Mobicon 2016 Was a Success!

So its been a few months (more like 5) since I have updated my my page so I figured after the events this weekend it would be a good time!  My weekend was spent in Mobile, Alabama at Mobicon running some D&D AL and hanging out with some amazing people!

The folks over at Mobicon reached out to me a few months ago about coordinating some DM's and getting Adventurers League into the convention.  We ended up with three DM's, myself included, and ran 6-7 games from this seasons Curse of Strahd narrative.  This seasons story line takes place in the cursed land of Barovia which is ruled by the "evil" Strahd Von Zarovich which traps the party in the Demiplane of Dread until they find a way out.  I had a wonderful time leading the party through the many twist and turns as they slowly realized that the land is plagued by many forms of evil including ghost, trolls, vampires and much, much worse.  While playing D&D is nice from time to time, I have always loved being a DM.  Being able to tell a story and see the players reactions as their favorite NPCs die, or a girl who was murdered while holding the hand of her loved one at the alter, this makes it worth it!  Two days, many deaths, and dark gifts later, the party managed stop the summoning of a great evil... Or so they think.  I look forward to running AL next year at Mobicon and meeting more great people.  Oh, I even managed to snag me a 1st edition Monster Manual during a charity auction before I left :D

But the good times did not stop there.  One of the main things that Mobicon focuses on is Cosplay.  I saw some amazing costumes from all ranges of things including TV shows, video games, comic books, and more.  The amount of time people put into this amazes me.  I love the dedication they put into their craft to make sure every little detail is covered and nothing is missed. Mobicon was also visited by the Quest-Con Adventuring Team who was out promoting the convention next year that takes place on October 20-22, 2017 in Mobile, Alabama.  Quest-Con is a multi-genre convention that will focus on gaming and cosplay.  I wish I would had more time during the convention to get out and take more pictures of the different outfits but such is the life of a DM.  Despite the sleepless night, the trek through downtown Mobile to get some early morning snacks at McDonalds, and the new game of seeing how many floors your full elevator stops at before you get to the bottom, I would say the weekend was a success!

New Changes Coming Next Season for the Adventurers League!

Well folks I just got out of my LC meeting going over all the new changes to the Adventurers League and I am excited to see where this next season takes us!  See below for the talking point notes I took and feel free to ask any questions!

• All AL content moving to DM Guild. Rage of Demons will stay on the site rest of the seasons, after that it will have to be purchased.
• Conventions will still get packages for free.
• Epics are not included in the DM Guild.
• 5Chen fair still at conventions.
• WoTC prefer that individual DM buy adventures for store.
• Player created content will not be AL legal, maybe classes or races in the future.
• Store play can be still reported as usual under a new single D&D AL event.
• Stores will have launch events in place of encounters, cut down story encounters are gone. 
• Encounter style kits are going away. Player kits will be made available on the DM Guild site. Organizer kits are going to be digital.
• Organizers are not allowed to purchase adventures and then hand them out.
• Certs (might) be store or convention special, unsure. Certs are hoping to go print on demand but it is up in the air right now.
• Store still gets WPN perks for reporting.
• The role of LCs right now. Unsure right now but they are not going anywhere. Still going to help them get setup and running adventures.
• Stores can now charge for AL if they wish to recoup cost of buying adventure.
• Season 4 will be a tight knit story. Season 4 starts at level 1.
• Stories will be tied to main adventure that is released
• More DM rewards since they are now having to buy adventures. Increase to 25% as baseline plus achievements.
• PDFs will now be able to be updated and corrected.
• Season bundle or sub for adventures are not available at this time.
• Reporting is still only available to the stores and conventions.
• Coordinators will still be involved in play testing.
• It is unsure if stores will be able to sell PDFs.
• If you already own the PDFs you do not need to purchase them to run them again.
• Epics will not be available for purchase, ever.
• Premier cons will get the adventures for free.
• Admins can put their adventures on the DM Guild site... but they wont :(
• Players can use anything D&D related (Forgotten Realms), with the exception of art they do not own, to create adventures to submit to the DM Guild.
• Prices for official AL adventures on DM Guild site are fixed.

Fantasy Grounds Releases Princes of the Apocalypse

Thats right folks!  Fantasy Grounds has released the Princes of the Apocalypse D&D 5e adventure for purchase over at their store.  For more information read on!

Abolish an Ancient Evil Threatening Devastation in this Adventure for the World's Greatest Roleplaying Game

Called by the Elder Elemental Eye to serve, four corrupt prophets have risen from the depths of anonymity to claim mighty weapons with direct links to the power of the elemental princes. Each of these prophets has assembled a cadre of cultists and creatures to serve them in the construction of four elemental temples of lethal design. It is up to adventurers from heroic factions such as the Emerald Enclave and the Order of the Gauntlet to discover where the true power of each prophet lay, and dismantle it before it comes boiling up to obliterate the Realms.

• An epic adventure for characters levels 1 - 15, the Elemental Evil story arc, Princes of the Apocalypse provides everything a Dungeon Master needs to create an exciting and memorable play experience.
• Includes new elemental spells and the element-touched genasi as a new playable race.
• Adventure design and development by Sasquatch Game Studio LLC.

Dungeon Masters purchasing this module can use it to run the adventure with very little prep, other than reading through the adventure in advance. The contents of the story are indexed and linked, where appropriate. Combat encounters and boxed text are preloaded and ready to drop onto maps and into the chat window with a few clicks. Nearly everything has been optimized and streamlined for ease of play online.

This Module Includes

• the entire contents of Princes of the Apocalypse adventure
• image handouts that can be shared with players collectively or individually
• maps containing information for the Dungeon Master (DM) only and with all locations pre-linked to story entries which may contain additional DM notes, boxed text, encounters, images and treasure parcels
• maps with all hidden information removed and resized for use as tactical combat maps
• tokens for many of the monsters in the module. When no token is available, a letter token is used to represent the NPC
• XP for encounters that can be dragged to the party sheet and awarded to the players as they complete them
• Searchable monster indexes by CR, type and in alphabetical order

Requirements: The 5E Ruleset and one of the following modules: D&D Basic Rules, D&D Complete Core Class Pack or D&D Character Customization Pack

Dungeons & Dragons, its logo, Elemental Evil, and Princes of the Apocalypse are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.xcp?id=WOTC5EPOTA

Remaining July Adventurer's League Games Announced!

As promised folks I have announced the remaining AL games for the month of July over at http://online.dndadventurersleague.org/ so be sure to stop in and reserve your spot ASAP as they will fill up quickly!

July Adventurer's League Games Announced!

July's games have now been posted.  Be sure to visit http://online.dndadventurersleague.org/ and signup to reserve your spot.  Please pay attention to the level requirements to make sure you are able to play.  I will be emailing out the player roster a day or so before the game starts so be sure to check your emails!  I only announced (2) games so far but more will be coming in the next week once WoTC releases  them and they are available for me to post so be sure to stay tuned!

FGDaze has arrived!

I know you guys need more gaming and we love to deliver!

FGCon is the flagship Online Role Playing Convention for Fantasy Grounds and the second biggest online convention running. But we can only run FGCon twice a year and we miss you all in between! So today we are launching FGDaze! 

FGDaze is a one day event that will run every 2 months in between FG Con. That means we are adding 4 more events to your Gaming Calendars!

FGDaze1 will run on Saturday June 27th!

FGDaze will be organised and run entirely on the Forums and Calendar here. 

How do I participate?

GMs please post your games in the Game Calendar using the below as an example and keep these points in mind:

• All games start on Saturday (whereever you are is ok!)
• Our primary Aim is to provide more opportunity to new players to get a game and meet other gamers
• Advertise your Game in the FGDaze1 Games thread initially and then advertise it far and wide
• Your Campaign name must begin with [FGDaze]
• Post your game in the Game Calendar and set and confirm the game time - dont leave it to a vote
• Games will use Text Chat or the Community TeamSpeak Server
• For those GMs comfortable with teaching new players - please encourage new players in your Calendar Post

GMs please note that Full License GMs will get bumped to Ultimate License GMs on FGDaze Weekends - thanks Smiteworks!

Players

• Check the Game Thread often, subscribe to the thread to get regular updates.
• Make sure your TimeZone is set in your profile
• Sign up to a game or two
• Invite your friends
• Spread the word
• Respect the GMs and your fellow players - if you cant make an event you signed up for cancel as early as possible
• Have fun!

There will be more posts on this topic very soon.

Here is a sample Game Calendar post to use as a guide.

Let the Games Begin!



Link to official announcement

D&D Errata - Player's Handbook

A new printing of the Player’s Handbook corrects some typos while clarifying a few rules.

No matter how much orc blood and dragon sweat the team poured into making the fifth edition of D&D, a few errors slipped past us when the Player’s Handbook was published last summer. With the incredibly positive response the new core rules have experienced across the world, we have the opportunity to correct those mistakes in the latest printing. It is normal in publishing to correct typos, omissions, and misstatements in later printings of a book. The corrections in the new printing of the Player’s Handbook are of that sort. We’re very proud of the game as it is. We have merely cut words that shouldn’t be there, added some that should have been there, and clarified some rules.

If you’re interested in checking out what’s changed and have already purchased a copy of the PH, we have prepared a one-page PDF that explains the changes. If you’re familiar with past errata documents for D&D, this one is a bit different. Rather than detail every word that’s changed, the document tells you how a particular rule is supposed to work. This approach is meant to make the document easy to use in play.

The changes represented in the errata document have been integrated into the text of new printings of the Player’s Handbook, as well as into the corresponding sections of the Basic Rules PDF available here.

You can download the errata here: PLAYER'S HANDBOOK ERRATA