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All About Ashes of Athas with Teos Abadia

by Mike on 5 March 2013

On Friday, 1 March, had the opportunity to spend an hour with D&D freelancer and organized play veteran Teos Abadia to discuss his stewardship of the Ashes of Athas living campaign. In this video discussion Teos and I discuss the scope of the Ashes of Athas project, what it's like to design a series of adventures tied to a single story, what one can learn from good playtesting, great moments in encounter design, and ways to breathe fresh life into 4th edition D&D.

If the embedded video below does not work, you can watch the entire discussion on Youtube.

Recent Top Reads

Here's a list of my choices for some of the more excellent D&D related articles over the past couple of weeks:

In Master of Suspense Chris Perkins describes how to keep a party on the edge. My own group never would have gone for this but it's an interesting way to tell a story.
In Rob's RPG Code of Conduct Robert Aronson outlines his rules for cooperative RPG gaming at the table. Not all of these fit for every group but they're a great conversation starter. Which of the Roleplay Dickery lines do you cross? For myself I tend towards Clown, Bystander, and the Twink.
In Can vs. Should Robin Laws discusses how a simple word change can change an entire viewpoint of a game. What is optional and what is required in your own games? How can changing "should" to "can" end up giving your game a bit more flexibility for you and your players?
In A World Worth Saving Chris Perkins describes how we can cast NPCs in a better light, making them good at whatever it is they do. There's a fine line between a proficient NPC and an NPC that upstages the party, however, so ensure the NPC isn't good at all at the things the PCs are.