Here ye here ye, come one come all and let the Middle-Aged DM try and stomp your balls. That’s right Fan Expo is next week from August 25th to 28th and I will be running two D&D 4th Edition games. Fan Expo is the big deal convention in downtown Toronto Canada that has burgeoned over the years into a massive cornucopia of comic, sci-fi, anime, and gaming goodness. Yours truly graciously offered to run 2 slots (August 26th and 27th, 11:00am to 3:30pm) out of the goodness of my heart. The free pass to the convention that just happens accompany running 2 slots had nothing to do with my generous offer I can assure you.
I will be running “The Fire Within”, which is an introductory adventure for a new living campaign that is being promoted at Fan Expo called “Living Divine”. The campaign is set in a homebrewed setting and the basic gist is that you have a spark of divinity within you, a god living among men. As you progress throughout the campaign and your power increases you gather followers and build an empire.
My first impression, at a quick glance, is that the concept is an intriguing story and premise for a campaign, particularly with 4th edition D&D where at the epic tier you are quite god-like and well….epic. What I am not really sure about is how it will actually play out at the table. For example, at each level your character chooses a “divine trait” which is essentially a power, ability or talent that is meant to illustrate your growing divinity. While cool and flavorful story wise, my concern is the level of power creep that this creates. I think PC’s are already overpowered and hard to challenge as is without adding extra bling to the mix. In a similar vein, I also noticed that the villain/monster stats are pre-Monster Manual 3 leaving them a little underwhelming in the damage and threat department. This has the potential to result in a bit of a snore fest, similar to a lot of the early LFR adventures. But don’t worry, if you are planning on sitting at my table as I obviously pimped the damage to more respectable levels. You see, I don’t like to be hindered or stymied in my attempted ball stomping. I haven’t had a chance to really look deeply at the mechanics for having followers or the mass combat so I can’t really comment too much on that, but cursory glance appears to be more of the same in terms of adding power the more followers you have. There is also a mechanic called “Divine Manifestation”, were the DM, after the adventure can dub your character with an a adjective that is meant to exemplify an important action your character takes or way they behave during the adventure, which then physically manifests in your appearance. for example, say you do something that is kind of douchey, the DM at the end of the adventure can dub you “Evil”. Every time you level you put all these key words into a hat (not making this shit up honestly) and roll a d20, if it is 15 or higher you pull a keyword out and take on that manifestation. If you pull evil “when you laugh, you scare small children. Unconsciously, you often rub your hands together conspiratorially”
Overall, Living Divine seems like a interesting home campaign and not something you should necessarily subject the public at large to. For my tastes, if I am going to participate in a D&D living campaign I want it to be set in one of their worlds such as the Forgotten Realms or Dark Sun like the more recent living Campaign “Ashes of Ashes”. There are also a lot of fiddly bits for both the DM and players to manage in a system that is already high on fiddly bits to manage,while adding to power creep and bloat. that being said, I don’t think I will run or play in this living campaign after Fan Expo, unless their is cool swag to be had as the Middle-Aged DM can be easily bought with shinny baubles.
So if you want to roll some dice bring your best 1st level character and let’s tango. You can find the specific character creation guidelines here as there are some limitations and extra powers that are specific to the campaign or you can use one of the pre-generated characters which I promise I won’t make too full of suck. Don’t worry, if you just want to bring a regular old character I won’t turn you away.
That whole thing is full of crap.
hmmmm yah, it is not rally my cup of tea
RENEGADE INTERRUPT: *Punch to FASE* “I’m tired of your disingenuous assertions!”
I am sure there is people out there that are going to like it. Am I one of those people, no. But I do respect the amount of work and creativity that the creators put into it.
Interesting. I find it interesting that you’re willing to try to trash a new campaign, sight unseen, just because it doesn’t seem to be your cup of tea.
Good to know, though.
Cheers,
Jay
Living Divine
Blogs offer OPINIONS, deal with it. Jason is a dude that plays games, like all of us. In case you didn’t notice, he pretty much tells us how it is (sometimes politically incorrect), from his point of view. He also jokes around a lot. It’s part entertainment (because it makes me laugh), part information. I don’t even play D&D 4E, but I read his blogs because they’re entertaining. I can’t believe I’m explaining blogging to you!!
If Living Divine is truly great, he’ll tell us later. And if it’s truly great it doesn’t matter what he says.
If you truly represent Living Divine, try being more mature about it. If someone slammed my work, I wouldn’t go onto their blog and rant about it. If I even bothered responding, I’d do it in a more professional and diplomatic manner. The fact that you folks at Living Divine can’t separate how you’d personally respond compared to how you should respond as a professional, says a lot about your campaign, to me anyway.
Good luck with your campaign, hopefully you put more thought into it than your rants here.
hey thanks man glad you find it entertaining
Wow. What a load. You talk about this campaign like you know anything yet you have your facts wrong, backwards or out of context. This to me looks like a bid to get players not to want to play the campaign so you’ll get the slots you’re suppose to work off. No it won’t be for everybody but it is already being request in a variety of places have only been live less then a month.
Annie
Living Divine
actually not true. I am looking forowrd to running the games and have put a lot of thouhgt and work in prepping for them. I would be disapointed if I didnt get to run them, and regardless of my personal opinons will run them to the best of my ability with lots of energy and enthusiasm. there are 2 aspects of the adventure I am particularly looking forword to seeing how the play out the first being the farmhouse fire and the second door puzzle.
oh and please le me know what I have backwards and out of context
“But don’t worry, if you are planning on sitting at my table as I obviously pimped the damage to more respectable levels. You see, I don’t like to be hindered or stymied in my attempted ball stomping.”
To be clear, based on that statement alone, you have no interest in running our campaign.
To be even more clear, based on that any many other statements, we share your lack of interest in you DMing it.
Regards,
Jay
Living Divine
Wow. We just were graced (pun intended) to have Living Divine at OGC last weekend and it was a full table every slot it ran. So much so that we had to turn people away. I’m sorry that you equate all games to ball stomping, and although I understand the hack and slash games (and enjoy them on occasion), I think you are missing out on a whole other side of gaming. I wish your event well and hope that all the games are enjoyable to everyone at your table.
Lisa
I am glad you had a good experience with it
You can always tell a shitty DM when they think their job is to “stomp” the PCs. That is the single easiest thing to do as a DM, and most grow out of it sometime around their Jr. High campaign.
Sadly, some never do. Even more sadly, sometimes you get stuck with one at a convention.
awesome, totally awesome
I am thinkning of trademarking that name and changing my blog to “The Shitty DM”
If you read this blog, you’d know he jokes about these things.
MADM, how did you get so many tro… *ahem*, I mean fans, so quickly? lol
These comments are insane. Read the rest of this guy’s blog, not just the one entry that has your panties in a knot. There is a lot of good in that post too.
Yes. Clearly, WE are the insane ones.
-Jay
Living Divine
Hint: Pretty much you are buddy.
I find it ironic that MiddleAgedDM is now being treated rudely and uncivily, when that is the essential criticism of his comments. Some guy accuses of “Jr. High” behaviour, while writing in a decidedly Jr. High fashion.
I may be dismissed as biased; but I think it important to explain that I am a friend and colleague of MiddleAgedDM. Yes, I am writing to defend my friend.
He is the one who introduced me to gaming in my own middle years. I have played in several of his campaigns, as well as together as characters in someone else’s campaign. He has been both gracious and generous as a DM and as a player. I have repeatedly watched him avoid obvious opportunities to slight a player in a way that would be truly hurtful to that person. Conversely, he constantly provides players (or other DM’s) with encouragement and praise, when they are truly feeling down and uncertain.
Yes, he uses provocative language. Yes, he’s mischievous. Yes, he can tease and taunt in ways that are quite irritating at times.
Is he malicious? No.
I invite you to browse through his blog. Clearly, his opinions can be challenging, blunt and irreverant. However, the overall tone of his irreverancy is playful, and he tends to add balanced comments which moderate his more outrageous comments. He did so in this post, in fact, where he (also) describes the campaign as intriguing, cool and flavorful. One of his posts actually defends the campaign, based on respect for the work and creativity of the creators.
I’m a relative noob; not well versed in the larger issues, debates and politics of the gaming world. I understand there are flame wars on certain issues. MiddleAgedDM has patiently tried to explain these issues to me over and over, as I find them a bit complex and difficult to understand in one go around.
I can tell you that on multiple occasions – as we have driven to a game store together, to support the gaming industry by buying products – he has explained that he does not support the hostile views expressed on either side of a flame war. He might differ with Wizards on various decisions; but ultimately respects their different point of view.
He differs on some points of this campaign; but ultimately respects the differences of opinion and preference as well. Sitting at the game table with him makes that very clear.
Chris
With all due respect, your ‘friend’ clearly states that he plans to run our material, sight unseen, in a modified manner… and in such a manner that is likely to drive folks away.
Forgive me if I don’t care what he has to say, beyond that.
I’m sure someone will criticize me for being ‘rude to a potential member of our audience’. I’m not being rude. But I am being straightforward in saying that I’m not interested in DMs like that. A DM like that pushes people away from the game, at large.
Jay
Living Divine
actually I have read the module more than once and quite thoroughly. I only modified some of the monster stat blocks for accuracy and average damage per the errata in the DM’s guide http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/UpdateDMG.pdf , somehting I do when I run older LFR modules, since it seems like your using pre-monster manual 3 bad guys
but if your greatly opposed and feels it misrepresnts your work it doesn’t really matter to me and I could go either way.
“But don’t worry, if you are planning on sitting at my table as I obviously pimped the damage to more respectable levels. You see, I don’t like to be hindered or stymied in my attempted ball stomping.”
I again quote the same passage Jay did here your friend is declaring an intent to run the mod provided by him in a manor other then that which it was written. I could careless about flame wars or what anyone likes to play. What bothers me is his disregard for what we are trying to create without ever having seen it in action. He respects us only as a back track to getting called out. His disrespect was made clear in saying we should stay a home campaign.
Annie
Living Divine
I am sorry if you felt narcissistically wounded by my opinion, but it is only an opinion about a gaming product and not a personal attack. I also wasn’t complimentary to stave off being called out because I am not really bothered about that or care what people I don’t know would say about me over the internet.
(WordPress won’t let me reply directly to your reply.)
middleagedm – We use our own formulas. If you are changing our materials, then you are changing the intent.
-Jay
Living Divine
no problem,
what formulas are you using?
Our own, set specifically for the difficulty level of the campaign (higher than normal), the type of scenario (the first intros are intentionally easier than the second season, and the campaign average), and the fact that our campaign includes permadeath.
Then, through playtesting and live runs, we tweak if we’ve found a rough spot that doesn’t meet our expectations.
-Jay
Living Divine
MADM, you know I play Pathfinder of course.
When I (or anyone else) tells Paizo I changed their material of their organized play campaign, they don’t like it, they don’t endorse it, but they also don’t go crazy about it and attack the fans. Especially since GMs only do that to improve the play experience.
There’s a huge difference between companies. Just think about that for a moment.
hey is there any pathfinder society in the GTA, as I would really like to try out the system of I can fee up some time
This, in my opinion, is an improvement; addressing the specific ideas. Jay, I should have been more clear, as I agree: you have avoided rudeness in your comments. I was not referring to your words. I hope that I have managed to avoid rudeness myself, and regret if I have not.
I chose to post because I believed I saw an escalation in rudeness, which I did not like as I am truly MiddleAgedDM’s friend; and was acting in defense of my friend. I am a noob, and unable to comment with anything worthwhile on campaging/gaming related issues. I can however, say, “Wait a minute. I hang-out with this guy, and have experienced him in a different light.”
And because of this, I suggest that he is more than capable of running a game well, regardless of differences. I’ve seen him do it. In fact, as a noob, I have been drawn to the game, rather than repulsed, by his DM’ing. Players do need to be prepared for teasing, taunts and relentless provocation at his table. That’s his style. Is it a bad style? I’m sure it is for some; but I find it draws me into role-playing, and galvinizes me into really thinking about how to play better.
Chris
How do I gain Followers?
Why am I penalized for being certain classes and races? And yes they are penalties, since every class and race is balanced in 4e against other classes and races.
Why add permadeath if you’re going to “baby” the player characters by not challenging them with appropriate damage from monsters?
Also Chris Perkins called, said for you to stop calling Hasbro WotC materials “yours” also he stated that it’s up to the DMs of each group to modify the rules for that group since not every group is the same.
I also find you’re both full of hypocrisy. It’s ok for you to change materials to meet your “intent” But, now you want to bully each DM into running everything by the book?
How do you know that his changes won’t create a better experience?
Also of course you had to turn people away from your games. It’s at a convention. Go set a table up and run this game on a Friday Nights at local gaming stores and see if you can draw a full table.
In fact send me copies of your playtest material and I’ll playtest the hell out of it. I’ll send you a full write up of about a dozen games in two weeks. Free of charge just to help you get started. But, in my experience games based off another popular system don’t get very far anyway. Just ask Amethyst from Goodman Games.
And, further more, you’re being straight up rude to the one DM you should be full on proud of, asking to join your team and supply you with with full write ups of his works and experiences. He has taken such an interest in your work that he questioned what material you based your creature stats on. He compared them to preMM3 and postMM3 stats and updated them. He took the extra step to make sure the sanctity of your game was preserved. Yet did you say thank you? Did you explain “No no we have the damage set like that for a reason.” Nope you attacked him for no other reason than to attack him.
But, hey if you want to keep alienating your target group (30+ males with disposable income) go right ahead. If his is the common attitude of your staff then I won’t even pirate your books, let alone drop hard earned money on them I could spend on a product the creators appreciate my input on.
In closing…. Your setting is kinda lame, and won’t sell very many copies. You’d have been better off making adventures except well you don’t know how monster damage expressions work…so I dunno.
Thank you for making my point, with your own hate and childishness, better than I ever could with my own words. We’re done here.
-Jay
And, what point did I make for you?
What’s childish is coming to a man’s online Blog to attack him about his opinions.
Or are we just supposed to ignore that you did that?
Why didn’t you answer my questions about your system?
Quoting your Player’s Guide. Don’t hate me.
“Less Rules Importance: We are less concerned
with the rules than usual. By default, we use the
latest errata of Dungeons & Dragons, 4th edition.
Want to use the unerrata‟d version? No problem.
Want to include house-rules? As long as everyone
is agreeable to that, great! Play the way you want
to play.
In fact, we‟re willing to entertain attempts to
convert our game to other game systems, as well.
Just tell us what you want to do.
Greater Difficulty: Anything worth having is
worth fighting for. Our difficulty level is set
higher than average. Death in our campaign is
permanent, making every dangerous situation
risky. And there is a chance to fail in every
scenario (and failing doesn‟t necessarily mean
death).”
Less rules importance? Yet here you are arguing the importance of your rules.
Greater Difficulty? By using outdated monster damage ratios? Oh the horror.
The more I look into this setting the more of a joke it becomes.
Great. Don’t play it. No one is asking you to.
-Jay
Actually the owner of this blog asked me to play. So now that we’ve established you don’t have a leg to stand on…. in what direction should this conversation go now?
How do I gain followers?
Why are some races/classes penalized at character creation?
Why introduce perma-death if you’re going to use outdated monster damage ratios?
I also like how your own product is so embarrassing you removed it from your signature. Course after reading that steaming pile I wouldn’t want to be associated with it either Jay.
Does the campaign planner suggest Sunday at 9am as the best game time? Will it rename the group session as “mass” and will it be called DM or “Testifying?” Is he a DM or (G)ames (O)perations (D)irector? If we change the monster damage ratios will you show up at my house and verbally attack me?
Also “Great. Don’t play.” doesn’t seem like a very good stance to take on product marketing. I would think you would want me to play. To see how awesome it is, to convince me it’s worth spending money on. But, then again I only want to college for Nautical Sciences/Criminal Justice not Business Economics or Marketing Sciences so maybe I have no clue.
tl:dr Answer my questions about your system. Thanks.
If my product is so embarrassing, why do you care about it? If you don’t care about it, why would I waste my time dealing with you?
I already said I’m done here. I mean, c’mon guy… you started out with “That whole thing is full of crap.” Now, all you are doing is making your friend look bad.
One last bit on marketing: why would I want to market to you? By ignoring you, I’m making the other 99% happier. You’re just some random ass on the internet. We don’t *want* you at our tables.
Cheers,
-Jay Babcock
Living Divine
Owner, Creator, Council of Elders Member, and Primary Author
I am not making anyone look bad. Except maybe you. You won’t even answer honest questions about your game. is this because you don’t have answers?
Also this is the 2nd post you’ve made after saying “I’m done” clearly you do not understand what those words used together to form a thought mean.
99% of 7 is still less than 2 full tables bro.
And, it is full of crap. Permadeath? Out dated damage ratios. Needless race/class penalties at character creation. Inflated power creep. Mindnumbing micromanagement of followers. Gearing those followers. How much more crap must I list before you say to yourself… “Yeah we really screwed the pooch on this one.”
I mean do you even know what game balance is? Do you understand why damage ratios are increased? Do you know why cleric divine healing got a nerf? Do you know what the level 15 daily of the ranger was nerfed into the ground when a single level 30 character used it to solo kill Orcus in one round?
Do you know anything about the game system you’ve chunked on hours of useless fat onto with no idea how it will handle beyond the first five levels?
One will one combat round look like at level 22 when five PCs have 1k followers each? Why would 5 “god’s” roll together anyway?
I like how I’m dismissed for having a different opinion than you have about your “baby” but seriously… have you had anyone playtest this game that would actually spend money on it? And, no I’m sorry 7 out of 10 convention attenders won’t spend money on books regardless.
Does the DDI carry your creation rules? if not no one will play it. I don’t even like playing other games I like since building characters is silly without a character builder. I’m not the only one.
You know what I was just rambling in my last post. So I apoligize for it. However I do have another question.
If you care so much about how this game is being run…why aren’t you headed to Toronto to run your game session yourself? I mean why pawn it off on someone that may/may not share your dream?
James,
You’ve asked how to gain followers. As you adventure and capture the attention (perhaps admiration) of those NPCs around you, they may decide to worship you and become your followers. Each Adventure Record you earn (one per character per scenario) will indicate how many followers you earned in that scenario, which you would add to your running total. Or perhaps your followers died, in which case that would decrease your running total. But, in short, you earn them by achieving the goals set out in the scenario. You could think of them as a commodity, such as gold and experience. Please refer to Page 47 of the Player’s Guide for a detailed description of the Adventure Record.
You’ve asked why some races/classes are penalized at character creation. I question why it needs to be seen as a penalty. Some races and classes are just more rare, or don’t exist, in this world and belong to other campaigns. It’s no different than other living campaigns, except that instead of just outright disallowing them, we’ve given you a pathway to have that character you want.
You’ve questioned the use of permadeath when the scenarios use outdated monster damage ratios. As Jay mentioned in a previous post, the monsters in the introductory scenario are intentionally easier than those you’ll find in even the next five scenarios published, let alone those planned for the remainder of this year and next. I firmly believe that if you play through the entire series of six introductory scenarios published so far, you will definitely find some challenging combats. Concluding that what we have presented in one scenario was a poor campaign decision without seeing the rest of the material is extremist.
You’ve quoted The Player’s Guide mention of using unerrated versions and house rules. True, we do encourage it. But as your own quote notes, it also needs to be agreeable to everyone at the table. Altering the stats of a monster prior to actually seeing how it plays out at the table does not (a) involve the agreement of everyone at the table and (b) does not give the chance to see how the monster, as written, plays out. It would be foolish to think that there were not play tests of the scenarios prior to release, or to think that if in the 60+ tables that have run of these scenarios, that changes wouldn’t be made if the monsters were either under or over powered.
You mention the lack of our character information in the DDI software. Regardless of the fact that there is no advantage to WoTC to spend the programming time and money to add a new campaign’s information to their software, I’d actually argue that much of the LFR information is not in there, nor is the Ashes of Athas information. Were they in a position to offer such support to us, we would welcome the collaboration with WoTC. That having been said, you can most certainly use the DDI software to create a first level 4th edition character and then do the three simple tweaks to make your character ready for Living Divine. Advancing a character isn’t arduous either, just give it a try.
Why would five gods “roll” together? Well, why would any five random adventurers roll together? If you have had any experience playing a living campaign in a convention setting, you would know that there is some suspension of disbelief as to why four to six random people get together for an adventure. Besides, there’s nothing saying you can’t create connected characters with three to six of your closest friends and play all of the Living Divine scenarios at home and skip the convention experience all together.
You question why we would not travel to Toronto to run the tables ourselves and instead are “pawning” it off onto others. This may be one of the pettiest things I’ve seen you write thus far. It’s completely unrealistic to think that the creator of anything could be there to oversee every single instance it is run. Does the director of every movie you’ve ever seen sit next to you in the theater, adjust the lighting for you, make sure your seat is comfortable and feed you your popcorn? As campaign creators, we need to have trust in those that are running our scenarios to do them justice and that the level of experience at table A is similar to table B. We should not expect to stand watching a table and not be able to recognize what is being run because things have been altered.
Questioning Jay’s level of experience with the game system is quite laughable. If you would so kindly, please turn to page 316 of the 4th Edition Player’s Handbook – 2nd column, line 8. Look at any number of photos people have posted publicly online of DDXP, Origins or GenCon for the last several years. He also has quite extensive writing credits for Living Greyhawk, as well as held an administrative role in his home region. He was formerly a Region Lead for LFR. The list goes on, so it’s not an effective argument to say he isn’t invested heavily and well-versed in the game system. While Annie and I do not have nearly the same depth of background that Jay does, you can be assured that we also know the game system.
I would have to argue that it’s actually childish to suggest that the product is embarrassing because Jay did not add “Living Divine” to two of his nine posts on this thread. If you are truly in our demographic of the 30+ male gamer, then I would expect more maturity than you are presenting.
You’ve also called The Player’s Guide a “steaming pile.” I do find it interesting that even with that characterization, you still push to have answers to your questions. This tells me either (a) you are just attempting to egg Jay on or (b) you truly are interested in the campaign and wanted to know the answers. Again, as a 30+ male gamer, I’m hoping it’s the second, which is why I have provided those answers you requested here.
If there are other questions you have about the campaign’s mechanics, design or scenarios, I welcome any questions or feedback you may have.
Sincerely,
Crystal Babcock
Living Divine
crystal@viceandvillainy.org
Thank you for answering my questions.
Allow me to collect myself in a mature manner now that I’m being responded to by what is clearly an educated adult and not some temper throwing adult-child.
I ask that you prevent your “partners” from further flaming the opinions of the Blog Poster and to contact him personally should you have concerns.
I think simply explaining to a veteran DM that the power level was intentionally low for a reason would have been a better course of action than “strawman” defenses and obvious trolling. Neither do well to promote your professionalism.
Once again thank you for your detailed answers.
And, now, I address the whole “every movie director” line you spewed.
Yes you should be at every Convention promoting your campaign.
Using a movie producer/director and every showing of the movie isn’t the same. A convention is a premiere. Or a film festival and I assure you any Independent Film will be backed at all those locations.
Hell Bioware (a video game company) was just at E3, Comicon, and recently Gamescon in Germany. But, they won’t be in every living room watching every player play their game.
I find it interesting not a single person associated with “Living Divine” is attending the biggest Convention in Canada where their product is going to be featured.
If I were you I’d thank The Middle-Aged DM for even running this campaign you can’t be bothered to support live. I would contact him personally and explain the setting on a personal level. It’s the least you could do. But, I guess coming to his blog and starting an internet flame war was a better choice eh?
James,
If we had the campaign staff and money that Bioware has and could afford to attend every convention, I assure you we would have someone there. I argue that this convention is not a premiere, it is merely one of many places our campaign can be played and happens to be the first in Canada. A premiere is when an item goes live to the public – which was GenCon 2011. There, all three (yes, there is just three of us) campaign staff were in attendance and working the full convention, either assisting players to create characters and answer questions, getting them seated at tables to play or even judging several tables herself. For movie producers or directors of independent (or not) films, the acclaim and revenue that their movies garner directly correlates to whether they get a future movie deal, or even have food on their table. A living campaign is not quite of the same caliber.
I do want to note here that FanExpo reached out to our campaign to include it in their program offering next weekend, not the other way around. While we are grateful that conventions are starting to take notice of our product, there is no realistic expectation that we will be there for every table that is run, especially when the first three scenarios are already available for home play.
In all of this banter, I believe the initial problem has been grossly lost. The main issue was the changing of monster stats without knowing the full scope of the campaign. As well, the blog owner stated up front that there was dislike for the campaign. Combining the two, it’s our opinion that would give people a view of the campaign that was incorrect and was inappropriate behavior for a convention-level DM (the changing of a pre-written scenario).
I have not responded to this thread to make us (Living Divine) look good, but instead to mitigate the damage you are doing to FanExpo. Fortunately, it would seem the RPG coordinator at FanExpo is similarly concerned.
In regards to your “temper throwing adult-child” comment, I’ve reread the entire thread, noting that you responded first with “this whole thing is full of crap”. This certainly does set an “adult-child” atmosphere, does it not? Those in glass houses must not cast stones.
I am happy to respond to any other concerns you have about the campaign, but I’m not sure that I can further add anything constructive to this “internet flame war” where I’ve only tried to mediate.
– Crystal Babcock
Living Divine
crystal@viceandvillainy.org
Wow…just wow…. So Canada isn’t worth your time?
Got it.
James,
I have been nothing but civil to you in my responses and taken time to answer the questions you have asked. The fact that you come back with a sarcastic, condescending answer is disappointing.
I hope that if you, or any of this blog’s readers, choose to give Living Divine a try, it is with an open mind and without the prejudices of these posts.
As always, we welcome any constructive feedback from players and DMs alike.
Sincerely,
Crystal Babcock
Living Divine
crystal@viceandvillainy.org
Dude, people have jobs and lives outside of gaming.
Really? They do? Just saying, if I was releasing a campaign setting I’d go to the biggest convention in Canada, I mean damn it’s only 14 hour drive from Indianapolis.
I’ve made the drive. Thanks for your input though.
James, did it ever occur to you that perhaps the campaign staff doesn’t have the additional time available to take off from their primary income jobs to make the trip? People have bills and mortgages. People also have kids. It takes a lot to pack kids up for long trips.
There’s also the possibility that no one cares about canada. Who knows…
Fanexpo is a tiny convention, if you just look at the gaming portion. It’s really not a big deal.
But first and foremost, I don’t think you understand how any of this works. I’m running their games at one of my store’s gamedays. I ordered their games, so my gmae staff could run them. Why would you think that they would be responsible for handling that? You seem to, based on your comments. It’s not their event. It’s mine.
If I’m not mistaken, I paid $12 to the LD to get access to their games. For six events. That lets me run ALL of them, as many times as I want. So, for paying them $12, you want them to jump on an international flight? Or drive from Massachusetts (I’m pretty sure that’s where they are from. I remember seeing Jay at Gencon in a Patriots hat, that’s Mass, right?) to a little weekend con, like this one?
All to satisfy people, like you, that claimed off the bat to think the idea was stupid.
Jean,
Close – 2/3 of the campaign staff is in Connecticut, the other 1/3 in Ohio. And, thank you, you’ve hit the nail on the head. We are providing content for conventions to run, we are not running conventions.
And for those interested in the specifics, each scenario costs $4 to order and gives you permanent access to that scenario.
So, in the grand scheme of things, FanExpo has purchased all six scenarios for $24. Even if all $24 went to the campaign (which it doesn’t), that will not even buy a full tank of gas to get any of the staff close to getting to Toronto. And before the argument is made that you must make an investment to get back a return, I fully agree. We all made the investment to travel from Connecticut/Ohio to Indianapolis for the premiere of our content, not to mention several smaller conventions (and Origins) that one or more of us traveled to and personally ran tables during the sneak preview months.
Again, I urge everyone to give Living Divine a try and see if you like it. It’s not so different from work – you need to enjoy what you do, not necessarily be friends with all of your co-workers.
Sincerely,
Crystal Babcock
Living Divine
crystal@viceandvillainy.org
I hope people do come out and play. I have put a lot of work into prepping the adventure from thikning about how to intorduce the story, characterize some of the npc’s, tocreateing material to help facilitate the firehouse scene, to how to manage unexpected pc actions and maintian the story.
so yeah, i am excited to play some D&D
Crystal,
Your last paragraph sums up this thread perfectly: “you need to enjoy what you do, not necessarily be friends with all of your co-workers”. I think it’s clear that the middle aged dm really likes what he does and that the Living Divine campaign is just a co-wroker, not a bff. That being said, I think it’s also been made clear that he’s willing to treat that co-worker with the same gusto in which he treats his best-y for the sake of those playing at his table. And who knows, sometimes that co-worker becomes a friend when your forced into the same situation. In any event, I appreciate your level-headedness and respectfulness notwithstanding that I have found this thread incredibly amusing 😉