30 Day D&D Challenge, Day 7: Favorite Edition

New Edition, of course!

 

Oh, what edition of D&D? Sorry for the confusion.

 

My favorite edition of D&D is....

 

CASTLES & CRUSADES!

 

I've written about my love for C&C before, as well as how "it's all D&D to me." I don't care what you call the game you're playing. If it has the D&D "DNA" (i.e. based on D&D mechanics), then you are playing D&D. And C&C is my preferred version of AD&D, these days. It does what I need it to do, period. And it's the spiritual successor to AD&D. If you've never checked it out, do yourself a favor and take a look!

30 Day D&D Challenge, Day 6: Favorite Deity

Lithe, dark, and EVIL!

 

My favorite deity is Takhisis from the wonderful world of Dragonlance! Who, I suppose, is also known as Tiamat in other planes of existence. If she can't seduce you to to her cause, she'll just destroy you! And she has five different breath weapons to do that destroying! All shall love her and despair!

 

30 Day D&D Challenge, Day 5: Favorite Dice

A sorta bad pic of my lovelies...

 

See the pic above for my favorite dice! The image is rather poor, I suppose, but believe me when I say those babies are an awesome shade of "mystical" purple, with all sorts of "swirlies" and sheen and stuff like that there!

 

Also shown are two silvery six-siders that are literally heavy metal! I got those puppies from Noble Knight Games, and they are hefty indeed. I daresay I could take down any GM screen with those bad boys!

30 Day D&D Challenge, Day 4: Favorite Gameworld

If I had to pick a campaign world that I've used in my campaigns - in other words, a world I've actually experienced at the game table - I would have to say the Forgotten Realms. Yes, warts, baggage, and all. Say what you will about the Realms, but it's got a lot of good stuff to it, a richness and depth from decades of existence. I know, Drizzt is a Mary Sue, the Time of Troubles was a bit ridiculous, etc. But I love the Realms in all it's iterations.

 

Well, perhaps the recent Spellplague iteration is where I draw the line.

 

But, I'm hoping for some Realms "redemption" with the new Sundering "reboot" coming out in the (near?) future. 

 

I never owned the legendary "Grey Box" version, but when I ran my recent Realms campaign I used the 3E version. And I consider that campaign to be my most successful effort, at least when it comes to my return to the table-top within the last few years.

 

However...all that said, I have some of the old TSR materials for Fritz Leiber's Nehwon that I've been dying to use for the longest time! It is very intriguing to me when I think about running a campaign set in the city of Lankhmar and the world beyond! That's definitely on my RPG bucket list.

30 Day D&D Challenge, Day 3: Favorite Playable Class

Yes.

No.

 

I like playing paladins. Probably because they've got a touch of cleric-ness without people coming to expect you to be the stereotype of the healbot. Also because they're more of a fighter than the cleric. I always considered both clerics and paladins to be holy warriors, but paladins are more warrior and "less holy." A paladin just seems to be more of a leader of men, who can lead the charge into battle. Whereas the cleric is the holy warrior that needs to be in a support role (i.e. behind better fighters, including the paladin). Oh, and who doesn't want to be immune to disease and emanate an aura of power, right?

30 Day D&D Challenge, Day 2: Favorite Playable Race

Tanis, sans beard.

You have to remember, when going into these blog memes, there are those that think they're not worthwhile. And you know what? They might just be right! But I've never been the most prudent fellow, and have been know to do some corny-ass stuff, so...onward with the post for Day 2! *

* I know I'm still a day behind. Working on my Day 3 post for later today, in order to catch up.

I love the half-elf. This affection might have started with Tanis Half-Elven, tormented co-protagonist of Dragonlance fame. I suppose, like any socially awkward youth, I related to the character's internal struggles.

In the image above, the ears are way too pointy for my tastes. They scream "full elf" to me. I like my half-elf ears to be a lot more subtle.

Anyway, the half-elf also appeals because in 1E AD&D, as well as 2E and my beloved Castles & Crusades, they have some elf abilities but not the weaknesses. OK, I'm generalizing quite a bit with that statement. I'm not an "RPG scholar" and I don't have the books in front of me (and for the purposes of this post, I don't feel an urge to study too hard), but here's what I'm going on based on memory (which could very well be pretty sketchy):

• In 1E, the half-elf is a bit less restricted in class choice compared to the elf.
• 2E introduced the concept of elves getting +1 to Dex and -1 to Con. Half-elves did not suffer this, but instead the whole "child of two races, accepted by neither" was reinforced. Cry me a river. I'll take a "roleplaying incentive" over a mechanical penalty any day. 
• Castles & Crusades did a sort of Middle-Earth thing with half-elves. Meaning, they can choose to take after the elven or human side, and doing so gives different benefits (see Elrond and his, uh, dead brother who chose to lean toward the human side). Translation = made half-elves even cooler.

Again, for any of the above, I welcome corrections/expansions of what I've written.

 

Now, over the years, I haven't played much D&D, but rather mostly served as GM. But those few times I've played, I've mostly gone with half-elves. There was one half-elf ranger in there, of course, as cliched as that is (did I mention I'm a Dragonlance fan?). Most recently, I played a half-elf paladin (named Drance, of course) in a Castles & Crusades-based City-State of the Invincible Overlord campaign.

 

Anyway, that's me and half-elves. Onward to the next challenge post!

30 Day D&D Challenge, Day 1: How You Got Started

Aww yeah, meme time! I KNOW, I'm a day late starting. Whatever. I'll do my Day 2 post today as well. Happy?

 

So, how I got started. Well, I've already written about that extensively in my testimonial. To be more precise, you can read about my early roleplaying years in the first post in that testimonial series. In reading other people's Day 1 posts, I'm feeling rather like a youngun, since I didn't really get started with RPGs until about 1987 or so. But please, if you are interested to know more about my roleplaying background, read the post mentioned above. And please let me know if  you're doing the challenge so I can read about your gamer origins!