{"id":2347,"date":"2009-04-30T04:00:26","date_gmt":"2009-04-30T10:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamingwithchildren.com\/?p=2347"},"modified":"2009-04-30T04:00:26","modified_gmt":"2009-04-30T10:00:26","slug":"unplugged-new-dd-now-free-to-download","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/30\/unplugged-new-dd-now-free-to-download\/","title":{"rendered":"Unplugged: New D&D – now free to download"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"testdrive-cover\"Almost a year ago, Wizards of the Coast revealed the newest version of their popular role playing game, Dungeons and Dragons. This fourth edition of the game (known as 4E D&D) was designed to be easier to learn, faster playing, and better balanced. I\u2019ve been playing the new version for about a year and my conservative favoritism has blossomed into a positive enthusiasm for the new system. If you haven\u2019t taken a look at the new version or haven\u2019t ever tried D&D before, now is your chance. Wizards of the Coast has just released everything you need to get started as a free download! Read on to find out the details\u2026<\/p>\n

Even before the first 4E basic rulebooks were released last June (the three books needed for a \u201ccomplete\u201d game are the Player\u2019s Handbook<\/strong>, Dungeonmaster\u2019s Guide<\/strong>, and Monster Manual<\/strong>) there was an introductory adventure released to whet everyone\u2019s appetite to the upcoming new edition. Keep on the Shadowfell<\/strong> was released on May 20th, 2008 along with a short rules summary and several prebuilt characters, everything one needed to play through this first adventure and go through character levels 1 to 3. It was (and still is) a pretty good introduction to the system. On April 28th of this year, Wizards has now released the entire adventure as a free, downloadable PDF file. So, if you never got around to giving it a try, you can try it for free.<\/p>\n

To help you make the most of this opportunity, I\u2019ve gathered up a few different links from around the internet to help you get started. As is the standard for D&D adventures, this is designed for five players and one person to run the game as the Dungeon Master, but with a little bit of finesse the game can be accommodated for one more or fewer player. For smaller groups, there\u2019s no rule against a player running more than one character at a time either.<\/p>\n

To play, you need at a minimum the Quick Start Rules<\/a> (1.3MB) and the module itself, Keep on the Shadowfell<\/a> (4.2MB).<\/p>\n

The Quick Start Rules come with five premade characters, but if you like lots of options, you can download the demo of the free D&D Character Builder<\/a>. This program contains nearly every available bit of information on building custom characters in the D&D world, its only limitation is that it has a maximum character level of 3rd level. However, since this adventure doesn\u2019t go past 3rd level, you don\u2019t even have to worry about that. If you subscribe to the D&D Insider program (even for just a month) you can download the full version of the character builder and create characters up to 30th level.<\/p>\n

All three of these resources, along with short blurbs can be found on a page at the Wizards of the Coast web site.<\/a><\/p>\n

OK, you have your rules, the adventure, and even custom designed your own characters, and are ready to go. If you wan to add a bit more style and class to your game you can also download a free set of PDF counters<\/a> designed just for this adventure. All you have to do is download the PDF file, print is out on card stock, cut apart the tokens, and you have a ready-made set of interesting markers to use for all the encounters in the adventure. (Note, there is a supplemental PDF page<\/a> with a few markers that were missing from the initial PDF. Special thanks to the folks at Fiery Dragon<\/a> for the spiffy free tokens. If you find their tokens useful, they sell large sets of preprinted and\/or PDF style tokens for use in role playing games.<\/p>\n

Well, that should be enough to get people going in trying out the game. Get up off your couch, get out there and talk it up to a few friends, and give the game a try. Its quite an enjoyable experience, as players have far more control over their actions than anything encountered in a typical computer RPG or MMORPG. Good luck, and watch out for that Kobold leader, he\u2019s pretty deadly!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Almost a year ago, Wizards of the Coast revealed the newest version of their popular role playing game, Dungeons and Dragons. This fourth edition of the game (known as 4E D&D) was designed to be easier to learn, faster playing, and better balanced. I\u2019ve been playing the new version for about a year and my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[19,49,64,175],"class_list":["post-2347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-4th-edition","tag-dd","tag-fiery-dragon","tag-unplugged-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}