Hasbro Lays the Smack Down on Goldfarb

For those of you who don't know - Michael Goldfarb, a staff blogger for John McCain said some pretty nasty things about gamers last week on McCains offical blog.

 

" It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others."

 

After sending nerds into a frenzy all over the inter-web. Hasbro execs. are responding to the slam and they ain't happy.

 

August 28th, 2008

Michael Goldfarb
1235 S. Clark St, Suite M
Arlington, VA 22202

Dear Mr. Goldfarb,

I was disappointed to read the disparaging intent of your comments regarding Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fans, both in your response to New York Times editors, and on the John McCain campaign website.

Dungeons & Dragons is a global game with millions of consumers in the U.S. and abroad. The brand is owned by Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc.

For fans, the game is essentially about heroism and therefore it is not surprising to us that thousands of military personnel play and enjoy the game. Hasbro, in turn, supports the U.S. Armed Forces by sending multiple crates of game products, including Dungeons & Dragons, to our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Recently a soldier who saw your comments online said, “Wizards of the Coast (the makers of D&D) has sent care packages to the troops on many occasions, providing free gaming supplies in support of our men and women serving the country overseas to help them decompress after hours. McCain's people should really check their facts before they spout off. Does John McCain have no idea how many GIs play D&D?”

We would very much appreciate you not making any more condescending comments about D&D -- as it is a great game enjoyed by millions of people around the world. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Wayne Charness
Senior Vice President
Hasbro, Inc.

 

Supposedly, Golfarb has appologized. But the only place I can find these apologies are in other peoples blogs. Nothing on the site the orignal slam came from.

 

Way to alienate gamers douche. When will people wake up and realize that gamer does not equal loser. We are hard working americans who enjoy a hobby. We work, we pay taxes we get married and have childeren. Did you think we didn't vote?

 

 

Posted by Science @ 9:59 am EDT | Permalink | 3 Comments

Game aid for D&D 4e

For those of you who are playing 4e - I have found this game aid to be quite helpful. Go here and download the Magic Set Editor (it's free) and download this template. I use the Rules Compendium to cut and past the exact text (updated with erratta) of my charecters powers on to cards. When my powers are expended in game - just flip the card over. It makes keeping track of encounter and daily powers super simple. If you want to go a small step further get sleves for the cards in two diffent designs - one for encounter powers and one for dailies. This way when you take a short rest you'll be able to quickly identify the powers that you regain use of (your encounter powers) and flip them back over.

If you are DMing. I have found this template to be of use. I make one for each player with Defences and passive perception, insight, arcana, nature, dungeoneering and religion checks. Then I make one for each monster they are going to encounter (you can fit the entire stat block on the card more often than not). If you are usiing an adventure from Dungeon Magazine (or any other pdf.) you can use the select tool to copy and paste and make these in no time.

In game the cards serve a dual purpose. 1 - I use them to track initiative. 2 - I don't have to ask for defences, AC or perception scores. This keeps the game moving much faster and gives me the added bonus of being able to fudge die rolls more easily if the situation calls for it. I use the knowledge skills in advance to make little note cards for the players. If they have a high enough passive knowledge - I give them some information (that their charecter would know) about the monsters they are faceing as expounded in the description of the knowleged skills in the PHB.

 

Posted by Science @ 10:46 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

Quick Update: D&D Insider Bonus Tools

Wizards of the Coast have created 2 bonus tools for the D&D Insider. An encounter builder - that helps DMs create encounters for a specific sized party at a specific level without having to do all the math and an ability generator that helps one use the point buy system for generating ability scores (described in the players handbook) without having to do any math. Both of these tools were not working yesterday. Today they are working but clearly still have some bugs. I for one hope that the shoddiness of these tools is not a foreshadow of the upcoming suite of tools currently in development.

Posted by Science @ 2:31 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

Shadows over Camelot review.

 

I thought I’d take a break from D&D for a post to talk about a board game.  This week at my local board game night we played “Shadows Over Camelot”.  Shadows, produced by Days of Wonder, won a Spiel Das Jahre (German game of the year) in 2006.  And with good reason.

The game is a co-operative game where the players (4-7) work together against the game.  On each turn you must first choose to draw a black card (which speed the failure of quests), place a siege engine outside Camelot, or lose one life point.  When we play we call this part of the turn “choosing a bad thing”.  Then, you get to perform one heroic action – traveling to different quests, moving toward completing those quests , battling siege engines, or drawing white cards.  You may also use your knights special ability on your turn.  Each knight has a different special ability that can contribute to the group achieving its goals.  You can also lose one life point to perform a different heroic action from the one you did already this turn.

The goal of the game is to complete quests and gain white swords to place around the round table.  Each completed quest earns a number of swords.  Each failed quest earns black swords.  The players win if they can fill the round table with more white than black swords.  The players lose if Camelot is besieged by 12 siege engines,  or if there are more black swords than white when the round table is filled.  Here is the catch – one player may be a traitor.  The traitor works against the rest of the group while trying to remain unnoticed.

The game is really fun to play because of it’s co-operative mechanic, but the possibility of a traitor in the midst keeps you guessing and provides a good amount of dramatic tension.  It usually isn’t long (at least with my group) before the accusations start flying.  Wrongly accusing someone of being a traitor earns the group a black sword, so players need to exercise some caution.  The traitor can do some serious damage by accusing people he knows not to be traitor (remember, it only takes 6 black swords for the players to lose).  Every time I’ve played this game it is won or lost by only a sword.  It always feels desperately close at the end – which is great.

The components are pretty good too.  Each knight has his own unique figure (unpainted) and a card with basic rules, his special ability, a picture of him and a space for your secret role card(loyal or traitor).  Each knight also gets a color coded 6 sided die to keep track of life points with (you start with 4 and can gain some for defeating quests or from a few special white cards).  There are also pieces depicting the holy grail, Excalibur and Lancelot’s armor (which you can quest for).  The board is pretty cool looking.

I give this game a high recommendation.  But you don’t just have to take my word for it.  It’s been reviewed on boardgamegeek.com nearly 5000 times with an average score of 7.35 of 10 (and the people over there are pretty harsh critics) and it has a 4.5 of 5 star rating at boardgameratings.com.  If you’ve got $40 and a good group of board gaming friends, pick this one up.

Posted by Science @ 11:54 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

DMs and 4e (part 1)

 

I’ve held off writing this post until I’ve had a chance to run an adventure in 4e. But know that I’ve had a chance to act as DM let me tell you about 4e from a DMs perspective.

First of all the DMG(Dungeon Masters Guide) is considerably thinner than in previous editions. This is because magic items and prestige classes (in the guise of paragon paths) are now found in the Players Handbook. What the DMG does have is plenty of advice on how to run a game. It’s almost like a thicker version of Robin’s Laws that is specific to D&D. This is great for new DMs. When I first started DMing I could have used some of this advice and as an experienced DM it’s good to be reminded.

As for the mechanics of the game, the monster stat blocks are much improved. There aren’t a bunch of low level , flavorful (but not useful in combat) powers listed. The only things you see are the things you need. This makes running monsters much easier.

Furthermore, there are only 3 possible durations – until the end of your next turn, until the beginning of your next turn and save ends. Powers recharge based on a d6 roll at the end of every turn. What does this mean for DMs? Very little of your mental energy is spent tracking effects or counting rounds until recharge. You can concentrate on role-playing and tactics instead of bookkeeping during a combat scene.

Minions are also pretty cool. They allow you to throw a whole bunch of fodder at the PCs to slow them down (and hopefully damage them a bit) before they get to the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy). Minions are easy to keep track of too. Just 1 hp so they die if they are hit – and standard damage (no rolling) keeps combat moving fast. The players will feel awesome because they killed a lot of baddies and you will have a couple of rounds to let your BBEG loose all of his cool powers.

Designing encounters is also pretty easy. One basically has a “budget” of xp to spend on a battle of a certain level. Throw in monsters and traps until the xp for the encounter approximately equals your budget. Since the monsters have different roles and are listed by level and role in a handy index at the back of the MM(Monster Manual) it takes no time at all to build an interesting encounter. Moreover, you can easily design your own monsters by taking the ones they’ve given you and reflavoring them, and maybe swapping out a damage type or a power to make them fit your theme.

There is more to like for DMs, but I’m nearing five hundred words so I’ll save it for another post.

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to leave a comment or PM me.

Posted by Science @ 5:30 pm EDT | Permalink | 3 Comments