All of these still have a following. Each rule set has elements that are attractive to different groups. Most people are convinced that the version they play is the best but all that can be said for sure is that they are all distinctly different from one another.

Fourth edition is the newest and a lot of people, especially those new to the game, go with it solely for that reason. Version 3.5 has been made available as a completely free download through the Wizards of the Coast website. Free reference materials sway a lot of people and many go to v3.5 solely for that reason. Others go to one or the other of those two for entirely different reasons. Whatever reason drives them there, 4e and v3.5 combined constitute the lion’s share of D&D players. Pathfinder is a cross between the two and has a large following as well, with the early versions coming in after that.

How Do You Choose One Over Another?

That is entirely up to you. As I said, there are aspects of each version that appeal to different groups. You need to look at them yourself and determine what system you prefer.

Recommendations

First off, avoid the Wizards of the Coast forums until long after you have made up your mind. The version wars are still going on and everyone loves one and hates the other. Evaluate them for yourself before being subjected to that.

If you are new to D&D, I would suggest downloading v3.5 and reading through it. Since it is free, I think that is the best place to start. Once you have gone through it thoroughly go to the local bookstore and sit down with the 4e Player’s Handbook. Pick a store that doesn’t mind you leafing through the book for an hour. Read up on the differences between the two systems. They are very different so the more you understand v3.5 first the better equipped you will be to see those differences and evaluate them.

Just to give you a point of reference as to the cost of the books, 4e has three books (Dungeon Master’s Guide, Players Handbook, and Monster Manual) that constitute the core books. These three are absolutely necessary and run $20-35 each. There is a follow-up book to each of those out now for another $20-35 each. Player’s Handbook III is coming out in a few days, with Monster Manual III and Dungeon Master’s Guide III coming out later this year for an addition $20-35 each. There are another dozen books out there now that are useful to have, with more on the way, all of which are also in that price range. In short, books alone will cost you a few hundred dollars. That’s why I suggest starting with v3.5 for free before committing. :)

It occurred to me that a great many people playing today probably started with one of the more recent incarnations of the game. They may never have had the chance to find out anything about how the game used to be played or what changes it has gone through.

Some of what was lost was wonderful. Not everything that was added was for the best. I think every DM should know a little bit about where the game came from so here is a brief overview of the various versions since I started playing.

Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules (1974-1981)

There were the same six abilities: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma. Their scores were determined by rolling 3d6, ONCE for each ability, in order.

There were four races: Human, Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling.

There were four classes: Fighting Man, Magic-User, Cleric, and Thief. The prime requisite ability for these classes was Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Dexterity, respectively.

A Human could be any of these classes. Halflings and Dwarves were automatically Fighting Men. Elves were both Fighting Men and Magic-Users, splitting experience between the two classes.

Their initial abilities could be adjusted as follows:

• Magic-Users and Clerics could raise their prime requisite by one for every three points that they reduce their Strength.
• Fighting Men, Clerics, Halflings, and Dwarves could raise their prime requisite by one for every two points of reduction in Intelligence.
• Fighting Men, Halflings, and Dwarves could increase their prime requisite by one for every two points of reduction in Wisdom.
• Thieves could raise their Dexterity by one in exchange for lowering Intelligence by 2 and Wisdom by 1.
• Constitution and Charisma could not be altered.
• Dexterity could not be reduced.
• No ability could be reduced below 9.

Armor Class started at 9 (no armor) and went down, as armor improved, to 2 (for Plate & Shield).

Attacks were handled by rolling 1d20 and required a roll of 10 or better to hit an opponent with AC 9. Attacks required a roll of one higher for each point of opponent’s AC below 9.

Hit Points were determined by rolling 1d8 for Fighting Men and Dwarves, 1d6 for Clerics, Halflings, and Elves, or 1d4 for Magic-Users and Thieves. A Constitution score of 15-16 gave you +1 to your HP roll, a 17 gave you +2, and an 18 gave you +3.

The entire rulebook was 46 pages long and covered character progression through level 3.

Dungeons & Dragons Expert Rules (1974-1981)

The Dungeons & Dragons expert rulebook was not a standalone rulebook but an extension of the basic rulebook. It covered character advancement through level 14. Although Halflings were limited to level 8, Elves to level 10, and Dwarves to level 12. In addition, there were suggestions on how to deal with leveling characters past level 14 and a reference to an upcoming supplement that would detail character advancement through level 34. This supplement never materialized.

There weren’t any significant changes to the rules. They were just expanded to allow for higher level progression. That included new spells, new monsters, and new magic items.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1977-1979)

Unlike Dungeons & Dragons, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules were split into three parts and printed in hardbound books. The Dungeon Master’s Guide (DMG) was 238 pages long and was strictly for the DM. It contained all the information about the game that the DM needed but players did not need and should not see. Players instead had the 128-page Player’s Handbook (PHB) to tell them all they needed to play the game. A third book, the Monster Manual (MM) was also strictly for the DM and contained descriptions of all the monsters. The MM was 112 pages long and contained over 350 monsters. Combined, these three books represented over ten times the content found in the basic rule book.

The method of generating and modifying ability scores was dropped in favor of a new system. There were now four methods by which a player could generate ability scores.

1. Roll 4d6 and retain the highest three dice. Do this six times and assign the scores to the six abilities as desired.
2. Roll 3d6 twelve times. Retain the highest six scores and assign them to the six abilities as desired.
3. Roll 3d6 six times. Retain the highest score and assign it to strength. Repeat for the other five abilities in order.
4. Roll 3d6 six times and assign the scores to the six abilities in the order rolled. Repeat twelve times. Select one of these twelve sets of scores.

Abilities were expanded and secondary abilities were created. You would look up each ability in a chart and it would tell you what your secondary abilities were that were based on that ability. There was no numerical relationship between the primary and secondary abilities and most of the secondary abilities were used so rarely that they weren’t worth all the fuss it required to keep track of them.

For some insane reason, if you had a strength of 18, you then rolled percentile dice (1d100) to determine your exceptional strength. This effectively put 5 or 6 increments between 18 and 19 strength and was nothing but a headache.

Races were expanded to include Gnomes, Half-Elves, and Half-Orcs. All the non-human races received expanded abilities such as infravision and the ability for Elves to detect secret doors and for Dwarves to detect depth underground.

Ability scores were adjusted by race. Dwarves gained one Constitution and lost one Charisma. Elves gained one Dexterity and lost one Constitution. Half-Orcs gained one Strength and one Constitution but lost two Charisma. Halflings gained one Strength and lost one Dexterity.

Classes were expanded to include: Druids, Paladins, Rangers, Illusionists, Assassins, and Monks. The basic rules promised a Witch class in the Advanced rules but that class never appeared.

There were ability requirements for each of the classes and some racial restrictions as well. Also, non-human races had restrictions on how high a level they could attain in the various classes.

The “number needed to hit an opponent with the listed armor class” was renamed “To Hit AC 0″ or simply “THAC0″. This was the minimum number you were required to roll, on 1d20, to hit an opponent with AC 0. You would then subtract your opponent’s actual AC from your THAC0 to determine what you needed to hit. For instance, if your THAC0 was 18 and your opponent was AC 5 you would need 13 (18 minus 5) on 1d20 to hit. If your THAC0 was 12 and your opponent’s AC was -4 you would need 16 (12 minus -4) to hit. It wasn’t nearly as bulky as it sounds and some people prefer it still over the system used in more current versions.

Psionics and multi-classing were introduced along with a few other things but most of these were unfortunately treated by most people like the red-headed step-children that no one talks about.

A great many aspects of the game grew and died in this version. No matter what version you play, I think that everyone, DM and player alike, should grab a set of these books if they can find them. Reading them allows you to discover a sense of the game that Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson developed. No version since has come close to capturing the feel of the game that is presented here.

Lastly, the artwork is a treasure by itself. All black and white, hand drawn art. Every piece is more imaginative than anything presented in later versions.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Version 2 (1989)

After paging through the original books, I then picked up the version 2 PHB, with the battleaxe wielding warrior in a loin cloth on the cover. This must be how SCA folk feel about seeing barbarian couples, dressed as Conan and Red Sonja, show up to events. They just don’t get it. This picture, I think, is a perfect example of the cause of the rift that grew between those that play earlier versions and those that player newer versions. Overall, this version didn’t introduce any earthshaking changes but it was definitely a sign that change was coming.

Abilities remained the same. A few more ability generation methods appeared. It might be worth noting that prior to this point, abilities were always listed as: Str, Int, Wis, Dex, Con, Cha. From this point on the books started listing the abilities as: Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha. Read what you will into that subtle mindset shift.

Half-Orcs were removed from the list of races. The racial level limits were removed and other racial restrictions were eased up on. The racial modifiers to abilities remained the same.

Assassins and Monks disappeared. Bards and Specialized Wizards were introduced. A type of Clerical specialization was introduced. But otherwise, classes remained fairly stable.

Optional rules for weapon proficiencies and non-weapon proficiencies (the precursors to skills) were introduced.

The age of the black and white, hand-drawn art has ended. Quality has been replaced by color. Wit has been replaced by muscles and gore.

Dungeons & Dragons Version 3 (2000)

Wizards of the Coast has taken over D&D. The word “Advanced” is removed from the name.

We are rid of the silly exceptional strength along with the secondary abilities. Instead we now have ability bonuses. They have a direct numerical relationship to the abilities (ability score divided by two, rounded down, minus five). Most activities that you perform are associated with an ability and the appropriate ability bonus is then added to your chance of success. A far better system than the secondary abilities.

The various ability generation methods were all scraped and only one is presented now. However, DMs and players alike have found methods that they prefer and a new edition isn’t going to stop them from using those methods so what is presented is pretty much irrelevant.

Half-Orcs were brought back. Racial abilities were doubled (+/-2 instead of +/-1).

Monks were reintroduced. Barbarians were added. Specialized Wizards were renamed and redefined.

Non-weapon proficiencies grew into skills.

Feats were introduced. Sadly this also introduced the concept that characters could craft their own magical items. In my opinion this de-mystified and de-valued all magic items and in one fell swoop drastically changed how DMs and players viewed the game.

THAC0 goes away. The combat system is replaced by a number of modifiers that are added together and that sum added to a 1d20 roll to determine what AC can be hit. AC now starts at 10 and increases as it improves. This alone, in my opinion, made the game as a whole more accessible to the general (math-challenged) public.

Saving throws, unchanged since the inception of D&D, are discarded. Fortitude, Reflex, and Will Power are introduced to replace them.

The coolest thing about this version is that the PHB came with a CD containing a character generator. I could care less about the character generator since those things never make allowances for house rules. However, as a bonus, they included a simple mapping program. It turned out to be pretty cool. Liking it, I went to the website and bought the full version. Then the windows version came out and I got that. Now, years later, that same company is still around and just released their newest version … Campaign Cartographer 3.0! That’s right. That little freebie mapping program was the predecessor to the best fantasy mapping software on the market.

Dungeons & Dragons Version 3.5 (2003)

When 3.5 came out, I wasn’t interested in yet another version. Later I took a break from D&D so I never got around to looking at it. When I returned, 4th edition had been out for some time so I started buying 4e books and still haven’t taken a serious look at 3.5 yet.

The consensus is though that 3.5 is far and away better than 3.0 and the majority of those not switching to 4e have settled in on 3.5.

Note that v3.5 is available, in its entirety, for free on the Wizards of the Coast website. There is also a website called the HyperLink d20 SRDthat has all of the information online, searchable and hyperlinked.

Dungeon & Dragons – 4th Edition (2008)

Wizards of the Coast is now owned by Hasbro. Who ever thought that a mainstream company like Hasbro would own a “devil worship” game like D&D? :)

Abilities remain the same. I think that is the only thing in 4th edition you can say that about. :)

Races include: Dragonborn, Dwarf, Eladrin, Elf, Half-Elf, Halfling, Human, and Tiefling.

Classes include: Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Warlock, Warlord, and Wizard.

Additional books added numerous races and classes.

Skills were completed redesigned.

Feats were completely redesigned.

Spells, as we knew them, were removed.

Powers were added and, in part, replaced spells. Power were available for all classes, with each class having their own, unique set. They represented combat styles for fighters, spells for spell-casters, thief-like abilities for rogues, etc. Some powers were usable only once per day while others could be used every round.

Ritual magic was introduced.

Combat was redefined.

Magic-Items were redefined.

Everything about how we view the game was changed.

That’s not to say that it is bad, there was just a LOT of change.

There is one thing that they forgot to change though… the artwork still stinks.

Pathfinder

Pathfinder probably belongs evolutionarily between version 3.5 and 4e. But chronologically, it came after 4e so that’s where I’ve put it.

Pathfinder is best described in relation to the other games. Fourth edition Dungeons & Dragons was extremely controversial. People either loved it or hated it. There was very little middle ground. No matter how you felt about it, you had to admit that it incorporated a lot of new ideas and concepts. Some of those were almost universally considered brilliant new additions to the game. Even those that hated 4e were intrigued by some of fourth edition’s new features.

Thus, Pathfinder was born. The most common description of Pathfinder is that it takes the best parts of version 3.5 and the best parts of 4th edition and combines them into an exciting fusion of the two.

Personally though, I have not looked at Pathfinder yet. But for a different reason than you might think. I have always run a very heavily modified version of the rules. I took a long break from D&D and when I returned I decided to try to embrace fourth edition. On its own, it’s a very interesting game but as it turned out it just didn’t fit my view of Dungeons & Dragons. However, I love a lot of what they have done. I’ve more or less finalized my new set of house rules that incorporates a great deal from 4e. But I want to play test it further and work out any bugs I encounter to see what works for me and my players and what doesn’t.

I want to devise my own rules first without being influenced by seeing how 3.5 and 4e were combined to make Pathfinder. When I’m finished and happy with what I have, then I’ll delve into Pathfinder and see what they’ve done. By then I’ll be in a better position to evaluate my changes versus theirs and to assess what parts of what they have done are better so that I can incorporate them into my own. I was afraid if I looked at Pathfinder too soon, it would stifle my own ideas on how to combine 3.5 and 4e and some good ideas might get lost in the process.

Summing Up

Clearly, this is a very superficial look at the various versions. I tried to cover the key differences and chart the growth of the game. I left (or hope I did) all the politics out that were going on behind the scenes between Gary, TSR, Wizards, etc and just focused on the game itself.

I hope you found it interesting seeing a bit of how the game was played in the olden days. :)

Let me leave you with one thought. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (version one) was an amazing set of books. Regardless of which version you are playing, find a copy of those books and buy them!

The Secret’s Out

That was actually one of the first things I noticed. This book is not-for-DM-eyes-only. Previous versions organized the books so that the generally available information was in the player’s handbook and the “secret” information was in the dungeon master’s guide.That isn’t the case in the 4th edition books. I first noticed that something was different when I saw that the magic items were fully described within the player’s handbook.

The dungeon master’s guide, instead of being a secret tome of hidden knowledge that only the DM should see, is now designed more along the lines of a how-to book, walking the DM through the various steps necessary to be an efficient DM. I think this is a marvelous change and a much more useful distinction between the books.

Player Types

The DMG breaks down the various types of players into eight distinct groups (Actor, Explorer, Instigator, Power Gamer, Slayer, Storyteller, Thinker, and Watcher) and discusses how to approach each type of player, what each player type wants to get out of the game and how to manage your game in such a way that it meets the needs of each of the player types and makes everyone happy.

The Art of DMing

It discusses in depth skill challenges, puzzles, traps, hazards, quests, the use of terrain and circumstance in your encounters, how to increase or reduce the difficulty level of individual monsters, how to create new monsters and how to apply monster templates to various creatures.

As always, there are situations that arise that aren’t handled easily by the standard rules usually used for combat. the DMG gives suggestions for dealing with these special circumstances and gives some specific examples to help the DM prepare in advance for these types of special encounters.

Each campaign is different and every DM needs to decide how she wants to design her world. The DMG details a great many aspects of and assumptions about a dnd world and tries to show some alternatives to each.

Monster Roles

This edition introduces monster roles (Artillery, Brute, Controller, Lurker, Skirmisher, and Soldier) as well as role modifiers (Solo, Elite, and Minion). These various designations indicate the types of tactics the given monster will adopt. The DMG discusses how to play the various roles effectively and how they interact and support each other.

Treasure Parcels

The DMG also introduces a new treasure generation method: treasure parcels. For each level, there are 10 treasure parcels. Four contain a single magic item each (one to four levels, respectively, above the level of the treasure parcel). The other six parcels contain treasure valued at 20% to 100% of a predetermined value for that level. Furthermore, each of these parcels lists a few options for the breakdown of the treasure within that parcel.

For instance, a parcel cold have a value of 200 gp. That could be made up of 200 gold coins or it could be four 50 gp gems or maybe 2000 sp.

At first I thought this was a pretty silly method of determining treasure. After some consideration, I determined that it worked reasonably well and gave you a simple method of controlling treasure values while maintaining some randomness (even if you are merely simulating randomness through careful selection). I still don’t care for it but I no longer dislike it. I think it is a very viable solution. Plus it ties itself nicely to the experience system.

Experience

In 4th edition, the experience you get from a balanced encounter (say 5 characters against 5 monsters where everyone is the same level) will gain you experience equal to one tenth that necessary for you to gain a level, regardless what level you are currently. That means that for every ten balanced encounters, you will gain one level. Having a treasure system with ten parcels per level marries nicely to the system where every ten encounters gains you a level.

My Impressions

Overall, I am extremely pleased with the DMG. The material is presented in a well thought out and logical manner. I agree with most of it. And the material isn’t restricted to any particular version. What is presented could quite easily be applied to any version of dnd, or any other similar gaming system.

Races & Classes

There are eight races (Dragonborn, Dwarf, Eladrin, Elf, Half-Elf, Halfling, Human, and Tiefling) and eight classes (Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Warlock, Warlord, and Wizard). It uses the six familiar abilities (Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma) to describe characters and, as before, expands a character’s abilities with skills and feats.

Skills

Skills have changed and, in my opinion, are more sensible and better laid out than before. Fourth edition skills are: Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, Bluff, Diplomacy, Dungeoneering, Endurance, Heal, History, Insight, Intimidate, Nature, Perception, Religion, Stealth, Streetwise, and Thievery).

Feats

Feats work pretty much as they did before. Many new feats have been added, some have been removed and others have been modified. Characters have been divided into three groups by level. Level 1 to 10 characters are in the Heroic Tier. Level 11 to 20 are in the Paragon Tier. Level 21 to 30 are in the Epic Tier. Feats are then also defined by tier, so that a character must be of the paragon tier before she may select a paragon tier feat.

Powers

In addition to feats, 4th edition adds powers. Some powers are combat powers while others are utilitarian. Each class has its own sets of powers and at each point where a character may select a power, there are a number of options available. By selecting different powers at each of these points, a character may follow a different path, individualizing the character by the choices that are made.

Spells

The biggest change is that spells have been removed. However, most of the powers available to typical spell-casting classes produce spell-like results so it could be argued that spells weren’t removed so much as they were renamed as powers. However, the number of powers available to wizards and clerics does not come anywhere close to the number of spells these classes had available to them in previous versions. There is a feat that arcane/divine casters can learn that allows them to perform rituals. A ritual is essentially a spell with a lengthy casting time and expensive material components. By including rituals, a “spell caster” can extend her repertoire beyond a handful of spell-like powers and regain some of the versatility offered in earlier versions.

Healing Surges

Another large change is the addition of the healing surge. Each character has a limited number of healing surges that they have available each day. In most cases, when a cleric heals you, instead of healing you directly she casts a spell that works as a trigger allowing you to spend a healing surge. This surge then can heal you, typically for about 25% of your maximum hit points. Various powers work as triggers allowing you to spend a healing surge and others require the use of a healing surge. Although healing surges usually heal you, sometimes they serve to create other effects instead. After a rest, you may spend as many healing surges as you wish to heal yourself but you do have a limited number of surges a day. An extended rest (a night’s sleep) restores all your healing surges as well as any damage you may have suffered.

Combat

Combat works pretty much as before. You have four defenses (Armor Class, Reflex, Fortitude and Will Power) and Hit Points. Melee attacks are usually 1d20 + half your level (rounded down) plus your strength bonus and are made against the target’s armor class. Ranged weapon attacks differ only in that they replace the strength bonus with a dexterity bonus. Each class has various powers that alter these attacks, most of which using the ability bonus for the primary ability of that class.

Magical Items

Magical items are described in the player’s handbook instead of in the dungeon master’s guide. This seems strange at first. But in 4th edition any character can create any magical item, within the restriction of level and the cost of the item. This necessitates moving magical item info from the realm of the dungeon master to that of the player.

My Impressions

Overall, my favorite feature in this version is the increased sense of structure throughout the book. Powers are described in specific terms of what happens if you hit, what happens if you miss, how ongoing effects are handled and how saves are made. Magical items each have a specific level associated with them and everything is quantifiable.

The most important tenant in dnd is, has always been, and hopefully always will be that the rules are just a guideline! Every DM must interpret the rules herself and make whatever changes are necessary to increase the enjoyment of the group. That being said, I think it is equally important for rules to be stated as clearly and unambiguously as possible.

The fourth edition Player’s Handbook has done an excellent job of clarifying a few things. They have also made a number of very interesting changes.

I never take a new rule set entirely on its own. I view it more as source material where I take out chunks to add to, or replace portions of, my existing rule set. I have come away from 4e with a great deal of new information to add to my game.

Even taken entirely on its own, it looks to be a very enjoyable game system indeed!

I am pleased to say that I achieved far more than I anticipated! Look over the last few posts and you will see that I have created a fairly detailed map that met the objectives I had set forth. I created an ample back-story and a detailed character history for the group including many adventure hooks and groundwork for additional hooks to come.

Beyond that, I created a number of databases for monsters, spells, equipment, magical items, treasure tables, etc including interfaces to access each of them. And since I hate losing valuable time to creating characters, I designed an online character creation/leveling program.

I also created an entire, password-protected, wordpress site with the entirety of the rules online and available to players. Since I like to use extensive house rules, I think it is important to document these rules so that players aren’t having to guess as to how things work. Plus this gives me the ability to double check rules decisions I’ve made previously without having to rely on my memory. Since I am basing my campaign on 4th edition rules, I thought it was prudent to password-protect the site and restrict access to myself and my players.

I recovered my folding tables and chairs from storage, restored my damaged gaming mat, borrowed some miniatures (sadly I lost mine), and created a number of dungeon tiles and other gaming accessories. Due to a local bookstore and a local gaming store both going out of business recently, I was able to acquire a great many 4th edition books, more dice and some miniatures of my own. Miniatures are so expensive now, they will be the hardest part of my previous collection for me to replace.

A week before the game was to take place, I was informed that one of our players (the new husband of one of our core group who had never played before) had to work that day. No one had put together previously that our game fell on a Saturday and he works on Saturdays. It was such short notice by then that he was unable to get the day off but after a few phone calls we got everyone to commit to Sunday instead.

One couple though couldn’t make it on either day. A few months ago he had some medical issues and the recovery was more involved than expected so neither of them would be able to attend.

That still left the six of us which made a good sized group. I had already announced that we would be starting with 5th level characters. I expanded that, allowing each person to run two characters if they wished, to make sure that we had adequate coverage of all the roles.

I’m in Corvallis. One of our group is in Albany (15 miles away) and offered to host the game at his house. We hadn’t played there before so I took over the tables and chairs days in advance to ensure that everything fit and that we would have plenty of room. He also has a huge big screen TV and we had talked about using Map Tools with a second notebook hooked up to the TV so I could display portions of the map (as they were discovered) on the big screen TV). As it turned out I didn’t have enough time to prepare enough maps to warrant setting this up but we probably will do so before we get together next.

In addition to offering up his house, the player in Albany was going to supply food while I supplied drinks. So many little things to arrange now. It was all so much easier when we were all 20. :)

The remaining four players were driving down together. The new husband thought (perhaps foolishly) that he would be able to get the girls in the car and on the road by nine. If so we were looking at a nice early start!

Sadly, I got a call Friday night that our host wasn’t feeling well. He had been sick all week and didn’t expect to be over it by Sunday.

I sent out an email to everyone letting them know that this weekend was cancelled. Two of us each have plans for the next weekend and I’ve spent so much time getting ready for the game that I had put off other things that now needed attention.

Therefore our first game is postponed indefinitely. :(

I did, however, achieve my goal of preparing the game by the deadline and, in fact, far exceeded my goals by additionally creating a support website, databases with custom interfaces, a character generation and leveling program, and many gaming aids. The campaign itself is more detailed than I had expected it to be at this point and my familiarity with v4 is far more than I would have imagined it would be.

Although I am ready to run a game now on fairly short notice, there are a number of things that I’ve identified in the process that I want to revamp. Since we haven’t actually played yet under the system I have now, I can change things more easily since I don’t have to worry about the impact of the changes on an ongoing game.

I’m looking forward to writing about those changes as well as other articles that I’ve been wanting to write but have had to postpone due to preparing for a game.

Actually though, I've been quite busy. The site facelift took a lot of time by itself. It was actually the little things that few people notice that took the longest. The search box and button are the coolest in my opinion. I also spent a great deal of time cleaning up the css code and made a lot of things more semantically correct. Read all that as "I did a bunch of nerdy web design stuff". I still have a few things to do (like change the blue color on the links page) but the site re-design is mostly done for now.

I've finished most of my to-do list from my status report of a week or so ago. I've got a few more security features in place, a daily backup of the database, and a watchdog program that detects and unauthorized changes to the site.

In addition, I created another entire site dedicated to my house-rules-intensive version of the DMG, PHB, MM, etc. Since most of that involves edited copyrighted material and utilities that output copyrighted material, the entire site is behind a server password which unfortunately means I can't share it with you. However, it gives me a development playground and some of what I create there will make its way over here if I determine that it doesn't pose any copyright violations.

One project I'm working on right now is creating various databases: races, classes, skills, feats, powers, monsters, treasure parcels, gems, works of art, magic items, monsters, etc. For my own game I intend to have everything delivered to me digitally through custom utilities that handle some of the DM'ing for me.

An immediate benefit I see coming from this will be a magic-item generator. Currently, there are no treasure tables or other mechanisms to selecting magic items. Even if you like to hand pick each item, it would be helpful to have a utility to offer up suggestions. What I envision is a number of filters to enable/disable each type of magic item and to set a level range. The utility will then randomly select an item, and display the name, level, source (book it's from), and page number. By leaving out item descriptions and instead referencing the book and page number the item is from I can't imagine that Wizards would have a problem with it.

I'm trying to figure out how to do similar things with the other databases. With limitations on what I can display, it's hard to come up with utilities that are still useful.

I was going to play test all my new house rules, along with 4e which is still new to me, with a friend last weekend. At the last minute I realized that I didn't have any of the support materials ready. For one, I need a custom character sheet (more on that in a separate post), a character creation worksheet (to help step players through the process), documentation on the rules changes (most of its still in my head. what's on paper wasn't very clear), and various other little things that tend to become big things when you are trying to run a battle.

We put off play testing until this coming weekend. In the meantime, I've been creating the materials that I lacked and trying to think if there is anything else that I need.

It does seem that the "rules evaluation" phase is coming to a close. Once I've formalized the changes I plan to make, and test them to see that they are worthwhile, I can move on to maps.

I'm really looking forward to creating some battle grid maps with Dungeon Designer. The tutorials I've watched show tons of new features since the version I last used.

Look for lots of maps soon in the download section!

You may find it difficult to read the books from front to back though. Every other paragraph may mention something that you aren't familiar with and want to look up. Go ahead and do that. For this type of material, I think that's probably the best way to learn it. Skip around. Read a section at random and bypass sections that don't sound so interesting right now. Once you have a basic understanding of various aspects of the game, go back and read each section again in order. Hopefully that will help make it all make sense.

When you get to the point where most everything is clear and you have a firm grasp of the combat system and the various options available to players during combat, go back and reread the powers and feats. When players are in dire straits and looking for a loophole, they will come up with some interesting interpretations of the rules. You don't want to be caught off guard by a feat or power you don't understand.

Another section to pay particular attention to is the Magic Items descriptions in the PHB. A powerful magic item in the wrong hands can unbalance the whole game. Once you give it out, there is no way to take it back without causing some hurt feelings.

The Monster Manual is basically a book of stats on each of the monsters. Nobody is going to be able to memorize that! What I think might help though is knowing which monsters have special powers that could be particularly dangerous in certain situations.

Imagine if all the members of the party have favorite magic items or spells that each do fire damage and they run into a group of monsters that are extremely fire resistant. What should have been a balanced fight could easily become a party wipe. You could argue that the party should be more careful to balance their damage types. Then again, being right is small consolation when the players get mad and don't want to play anymore.

Lastly, look carefully at new rules, or alternate rules, before adding them to your game. There is a ton of source material out there from various books, magazines, websites, etc. Just because someone says it's a good idea doesn't mean that it is. evaluate for yourself how it will impact your game.

• Obtain basic gaming supplies.
• Familiarize yourself with the rules.
• Decide on and document any 'House Rules' that you plan to adopt.
• Create a world map and a map of the region that your players will start in.
• Create detail maps of dungeons that your players will explore initially.
• Populate these dungeons with monsters, treasure, traps and atmosphere.
• Create encounter tables for dungeons, overland areas, and even for in town.
• Decide what supplies and services will be available and where.
• Create NPCs to give your world life.
• Create an economy for your world.
• Decide on the availability of magic items and the role of magic in your world.
• Develop quests and select methods of assigning them.

Treat this as a checklist. I will expand and edit this entry as needed and add links to articles on each step as they become available.