superiority dice represent in the context of the game world? How do you think they would be described in the flavor section of the class?
Combat superiority and the dice they provide are a representation of active focus with a fighting style. When two dueling swordsmen face off against one another, they (frequently subconsciously) shift their attention between footwork, attacks, defense, predicting their opponent’s next move, and so forth. Beginning fighters can only split their attention so much. They’re still better at the basic use of their weapons than other people, but they can’t focus on as many different variables as a more experienced fighter can.
As a fighter gains levels, he or she not only increases skill at swordplay (represented by the dice growing larger in value), the fighter also learns to divide up his or her attention between multiple aspects of the fight (represented by gaining more dice). Furthermore, in many cases the fighter learns to focus more intently on a particular task, or perform more complex maneuvers than were possible when he or she was less experienced. So, the fighter learns new techniques (new uses for the dice), and also learns how use old maneuvers in ways that were previously beyond the scope of his or her skill (greater numeric values from the dice).

The Wizards Community > DnD Next > Blog > D&D Next Q&A 8/9