The latest episode of the D&D Penny Arcade/PvP/Me podcast went up yesterday. I listened to it while I was driving to and from this awesome job I was explicitly prohibited from describing in detail, and I loved it.
This party is on fire! Literally… and as if that weren’t bad enough, Binwin is drawn into an iron maiden. (Remember: just because you can double-move doesn’t mean you always want to.)
Combat ends… but that just means it’s time for some serious healing — and for a new map to hit the table. Two great sets of iron doors seal off the next area, but once opened, they reveal a room filled with an iron cauldron and great piles of colored skulls. What do they portend? And is the DM your ally… or merely a trickster and purveyor of lies?
Listen and decide!
The artwork is, once again, sensational. And I’m not just saying that because it features Aeofel and a bubbling cauldron.
Great to see a new D&D podcast of you guys – can’t wait to see what happens. You’ve gotten me to get my board game group to try a little dungeon-diving – picked up the PHB2 , and planning to create a deva invoker – too kewl!
Off Topic: Wil, I just saw a preview for you upcoming Family Guy stint. LOVED IT. You doing the scene from Caddyshack was beautiful. Can’t wait to see the whole thing.
The podcasts are too funny. And they’ve been a really good introduction for D&D in general and 4e in particular. They convinced me to finally play and at least I can sort of seem like I know what I’m doing when it comes to the encounters part of playing.
Hey Wil, after reading your Twitter messages, I checked out your blog posts on D&D, and after listening to the podcasts, I convinced my board gaming group to try D&D, which just happened to occur on Worldwide Play D&D Day! Please continue to provide more posts with your experiences!
You know these are good when the podcast ends and you yell “ARGH! No-no-no…”
The last time I remember having that sort of a reaction was when they used to cut “The Bugs Bunny, Road-Runner Hour” short so they could bring us the latest breaking news in Curling.
Oh! Link? I’ll post it, with that awesome cast picture.
How was it when you played? Did you have fun?
Any chance you could stick Aeofel’s character sheet up
somewhere? Or will that have to wait until this adventure’s
concluded?
The way it just ends kills me!! I was watching the countdown on my media player was like ‘Oh no they’re going to end without his roll’. Sure enough. It was good to hear you guys get all tactical.
Talk about the dice gods siding with you guys at the right moment. The huge damage rolls on the skeletal warriors is the turning point that encounter. Once you clear all the meat puppets out of the way and a tank can run up on the squishies its go time. I want to post advice here too all the time like ‘Use Ice Arrow or Hit the necro guy with ACID ARROW!!!!’.
Then I have to take a step back, inhale deep and smooth exhale. *whew* Anger fading.
Here is where I saw it.
http://www.fox.com/fod/play.php?sh=familyguy&ep=1238001628897
(is it bad I pictured Picard smacking Wesley for real?)
It was fun, and since all of us were total D&D newbies, the podcasts were IMMENSELY helpful for a new-to-D&D DM, gave me an idea of how the game was supposed to flow and be played.
Our board gaming group consists of 3 married couples, all in our late 20’s to early 30’s, and while the guys were all for it, the girls took some convincing, but were glad they played. We played through one encounter from a Dungeon Delve using the five pre-rolled characters from the H1 set, and everybody got to exercise their character’s special style, it was a blast.
I especially appreciated having read your post: “a few thoughts and lessons learned from behind the dm screen.” I learned a lot DMing, but your post helped me speed-study for the task and sidestep some first-time DM problems, thanks!
Dude! Congrats, Mr. Secretary. 🙂
Dude, that is awesome. I am delighted that my posts made a difference for you. Keep playing!
Hear that? He said they are bringing in a thief for the 3rd podcast series. I heard it, did you hear it?
Where do I submit my application?
😉
Awesome job, can’t *wait* for the next one. 🙂
(and the Family Guy episode looks hilarious too!)
One of the best in the series so far. Though the ending had me shouting “Oh come on a cliffhanger? Really??” at my iPod.
The moment where Binwin gets yanked in to the “jaws of nasty snatching” was priceless. I’m pretty sure Chris enjoyed pulling that stunt more than he let on. I can only wait in breathless anticipation for the finale.
I accidentally posted my reply to yours as a main reply, and before I moved it, you replied to that one. Sorry for confusion everyone!
*facepalm*
Dude… next time use a SPOILER tag or something. I haven’t listened to the podcast yet.
argh!!! Why won’t Paul and Storm open!!!
That’s been my only complaint re: the podcasts – they seem to end at completely random times. There’s a warning at the beginning for inappropriate language – could we have someone at the end say something like, “Will Binwin Survive? Tune in next week to find out!”
Congrats, Mr. Secretary! Now we need to get you confirmed by the Senate! Do you have any skeletons in your closet? Oh, wait – you do appear to have skeletons in the dungeon!
Gah.. why must they use iTunes for the podcast link?
I don’t have iTunes on my machine (It’s not even available for Linux IIRC), I use gPodder instead. Unfortunately you can’t un-munge their itunes podcast link so I’m unable to subscribe and have to keep waiting for you to post about it 🙂
Loved the episode, though I think I agree the endings really suck!
edit: Found it. Looked under the series 1 link for Penny Arcade D&D podcast, the non-itunes link is:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/rsspodcast.xml
Ah well, there goes at least an hour of my productivity tomorrow at work….
Have you tried the various *podder websites? Surely someone has made a non-iTunes dependent link, right?
I am totally digging this second round of PA/PvP podcasts. I recently started DMing a 4e campaign (having not played D&D since 2e, and then only as a player), and we are having a blast. I really want my players to listen to these podcasts, but I think one would really benefit from listening to series one first, as an introduction to the founding members of Acquisitions, Inc. Unfortunately, my group is just about to head to The Keep on the Shadowfell (which was run in abbreviated form during the first series of podcasts), so their introduction to these podcasts will need to wait for a while.
On a side (but related, gaming-wise) note, I’d encourage any gamers/geeks in the audience (I would think that description would pretty much define this audience) may want to check out http://www.goldtheseries.com. It’s an online series about professional RPGers, and I think it’s really good. If you watch it, be sure to start at the prologue, and work your way forward.
(Full disclosure: while I have no professional stake in the series, I have a personal one — my brother David is the creator/writer/producer/sometimes-director of the series, and also acts in it as Jonathan Drake. I’m proud of my bro.)
Wil — thanks for this blog, and your Twitter feed. They sure do make the work day a bit brighter.
Never, ever trust your DM.
Great podcast!
Don’t forget-MM2 comes out soon.
Really enjoying the Podcast. It’s really inspired me to play again. Do you know what adventure the DM is running? Looks like it would be a fun one to run.
Chris Perkins wrote this adventure himself, and I understand that WotC will be releasing it in Dungeon magazine at some point.
Wil (or anyone really) the podcasts have inspired me to return to the days of my ubergeekdom (I’m just a geek now, no uber geek) and buy some books. I bought the core3 on Amazon (great deal btw) but I’m having trouble convincing many of my old geek friends to return to the game table.
I’m a bit leery of RPGA, because of the whole gaming with people you don’t know thing…but that seems to be my only option. Anyone have experience with it… how was it? etc.
Thanks for the 411. You rock!
“Put them in the iron maiden.”
“EXCELLENT!” [plays air guitar]
The bit where Binwin follows Omin into the cauldron room made me burst out laughing to myself on the bus
“Great, so it looks like the coast is cleARRRGH!” 🙂
Our group has decided to try out 4e once we complete our current campaign.It’ll be fun to get back to some old-school dungeon crawls. Oh and congrats Mr Secretary!
I’m actually waiting until they all come out, so I can listen to them in one big lump sum, like I did the first set.
My question is, how did you record this? The sound quality for the first series was really good, were you all miked or something?
There were several mics around the table, so we each had our own. There was also one other mic grabbing the whole room, and it was put together though a mixer. I think Kiko did all the complicated stuff.
Possibly a bit late to post this question, but I was listening to the podcast yesterday whilst sitting on a bus heading in to Honolulu:
Coo-linary? Is that really how you guys pronounce culinary?
Is that more dialect thing for certain states? The only way I’ve ever heard it pronounced in the past was “Cull-linary” as in culling a herd.
I was sitting on the bus thinking “What on earth is coolinary and what does it have to do with cauldrons?” Took me a few minutes before my dozy brain twigged which word he meant 🙂
Then I laughed as the joke struck me, and people on the bus gave me funny looks :-/
Wil, I just listened to the whole set yesterday (there went my plans to be productive) and I want to say that the second set was in a lot of ways better than the first set. First off, Chris brought his A game. The first podcasts (and I think this is itself valuable) seemed to me to show that the game was awesome even if the DM didn’t have an on night. Where the second episode shows how awesome a game can be with a great DM.
Of course, your mention that Chris wrote the second adventure may explain some of the difference. My best games were always the ones I wrote.Improv is easier with your own material as the core.
The second thing? You. You have (I suspect via decades of professional development and base skill) a very good sense of what needs to be described in a non-static setting. Taking a few moments aside to flesh out the game table when Chris makes cool setups does a lot to strengthen the audio only presentation.
Thanks. You and Chris and James and Mike and Jerry and Scott have me pulling out my 4th ed books (and probably my 3.5s) and thinking about running and playing again.)