One of the frequent complaints I hear about 3rd Edition (and 3.5) D&D is that you have to play it with miniatures. “It was designed to sell them,” a friend of mine bemoans, pointing to Attacks of Opportunity as the most damning evidence. I’ll admit that I did consider AoO to be so difficult without some sort of physical tactical gameplay aid that I’d generally not used them — they are an optional rule, after all, being labeled with such words as “can” and “may” in the Player’s Handbook. But I decided to see if there were other options.
Category Archives: D&D
Going in Circles
Posted by fdiv_bug
on July 23, 2006
1 comment
I find myself suffering again from one of my many character flaws that’s plagued me my entire life: Indecision. I’m still thinking about the D&D campaign I’ve discussed before on this site. It was primarily brought about by my waning interest in reading and learning about the Kingdoms of Kalamar campaign setting — the book had been sitting on my floor for a while, and every time I’ve tried to get back into it I’ve failed. This doesn’t give me much hope for the setting as a whole, as if there’s one person in a D&D group who needs to be invested heavily in liking the setting it’s the DM.
Kingdoms of Kalamar (or, Campaign Settings Part II)
Posted by fdiv_bug
on May 8, 2006
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In continuation of my discussing some of the different settings for the forthcoming D&D campaign, I’ve settled on Kingdoms of Kalamar. Read on to find out why. Read more »
Campaign Settings
Posted by fdiv_bug
on April 19, 2006
1 comment
So I’m starting up a new D&D 3.5e campaign and have been trying to determine which campaign setting I’d rather run. The choices have basically boiled down to:
- Forgotten Realms, with a focus on the city of Waterdeep
- Kingdoms of Kalamar, with a focus on the city of Genavue
- Eberron, with a focus on Sharn, the City of Towers
Funny coincidence: Waterdeep and Geanavue were both created by the same man, Ed Greenwood, who is in my mind a towering genius of fantasy world design.
You may notice that all of the options I’m looking at are based in or around cities. I’ve found I tend to like urban campaigns a great deal, primarily for the wealth of options they offer the player. When any good you want or any service you require is readily available it means you can spend more time figuring out how to do what you want to do, rather than whether or not it’s feasible or possible. But, all three cities are positioned in areas designed to offer easy access to a wealth of other areas — subterranean, jungle, forest, water, etc. There’s also absolutely no reason other than convenience and roots to keep the players in any given place. If they find they dislike the city and want to go somewhere, then far be it from me to stop them. My job as the DM isn’t to restrict their choices so much as encourage them to make the right ones.
Let’s look at some of the pros and cons of each setting. Read more »