World of Esaene (ENWorld)

Monday, September 22, 2008

Preliminary MACE schedule

Friday 08:00 PM - 12:00 AM
Saturday 01:30 PM - 05:30 PM
Saturday 08:00 PM - 12:00 AM

D&D 4e- Fear of the Dark
Game Type: RPG
Event Type: Open-Play

D&D 4E, Level 1. When forced to lay over in the small port of Storm Watch, the characters get involved in a search for a missing friend and the first search party that went looking for him.

Pre-gens provided. May bring your own character (base PHB, level 1, 28 point buy instead of 22).
Maturity: MFV

Friday, July 18, 2008

Revisions and modifications

I've run the game twice now, making revisions after the first one and now refinements after the second. The third encounter was really causing me problems, but with some feedback from players I think I have it down.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

ENWorld Blog

I have created a blog on ENWorld and I may, given some thought, do all of my blogging for Esaene over there.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/blog.php?u=34405

Monday, July 07, 2008

Winter's Shadow

The first adventure to be published is called "Winter's Shadow". The design is complete and I'm working on writing it up, preparing it for layout, and identifying art needs.

I'll be running internal playtests this week and, once I get through with any revisions from that, will be sending it out for some external playtests.

In Winter’s Shadow™, the player characters find themselves in the middle of a conflict on the Isle of Deldesheim. The Baron of Deldesheim, Evander Agenor, is getting married in one week to the Lady Keira Morris, a noble from across the sea in Boyden Arbor. One week ago, a host of goblins and other beasts from the feywild invaded. After pushing back the initial assault, the Baron mobilized his troops, supplemented by two companies of troops from the Royal brigade. During the final battle against the fey, the Baron’s only daughter is kidnapped, which could cause the conflict to spiral out of control. Can the players rescue the Baron’s daughter and prevent a full scale war while battling their way through wild goblins, fey knights, and a mysterious gang of kidnappers?

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Making adjustments to the setting

Now that I've had a chance to run the game and (finally) play (thanks to Galen at Origins for the great session), I'm starting to make the setting adjustments to fit the world as it is.

The first question is a bit of a hot topic on ENWorld and other forums. What to do with Dragonborn and Tieflings. The change to Dragonborn is really just a backstory one - the Dragonborn are the result of a magical experiment, the mortals emulating the Gods (in that the aberrations were designed to be weapons); the dragonborn were created and bred to be weapons, turned into slaves, and eventually freed by their own power in a revolt that toppled an empire. They never rose to power, splitting up into various tribes and factions.

The Tieflings, on the other hand, actual have some minor mechanical changes to go along with their massive story changes. The infernal thing is something I generally reserve for bad guys or a major storyline, not your run of the mill warlord. Instead, the Tiefling are out and "Cealdara" (Key-al-dara) are in. Cealdara are elves with abilities relating to cold. The Cealdara will be cousins to the Eladrin and Elves. Outsiders won't know the difference.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

4E Statement of Acceptance

I've just filled out the paperwork and I should be sending it in soon so that BayonetGames will be able to publish 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons material.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Infrequent update - 4E Madness

I've been busy with "real work" (AKA the work that pays the bills) so I've been spending my free time actually working on things as opposed to writing about working on things.

I have 4th Edition D&D and have run several games (before and after the release, based on the pre-release ruleset compiled by Verys Archon on ENWorld and the pre-release adventure, Keep on the Shadowfell). I ran Into the Shadowhaunt for D&D gameday and that went well - my party, consisting primarily of 10-12 year old girls for some reason, had a great time. They beat the adventure and the follow-up white dragon encounter in three and a half hours.

I'm currently starting 1 4th edition game at work, 1-2 times a week at lunch; I'm restarting my play-by-email game with the current ruleset (adapting EN Publishing's War of the Burning Sky for 4th edition); I'm also planning a semi-regular game at my FLGS (All Fun & Games in Apex, NC) as well.

The plan is, eventually, to start putting the adventure modules and publishable material into these games to prepare for eventual release. The main issue, of course, is that my job and family are very demanding of my time. So I'm not putting any undue pressure on myself. I'm going to Origins this month, DragonCon later in the year, and MACE (a more local convention) in November. Since MACE will be the first convention after the official third party release date, I imagine I'll try to have more official content ready to go by then.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Narrativism vs. Simulationism

I've been seeing a lot of traffic on ENWorld lately about simulating critical wounds, dismemberment, and things like that. I suppose I fall deeply into the narrativist camp when I ask, "Why?"

To me, character-altering things like that should be part of the story, not up to random chance. "Sorry, your guy lost his hand. Sucks to be you." Think about Jaime Lannister losing his hand, or a real-life example of captured English bowman being maimed so they can't draw back their bows. Random stuff happens in real life, but in a story and even a game, random things don't jive well. Anything major has to happen for some reason.

Just my two cents...

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Long time

Hey everyone,

I know it's been a while since I updated this and it's been for a variety of reasons. Since 4th edition D&D was announced, I struggled with what direction to take the game. I needed more info to make sure my vision wouldn't be so close to Wizard's vision that it would make my work moot, so I waited and watched.

As it turns out, I like what I see. Based on the plethora of information available from D&D experience, and a few email questions answered from Wizards of the Coast, I've decided to continue forward with Esaene using 4th Edition D&D rules.

The current plan is to have several things ready for demonstration at Origins this year and have them available for sale starting January 1st, 2009.

More updates as we get closer.

-Chris

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Update

I'm working on the first publication for Esaene - an adventure along with some setting information (location, groups, NPCs, etc.). Once I get that to a good point and have it all written out (after play tests in February) I'll start on the next one.