Wow it’s been a while since I got my writing groove on.

Anyroadup.

Why have I left 4E D&D to take what could in effect be construed as a retrograde step?

When 4E was released I was filled with enthusiasm, I bought all the books, no really, ALL the books. I loved it, it was clear concise, and meant you could kind of ignore the mechanics because they’d all been simplified, there was plenty of crunch and things were good. The simplification of the skills made sense to me, I could see it taking off, so much so I decided to run LFR.

This is when my perception started to drift downwards.

For a start, to sign up to GM public games for WoTC, free of charge mind, you had to know the secret ninja routes through their website, you had to be affiliated with a game store or speak to people in the know in Hasbro. Then there’s the fact that they have tried to shoehorn the RPG stuff into the MtG modules and it starts to get a bit dispiriting.

Alright, so I got past all that lot and started running modules, some groups were great and were prepared to roleplay it to the max, other groups (you know who you are) went in like a SWAT team and finally there was the last group, “Look we don’t have time to roleplay this, we need to kill everything and get the rewards.”

Yes I’m generalising, but that was the overall feeling I was getting, members of the final style of play would do things like demand the type of skill challenge, how many successes they needed and what skills they should be using. I don’t know about you but that really ground me down, I felt like I was an umpire in a Squad Level Tactical Game.

Finally, WoTC decided they were losing too much to piracy and decided to give a great big fuck you very much to all of us who were actually paying for their products, this came in the form of the online CB, the way they dealt with it and the way they announced it sent me into apoplexy, if a company is going to survive it has to look after the customers who pay and not screw them over because other asswipes don’t pay.

So that then, is why I will be stepping away from 4E, there are some really good groups out there and I am not knocking them, if they have fun then I applaud them and wish them to continue to do so. (/me looks at Whitt)

Why Pathfinder?

I have a lot of good memories of 3.5 D&D, I also feel the rules don’t point you at combat in the same manner and after my initial contact with http://www.paizo.com &  http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety I find I am enthused over the product. Reading the rulebooks and the released adventure products, the style and tone in which they are written calls out to me.

Let’s also not forget I have a huge amount of D&D 3.5 material at home left over from the last time I played this game.

I’m currently preparing to run the Adventure Path “Rise of the Runelords” for one of the groups I play in at the moment and the write-ups have just the right amount of fluff and crunch to make me very happy, Sandpoint is a living breathing location in my mind and I’m sure the guys will have a lot of fun, I’ll also run it for the other groups if they want and if we can finally arrange a regular meet time/place.

Am I sorry I went to 4E?

No way, you have to try everything once, I get why people like it, I get why it works for them, it just doesn’t work for me, to all you 4E dudes out there, keep on rocking, the industry needs your support.

CaptCalamitous

Comments: 4 comments

Tags: 4e, Captain Curmudgeon, D&D, Pathfinder

For anyone who’s been playing with the two new web-services that the online version of WotC’s Character Builder uses, you may have tried remotely logging in, but wondered how the password needs to be encrypted?

Well I’ve cracked the way passwords are encrypted and have been able to login remotely and do simple actions such as, get a list of all my characters and export the XML for an old style DnD4e file.

Here’s a simple bit of C# showing how to encode a password.

public static byte[] SimpleEncrypt(string value, string key)
{
    byte[] buffer2;
    ICryptoTransform transform = GetSimpleAlgorithm(key).CreateEncryptor();
    using (MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream())
    {
        using (CryptoStream stream2 = new CryptoStream(stream, transform, CryptoStreamMode.Write))
        {
            byte[] bytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(value);
            stream2.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
            stream2.Flush();
            stream2.FlushFinalBlock();
            stream.Position = 0L;
            buffer2 = stream.ToArray();
        }
    }
    return buffer2;
}

private static SymmetricAlgorithm GetSimpleAlgorithm(string key)
{
    AesManaged aes = new AesManaged();
    byte[] source = new SHA256Managed().ComputeHash(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(key));
    return new AesManaged { Key = source, IV = source.Take<byte>((aes.BlockSize / 8)).ToArray<byte>() };
}

As you can see this takes the username and password as inputs, if you’ve built a nice client wrapper around the SOAP webservice, something that Visual Studio does for me, then logging in is as simple as calling the login method on either of the web services.

contentClient.Login(username, SimpleEncrypt(password, username));

If we then use the GetAvailableContent() method of the ContentVault service, we can return and enumerate a list of characters.

ContentInfo[] content = contentClient.GetAvailableContent(0);

for (int i = 0; i < content.Length; i++)
{
    XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse(content[i].CommittedContent.Details.ToString());
    var name = doc.Element("CharacterDetails").Element("Name").Value;
    Console.WriteLine("{0} : {1}", i, name);
}

Then using the GetData() method of the same service we can grab the DnD4e XML file.

DataWithVersion data = contentClient.GetData(
    new ContentVault.ContentIdentifier { ContentID = content[0].CommittedContent.Identifier.ContentID },
    null
    );

RawContentBlob blob = data.Data as RawContentBlob;

String charFile = new UTF8Encoding().GetString(blob.RawData, 0, blob.RawData.Length);

File.WriteAllBytes("d:\\temp.dnd4e", blob.RawData);

There you go just a brief window into some of the things the ContentVault service can do.

No word from WotC on whether or not we’re allowed to do this though. I did ask, but never got a response.

One last note, if you’re doing this in Visual Studio then make sure the bindings for the web services have allowCookies set to true, then the login will be remembered for the subsequent calls to the service.

If you’re consuming the SOAP in some other not Microsoft way, then obviously you’ll need to do the same thing, save the cookie from the login response and send it on with any following requests.

Comments: 14 comments

Tags: #DnD, 4e, D&D, DDI, Programming

Don’t forget I’m giving away a copy of PH3. Check here for the competition details. You have until March 9th to enter!

Comments: Leave a comment

Tags: 4e, D&D

I’ve got one more item on the list that’s been the inspirational spark behind the Magical Minds series of magic items.

Now it’s your chance to transform a nascent idea into a workable balanced magic item. The best item as chosen by the judge will win a copy of the Players Handbook 3!

The last item name, along with my daughters brief notes is as follows:

Necklace of Death (Notes: You put it on and you die)

Rules

1. Stick to Dungeons & Dragons 4e
2. Stay true to the item name, include necklaces and death somewhere.
3. Don’t stay true to my daughter’s notes, make it balanced!
4. Only one entry per person, although feel free to replace a previous entry if you suddenly come up with a better idea.
5. Email entries to blog@buccaneersguild.com.
6. Tell other people about the compo, post on Twitter or Facebook for example.
7. Closing date is March 9th 2010.
8. The winning entry will be announced on March 15th.

Comments: 9 comments

Tags: #DnD, 4e, D&D

Making the Switch

I’ve recently switched from being DM to running a PC. After many years of DMing this is the first time I’ve had a chance to really spend a couple of weeks playing, attempting to get into character, and drawing character portraits.

Apart from a couple of sessions here and there I’ve not played a PC for any length of time since 1992, that was at university where I also DMed more than I played. It could be said that I’m not a very experienced player of RPGs, particularly in this latest case where it’s the first time playing D&D 4e for me.

Learning the ways of a PC

I’m struggling to be a good PC, and I’m convinced being a DM makes me a bad player. I’m constantly second guessing our DM, questioning the need for dice rolls, adding up encounter budgets, and other annoying habits. I hasten to add I’m not doing this out loud at the table.

It’s detracting from me concentrating on my character somewhat.

And then there’s the points where my inner rules lawyer raises his hackles…

Continue reading…

Comments: 10 comments

Tags: #DnD, Articles, D&D, DMing, Playing

How the problem arose

In a game of 4e D&D recently, the topic of sunrods brightly burned in our groups close scrutiny for a short while.

We’ve just started a new campaign with a new DM. The first time someone used a sunrod the DM seemed suddenly taken aback by it, we guessed he was a little bit worried that it was ruining whatever he had prepared to surprise us with.

In 4e sunrods burn for 4 hours and shine out with a bright light to a radius of 20 squares. Potentially that’s lighting up 1,681 squares!

“How many squares!”, he did quoth.

Continue reading…

Comments: 5 comments

Tags: #DnD, 4e, D&D, Equipment, Player Choice