It's All in the Timing

Recently the wise Ken Hart raised the subject of slow combat in 4^th Edition. Certainly this is not a new subject to you, gentle reader. I’ve seen numerous posts and solution posts addressing this so-called flaw in the 4e rules. I’ve seen other posts stating that the slow combat isn’t a flaw at all.

Here are my 2 copper pieces on the matter, taken in part from a recent e-mail I sent to Ken and other worthies.

I've read enough posts about the slow combat in 4e that I do consider it a flaw (especially as they promised at 4e's release that combat would be faster than 3e combat, which is blatantly untrue). Some contend—and it’s good argument—that the plethora of combat options 4e offers all participants more than makes up for the extra time, the basic idea being “If it’s interesting combat, who cares if it’s long?”

Recent blog posts by Mike Ferguson and myself examined some differences between 1e and 4e, in particular the boring combat of 1e versus the more tactical combat of 4e. I don’t discount this. The swing-repeat cycle of combat for fighters in 1^st and 2^nd Editions could get boring. But I think there is also the consideration of what the players accomplish, how far the plot moves along, and so forth. Dice rolling is all well and good, but D&D is a roleplaying game, and if a single combat dominates your session you’re getting too much roll and precious little of the role. The price of interesting combat should not be at the expense of the rest of the game, or at the expense of what have become precious hours of playing time for many older players.

For me, combat is a big deal—an essential part of the game—but it's not everything. 4e can taken a lot of (justified IMHO) heat about being overly combat-minded, and I think it's important to remember that those final combats can mean a lot more if the players have previously interacted with NPCs, made friends, exposed spies or turncoats, solved puzzles, explored new environments, etc. A 3-hour play session that is dominated by a single, routine combat doesn't allow for such things. It squeezes them out. And that hurts the play experience.

As an old grognard, I used to love the DM-challenge implicit in wandering monster encounters. Now you rarely hear about wandering monsters. Why? Because in 4e no one wants to lose an hour of play time to a random, non-essential combat encounter.

So why is 4e combat so long?

A part, say 25%, of the problem comes from player options—players deciding tactics and interactions and such when in the 2e days, as Mike mentioned at Emerald Lich, you just kept swinging away. Likewise, the DM has more critter combat options (though often less than 3e, particularly with regard to enemies with spellcasting ability).
In the case of our group, all roleplaying veterans, there is rarely any lag time. Every player generally know what they play to do when their turn comes, so I think much of the problem lies elsewhere.

I feel that the main culprit is enemy hit points. In my 1e adventure Training Ground (published in Dungeon back in the day) the big bad guy had 34 HP. A goblin underboss in 4e has 110 HP! A goblin! It do think it’s cool that players can be surprised at the toughness of a mere goblin (as my players were recently), but with that number of HP there's no way most combats won't grind on and on.

The flaw is thus: The 4e bad guys have a ton of HPs. Why? Because certain Daily powers or power/feat/racial combinations or a lucky critical can dish out enormous damage. Giving a boss 34 HP when a player’s 4^th-level barbarian might dish out 30+ HP in one strike doesn't seem balanced.

The problem, IMHO, is that 90% of the time you guys dish out 1-12 HP of damage—so the bad guys are stacked very high to balance a rare event. In most combats, any decent non-minion takes 8+ hits to down, which is makes for long combats, especially given that 4e encourages combats with multiple (and mixed) opponents. (Most of pre-4e adventures feature single opponents in many encounters, something that rarely happens in 4e.)

Assuming that your 4e PCs do an average of 8 HP damage per strike, that goblin underboss still takes 15 hits to down—and that doesn't factor in your misses or other opponents...

So what to do? Let’s slice down those hit points a bit. Minions aren’t a problem, but most other monsters can be reduced, depending on their role. Secondary creatures, those beneath the big bad, can definitely be reduced.

Let’s take a sample 4th-level encounter (balanced for 6 player characters):

Level 4 Encounter (XP 1,050)

✦ 1 goblin underboss (level 4 elite controller leader) - 350 XP (110 HP)

✦ 1 dire wolf (level 5 skirmisher) – 200 XP (67 HP)

✦ 1 goblin skullcleaver (level 3 soldier) - 150 XP (53 HP)

✦ 2 goblin warriors (level 1 skirmisher) - 100 XP (29 HP)

✦ 6 goblin cutters (level 1 minion) – 25 XP (1 HP)

We’ll leave the minions alone. The big boss and secondaries (his dire wolf steed and skullcleaver bodyguard) will have their HPs trimmed by approximately 25%. The warriors, being mere flunkies, will have their HPs reduced by a third.

Thus:

Big bad, secondaries = HP x 75%

Flunkies = HP x 66%

Minions = No change

So here are our revised numbers:

Level 4 Encounter, revised (XP 1,050)

✦ 1 goblin underboss (level 4 elite controller) - 350 XP (85 HP)

✦ 1 dire wolf (level 5 skirmisher) – 200 XP (50 HP)

✦ 1 goblin skullcleaver (level 3 soldier) - 150 XP (40 HP)

✦ 2 goblin warriors (level 1 skirmisher) - 100 XP (20 HP)

✦ 6 goblin cutters (level 1 minion) – 25 XP (1 HP)

If time allows, I'll run two sample combats using the same PCs against the standard and revised groups above and report the results in a future post.

Of course, this is only a start. Hit points aren't the entire problem. Dropping enemy hit points without a corresponding drop in PC hit points also has the potential to make life a lot easier for the PCs, but I'm not sure to what degree.

I'd advise against lowering PC hit points, but instead consider limiting Daily powers (to once per 24 period, regardless of resting*). Another option, possibly to be combined with the Daily limitation, is a slight decrease in XP awarded for "downgraded" monsters. Such downgraded critters can still dish it out, so I wouldn't recommend more than a 10–20% XP reduction.

*A rest would still be required between each Daily use, but the "new" Daily wouldn't become available until after midnight. So if the PCs got into a fight 10 minutes before midnight, there wouldn't be an automatic second helping of Dailies after the strike of midnight.

What are your thoughts about speeding up combat? Special skirmish rules for non-climatic combats? Changing some combats into skill challenges? Using number tweaks as suggested above? Something else? Or perhaps leaving well enough alone?

The Legion of Super-Minions?

Recent experience DMing my 4^th Edition campaign has gotten me thinking about the minions concept.

Overall, the minions concept is an aspect of 4e that I really like. The idea of a mighty hero hacking his way through a horde of orcs like Aragon in the Fellowship of the Ring film is cool. It also allows the DM to present an interesting tactical situation: the hordes of minions (because, let’s face it, they rarely travel alone) can be dangerous to the player characters, yet they can be easily defeated. They are more bite than bark, as it were. It makes for an atypical combat situation and I like it.

It’s admittedly hard at times to get my head around the idea of 1-HP giant minions, but I mentally justify the idea by telling myself that the 1 HP is just a contrivance to ensure that one hit downs these guys, and that any character fighting giants should be at a level to do a considerable amount of damage in a single hit!

On the downside—and there’s always a downside to most RPG rules in my experience—as a DM I’ve grown to dread the inevitable player statement that is bound to come: “Oh, they’re just minions!” I don’t blame the players for this metagaming lapse; I could no more expect a player not to say/think this than I could expect them not to picture a striped horse when I say “zebra.” But I don’t have to like it.

I mitigate the minion “discovery problem” by mixing up my humanoids and making it difficult to discern minions, thus making it a trial and error process to determine which figures on the table might actually be minions. This helps. But still…

So recently I’ve toyed with adding concept of super-minions to my game.

What’s a super-minion? It’s a minion that lasts just a bit longer—two hits to be precise. Short enough to still have a minion effect in combat but long enough that players, when seeing that one strike didn’t do the job, will have some doubts as to what they face.

How to implement this? Giving each super-minion more than 1 HP, say 5 or 10 HP, isn’t the way I’d do it. That’s too much calculating for the DM. The real beauty of minions in 4e is the ease of the one-hit drop rule. No, something simpler is needed. I’d propose a two-hit rule. On the second strike that does damage, the super-minion falls.

Of course, this could lead to some oddities, such as a super-minion being struck once for 6 HP damage and staying upright while another super-minion is struck twice for 2 HP both times and dying. But this might contribute to keeping the players uncertain about what they face. Savvy players—and aren’t they all?—may of course determine that two-hits-and-down equals a super-minion, but hey, no system is perfect…

Comparing Editions: A DM's Perspective

Recently (and fortunately) I was able to run a 1^st Edition session for my usual 4e group. Two guys couldn’t make it, so rather than have them miss part of the ongoing saga we switched to 1e. The guys indulged me and let me run an old Dungeon magazine adventure of mine, Training Ground, that was originally published in 1998.

Mike Ferguson's recent post on the session and his observations about 4e versus 1e inspired this post—consider it a companion post—so kindly go here and read his first. It’s a good post and contains some excellent observations.

Back? Great. I told you Mike’s post was a good one.

I’ve had the pleasure of DMing both editions this year, so I’ll offer my empirical evidence and observation from a DMing perspective. Like Mike, I’ve already talked a bit about the differences between editions (here and here), but DMing one edition a few weeks after DMing another really knocked some things home.

On a side note, their group did well in a brutal, trap-filled and sometimes admittedly frustrating dungeon. At the time I wrote Training Ground I was mourning what I felt was the demise of the old-fashioned dungeon crawl—world-spanning, political adventures seemed more in vogue at the time—so as Mike rightly observed, I definitely channeled Gygax when writing it. Bravo guys.

Back to editions…

1. Combat Length

What Mike said. And his 3-combats-per-4e-session is exactly what I, when DMing 4e, tend to expect. If you squeeze in four, it’s a terrific night.

One extra observation I’ll toss in is the hit point factor. Increased combat options and tactics definitely drag things out a lot, but usually our players know what they want to do when their turn comes. Likewise, I don’t puzzle over the monsters’ next moves that long. This led me to wonder, was it all about the tactics?

After this recent 1e session, I think half the problem is hit points. In our 1e adventure, which was written for 3^rd-7^th level PCs (about 30 levels total), the final bad guy had 42 hit points. A few good hits and he was gone. I contrasted that to a side fight in our 4e campaign where a goblin underboss had, like, a hundred hit points … and he wasn’t alone. No wonder the damn combats take so long.

I think the 4e monsters have inflated HP totals because some feats/powers or combos can deal a hideous amount of damage, and the designers didn’t want monsters dropping like flies. The result being that during most standard combats the monsters simply have too many hit points. Likewise the characters.

2. 1e PCs can dish it out but they can’t take it

Because we had only three players and it was a tough dungeon, I let the players roll up 7^th-level characters. On hindsight, they were very magic item-weak, but still I thought they’d be killers. Wrong, oh so wrong. The fighter had 49 hit points (not too shabby) but the thief had 28 and the magic-user had 20! And that was with me giving them maximum HPs at the first two levels and letting them reroll 1s after that! Yikes. Do you know the difference between a 20-hit point character and a dead character? About four good hits or two good trap hits. In 4e, four hits would never take out a 7^th-level guy unless major criticals were rolled.

On the flip side, there tended to be more misses on both sides than there seem to be in 4e. So in 1e, the hits seemed rarer but stung far more for good guys and bad guys alike.

3. I had to resort to a lot of ability rolls

Far too many times I found myself resorting to ability rolls. Was the PC trying to identify a historical name or rune? “Make an intelligence check!” I’d cry. I’ve grown so used to having skills and such to cover these things that 1e seemed lacking.

That said, Mike’s observation about having the players describe what they are doing or where they are searching instead of simple rolling is dead on. It’s the reason I rarely run 4e skill challenges but instead incorporate skill rolls into the action, as I did recently when their characters chased a kenku assassin across some rain-slick rooftops.

In the end, the experience left me craving a hybrid system. Instead of the endless hits, endless hit points, and looooong combats of 4e or the tactic-boring, PC-dangerous combats of 1e, I’d really like something in between. Something where a simple fighter has a few choices in combat, but not so complicated that I, as DM, must ask players exactly what their Flying Dwarven Hammerhand encounter power does or sit back and watch them puzzle over the timing of a combo. Indeed, since the old days I had desired what I called “maneuvers” but now I’ve seen character development take a back seat to players becoming powers obsessed. It’s time to rein things in a bit, I say.

In any case, it was a breath of fresh air playing 1e again, and it reminded me how far the game has evolved (determining the number needed to hit is so much faster now from the old THAC0 days) but also about some of the things I love that have fallen away from recent editions. It’s got me looking forward to more 1e play, both as DM and as player (still re-reading Lost City Mike?).

NaClaMomo: Reviewing The Temple of Elemental Evil

For this installment of NaClaMomo, I'll tackle a favorite of mine (alright, yes, they all are) ... that uber-dungeon, The Temple of Elemental Evil. (I'll refer to it as TOEE going forward.) I've already covered The Village of Hommlet here last November, so I'll stick to the additional material.

The Temple was the long-awaited—and I do mean loooong—sequel/continuation to T1 The Village of Hommlet. TOEE has gotten both heaps of praise as well as some criticism over the years, both with good reason. This adventure has had more printings than any other TSR/Wizards adventure before or since, so there must be some "beef" there. Let's take a closer look.

Pros

1. Atmosphere

Holy smoke is there atmosphere here! Loevcraftian imagery abounds. Here is a mere part of the initial Temple description:

The myriad leering faces and twisting, contorted forms writhing and posturing on every face of the Temple seem to jape at the obscenities they depict. The growth in the compound is rank and noisome. Thorns clutch, burrs stick, and crushed stems either emit foul stench or raise angry weals on exposed flesh. Worst of all, however, is the pervading fear which seems to hang over the whole area—a smothering, clinging, almost tangible cloud of vileness and horror. Sounds seem distorted, either muffled and shrill or unnaturally loud and grating.

Your eyes play tricks. You see darting movements out of the corner of your eye, just at the edge of vision; but when you shift your gaze towards such, of course, there is nothing there at all. You cannot help but wonder who or what made the maze of narrow paths through the weedy courtyard. What sort of thing would wander here and there around the ghastly edifice of Evil without shrieking and gibbering and going completely mad?

The whole description is, to date, the most evocative description I've seen in an RPG adventure, period. And I've been reading these things for 30 years. Characters entering these ruins can expect a green light to smite the evil within (largely) without mercy.

2. Great backstory

In TOEE, the DM really gets the good stuff. In that I mean the secret history of the Temple makes for a great read, and presents a fully realized background in which the bad guys are evil, strategic, and play things to their own advantage. Iuz and Zuggtmoy are equally insidious, and they compete between themselves, yet each presents a challenge to good-aligned characters

3. It’s almost a complete ecosystem.

Somehow this dungeon combines some six competing factions into what feels to be a living breathing place. Clever players will play those factions against each other.

4. It has some great set pieces.

I love the “zoo” section of the third level. The leucrotta and umber hulk areas, as well as the laboratory and chapel areas are very cool. In fact, I’d easily name the third level as my favorite part of the whole affair, due to the number of unique and memorable rooms.

Cons

1. Production values

Production values were a little lacking in this TSR offering. The book is 128 pages long, but sports a mere 23 pieces of art (about a fourth of them repeats from T1). Some of the maps are also crude; after the great maps in T1 the Nulb and upper Temple maps are a disappointment and the other level maps also feature doors that look scribbled in. I will however give credit to Keith Parkinson for an outstanding cover that faithfully serves me as the best player handout ever (see below)!

2. It’s ponderous.

Enter small room. Defeat humanoids with meager treasure. Rinse, wash, repeat. The seemingly endless rooms of humanoids, especially on the upper levels, can get old fast. Today’s DM is advised to take a black marker to the map and simply strike a number of rooms on the two upper levels for sake of faster, more entertaining play.

Interestingly enough, I think the biggest flaw in Monte Cook’s remake, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, was a similar endless similar rooms approach.

3. It’s damn tough

No really. Some clues can prove maddeningly hard. The attrition factor is wicked, and there are a few encounters that are very deadly for their level (such as the earth elementals on Level One). The bad guys are clever. It’s the combination of all three that can prove very deadly indeed. Zuggtmoy’s tactics are very clever, and Gygax, in typical 1^st Edition style, isn’t afraid to make use of illusion or charm effects in helping the PCs find their way to an early demise.

One chamber contains a cloak of poisonousness, a super-nasty little item that resembles a black cloak, but if tried on instantly slays the wearer … with no saving throw! Ah, the First Edition days…

4. The Nulb section is lacking.

I’m guessing Nulb would have been T2, had T1-4 actually been released in four parts instead of two. I wish it had been, because perhaps—assuming the existing material were not simply divided up differently—we might have gotten a bit more Nulb.

The Nulb encounter key provides a mere four keyed encounters. And a crude Nulb map. That’s all. The rest is left to the DM to create. I’m all in favor in giving the DM a bit to develop and a hand in shaping the village, especially after the hyper-detailed Hommlet, but after having so very much of the rather tame Hommet described building-to-building and at times with expanded building maps, not getting more out of Hommet’s evil sibling Nulb seems a waste. At least one inner building map (for the waterside hostel for example) would have been much appreciated.

The Temple of Elemental Evil isn’t for everyone, but if your DM is up to the task of filling out things and editing a tad, and the players have a patient for a long haul of a dungeon, the rewards are there to be had. This very old-school gem contains lots of atmosphere, numerous dangerous and interesting encounters, cool magic items, and more villains than you can shake a stick at. All in all, a worthy investment and something that belongs on every DM’s shelf, if only for inspiration.

I think this year I’ll start off NaClaMomo with a bang, by giving my humble take on a very unique Gygax classic: S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. We’ll call it Expedition for short. The origins of this adventure harken back to Origins II and 1976(?) and the influence of James Ward's Metamorphosis Alpha, and TSR eventually published it in 1980.

Expedition tickles a special geek spot for me. As I mentioned in a different post, I’m not a huge fan of mixing genres. The result usually ends up—even well done, as in Rifts or TORG—as a chaotic jumble that tends to promote insane characters at the expense of defined atmosphere. Sometimes however, as in the case of Expedition or Talons of the Horned King, the author can present an RPG one-off that really works well. Gygax was no stranger to this, and he admitted to rare gunslinger or tech-equipped characters and penned two Alice in Wonderland-based adventures for good measure. Put simply, every campaign needs a little fresh air once in a while. Expedition provides fresh air in spades.

Pros

1. It’s a big sandbox.
I love sandbox modules. In Expedition, there’s a whole spaceship to play in! Lots of unique encounters and areas that can test a player’s roleplaying ability, as well as the ability to resist meta-gaming. Sure, the player knows it a ray gun, but would the character?

2. Cool critters aplenty
The starship nodule contains a host of weirdies, from the webbirds to berserk androids to the vegepygmies, not to mention a whole alien zoo! The unique nature of the “dungeon” allows for a host of new creatures without that odd feeling that comes from a standard adventure packed with too many oddball monsters. Adventurers entering this place can’t know what to expect, and neither can the players. That makes for very memorable play.

3. There’s nothing like it.
As mentioned in my introductory paragraph, Expedition is a wonderful breath of fresh air for any campaign that’s grown a bit stale or predictable. The adventure is scaled for higher-level characters, so there’s a great chance that the running campaign has grown long in the tooth and the players need a change, if only for a single adventure.

4. The tech goodies have limits.
Almost all the rayguns and powersuits and such run on charges, so after a while they become useless. Indeed many of the tech weapons found may well see action before the characters even leave the ship, further decreasing the amount of advanced loot the characters retain. The upshot is that the players get a taste of some powerful (and often well-earned) items but there’s little chance they’ll be around for many adventures to come and bedevil the Dm at every turn. Instead, the players are forced to decide when is the best moment to use the really powerful but short-lasting items, which is (IMHO) how it should be.

Cons

1. It’s a big sandbox.
There isn’t much of a mission here. Oh, the characters can try to close the starship doors and prevent further spread of the alien beasts, but that’s a secondary goal at best. Exploration and the possible acquisition of high tech goodies in the main show here. For those that enjoy open exploration, it’s great, but players that require that “I’ve defeated the Big Bad Guy” plot element will be disappointed, unless defeating the froghemoth can somehow qualify.

2. It’s damned deadly
Characters that are unprepared are going to get their heads torn off, either by rampant police robots, or the aurumvorax, or perhaps the dreaded froghemoth. Plus there are several more traditional creatures, such as the psionic-powerful intellect devourer, can present steep challenges if played properly.

Gary Gygax wasn't known for writing forgiving modules, and he certainly doesn’t make Expedition a walk in the park. Oh yes, any party that doesn’t hole itself up and rest in a quiet abandoned living quarters somewhere will certainly pay the price sooner or later. Probably sooner.

3. It’s not for D&D purists
It’s obviously not for those that dislike science-fiction elements in their AD&D game, to be sure. Though one hopes that players, lovable fools that they are, will try anything once.

4. It’s more work than it looks.
Like the D-series (to be covered another day), this module requires some work. There aren’t whole cities to develop here, but certainly the endless empty or near-empty rooms common to earlier TSR adventures are well in evidence here. The top floor in particular can be a snooze fest of abandoned rooms and skeletons unless a creative DM fills in the proper details and atmosphere.

I believe Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is a very special, one-of-a-kind module. Oft-imitated but never matched, everyone deserves to either run this once or, better yet, experience it as a player.

So what are you waiting for? Obtain this old-school wonder, dig out your ancient 1e DMG, and give it a spin. You’ll be glad you did, if only for the change of pace.

Bring on the Beholders

There are a fairly large number of monsters that are both iconic and favorites of mine, yet I've never actually used them in an encounter as a DM.

Often this owes to their power; one doesn't pull a Demogorgon figure out of the box every session, after all, and there's a good reason most players have more experience with kobolds than storm giants. I've also run very few campaigns in which characters got above 8th level (especially in the old days when leveling up was a much more arduous affair), so usually facing powerful monsters simply isn't something the PCs can do.

Still, there's a few critters I've always wanted to use but haven't: beholders, catoblepases, umber hulks, su-monsters, to name a few. Other creatures, such as the purple worm, saw use in my 1st Edition games but not afterward in latter editions. The arrival of Second Edition in particular had a big impact, because giants and dragons got a huge boost (and have been powerful foes ever since).

This past weekend, beholders (yeah, two of them) entered one of my campaigns for the first time. No, the PCs were still low-level. It was more of a foreshadowing encounter, a little something to make the players think ahead and to alert them to the challenges ahead. Little fish in a big pond and all. After a little thought, I decided I wasn't going to be shackled every single encounter by that 3e and 4e "CR" mentality. My current group, as mentioned in my last campaign post, is a very sharp group and they're smart enough to know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. And in this case, they kept their heads down.

I can't speak for my players, but for me it was fun to finally plunk the figures down on the mat and play these far-from-the-norm uber-baddies. After a while, one gets tired of kobolds and such!

If you're a DM, I suggest you find that never-used favorite, be they high level or low, and find a way to work them into your game. You might just enjoy it.

Now where did I put that purple worm figure of mine?

It's an Open Book

Next month I'll be starting up a new 4e campaign, and I'm pretty excited. I have an excellent group of players (which include several talented RPG authors, editors, and playtesters) and the group really has a wonderful vibe. Now the work begins ... but it's work of the best kind.

I'm creating a continuous campaign, which is to say a number of adventures linked together by a common plot thread in "adventure path" fashion. The campaign will be set in the Known Realms/Áereth setting. The plot is just beginning to come together, though I already have enough material on paper for 2-3 sessions of play. Where shall I "take" my players? Crumbling keeps? Deep caverns? Seaborne vessels? Aztec-style pyramids filled with worshippers of forgotten gods? Decisions, decisions!

It's been a long time since I've hammered out a campaign from scratch. A long time as in years. In my recent time-starved (and player-starved) years I've fallen into a habit of using modules or adventures from Dungeon for a few evenings play. This time is different—I shall create everything from the ground up. It's daunting, and exciting, and it reminds me why I enjoy DMing so much.

Playing the DM Role

At the time I started playing the game (back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth), I purchased a copy of the venerable "blue book" set from a store in New York City (no stores in my local NJ really carried it yet). My friend Brian, brave fellow, was willing to give it a go. Soon we sat down and ran our characters—a fighter (me) and magic-user—through Quasquetan. I still remember the first creature we fought (drumroll) ... a single giant ant.

I didn't exactly have the DM thing down yet, and I basically played while openly rolling up random monsters and treasure (the module left the room-inhabitants undetermined). It didn't matter, we had a ball. Soon thereafter we switched roles, with Brian serving as DM (only), and I did a solo(!) trip through the Tomb of Horrors. (Yes, that was insane. And my guy was low level, crazier still.)

Perhaps that first experience gave me a healthy fear of being a player (though doubtful, as it was great fun), but I really think my natural storyteller nature drove me to DM. Most of my friends didn't have a great interest in DMing either, so more often than not I found myself in the DM seat. As a result, I've grown most comfortable in that role.

My lack of playing characters, on the flip side, has rendered me rather self-conscious as a player. This year I've played a 4e ranger and much enjoyed it, so perhaps I'm shrugging off some of that. One hopes. But in the meantime the next great campaign project beckons, and I couldn't be more psyched. If they only knew what I was planning...