Halloween Village

My wife Paula loves to create Christmas villages, painting the ceremic houses. However, she also did one for Halloween. As for the people and creatures of the village, I provided them by painting metal miniatures from Reaper. Hope you like the results.

Age of Worms

Since February, I’ve served as DM for a gaming group that is adventuring in the Age of Worms adventure path, produced by the fine folks at Dungeon magazine.

So far, the sessions have run hot’n’cold, which can be attributed to a number of things – including the relative inexperience of many of the players and my reluctance to unleash the full power of spellcasting non-playing-characters.

Early on, I was particularly sensitive to the fact I did not want to be the cause of a TPK – or Total Party Kill – with a group that contained so many young players.

The most debilitating thing is probably how infrequently we play the adventure path – which is designed to be a world-saving epic adventure that takes players from first to 20th level – and beyond.

We play for two hours every-other Saturday morning. That’s about enough time to run two or three encounters – at most. The Adventure Path depends upon continuity of story, so it is difficult for players and DM alike to maintain it by playing for a short time twice a month.

I’m looking for ways to condense the Adventure Path. At our current pace, we will finish it in about 7 years – a pretty unreasonable commitment, I think. The tough part will be editing it down so it doesn’t lose its flavor.

Eberron fiction grows on me

Over the years, I've been disappointed by the quality of writing in fiction produced under the Dungeons and Dragons brand. Perhaps the disappointment comes from the fact I remember the original Dragonlance novels as being such a great source of adventure and fun in my youth -- but as an adult with adult tastes, the D&D branded books seem to fall short. This is especially true of the bulk of Forgotten Realms novels, which seem to focus too much on the setting itself and not on good storytelling.

So I've been pleasantly surprised by the quality of writing I've found in the Eberron series of books. Perhaps it's because the series is still fresh and new -- but I really think there is an effort to craft fantasy fiction with a wider appeal. So far, I haven't been dissapointed with what I've read.

So thanks goes to James Wyatt, a game designer whose gaming materials, such as Oriental Adventures and Book of Exalted Deeds, I really enjoy. Wyatt's turn as an author in the Eberron books is what got me to try D&D ficiton again. His book "In the Claws of the Tiger" really captured the essense of the setting, and was a good way to get my feet wet in this pulp-inspired world. But the other Eberron writers, such as Rich Wulf and Adrian Cole, have also been entertaining.