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The Saving Throw
Save vs Taverns June 23rd, 2010
We never saw nothin' but brass taps and oak, kept a shine on the bar with the sleeves of our coats.

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Real men fight with dice!

Well met, gentles.

This has been a good week. My weekly game is back and running, Saturday was Free RPG Day, Leverage is back on TV, and I had some very good beer over the week-end. Why did I not mention that Free RPG Day was on Saturday? While it is my 3rd favourite RPG related holiday, I can never remember what day it actually is from year to year, apologies for my mistake. I can never remember what day Father's Day is either. The freebies I picked up were both quick-start rules with starter adventures for Hollow Earth Expeditions and the shiny new 4th edition of Legend of the Five Rings. Based on the quick-start rules I didn't see many drastic changes in L5R, but I expect there's been a lot of smaller tweaks that won't come up until I read the whole book. HEE is new to me, but I'll give a recommendation to any game that lets you ride dinosaurs and punch Nazis. Leverage, if you haven't heard of it, is a great series about a team of con artists and thieves who put their talents to helping hopeless cases, think of it as Burn Notice with a twist of Ocean's 11. The beer was Schleimhammer Roggenbier from Mill St. Brewery, it was bitter, hop-y and as much fun to say as it is to drink (unless you're underage, in which case beer is very, very bad for you).

The column for this time around features some advice on avoiding one of the most tiresome clichés of campaign kick-off sessions and the usual news round-up.

For a place to game, check our Roleplaying Forum, with lively forum-based gaming and discussion as well as the opportunity to meet up with gamers in your area.



Features

Save vs. Cliché


News Briefs

The list of nominees for the Origins Awards is up, and this also provides me with a list things I should probably review in the future. I don't have too many strong feelings about most of the awards, but Weird War II better take best supplement. Any campaign that starts with "You're hunkered down in thick of the siege of Leningrad, you can hear Nazi tanks and the clamor of heavy fire-fighting approaching. Roll to see if you got a gun, bullets or food." is freaking awesome.

CNN ran an article about D&D Encounters. The Encounters concept is neat, and I might drop in one a few sessions once they start running Dark Sun. But what makes this news-worthy is the fact that a mainstream news outlet wrote about D&D without once mentioning Satanism or witchcraft.

John Wick designer of Legend of the Five Rings, Seventh Sea, and indie hit Houses of the Blooded, recently co-hosted the Bearswarm podcast. I have not played any of Mr. Wick's games, but he is hilarious and awesome to listen to. Go do it. Now.

Trying to capitalize on the intersection of Pathfider fans, cosplayers, and people who like to win contests, Paizo is once again running a Pathfinder Cosplay contest at this years Gen-Con. Get the full details and fake boobs here.

The Dice, Food, Lodging podcast presents Adventure Week. Participants will have from June 27 until July 3 to do what every game master does, write a fun adventure in a week. The difference being that instead of the hasty doodles, margin scrawls on cocktail napkins and arcane codes of your average GM notes it must be useable as an adventure by another human being, and its quality will be judged by a bunch of guys you don't know, rather your gaming group mumbling something about having fun as they make their way out your door. So it's like NaNoWriMo, but even nerdier, and with prizes. Get the full details right here.



Outro

At first I was kind of dismissive of Adventure Week (my exact comments were: "Adventure Week? ALL Gms do that EVERY week. How the hell is that in anyway special?"), but then I realized it would help generate topical content for my column, so I now declare myself to be fully on board with this event and that by next column there will be a super cool one-shot adventure written by me for you guys to download.

Until next time, may your critical successes be well timed.


Scott Wachter, proprietor of the Amber Lemur Inn.



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