Well, my son was born prematurely ( 6 weeks early). He just came back home July 4th (Independence Day) and he is as awesome, inspiring and exhausting as you’d expect.  Also, my DDI submission for Wizards of the Coast got accepted.  It is a theme that utilizes Fortune Cards called the Fatedancer. It is awesome and you should check it out if you are a DDI subscriber.

Last Friday At-Will got nominated for a “Best Blog” Ennie!  If you’ve enjoyed the last few  years of At-Will, if we’ve helped your table with our material at all, I encourage you to vote for the site.

Next week, we release the first Worldbreakers book!  We’ve decided to split the book up into modules, which enables us to release great product and get great feedback. We’ve worked hard on the book and will release Etherkai, the Nightmare Dragon on July 22 via RPGNow.

By far, the most exciting month of my life!

That’s where I’ve been for the last bit. Thanks to everyone for your support these three years!  Next week we have a lot of awesome stuff to bring you.

Now we’re going to take it another step. If 2010 was At-Will’s year of theory, this year is a year of application.  You’ll see material that we’ve talked about before, but you’ll see it in application; you might see the achievement system within the bounds of an encounter or adventure, or see the horizon system included in an adventure.

In general, expect to see more encounters and adventures!   If you haven’t, check out the adventure work I am doing over at 4e Home encounters.  We’re going to return to writing skill challenges but will also talk more one thing I’m doing a lot of recently which is making monsters by the dozens.  I’ve got some tips and insights I’ll share as will our contributors. We’ll also be providing more themes and class-based rules and thoughts for your game.  Basically, if you can use it, we’re going to publish it.

Plus, we are working on the Worldbreakers book for publication in Q1 this year.  Yours truly will be be published in Lost City later in the year.  We will also be publishing Ryven’s awesome work on “Serious Skills”.

We are approaching our third year and happy to provide you with the best material for your 4e game.  Thanks for your incredible support — the best is yet to come!

“Lawbreakers have incredible talents and unique abilities that allow them to transform reality and game ‘physics’ around them.  Lawbreakers maintain an aura around them that changes the rules of the game.  Lawbreakers are meant for standard humanoids  of Large or less side, highlighting talents or abilities taken to an extreme.”

In essence, the Lawbreaker is the monster as puzzle.  It is a monster unbeatable until you are able to figure it out and solve it’s riddle. I’ve had a lot of demand for the Lawbreaker, but have delayed development as I’ve worked to hone and refine my mechanics for the Worldbreaker.  The Worldbreaker is kickstarted (thank you!) and I am working on playtesting, art and writing to make the Worldbreaker as awesome as it can be.

The Lawbreaker might take quite some time to be published.  But I am willing to ransom the initial development of this monster.  I am not ransoming it for money…I am ransoming it for twitter followers.  When I reach 1000 twitter followers (I like round numbers an I’m already sort of close ), within a week I will release the first Lawbreaker article. Basically, I want to be able to have more conversations with my peeps, and will give you something I guarantee you will be cool in return for it.

So let’s get to it.

I’m really excited! I think the project is very cool, and will be of use to anyone looking for offbeat, fresh monsters to put at their table. Unfortunately, cool ain’t free!

That’s why we have this Kickstarter page. If you’re interested in this project, definitely visit the kickstarter page. Your pledges are great, you spreading the word is great, and any combination of the two is worldbreaking .

I just want to say thank you to everyone who has donated to the site already, and I want to thank in advance any and all who support this project in any way! Thank you all so much! I’ll see you on the other side of a Worldbreaker.

I’ve tried deferring costs by having ads, but honestly, I hate having ads. Here’s where I expend the daily “Ask for Donations”.  I pour lots of money and time into the site, and I want to pour more in.  I just can’t justify it financially at this moment.

So I’m asking for your help. If At-Will has provided you with valuable tools and perspectives over the last few years, please consider a donation of any reasonable amount.  There is a donation button on the site now, and I’ll include a donation link in this post.

(this is my first and last donation post.  There is a reason it took a few years to get a donation button, and it’s not because I forgot it. )

Whether you do or do not donate, thank you for reading At-Will.

When a great book about RPG game design presents itself, it is time for us to practice exception-based design with our own rules. The book forcing the violation is Kobold Quarterly’s Guide to Game Design, Vol. 3 : Tools and Techniques.

If you read this site regularly, I can tell you a few things about yourself.  You like 4e D&D , but more specifically, you like to expand your game;  You enjoying tweaking and adding rules until they conform to your vision.  You like to design games, either as a rookie, a pro, or the blurred line in between. “Tools and Techniques” will be the perfect book for you, providing equal parts inspiration and guidance to your adventures in game design.

Any good book on creative arts starts by posing strong questions, which it then spends the rest of its pages answering those questions with elegance and clarity. And so Wolfgang begins in the first chapter:

“When we sit down as game designers and think about the work we do, there are a few things going on. We are imagining a particular audience with a particular set of expectations, from the reading level required to the style of game we’re considering. We think about commercial elements and audience appeal: What will draw players in? And we think about immersion and replay value: What victory conditions or encounter descriptions are most compelling?

The rest of the book sets about addressing these matter with strength, passion, and humor.  Whether it is Monte Cook sorting out fictions and non-fictions of game balance, Rob Heinsoo pulling back the curtain of 4th edition D&D’s design, or Ed Greenwood discussing plot, the attitudes and techniques used to successfully create games are captured here.

The authors avoid looking down from on high, though all are accomplished;  the tone of the book is more of a sit-down, designer to designer chat.  It’s impossible to get through the book and not feel energized to design something.

In short, buy this book! It’s the type of book that fits snugly and perfectly into your designer toolbox as if it always had a place there.  It’s a purchase you won’t regret.

It is available as a PDF now and available in print on June 18.

Time Stop can now be found on Twitter, follow @AtWillTS to learn out about a few articles each day of the week.

• Masterplan is an adventure and campaign planning tool for Dungeons & Dragons, including tile mapper.
• Gamer Lifestyle’s free PDF offers advice on how to get published in the RPG world.
• Uncle Bear calls the Ultimate Toolbox “Porn for Gamemasters“, go find out why.
• Radio Free Hommlet discusses Arcane Power.
• The Bear Swarm Podcast talks about how to deal with success and failure in role-playing games.
• Gnomestew shares how to use Dawn of Worlds to do Collaborative World Building for your next campaign.
• The Tome Show discusses the Eberron Campaign Guide and Eberron Player’s Guide.
• Kiko provides the status markers that he and the other Penny Arcade use in Gabriel’s game.
• Buy Open Game Table, “The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs”. PDF for $9.95, Print for $22.95.
• These Character Initiative Cards are hung over your DM screen so both the players and the DM can see the order.

Jeff over at the Tome Show got me access to a preview snippet from the Dungeon Master’s Guide 2, and I have to share it with you.

The preview content deals with templates.  Templates were a gamemaster’s best friend in 3.5 D&D.  It was only one of the ways that you could create non-standard monsters quickly.  Take a monster cross it with a template, et voila!  Instant coolness.

This isn’t so much a factor in 4e — monster creation is much easier — but if I told you that something easy could be done even easier for equal or better results, would you take it?  I think that you would.  I know that I would. Several templates have already been provided in the first DMG, but speaking for other DMs out there I’d like to say: more please!

I present the Hellbound Soldier.

Hellbound Soldier Intro

Wizards aren’t the only ones who make pacts with otherworldy powers!  Perfectly ordinary people can get tired of having their butts kicked and then they go over to the Nine Hells for a bit of extra mojo.  As mentioned, they always live to regret their choice, which makes them interesting antagonists for your players.  “I don’t want to kill you but I must!” To me, that’s some intriguing dialgoue.  It begs your players to ask why, and from then you can expand what might be a simple fight into something more.

The PCs could hear about the pact and show no pity.  It was his choice and he is an adult, so you have to live with the consequences for your actions.  But having no pity assumes you’re winning the fight.  If the hellbound soldier is beating you down and then pauses to tell you his tale of woe, your ears might prick up a bit.

What if he wants a way out of his plight?  Let’s assume that there is something that can be done to get our hellbound soldier out of his pact. We can assume at least that he’s heard some rumour (probably from other hellbound soldiers –there is nothing sadder than hell’s barracks I’d imagine) of some way that he can get out of the contract.  Devils are evil, but they do like law, and they enjoy the….heck out of hierarchy. So here’s the rumour that our hellbound soldier heard that he repeats to the players:  one can get their discharge papers from hell’s legions if someone is willing to plead their case in the courts of the Nine Hells.

Is that true?  Is it something different?  Is the hellbound soldier purposefully lying? Pitiable or not, he is still evil.

Hellbound Stats

We’ve got a concept, but how does that help you without the template statblock?  It doesn’t too much, so here it is:

In the next few days we’ll know exactly how the material from this statblock will be used if there is any deviation from the normal process, but it’s safe to guess that you can just plug these powers right into whatever monter you already have. You could take the sample entry from a dwarf fighter and plug one or more of these powers right in pretty easily.

You’re “tiefling-izing” a monster when you slap this template on, though I’d guess tieflings would want to be this bad-ass.  Agonizing smite deals ongoing fire and dazes in addition to whatever the melee attack already did to the poor PC.  The PC receives yet more fire damage as an aftereffect of saving.

The best power though?  Devil’s Pawn, the side of insult to a big heaping plate of injury.  A hellbound Soldier, no matter how badass, plays the role of ablative armor for any devil nearby.  And certainly the devils will want at least a few of these guys nearby. I’d immediately want to pair one of these pawns with an artillery or controller devil that the party needs to get to, running interference and making a nuisance of himself.  This mechanic could also justify the scenario I brought up earlier.  How long do you think it would take you to become sick of taking all the hurt that was meant for someone else?

Mechanically, the hellbound soldier fits the bill — a warrior who does a bunch of fiery stuff, and plays second fiddle to demons.

If the DMG is filled with more goodness like this, I cannot wait.

What do you think?

Looking For More DMG2 Previews?  Check out these sites:

The Tome Show
Fist Full of Comics and Games
Icosohedrophelia
Critical Hits
Dungeon Mastering
Geek Dad
Chatty DM

Time Stop can now be found on Twitter, follow @AtWillTS to learn out about a few articles each day of the week.

• Greywulf provides a spreadsheet for the encounter groups found in the Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual.
• Mike over at Sly Flourish has discussed solo monsters in a couple of recent articles: here and here.
• Grumble Mapper is a small application developed in Adobe AIR, which can be used to arrange dungeon tiles.
• The Great Debate is a podcast that pits two RPG characterss from different genres in 5 min debates. Highly entertaining.
• The Gnome Stew promises to Improve Your Game – Guaranteed.
• RPG Countdown’s Best of 2008 Special highlights the 100 hottest digital RPG products of 2008.
• The Tome Shows reviews the recent 4e book Divine Power.
• Greywulf discusses the life and death of minions in 4e.
• DM Samuel discusses how to Get Your Game Out of a Rut.
• Gabe, Tycho, Scott Kurtz and Wil Wheaton return for Acquisitions Inc’s 3rd adventure in the DnD Podcast.

Time Stop can now be found on Twitter, follow @AtWillTS to learn out about a few articles each day of the week.

• Fourth Edition game designer David Noonan discusses where roles in Dungeons & Dragons come from. (Note: links to earlier articles at top)
• Ed Healy offers some advice on How to publish a 4th Edition adventure.
• RPGMonks.com offers a list of Background Skills that can be added to Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons.
• Newbie DM shares his idea about Imposing a :30 time limit on 4th ed. players.
• Gabriel from Penny Arcade shares the his Free Fall Combat rules for 4e.
• Mike from Sly Flourish compares various Battle Map for your table top games.
• Newbie DM describes how to Update DDI Compendium stat blocks the easy way.
• “Skill powers are utility powers that you qualify for not based on your class, but by training in a particular skill” [Requires a DDI subscription]
• The next World Wide  Game Day for DMG2 is also Talk Like a Pirate Day. I expect many hi-jinks shall ensue.
• Make your own Gelatinous Cube Miniature.
• Matt James offers a list of D&D Campaign Hirelings for 4e.
• Chgowiz discusses Dungeons & Dragons roots in wargaming and how that effects Fourth Edition.
• Chatty DM discusses The Issue(s) of Combat length in D&D 4e.