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While Dungeons & Dragons may dominate the history of tabletop RPGs in the USA there is another game that has been around almost as long and has had almost as much impact on gamers. I think back to my first games in the early 1980’s and I realize that it wasn’t swords & sorcery that grabbed my interest and pulled my to the game table, it was my love of comic books and super heroes.

The first RPG I played was a nondescript blue book with two titanic heroes clashing on its cover. The rules were confusing for a group of 3rd graders to grasp but it didn’t matter, we just rolled the dice and as I found happening for the next 7 years, it always degenerated into a fight in the park. The epic clash of super powered characters didn’t have grand story at first – like many of the comics we were reading they were simple morality plays locked up under the sanitary seal of the comics code authority.

While Champions was the early leader in the market other games like Superworld and Villains & Vigilantes offered different takes and options for those who were unhappy or uncomfortable with the system behind Champions. These systems all offered a different mechanic but the core concepts were similar, all of them focused on costumed heroes with amazing powers fighting to save the world from dastardly villains.
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The settings of a tabletop RPG don’t have to revolve around the dungeon or large fire breathing lizards. Sometimes its even best if you take a break from the endless crawling and looting and reach out into different genre.

One of the more interesting settings I’ve enjoyed over the years thanks to my love of comics and films like The Rocketeer and Indiana Jones is the classic pulp adventure. Pulp is quite a bit different from the fantasy tropes of many RPGs as it usually takes place in a modern setting with an interesting mix of fantasy or sci-fi thrown in to mix things up a bit.

This week I thought I’d highlight some of the games that focus on this high-adventure oriented setting and give some suggestions for how even those married to the dungeon can integrate elements of Pulp into their existing games.
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Seven days have passed. Seven days of joy and fear, terror and epiphany. The RPG Emperor truly does have new clothes, and it looks like they fit.

While I’ve been anticipating the release of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition (something that is not noted on the products themselves BTW) I’ve thought long and hard about how I’d review it once it finally got here. A few weeks back the world got its first chance to play the new rules thanks to the release of H1 Keep on the Shadowfell but it was hard to gauge the game or its focus fairly just from that bite size exposure.

Now, finally, we have the full rule picture at our disposal and I’ve decided it does little good to pick and poke at the rules, to run down a basic list of likes and dislikes when describing this product so instead I’m going to discuss the experience of playing and the impression I have of the foundation 4E sets going forward for the game.

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While we’re waiting for the release of the D&D 4E core rules this week I thought it’d be a good time to do some general news and updates.

I realize this column had been Wizards of the Coast heavy lately and I apologize for those of you out there reading who like your gaming discussions to be a bit more broad in nature. Before we go far afield though I wanted to highlight an announcement I received from Wizard’s last week regarding some interesting changes coming to the entire Magic the Gathering line.

Beginning with the release of the upcoming “Shards of Alara” expansion set, Wizards is instituting a few changes tot he way cards are bundled, sold and even to the content of the cards themselves. The new set launches on October 3rd, 2008.

One of the more shocking changes, and one I’m not sure I completely buy as sold to us, is that as of that card set the number of cards in a set will be decreasing. While Wizards is claiming this is as a result of feedback from Magic players who claimed “the volume of cards released each year is too high ”, I’m betting its much more likely the cost of printing and lower sell through rates may be mandating this change, though its always easier to wrap a change like that in a “customer request” to make it more palatable. That’s just my suspicion though.
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I’ve been talking about the upcoming revisions to Dungeons & Dragons for awhile now. Well the chance to finally test out the changes introduced with this new version arrived on May 20th in the form of the first 4th Edition module – Keep on the Shadowfell. I was one of the few lucky folks who had the module in hand before the release date but unfortunately coverage was embargoed until that point and well, life got in the way of getting this up the day it came out.

Before I jump into all the gory details about how the system works and how it plays let me first say that this is a very different game than its predecessor. Many of the same terms are used. There are still Hit Points, Armor Class and Feats, but some of the sacred cows of the D&D system are wearing new leather coats.

Be warned, this extra-long edition of The Analog Gamer might spoil some secrets about the forthcoming D&D game.

Keep on the Shadowfell is a well designed module. It comes with a nice thick cardstock cover containing a number of maps suitable for miniature game play and 2 booklets. The first book is a character folio that includes an overview of the basic 4th Edition rules as related to characters. The other is the DM booklet that contains an expanded version of the introductory rules aimed at running the game along with the full adventure itself.

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Its been a few weeks since we’ve had a regular installment but this week I thought it would be interesting to talk about a few random news items along with a quick review of the Wizards of the Coast produced card and dice game – Inn-Fighting.

Inn-Fighting
Price: $14.99
Release Date: October 2007

Not sure what you want to do tonight? Maybe one of your regular players has decided not to show up and you’re left holding the game on their account. Well I can heartily recommend Inn-Fighting as a great way to keep the game group focused on the fantasy RPG elements without having to break your back on story and plotting.

Inn-Fighting is a dice and card game that is meant to simulate the wildest bar fight in the world. Players draw from a small selection of adventurer cards and then abruptly begin to bash and beat the other players at the table with the table. The goal of the game is to defeat enough opponents in the brawl that you accumulate 20 victory points. Points are gained by defeating bystanders or opponents and the game does an excellent job of introducing unique characters with often humorous special abilities into the fray.

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Modernization is a good thing in general. Its brought us electricity, access to immense amounts of information, both trivial and important and generally has outstripped the ability for many of our hobby and leisure activities to properly leverage it.

Continuing the discussion of the forthcoming 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, it would be a mistake not to mention that even D&D is now joining the modern era with official, integrated digital features meant to make the game more approachable and manageable for players and storytellers.

The tweaks and changes for the system lie not only in the new streamlined rules, but also in the access to information and a new business strategy for its publisher, Wizards of the Coast. The addition of accessible digital tools might just change not only how the game is played, but Wizards believes, just who is playing.

Dungeons & Dragons is one of those cultural icons. While not everyone plays it, the game is a well known brand, whether as a subject of ridicule from stereotypical jocks in Hollywood cinema or as a distant memory of long nights in high school, college or on a military deployment that was spent commanding Wrothgar the Gnome Barbarian on his quest to regain the Lost Candelabra of Gorgenzola from the forces of the demon Orcus.

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On June 6th change is coming. No matter how much the stalwart heroes of countless worlds fight it there is a shift ahead. After 30 years and 3.5 editions, the most popular role-playing system in the world is preparing to shed its most recent set of scales and embrace modern tools and services. Dungeons & Dragons is exiting the cave of ideas with a shiny new coat of rules and a few creative directions altered from the previous edition.

Over the last 20+ years that I’ve been a player of RPGs both analog and digital, I’ve noticed that there is one trend that you can count on whenever change strikes the gaming fandom: people immediately either defend and champion the change or they fire up the torches and erect a cross to burn the new concepts in effigy. Its almost like a religious debate and people often act as though you’ve threatened to force them to slaughter their personal golden calf.

I’m not someone who has a zealot’s perspective on any game. I love games. All sorts of games, all sorts of rules. I’ve changed through every version of D&D and AD&D over the years and have generally found that while none of them was delivered perfectly from the mouth and hands of some deity unto mankind without the need for change, that overall each version has done something better than the last.

1st Edition was the stone tablet brought down to the RPG masses and lead them from the temptation of empty miniature wargaming. 2nd added options and expanded the rules and choices with kits, weapon and non-weapon proficiencies along with the almighty THAC0 and served us well during our days of wandering in the desert. The arrival of 3rd Edition introduced the concept of community content, embraced the morphic nature of gaming and added yet more options and features and allowed players to “take back” control. With 4th Edition I suspect that Wizards of the Coast is continuing the trend of streamlining the game, making it more accessible and looking to make the message simple enough that it spreads easily and attracts new followers.

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The latest expansion for Magic the Gathering is closing fast and in conjunction with Wizards of the Coast, Gaming Today is releasing exclusive information this week about cards that Magic players can find in the new set.

“In Shadowmoor, even the all-new game mechanics are warped. Wither and Persist make -1/-1 counters matter, and can turn creature combat into a meat grinder where attrition or reanimation can determine the victor. The untap symbol also makes its debut, allowing you to spring new tricks on the unwary.”

“Hybrid mana costs are back, and appear on over one third of the cards in Shadowmoor. Mono-colored hybrid cards join Wither, Persist, the Untap Symbol, and Conspire as all-new mechanics unleashed in this dark world.”

“Shine a light on the dark power in Shadowmoor, available in stores (and immediately legal for play!) May 2nd.”

Shadowmoor is in pre-release and we have two spoiler cards, one of which -Valleymaker - you will not find anywhere else on the net before the game hits store shelves.

The Valleymaker is a 5/5 Giant Shaman who cost 5 red or green to summon. The giant has two abilities both of which surround the concept of land sacrifice:

Tap and sacrifice a Mountain: Valleymaker deals 3 damage to target creature. Tap and sacrifice a Forest: Choose a player. That player adds 3 green mana to his or her mana pool.
Their home uprooted by a giant, the gang of boggarts mourned their old stomping ground.

The second spoiler card, Wound Reflection is an enchantment that cost 5 black mana. Once in play its abilities go into effect:

At the end of each turn, each opponent loses life equal to the life he or she lost this turn. (Damage causes loss of life.)
The mission of the Nighthearth, Illulia’s cult of murderous cinders, is to intensify every pain suffered in Shadowmoor.

For a better look at both cards simply click on the image above and a larger PDF copy will load.

For more information on the Shadowmoor block check out Magic the Gathering’s website preview.

And now for the news…
This week before I get into the discussion about the initial Analog Gamer’s Digital Experience I thought I’d cover a bot of digital news first. Magic the Gathering Online version 2.5 went dark yesterday.

While I’ve long since shrugged off the paper crack that is Magic I know there is a large community out there who have not had any interventions performed on them and have transitioned from paper cut ridden wastrels to digital addicts. This outage is in preparation for the forthcoming Magic the Gathering Online v.3.0 launch. The new version of the game looks like it’ll bring Magics online presence into a modern format with some really interesting features. IF you want the complete story on what MtGO III is bringing to the virtual game table check out the game’s producer’s thread over on Gleemax.com in the Magic the Gathering forums.

… and here’s Shawn with Sports
Kicking off the virtual gametable series is proving to be in many ways a perfect parallel to the analog experience. I found that finding the time and coordinating the technologies can initially be just as frustrating as getting a place and time to gather your local players. We already had the Ventrillo server up and ready for our use but not all the players had headsets or the software client installed. This took some time to remedy. Then there was the issue of the software we chose to use as our initial chat client for character creation. We’ll discuss it more fully next week with the review of the first game session but some problems became obvious even just when trying to host a character creation session.
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A few weeks back I wrote a piece detailing the Neverwinter Nights games as a desktop RPG replacement. I’d come to realize that there were a lot of things that had changed in my life since I’d regularly played pen-and-paper RPGs with my buddies in high school and the military. Most of us live far apart now but still fondly recall those tales of heroism and combat whenever we chance to catch up.

I’m luckier than many of my friends – I still have a group of players locally to enjoy this hobby with, but many of them are in areas where they have no gathering point like a local game store or the local hangout is not filled with people they would trust inviting into their homes.

This realization led me to thinking about the convergence of technology that we are seeing on a regular basis. Thanks to Voice over IP technology, widely available fast Internet service and the ubiquitous nature of the PC or Mac in most households as a work tool if not a gaming one, I wondered just what options there were to reconnect players and their games and gaming friends, regardless of geography.

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This week I’m going to step back a bit from the reviews and products and talk about the concept of evil. I was reminded of this concept because I was fortunate enough to begin a new tabletop role playing game and the players as a unit decided they wanted to play evil characters. They wanted the freedom to do bad things for the right reasons as well as good things for the wrong ones. This whole discussion got me thinking about the nature of evil in games.

While many games, like Dungeons & Dragons, have a firm moral system that determines the “alignment” on the axis of good or evil there is really little evidence that most games follow this concept closely. We see evidence of evil in most game storylines or scenarios – “the power hungry dictator is trying to conquer the world and you must stop him!” or “The evil wizard has enslaved all the nubile young maidens and made them his love thralls with his magic and only you can liberate them!” These types of stories are rife in games of all kinds – from tabletop to the HDTV set.

When a game approaches the concept a little differently, like by allowing the player to be the “evil” character ,people tend to revel in the novelty but the portrayal of evil is still just the cardboard mustache twirling baddie with no real motivation or drive other than greed or insanity. Most games fail to make the bad guy anywhere near as interesting as I’d like.

The recent Bioware games – dating back to Baldur’s Gate even – often break that trend and show us flawed people with skewed perspectives. Bioware has constantly done a good job in both enabling the player to see villains as more than bullet catching, plan spewing baddies and in allowing some degree of player choice that is less than honorable in their games.

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Chocolate and Peanut butter might have sounded insane when first proposed but I think most of us would agree that it worked out alright in practice. Combining the Playstation 3 and a Collectible Card Game however.. well the jury’s still out on that one.

I can still remember sitting at the Sony E3 2006 Press Conference at Sony Studios when Phil Harrison walked onstage and introduced the Eye of Judgment and the upgraded Playstation 3 Eye camera accessory. I was a bit shocked to be honest that Sony wanted to get into the Pokemon game with the market in a decline but the concept of marrying a card game with the PS3 sounded interesting enough.

November of last year I finally got a chance to play Eye of Judgment. After years of CCG gaming I was hardly impressed by the simple mechanics, very limited tactics and dearth of expansion packs at retail for me to explore. I came into my playing looking for a sort of virtual Magic the Gathering – a game that was basically simple to teach but with a good deal of hidden depth for those who choose to master it. Judgment failed to deliver that.
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We’re taking a break this week from the virtual game table series to soak in some of the information on the upcoming D & D Insider after last weekends D&D Experience in Washington DC. Instead I thought I’d take some time to talk about one of the classic games that just about any true blooded strategy gamer will likely recall with one part nostalgia and one part pain: Risk. And lest you wonder what the video game angle is here, EA recently signed a long term agreement with Hasbro to create online versions of their board and card games - so its likely that we’ll see this game in a new form soon.

I was one of the lucky 1000 who received the preview version of the forthcoming Risk update. Now I’ve not played Risk 2210 more than once nor have I played Risk Godstorm but I’ve logged far too many hours in my life rolling the red and white dice in my ploy to take over the Napoleonic world.
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This week we kick off the first in a series of columns focusing on bringing the pen-and-paper experience of RPGs to life using technology, tools and primarily the internet.

With the big announcement of the Wizards of the Coast Digital Initiative, the expansion of Gleemax and the forthcoming D&D 4th Edition digital toolkit, it seemed a good time to work toward our eventual review of these services by looking at what tools are currently available for gamers to virtualize their game sessions.

Seeing that this is a video game website it feels most appropriate to discuss first the video game entry in the virtual desktop series – Atari’s Neverwinter Nights series. Developer Bioware began the Neverwinter Nights project almost a decade ago with the stated intent of not only taking their popular Forgotten Realms adventure series into the 3D world but also to provide players and dungeon masters the tools necessary to truly recreate the experience of a tabletop session of D&D on the net in a video game.

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“What’s my motivation?” he asked as I handed him the character sheet for the leader of the Kobolds.
“Well you’ve got no food and you need to feed the tribe.” I responded.
“Okay, so I’m leading the Kobolds to hunt down the humans and eat them!” he exclaimed.
“No, probably not the smartest tactic. Humans, even base humans are stronger and tougher than you are.”
“Oh. Well what about their livestock?” his eyes lit up.
“This is an area of rolling hills, there are many sheep and cows. Livestock is a core product of the village.” I could hear the other players chatting. They had assembled for the session and were sitting there getting their obligatory Monte Python references out before the game started.
“Good. Then can I change my alignment?”
“Why would you want to change your alignment?” I asked.
“Well it says he’s Chaotic Evil. I don’t think of him as evil, just really, really hungry.”
“Okay, so what alignment is that then?” I asked.
“Why Chaotic Hungry of course!”

Interchanges like that remind me why I enjoy playing with real people more than online in a game like World of Warcraft. Where else would you hand a new player, someone who is just coming into the game that night, a monster to play only to have an interchange like that?
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I’ve made no secret that I’m a fan of the Warhammer 40K games, both digital and analog – though the cost of entry generally has kept me away from the tabletop versions of Warhammer 40K. I’ve lapped up reading materials, novels, and enjoyed the story put forth in the various video games that have graced both the PC and consoles over the last two decades but the one thing I’ve always craved was to bring the dark gothic universe of the Space Marines to life in a tabletop role-playing game session.

The process of conversion never went smoothly for me because I often found it hard to grab players the way the setting had grabbed me as both a DM and fan. When I first heard about the Warhammer 40K based RPG Dark Heresy I was jumping out of my seat in excitement.

Finally, an officially licensed and sanctioned RPG was coming!

Finally, I could hand a player a rulebook and let it sell the setting for me, I could work more on creating epic tales and framing character stories instead of worrying about the minutia of a rule conversion and balance!

Well Dark Heresy hit the street in a bittersweet event that has upset many fans of the game and those with high hopes for the continued expansion of the 40K universe outside the miniature rules or in video games. Not because of its lack of quality or faith with the setting but because of a business decision by Black Industries, the game’s publisher.

Immediately upon launch it was announced the line would end with just three books. Three Books? Would that be worth the investment or was I better off going back to the conversion drawing board? How could they possibly translate this system in three tomes? Well I picked up the core book with trepidation and began to read. Did they make a worthy game? Was it worth the $50 investment? Well let me tell you..
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A few years back, while trying desperately to perfect my RTS skills for an upcoming LAN party, I decided it was time to take a break. I made a visit my local gaming store to look at the recent book releases, hoping to find a new d20 related resource to help energize a slowly fading campaign. Browsing the shelves, I noticed a group hovering around the gaming tables that were almost always filled by Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic players. This time instead of paper cards in shiny plastic “card condoms” there were small plastic miniatures and a tape measure arrayed out before them.

“What the hell?” I wondered, these guys never put away their binders of cards, yet they were absorbed in this new game, picking up the pieces, turning something on the base and making clicking sounds as they advanced across the tabletop.

This was my first exposure to the addiction that I now call “Plastic Death”. I watched as the players pulled out a few miniatures, recorded their point values and then randomly placed cups and plates upside down on the 3′ x 3′ playing surface. The players surveyed the landscape like Douglas MacArthur and Hideki Tojo looking for advantage in the battlefield. It wasn’t long before my curiosity got the best of me and I sat down to play a demonstration scenario.

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Sure you’ve been playing pen-and-paper RPGs for a while now, but the time has come to try and convert the unbelievers. How does one grab hold of a video game obsessed culture of gamers and tear them away from World of Warcraft or Mass Effect long enough to get them sitting down to play in your world? Simple, bring the game world they love to your table as well.

Unlike the 70’s and 80’s, the concept of introducing a role-playing game to friends and other potential players has become difficult. Often there are conversations among fans of D&D and other RPGs that the video game generation has stolen the future away.

How do hobbies that involve physical and social interaction compete with the global attraction of an MMO? How can players not feel cheated when the die rolls don’t make the enemy graphically explode and players have to imagine the special effects and particle physics instead of simply turning on their consoles and computers?

Simple. Tabletop games are party games. They rely on a group storytelling method and allow players to really and truly live out fantasy and adventure not easily modeled by finite scenarios in a video game.

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Illustration by Lars Grant-West. (c) 2008 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

In the spirit of our new feature, the Analog Gamer, I’m going to take a few minutes to tell you guys about something a little different. Today is a holiday. It doesn’t appear on most calendars, but it’s a holiday nonetheless. Today is Appreciate a Dragon Day.

Dragons have long been iconic characters of myth and legend. Whether you’re referring to dragons of fantasy, hunted by valiant knights; dragons of literature in works of fiction; or MMO raid bosses, dragons have captivated everyone who has thought of them.

So, the question now becomes, how do we celebrate this holiday? How do we pay homage to these mythical beasts? Certainly you could get your gaming buddies together for a rousing game of Dungeons and Dragons. You can even have your party go dragon hunting! If you’re an WoW player, how about heading into Onyxia’s Lair and downing the fearsome wyrm?

If you’re looking for more ways to celebrate, the folks over at Wizards of the Coast have a helpful little list:

• Invite a friend to try Dungeons & Dragons for the first time
• Show your appreciation for Fourth Edition’s new metallic dragons by “friending” the Adamantine dragon on Facebook and giving him gifts
• Visit Enworld.com or other D&D fan sites and share stories of how you’ve used dragons in your 3.5 campaign
• Google “dragon” and see what shows up! Read about the way dragons have infiltrated popular culture and some of the classic dragon myths
• Pop some popcorn and watch movies about dragons, both the friendly and unfriendly varieties - Dragon Heart, Eragon, Dragonlance, Reign of Fire, the Shrek series, Pete’s Dragon
• Pull out your old Halloween costume and dress like a dragon

For a little more on this holiday, check out the Wizards of the Coast news post on it, which includes the little known fact that Winston Churchill employed a small dragon to help light his ever-present cigar.

If any of you guys decide to observe this holiday, we’d love to see some photos of your celebration. Send them off to podcast@filefront.com, and you very well may see yourself on the site in the near future! Remember, like the wise man says, “Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.”