We had a lot of fun making it. I hope you enjoy it. We plan to release episodes on a weekly basis. And I’d love to hear feedback.

You can go to our website: www.creativecommoners.net or find us on iTunes by searching for Creative Commoners.

The suggestively named library was of interest to me for several reasons. It’s all written in Java, which is my programming language of choice. It uses Google Web Toolkit (GWT), which is development kit that makes it easier to develop complex web applications. I’ve been using GWT for the last several months at work. Finally, ForPlay is mainly designed to be cross-platform abstraction library. That means that I can write a game once and with one line of code compile it as a web application or a flash application or native Android application.  That’s pretty powerful. I just want to write a game. I don’t want to worry about vagaries of a particular platform. I especially don’t want to worry about it since I’m doing it for fun.

The library currently supports the platforms (or will soon): Java Desktop (mainly for testing), HTML5, Flash, and Android. There are even plans to look at support iOS (to run on Apple mobile devices).

The other thing I like about ForPlay is that I’m getting in at the ground floor, so to speak. It’s only been available to the public for less than a month. Before that, it was apparently used to write Angry Birds for the web and was an internal Google project. It will be nice to watch it as it grows. It will be a good learning experience for me.

ForPlay’s newness is also its biggest problem. It is still very much in an alpha state. It doesn’t work properly with Android and Flash, yet. There are fairly significant code changes on a daily basis. I’ve already had to do some minor refactoring after a recent update. Documentation is sparse as well. If you want to get something done in a hurry or on any kind of deadline, I wouldn’t suggest ForPlay. You’ll want to wait for it to mature. I’m certainly not in any hurry as I’m working this in my spare time which is unfortunately in short supply.

That said, there is already a pretty lively community springing up around it and there is a lot of activity going on with the code. So, I don’t see this library going away anytime soon, especially when consider how powerful this could be.

If you’re interested in ForPlay, the code is located here: http://code.google.com/p/forplay/

The community and ongoing discussion is located here: http://groups.google.com/group/gwt-forplay

On my next post, I’ll take about the game I’m developing. I’m working on a simple asteroids game. I’ll describe the process I went through to create it and lessons learned.

The change in the site actually comes from a broadening of my interests. As I wrote about in a previous post, I wrote a short story that will be published soon. I’m also working other stories. It would be nice to be able to write more about the writing process here on this site.

The big impetus for the change to the site is I have recently (very recently – as in last week) gotten interested in video game development. I was lucky enough to attend the Google I/O Developers Conference. I attended the session Kick-ass Game Programming with Google Web Toolkit. You can watch it yourself at this link. It inspired me to attempt writing one of them newfangled video games. It already fits in with the main themes of the site: 1) gaming and 2) I barely know what I’m doing. It works out nicely. I plan to use this site to chronicle my efforts. For the time being, that will be the main focus Level 1 Gamer.

I am also working on another project that is still in its infancy. (Like I need more to work on.) I’ll have more on that soon.

I really just have the urge to open up what I write here on Level 1 Gamer to other topics as my interests broaden.

Each card has a little character buff on it. Plus +1 for this or that in a particular situation or you knock someone prone in another situation.To get a better idea of what they are read up on fortune cards here: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drdd/20110223

There is not much if anything I like about fortune cards. 4e is “gamey” enough as it is with how abstract a lot of the mechanics (powers, hit points, and healing surges) are. To add another level on top of that with the fortune cards doesn’t sit well with me. 4e already has a billion powers and feats built into it from the get go. This is adding another layer of unneeded complexity. I don’t want to play in a game where the players are fumbling with cards trying to figure out what they want to do. 4e has enough options for the players and fumbling around with powers as it is. Players have enough options in combat as it is without fortune cards. That’s a major factor in long combats and now you adding in extra options with cards or trading cards with players. I think the Essentials approach of reducing complexity for players was the right way to go and this going in completely the opposite direction.

Also, I don’t like the idea of player built decks either.  They come in random booster packs, so you don’t know what you’re getting. They’re adding this collectible card game element to a game that doesn’t need it. Giving a player mechanical advantages in the game for buying real world stuff is just antithetical to how I want to play the game. Further, I don’t want to play in a game where I have to buy cards to so my character can be better. It makes sense (I guess) in a competitive game like Magic, but not in a collaborative game like D&D.

It feels like Wizards of the Coast is flailing around with 4th edition. Essentials, Fortune Cards, canceling the minis line, the focus on boards games. They are really going in a lot of directions at once.  Maybe they are taking some risks in trying new things, to give them the benefit of the doubt. But, it feels more like they are struggling to find a direction. The Fortune Cards are certainly a misstep.

Of course, Fortune Cards are entirely optional and you can play the game how you want. That’s one of the wonderful thing about tabletop RPGs, it’s your game to play how you see fit. If there are people who want to play with Fortune Cards, that’s fine, I just don’t want to play that way.

Pen and paper RPGs are necessarily creative. As a player, you bring a character life – giving it a name, a personality, a back story. You are also imagining the events of the game – the flow of a battle, the atmosphere of a tavern. As a Dungeon Master, you are doing all that as well as crafting a story and building a world. In case of my gaming group, there is also a ridiculous (disturbing?) amount creativity put into dick jokes. All this creative activity is bound to spill out of the realm of playing RPGs.

It certainly has for me. For starters, I created this blog which is absolutely a direct result of playing games. My enthusiasm for gaming drove me to express myself. I’ve written almost 30 posts (not so much lately unfortunately) including stories about the characters I’ve played in the regular Swords & Wizardry game I play in. My last post was one such story. This is something I never would have thought I’d do before getting into this stuff. I’ve always felt character stories were silly, a little self-serving, and bit too much like writing fan fic. But, I had fun with it, so I’ve got learn not to judge until I’ve tried it myself.  I started painting minis after going to a workshop at Rincon. I’ve found the hobby to be extraordinarily relaxing and creatively rewarding for me.

Finally, my big creative project, the one that has been most rewarding for me,  is a short story. It’s not related to gaming, but it came about because of gaming. Really, it came about because of the people I game with. I’m fortunate to game with a group of very creative people. Our DM, Paul Fini, runs his own RPG blog, The Warlock’s Home Brew, publishes game modules and aids, is an accomplished artist, and has published several comics through Indie Only Comics. Many of the other players are artists and have blogs themselves. Check out: Gedleesmote’s Grumblings, Rambles of a Lost Viking, Never Crit, Rebirth of Classic Comic Art!, and Boom Culture. Being around all these creative folks is inspiring.

That last blog, Boom Culture, is put out by Max. He is a researcher studying video games and distance learning in education (I know. How cool is that?). He wrote a short story last summer and sent it out to the group. I thought it was great and felt maybe I should try writing something. I haven’t written fiction in a while. I always had ideas, but never the follow through.  Around the same time, several of the guys came up with an idea to put out a pulp magazine called Tales of High Adventure in the style of the old pulp magazines of the ’30s and ’40s like Weird Tales and Amazing Stories. The first issue just came out. Check out Indie Only Comics for details.

This set things in motion for me. I had the inspiration and creative energy. I had a goal to shoot for: write a story that could by published in this new pulp magazine. Also, I had a style, the pulp adventure style, that I found very easy to come with ideas and fun to write. So, I set out to write a story. I decided on a pulp sci-fi story in the vein of Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers with some influences from Doctor Who and Alan Moore’s Tom Strong.  Honestly, when I started, I didn’t think it’d be good enough to actually get published. It was just a goal to shoot for and motivation to actually finish. It took me months to write it, but I finally finished the first draft of Doctor Galactic at the Edge of the Universe in “The Creeping Invaders”. I had a hell of a lot of fun writing it. I submitted it and they liked it. After some great editing work (thanks Paul!), the second draft should be close to being ready to be included the second issue of Tales of High Adventure. Exciting stuff. Once it gets close to coming out, I’ll post a preview of the story here.

To add further to all this creative energy, my good friend has started a web comic. Check out Detective Agency. He’s off to great start, so check it out.

That’s all for now. Hopefully, I’ll be able to post more often. If only I had more time to devote to my creative projects . . .

Excerpted from the Great Annals of the Druids:

fter the travails and exertions of the day, Gnarly Blunderbrush, Initiate of the 3rd Circle, was ready to rest.  That day was particularly strenuous for it was the Black Sabbath, a day when the forces of evil seem to have special power. Gnarly and his followers, the legendary band of adventurers that became known as Arvin’s Avengers, had chosen to meet this evil head on and toiled against unnatural creatures in the ruined tower of Zenopus for much of the day.

2 As the adventurers returned to the city gates of Caladan, wounded and exhausted, the walls glowed a faint green. The town guards gazed in horror behind them.  The group turned to see the vile tower ablaze in unholy green fire.  Sleep did not come quickly to Gnarly that night.

3 Over the land and the hills and the trees in a cave in Harrowood Forest, the famed Mushroom Minions of Blunderbrush grew stronger and stronger.  Gnarly could feel them even in Caladan.  They would be ready soon.

4 As ever, Gnarly felt the Call of the Wilds.  The longer he stayed in the unnatural environs of human civilization the stronger the Call became.  The Call was made worse by the bitterly cold weather as Gnarly was forced to stay indoors during the night.  The walls closed in around him and made him feel suffocated.

5 After a fortnight of living in the unnatural environs of the city, the Call burned in Gnarly’s brain like fire.  Unfortunately, he was young, inexperienced, uncentered.  He acted the fool and tried in vain to resist it with drink and gambling and debauchery and lost all his gold.  An amount of gold that was obscene for Gnarly to have in the first place for a Druid should possess only that what he needs to serve the Spirit of Nature and nothing more.

6 Gnarly, embarrassed and sickened by his actions, left the city to the embrace of nature.  He journeyed through the snow to the Harrowood Forest to a cave, formerly inhabited by beast-men, where he found his Mushrooms fully grown.  Three young ones and the one remaining Mushroom Minion of the ones originally willed under his control were ready to serve him.

7 Gnarly returned to the city with his fungal companions and met up again with his followers.  The group had become concerned with the condition Lord Osric, a leader of Caladan.  He had fallen ill shortly after Black Sabbath.  Fearing that the illness was of dark magic, the group attempted to gain entry to see Lord Osric.

8 Only Televon, follower of the Dream Spirit Morpheus,was granted an audience.  Osric was unconscious and very sick.  Televon communed with his Spirit Lord and received a vision from Morpheus.

9 A dark skinned Stygian witch peered over a boiling cauldron.  The image of a light skinned woman appeared in the boiling liquid and appeared to be communicating with the witch.  The witch noticed Televon.  The witch disappeared and a black mass of chaos took her place.  The evil manifestation advanced on the dream worshipper until he awoke from the vision.

10 Televon did what to he could to comfort Lord Osric with his dream magic and returned to the group.  After meeting up with their wayward companion, Slick Vinny the Wizard, worshipper of magic whose dealings with a group mysterious magic worshippers had begun to rouse suspicions, the group sought ought the old blind former inhabitant of the ruined tower and former mentor of the evil witch Zenopus.  Through him they learned that the women could possibly be the witch Zenopus and the Queen of Stygia herself!  Dark tidings for the future the safety of Arvin’s Avengers and the land of Eir’ian.

11 The group once again resolved to explore the ruins of the tower to seek out the witches spell book and to find the herself.  Upon reaching the tower, Gnarly with his followers and Mushroom Minions in tow found the tower locked.  They climbed to the top of the what was left of the tower and broke through a hatch.  They found evidence that someone else had begun to operate in the tower.  They broke through another hatch and discovered the intruders.

12 They were thugs from the villainous organization of thieves the Black Hand!  Words were exchanged and it was quickly apparent force was the only course of action.  Gnarly commanded his Mushroom to take a flask of oil and a light torch and jump down the hatch.  The brigands were terrorized by the sight of the bizarre creature.  The Mushroom fought savagely and with the help of a mighty blow from the mace of Televon the dream worshipper, the battle was quickly over with one enemy dead and the other surrendered.

13 Slick Vinny, the magic worshipper, used his magic to charmed the remaining foe.  The group learned from their new ally that the Black Hand was searching the tower for the witch’s spell book as well.  Arvin’s Avengers steeled themselves to confront the Black Hand and rid the world of the evil witch Zenopus once and for all.

I am plan to run a beginner’s D&D session using the new Red Box on Saturday at 2pm. I want to run a game that is very new player friendly.  Take people through the basics of the game.  I might even try to do a limited character creation session if I can figure it out.

I hope to try out games I’ve never played.  I’d like to try Mutants and Masterminds or the new DC Adventures RPG based on M&M.  I’d like to play some board games.  Castle Ravenloft looks fun.  I’m already signed up for a game of Battlestar Galactica at 10pm (which is late for a father of two like me) since I here good things about that game. I wouldn’t mind trying a miniatures game since I’ve never really played one. Wings of War looks cool.

I’m also planning on volunteering at the con.  I want to give back a little.  Also, I think it will be a great way to meet people.  You get RinCoins for volunteering which can be redeemed for games or used as credits with the vendors there.  I’m always up for some swag.

So, come on down to the Tucson Convention Center 10/8 through 10/10.  The con is bigger this year.  Wil Wheaton will be in attendance again as well some great game designers and writers.  There will loads of games to play.  And if you’ve never played anything before, this is a great place to start.

The new Red Box has a low price point of $20 ($13 on Amazon).  You get a lot for the price.  The box contains a player’s book which includes a solo adventure that contains character creation (more on that later) and a dungeon master’s book with the rules, an adventure, and some monsters.  There is a nice set of thick card stock character and monster tokens, a large double-sided poster map, and a set of dice.  Finally, there are several sheets of somewhat flimsy power cards that describe the PC powers.

First, I’ll talk about what it does well.  The new Red Box does a fantastically good job at what it is designed to do: get new people into the hobby.  This is mainly due to the player’s book included in the box.  It contains a “choose your own adventure” style solo adventure.  The original, old-school red box had something similar.  But in the new Red Box, it’s not just a solo adventure.  It’s character creation, too.  This is brilliantly executed.  Speaking as a relatively new gamer, this tackles two of the biggest hurdles to getting into pen and paper RPGs: 1) Just getting your head around the concept  2) Character creation.  Before I got into gaming, I had a hard time even understanding how RPGs work.  ACs, attack rolls, damage rolls, just the general flow of the game.  All foreign concepts and difficult to understand if you’ve never played.  The solo adventure really helps introduce these concepts.  Character creation is very intimidating to new players.  When you don’t understand the basics of the game, it’s hard to create a character because you are required to make decisions on concepts you don’t understand.  The solo adventure walks you through these concepts and at the end you have created a character and have a basic understanding of the game.   I feel confident I could hand the solo adventure to someone who has never played an RPG before and they would be off and running without any help.  In fact, you could give a group of complete newbies the Red Box and, in an hour or two, they’d be running an adventure.  That’s huge.  I don’t there has been a product on the market that you could say that for since the original Red Box.  It cannot be understated how important it is for the hobby to have a product like this on the market.

The Red Box and the Essentials line in general is a departure from the original 4th Edition class design philosophy.   When 4E first came out all the classes had roughly the same distribution of powers.  All classes had At-Will, Encounter, and Daily powers.  The idea was for each class to have the roughly the same level of tactical options and combat complexity.  While I think they accomplished this, it added a extra layer of complexity to all the classes which makes it more difficult for new players.  Essentials shakes up that philosophy.  The new Fighters no longer have at-will or daily powers, both of which were a little problematic anyway.  Rogues don’t have daily powers any more either and have more movement powers.  The result is that the class designs are easier to run and make a little more sense in general.  I think these new class designs might also have the benefit speeding up encounters.  It is important to note that the new Essentials fighter does not take the place of the original 4E fighter (or any of the other classes).  It is in addition to it.  So, you can have an original 4E fighter fighting alongside the new Essentials fighter in the same game with no problems.  It’s all still 4th edition.

That said there are a few things that the Red Box fails on.  The main thing is that while it is a great starter set, it is only a starter set and nothing more.  It is not a full game. It only covers levels 1 and 2.  Character creation only exists in the solo adventure.  Which can be annoying if you want to create multiple characters or if you have multiple people building characters all at once it would be hard if you only have one Red Box.  A quick summary of character creation would have been nice.  There is no equipment list for some reason.  It doesn’t have a lot of fluff describing races or the world.  Powers are only described on the power cards.  So, if you lose a card, you’re out of luck.  The Red Box is only useful if you are brand new to the hobby (or a long lapsed player).  Anyone else would be better served by the other Essentials products coming out.  The Red Box is very much geared to getting you started, then steering you on to other products rather quickly.

I think Wizards of the Coast is heading in the right direction with the Red Box and Essentials.  They should be focusing on new and lapsed players.  The old school folks are well served by the retro-clones and the OSR.  The 3.x edition folks have Pathfinder.  4th edition is a great system for new players with it’s consistent clearly spelled out rules and PC abilities and it’s very easy to DM.  I’m glad to see that WOTC is playing to that strength.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the new Red Box.  It accomplishes what it set out to do.  It is probably the best and most accessible starter set to come out since the original Red Box.  There really should have been a product like this for every edition of D&D.  4th edition should have had something like this from the start.  I like it so much that I plan on running a beginner’s D&D session using the Red Box at Rincon in a few weeks.  I also plan to lean on the solo adventure for character creation whenever I get a game going for my family. It’s a great product and I recommend it if you are looking to get into the hobby.

Pathfinder is a fantasy RPG put out by Paizo. Paizo took Dungeons & Dragons Edition 3.5, cleaned up some of the rules that bugged people, and created Pathfinder. Basically, people who love 3.5 and don’t like 4th edition can move to Pathfinder for new content. I think adventures written for 3.5 are easily portable to Pathfinder as well. For all intents and purposes it can be considered D&D 3.75. I had fun during the game session. The DM did a great job, the other players were good, and the story was interesting with a nice twist at the end. But, I didn’t care much for Pathfinder itself. The first game of D&D I ever played (and subsequently the first campaign I played in) used D&D 3.5. That was only a little over a year ago. While, obviously, I fell in love with the hobby, I wasn’t particularly crazy about D&D 3.5. Pathfinder really hasn’t change anything about 3.5 that would improve upon my initial impression.

I have several problems with Pathfinder (and 3.5 in general). First of all, it’s a very rules heavy game. Combat rules are complicated without adding any tactical depth. While Pathfinder has apparently cleaned up some problems from 3.5 like grappling and combat maneuver rules, they still seem too complex. Also, the game seems to expect you to have a near encyclopedic knowledge of spells, potions, and items. I played an Alchemist which was a fun class in concept, but I spent a lot of time looking up the effects of potions and mutagens. I wasn’t the only one looking up things for their character either. When you do look up something, you are presented with a wall of text that you have to wade through in order to figure out how it works. I feel like 4th edition (which is rules heavy, too) does a better job of managing the complexity with concise, standardized stat blocks for items, spells, and abilities. Also, a lot of the rules heavy lifting for PCs is taken care of by the character builder. The 4th edition game I recently ran involved mostly people new to 4th edition and I don’t anyone needed to crack a book. With Pathfinder, several people needed to spend time looking things up. It just seems like you need to keep track of a lot more minutiae in Pathfinder and 3.5 and I don’t care for that.

Also, the combat wasn’t any more tactically compelling than combat in my regular Swords & Wizardry game (an Original D&D clone and very rules light game) but ran longer because of the more complex rules. So, Pathfinder combat ends up being the worst of both worlds for me. It can be long and tedious without the tactical complexity of 4th and without the drama, danger, and speed of S&W combat.

Oh, yeah. One thing that really drives me nuts is critical hits. In Pathfinder and 3.5 when you roll a 20, you have to roll again to “confirm” the critical hit. It really dulls the excitement of rolling a 20 for me if I have to roll again to “confirm” it and just seems complex for the sake of complexity. Drives me bonkers.

While I’ve been knocking Pathfinder for the past few paragraphs, like I said, I still had fun playing. With the right group of people and DM, I’d play Pathfinder again but it wouldn’t be my first (or second) choice for game system. I also really enjoyed my PC. Alchemist is a fun class to play and the concept is fun. I may see if I can find an alchemist class for Swords & Wizardry or make one of my own for fun.

I’m glad I made it out to the Meetup and hope to make it out again soon.

The gathering was more sparsely attended than ones I’ve attended previously.  I’m not sure why that is.  It might be due to the success of the weekly 4^th edition Living Forgotten Realms nights.  Or it was summer.  Or who knows? But, there were enough people there to have  a full five players in my game and enough players for another game running.  Only one of the players had ever played 4^th edition before.  The rest were RPG players with experience in the various other versions of D&D.  This didn’t present too much of a problem since 4^th edition is pretty easy to pick up.  A couple of guys from my gaming group came out to play including my DM which was fun.

First of all, I’ll talk about what I think went well.  I think I did a good job of keeping combat moving and flowing.  One of the biggest problems with 4^th edition in my (and many others) opinion is that combat can get really bogged down.  I enjoy tactical, crunchy combat.  I detest long, tedious combat.  In my experience 4^th edition can easily swing from one to the other especially in the hands of a poor DM and/or indecisive players.  I think I succeeded in keeping the rounds quick and moving along.  I used the initiative tracking method of writing all the PC names on slips of paper and hanging them on the DM screen.  This worked well for me and helped keep things moving.  I also tried to encourage creative thinking and players trying crazy things in combat.  I gave bonuses for stunts and crazy ideas (after the appropriate skill check of course).  I also played somewhat loose with the rules.  For me, fun trumps rules.  And with people new to 4^th edition who are getting used to the new style of combat, I wanted to allow for some leeway on things.

Some things didn’t go quite as well.  The session was very combat heavy and there wasn’t a lot of role playing.  Partially this is due to being a public game with pre-generated characters.  But, I think I could have done more to encourage RP and my RP skills aren’t exactly strong.  RP one of things I struggle with at times in RPGs. Also, tThe session was very railroady.  Again, it was a public game with a limited amount of time and I was running a module.  My ability to encourage players to forge their own paths was very limited.  It was also hotter than hell in the room where we played.  Of course, I had no control over that, but it did make things a little uncomfortable.

One thing I was surprised about was how difficult the first two encounters were for the PCs.  I ran the first two encounters as written in the module.  Rescue at Rivenroar starts with an encounter in a bar and then an encounter in the street with a fire wielding ogre.  These encounters are what drew me to the module in the first place because of interesting elements such as fire and they take place in interesting environments.  In the first encounter, the cleric was dropped a couple of times.  This was due to a unlucky placement of the cleric and some really bad rolls by the players and good rolls by me.  Also, everybody was getting still settled in to their character and 4^th edition combat in general.  In the second encounter with the ogre a pc was actually killed.  Like, killed killed.  That really surprised me.  He was taken down by a massive hit from the ogre.  To keep things moving, I let that player jump back into the game as the PCs twin brother.

I ran the module pretty much as written (except for taking out the skill challenges which didn’t add anything) until the players got to the dungeon.  The dungeon in the module is massive, rather grindy, and many of the rooms are really uninteresting.  It would take multiple sessions to crawl through this dungeon, so I cherry picked and modified two encounters.  I took one encounter and changed the layout a little.  I used some 3D dungeon tiles from the Harrowing Halls to give the encounter some elevation.  The last encounter was with Sinruth, the modules “Big Bad”.  I completely changed the layout of this encounter.  I lowered Sinruth’s AC a little because the players weren’t at level 2.  I think the module assumes that the players are at level 2 when they get to this encounter.  I also gave Sinruth a new power, an invocation to the god Tiamat that shook the room and created pits.  It made things a little more interesting.  These encounters went much more smoothly and the PCs had less trouble with these.

I had help modifying Sinruth and the module from the folks at RPG.net.  Thanks to all the feedback in this thread.

Overall, I think things went well and I hope the players had fun.