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Affilliation
I’ve never joined a social-networking site until “D&D: Tiny Adventures”
I’ve never been one to get into these “social-network website” things. Every time someone asks to add me to their friends list, I say I don’t have an account, and I get a look of confusion. I have a ton of respect for the social-web thing, I think it’s a great platform and still has a lot of untapped potential, but I just never found a compelling enough reason to get into the bandwagon.
Until I heard abut Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures (D&D:TA).
I honestly don’t remember where I first read about it, but as I scoured the internets for a regular dose of RPG news, I slowly noticed the words “Facebook” and “D&D” increasingly being mentioned together. I also noticed that the few comments I ran into weren’t all scathing remarks. They say the servers are often down, but then that might indicate that it’s getting more popular than they expected.
So, I thought it might be worth a closer look.
Here’s the official announcement from WotC’s VP of Digital Gaming Randy Buehler (Digital Insider #3):
Yesterday we launched a Facebook Application called Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures (note: you must be pre-logged in to Facebook). It’s basically a free game that we’re giving away to Facebook users in an effort to draw more attention to D&D in general and to the D&D Insider free trial in particular. The game lets you choose a character and then send that character off on adventures. You can just check in on your character periodically and read updates (I think of them as postcards from the road) or you can spend lots of time fiddling with potions and inventory. In addition, you and your friends can buff and heal each other so it pays off to get all your friends to play too. We’re pretty happy with it – I think it’s a fun diversion for hard-core D&D players and it’s also a fun introduction for newbies.
…
“‘… choose a character, send on adventures, check periodically, friends can buff and heal…’ OK, interesting enough. I’ve never played real tabletop D&D before, so what the hey?! I’ll give it a shot!”
And so I was finally convinced to join a social-network and see for myself what all the fuss was about.
Generally speaking, Randy Buehler’s description above already describes the experience very well. You pick a pre-made character based on the current D&D 4th Edition Classes and Races, then choose “adventures” (missions) to send your character to. Adventures are composed of several story points called “updates”, which occurs every few minutes (usually 10 minutes) from the time you start the Adventure.
At each Update, your character gets into a situation which requires a skill-check on your stats. For example, your character sees something shiny at the top of a mountain. D&D:TA will make a strength check (the game will roll your dice for you) to see if you can successfully climb the mountain, and the narrative text will reflect the results accordingly. If you passed the skill-check, you might find that the shiny object is an item you can equip, if you fail, you might fall and take some damage. Either way, you get eXperience Points to move your character closer to leveling-up, though you obviously get more XP on successful skill-checks. Although you can fail an Adventure, you don’t really die, and you character will regain HP over time to try for another Adventure.
If you don’t leave your character on her own, you can actually change re-equip her based on what she has or what she’s found so far, or you can make her drink potions (that have to be equipped prior to the Adventure) to heal or buff her-up in-between Updates.
Supposedly, your Facebook friends can help you out by healing you or giving you buffs, but I haven’t gotten around to trying this feature yet. I also wanted to provide some screenshots, but I can’t:
Due to events beyond our control, Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures will be down until 12 pm PST, Monday August 25. We expect that even when we are able to restore the application to working order that we will have lost some of our data in the process. While we are working hard to prevent this it is likely that we will have to roll back to our stored data from Friday, August 22nd. Thank you for your patience.
And so, after several Adventures (some successful, some failed) and reaching level 3, the adventures of Trifle, my Eldarin Wizard, came to a halt.
To prevent you from being disillusioned by what D&D:TA can do during each Adventure, you can’t really make choices other than in the equipment and timing of drinking potions between Updates. Also, you can’t really cast Spells or use Skills, it’s really just the game rolling dice against your character’s stats to determine the outcome of an event. C’mon people, it’s a Facebook app! You weren’t expecting a full-fledged D&D game, were you?! (That’s D&D Insider.)
Regardless, from the little time I’ve had in trying it out, it’s a fun time-waster and (more importantly) it appears to do what it was set out to do. As someone who doesn’t play tabletop D&D, this little app gave me a small, casual slice of the experience (which could perhaps be enough to interest others in the hobby).
I think Greywulf’s post about Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures describes what slice of D&D is captured by this little app.
If any of this managed to spark your interest, log-in to your Facebook account and send your character off to a Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventure! (assuming the server isn’t down)
— 2008.08/26 18:08 update —
Server’s back up! Trifle was reset to… nothing (I didn’t have an account yet last Aug22), so I’ll have to build him up again.
Unfortunately, Trifle’s rolling pretty bad right now. ;_;
Tags: D&D, opinionBooks Galore Next Month!
I’ve been trying to stave off the numerous book itches I’ve been getting the past while ‘coz, come next month, I’ll be like a rabid dog, pouncing left and right at whatever books happenstance brings within my grasp!
Why? The 29′th Manila International Book Fair, of course!
Next month, from September 12-16, 2008, the 29th Manila International Book Fair will once again bring various Philippine book publishers and retailers under one roof (this time, it’s SMX, Mall of Asia’s roof), to the delight of the Metro’s bibliophiles.
Unfortunately, like last year, it seems Fully Booked will not be there.
Still, this is will bring more books to your fingertips than what can be found in a typical Metro Manila bookstore. Aside from the hard to find/low-availability imported books, you’ll find a plethora of local publishers showing their wares.
You’ll not be of want for the typical local bookstore fare like bestsellers and student reference books (do we really have that many medical students? The number of medical books/references have been astounding the past few years!). There are normally discounts and promos among several retailers, particularly the major ones.
There are also various imported books on locally unpopular topics like like game theory, graph theory, game development/culture, etc.
I’ve always been on the lookout for academic research regarding Philippine folklore (I found some of them from UP Press’ booth last year) and comics/pop-culture (I have yet to stumble upon one. Maybe I’ll be lucky this year).
Personally, the National Historical Institute’s booth is always of particular interest to me. I’ve been salivating over the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo facimilies for a long time! The 2 thingshave been preventing me from getting those: 1) they’re huge! 2) I can’t read Spanish! I wonder what little gems the booth’ll have this time.
The new thing for me on this year’s book fair will be checking-out a few of the events. I’ve never attended any of ‘em before, even the free ones, so I decided that this year I should check some of ‘em out.
Among this year’s events that are of particular interest to me are (taken from the official website):
Saturday, September 13, 2008
- Cosplay Chronicle Contest (10:00 AM – 2:00 PM, Stage Area)
- 7th Philippine Robotics Olympiad (4:00 PM – 6:00 PM, Stage Area) - by Felta Multi Media, Inc.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
- Your Cosplay Story Contest (10:00 AM – 12:00 NN, Stage Area)
- Cosplay Workshop (1:00 AM – 5:00 PM, Meeting Room 5)
- Lit! Publish or Perish! (1:00 PM – 3:00 PM, Meeting Room 4) - Want to get your writing published? Hear from editors and publishers on the challenges and the certainties. A no-holds-barred expose on the opportunities, the challenges and the real bottom line. Copywriting essentials-materials, time-saving methods, productivity secrets.
- Lit! Trouble-Free Freelancing (3:00 PM – 4:30 PM, Meeting Room 4) - Quit your writing job and make your own writing career. A no-holds-barred expose on the opportunities, the challenges and the real bottom line. Copywriting essentials, materials, time-saving methods, productivity secrets. Seminar Fee: Php300.00
- Lit! Behind the Pseudonym (4:30 PM – 6:00 PM, Meeting Room 4) - Readings and Autograph Sessions by Celebrity Writers and Rare Personages
Monday, September 15, 2008
- Pistang Panitik: Pop-Lit (10:00 AM – 2:00 PM, Stage Area) - Comic book artists, performance poets, storytellers, and literary innovators, present emerging forms in Philippine literature
- Lit! The Right Script (1:30 PM – 3:00 PM, Meeting Room 4) - Insider tips on storylines and scripts facilitated by independent and commercial screenwriters. With presentations heavily supported by film clips and graphic elements, to be produced in conjunction with hosts. Seminar Fee: Php 300.00
- Lit! Trouble-Free Freelancing (3:00 PM – 4:30 PM, Meeting Room 4) - Quit your writing job and make your own writing career. A no-holds-barred expose on the opportunities, the challenges and the real bottom line. Copywriting essentials, materials, time-saving methods, productivity secrets. Seminar Fee: Php300.00
- Lit! Won in 30 seconds (6:00 PM – 7:30 PM, Meeting Room 4) - How successful copywriting wins the client and the customer’s mind. Eye-raising and exciting presentations by advertising copywriters. A “show and tell” copywriting workshop.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
- Pistang Panitik: Blog! (10:30 AM – 12:30 PM, Stage Area) - The business of blogging.
Of course I probably won’t attend all of those, but hopefully I can see some of ‘em (more importantly, I hope they’ll be worthwhile).
If you’re in the Metro, and you have any interest in books at all, you better make sure that the 29′th Manila International Book Fair is on your calendar.
No tags for this post.Pirates Respond to Positech Games’ Cliff Harris
I first read Cliff’s post addressed to pirates of his games early last week, he was trying to gather information on why people would pirate his games. As expected, a lot of the people who commented on his blog wrote about piracy in general (even though he specifically asked for pirates of his games). “It seems a lot of people have waited a long time to tell a game developer the answer to this question,” Cliff later wrote. Regardless of being specific or general, the comments (as well as the other related comments in the other boards) provide enlightening insights.
What surprised me was how fast Cliff consolidated the comments he got ‘coz he already posted the consolidation and his response last Aug 13 (I’m pretty sure the comments are still coming).
The responses, and the consolidated results are all interesting reads, I highly recommend reading them if you have any interest at all in the causes of game piracy (which may also apply to other forms of software piracy).
I hope that Cliff’s response to the results of his “survey” will improve the revenue he gets from his games.
Links:
- Genuine call for emails from pirates
- Response to pirates: Talking To ‘Pirates’
Nomad D&D Log, 2008.08/15
I originally posted these last Wednesday, but my connection must’ve screwed-up and I didn’t have time to to check that the post was a dud.
So, I’m re-posting it now, with some additional stuff.
D&D News
- GSL, SRD, Stealth, New Rituals, and DRAGON Editorials - oh my! - Aside from the announcement on the GSL/SRD, There are a bunch of D&D related stuff going on as well. Jonathan from The Core Mechanic mentions some of these. The one I would like to give special note is…
- Ritually Speaking - This is an article by Peter Schaefer for Dragon Magazine #366. Basically, it’s a downloadable (for now) list of 33 additional 4E rituals. As The Core Mechanic’s Jonathan pointed out, “considering the PHB only contained 49 Rituals, this is a 67% increase in the total number of rituals in the game. So, grab this quick before they make you pay for it.“
- Why People Hate Fourth Edition: “I think I’ve worked it out. D&D4 is New Star Wars.” - This is actually a very insightful analogy.
- 4e “In The Trenches” - From the source: “As most of the initial hype vs furor wars have settled down there’s some good “what 4e is” information starting to emerge out there. Ones I’ve found the most helpful are…”
- 0 and 1, or The Problem With RPG Combat - Hmmm, I never considered this that way. His point is a good one to remember regardless of the game you’re trying to design.
- A Noobian Guide to 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons - A great piece. Given that I’m a noob myself, the perspective reflects my own more closely.
- Playtesting 4th Edition: An Essay by Justin Alexander
Other D&D Related
- Download the New 4e D&D PHB Index! - This is fan made.
- The Value of Dungeons and Dragons - This got me thinking… what IS the value of the stuff I spend money on? I’ll probably try to make a similar valuation on my other hobbies.
RPG Related
- How To Build a World: The Basics - Applies to a lot of disciplines. More importantly, it’s a fun excersise which could help you tap in the creative juices you left in the fridge of your youth.
- Pathfinder RPG Beta PDF Available (Free) - I’m a sucker for free rulesets.
WotC to Revise 4th Ed GSL and SRD in the Very Near Future
The news is all over RPG Bloggers Network.
Here’s the official word from Linae Foster, D&D Licensing Manager:
Tags: D&D“We recognize the important role third party publishing support plays in the success of the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. We have listened to the community and our valued colleagues and have taken their concerns and recommendations to heart. Our commitment to the health of the industry and hobby gaming lifestyle is reflected in the revisions to the Game System License.”
“1960: The Making of a President” Coming to Game Table Online this September!
Heard about this first from GamingReport.com, but I’ll let the official announcement from GameTable Online give the news:
This September you will have a chance to decide the fate of the Kennedy-Nixon presidential campaign as GameTable Online (GTO) brings 1960: The Making of a President to the web. When released in early fall, registered players at GameTableOnline.com can play their online version of 1960 for free.
Designed by Christian Leonhard and Jason Matthews and licensed through Z-Man games, 1960: The Making of a President lets you take the role of John F. Kennedy or Richard M. Nixon as they compete to lead America through an era of turbulent change. The board game has received rave reviews and is currently ranked #17 out of 4660 games on Boardgamegeek.com.
…
I was actually planning on ordering this last July, but I hit a few availability snags. I’m hoping this game will help my efforts in getting my SO to play other games aside from “Settlers of Catan“. If the game launches at GameTable Online before physical supply is available to me, at least I can try it out online to see if it could work for us.
If ever I do enjoy the game, GameTable Online will still help me get my fix with or without my SO around. 
GameTable Online is now free, people! Come September, why don’t you give 1960:tMoaP a shot?
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