Dragonlance D&D Game Blog

Dwarven Forge recently launched their latest Kickstarter, Castles terrain. Like their previous campaigns, they have a variety of options to choose from, and have already achieved a number of stretch goals. Like previous Kickstarter campaigns, parts of this new one are easily compatible with previous offerings, like the mixing the new castle offering with the city streets from the previous Kickstarter, or mixing the mountain add-ons with the caverns pieces from the second Kickstarter. If you're interested in seeing just what they have to offer, check out the Kickstarter here . And if you missed out on the previous Kickstarter offerings, you can still pick up some sets here on the Dwarven Forge website .

A couple of months ago there was a pair of competing Kickstarter projects, one from UpWorks and another similar themed one from Miniature Building Authority . Sadly, through no fault of the projects competing against each other, the UpWorks project went belly up . But today I'm happy to report on two Kickstarter projects currently running that are so complementary that backing one almost necessitates backing the other. First up was a nice little Kickstarter project called Tavern Dungeon Decor . This KS gives you a bunch of accessories and dressing for any number of public places, like taverns, temples, or libraries, just to name a few. The KS provides everything from a variety of chairs and tables, to bookshelves, books, plates of hot food, and even a bunch of seated patrons to dress up your city based encounters. What the KS doesn't provide are the walls or rooms for said buildings. And that's where the second KS comes in. This is the latest Dwarven Forge Kickstarter...

If you're a fan of miniatures, and terrain, especially 3D terrain like Dwarven Forge, you should go check out the Upworks site now and get ready for their initial Kickstarter, starting Tues noon, Central time. Upworks is the latest project from Jeff Martin , the man behind True Dungeon, and the former president of Dwarven Forge. The site doesn't have a lot of information up yet, just some teaser pictures, but Upworks look to "build" on the quality and modularity of the Dwarven Forge concept by also allowing for vertical, multilevel displays, like a large castle, with walls, towers and roofs. Considering the success of the two Dwarven Forge kickstarters that Jeff helmed, I'm expecting an exciting offering, and plenty of stretch goals and add-ons... and here I thought my gaming budget was safe for a little while! You can follow Upworks on twtitter at @upworksgames , check out their site at: http://upworks.com/

A couple of news bits recently in the world of Dungeons and Dragons. First off, the TV show Community is doing another D&D themed episode. Considering how well received their first episode was, this is probably required viewing, even if you're not tuning in to the show regularly. Check your local listings for air times. The folks at Dwarven Forge, who's miniatures terrain is often considered the gold standard for 3D pre-painted terrain is doing another Kickstarter. Last year they ran one offering dungeon terrain in a new durable plastic they call Dwarvenite. This time around they are offering Caverns in the new material. They met their initial funding in under 30 minutes and are now on their way to exceed $2 mil, all of which is unlocking plenty of stretch goals and add-on packs. If you are interested at all in using 3D terrain at your game, you definitely want to check out their Caverns KS . Lastly, looking forward to GenCon, Baldman Games has posted some info on ...

As I get ready for GenCon 2013, I find that this year, unlike most others, I'm not heading off to Indianapolis with a list of must-get items. Now part of this is certainly due to the fact that this year Dungeons and Dragons is between editions, so there's no hot off the presses source book or box set for my favorite RPG, but it's not just the lack of D&D product that's reduced my shopping list to near nothing. I'm starting to wonder, is Kickstarter is to blame. Is it killing off, or at least diminishing, the excitement of the GenCon vendor's room? In the past I would circle around the Reaper Miniatures booth, or gaze longingly at the various Dwarven Forge setups. But thanks to Kickstarter, if I took part in the Reaper Bones KS from a while ago, or the Dwarven Forge Game Tiles KS from earlier this year, I'd have little reason to visit either location. Same for Larry Elmore, an artist I've admired since I read my first Dragonlance book, and who...

As I've mentioned once or twice before, I'm a big fan of the Dwarven Forge terrain. Unfortunately, like many, the cost of Dwarven Forge is typically outside my budget, limiting my collection to a few basic sets. That's why, when I heard of Dwarven Forge's Kickstarter project I had to check it out and ended up backing the project in the first day. Like any Kickstarter project, there are a number of backer levels, from as little as $1 all the way up to $3500, but the $120 level is the minimum level needed to earn the various stretch goals that continue to be unlocked every few days. Originally the project was looking to raise $50K, a goal reached in just the first few hours of the first day of backing. Now with about 10 days left to go, the project has raised almost $800K, unlocking all manner of stretch goals. Originally the stretch goals were additional pieces (more walls, floors, doors, etc), but after listening to the backers on the Kickstarter forum, they s...

This is the second of the two part series on planning tools for the Dwarven Forge Room sets. Last time I release a PDF of simple illustrations for the Room Set. This time I'm following up with another PDF of the Rooms and Passages set. Note, I also updated the PDF of the original Rooms set. If you've downloaded that one when I first posted about it, you may want to check out the new version. Both PDFs are available here .

As the new proud owner of a Dwarven Forge - Room Set, I was very eager to use it in my game at the first opportunity. But I had no easy way of planning what rooms I could layout with my one set. I could, of course, pull the actual pieces out and arrange them on my dining room table, but I'd like something a little easier. I've also seen references to some PC programs that would help with the planning task, but I'm a Mac guy and I wasn't looking for something that elaborate (maybe if I had a bunch of sets that might be more useful), but for me and my single set, I was looking for something quick and low tech. Basically, all I really wanted was a PDF with paper versions of the pieces in the Room Set that I could print, cut and arrange as needed. The nice thing about the PDF is that if I had multiple versions of a given set, I could just print out extra copies. Or, if I was planning something elaborate, I could print out as much as I needed and that would show me ho...