PODCAST THE ART OF DUNGEONS & DRAGONS AND CURSE OF STRAHD

D&D Podcasts By Shelly Mazzanoble and Greg Tito

Shelly is again joined by Greg Tito for another fantastic episode! Here is the blurb:

Creative Director Shauna Narciso and Art Director Kate Irwin share insights on the visual look of D&D and the Curse of Strahd adventure, which is available in March. Listen to the new podcast.

They discuss the art of the new season which looks amazing!

They discuss the recent shift from a more "where we come from" art direction, to a "where we are now" which I think is healthy and challenging...I mean I really loved the last Art team [and all the work they did with the community--I feel like in some ways they taught me how to look at D&D Art], but these women seem to bring a more Artistic [rather than Commercial] aesthetic to the D&D projects which I think is healthy.

They talk a lot about the Dragon+ Covers which is totally awesome--their passion, involvement, and knowledge really shines through and brings more detail to the work that they have done. Their thoughts on now legendary Zuggtmoy cover are fantastic:

One thing about this issue which I am embarrased to admit bothered me was that one of the art directors describes a D&D Fan as "a big D&D Goob". Now I grew up being called a nerd and I have come to accept that some people call us Geek's and that we have to own our insults and all of that--but for some reason it bugged me--and the fact that it goes by uncommented on was odd--like Greg & Shelly do not say anything--don't even comment--it is like insulting ourselves is now ok everywhere or something. I mean, if I get called a 'goob' I am going to respond & I would expect Shelly and greg to as well--maybe I will follow up with them on twitter...

Extra Life Photos

Tea Time--Vanity Blend

Cody and I went for Friday Tea again this week!

This week we tried Friday's Vanity Blend from her Etsy Shop.

Cody was surprised by the dash of blue.

 The tea brewed quickly & smelled fantastic!

We poured out two cups--the first one was much darker then the second for some reason.

Cody added a lot of sugar.

 And we served it up Brick Style which is a new invention for us.

A relaxing start to the weekend!

Final Session of The Bake--Longest Running 4E Eberron Campaign Ends

Final night at Vandale's Garage playing the Bake!

We started with Pizza

Spent longer then normal getting set up & arguing about tech stuff...We also spent time setting up our Epic Words stuff

The game was a total blast!

I have started using my pocket Moleskine for adventure notes--spreads things out more & I go through more books, but it ensures that I digitize everything eventually.

 The final Boss fight against a Shadow Elemental was awesome.

James made funny summary sheets to end the campaign, here is the one for my Shardmind KUBA

and here is our adversary Mindfeather the Mindflayer

I did roll two crits!

Podcast -- Round Table 91 - Goodbye WotC Forums

Here is the blurb

James Introcaso sits down with Dave Gibson, James Haeck, and Craig Haasis to discuss the closure of the Wizards of the Coast community forums. This podcast was recorded on October 7, 2015.

This is a totally great podcast focused on the loss of something that I once really enjoyed--the WotC Forums...here is the official release:

The Community Forums will be shut down on October 29. Thanks to all who participated over the years!

Choosing to retire a former foundation of our community was not an easy decision, but we feel that we must adjust our communications structure to reflect where conversations about Wizards of the Coast games are taking place.

Social media has changed significantly over the last ten years, and discussions about games aren't exclusive to company-hosted forums. The majority of community conversation takes place on third-party websites (such as Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and many other fantastic community-run websites), and it is up to us to evolve alongside our players.

We encourage past and current users to retrieve any information you want to retain from the Community Forums for both Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. The shutdown will occur on October 29, 2015, at 10:00 a.m. PT. We want to provide enough time for our forum members to move their content, and we recognize that given our forum's vibrant user base and extensive history, this may take time. Any information still on the forums on the cut-off date will be deleted.

Thank you to all of our past and current forum users. You helped build our community into what it is now, and we look forward to continuing to interact with you on our many active social platforms.

I actually started this blog when the WotC Blog site got migrated & I lost all of my photo's...It makes me really sad to see the Forums close down even though I did not use them anymore--the WotC Novel club had moved to GoodReads a while back & I did not really have any reason to still be on the blogs.

James and crew did dedicate their cast to  Wrecan which was wonderful--I will never forget the first time I made his Post of the Week list, such an influential and inspiring member of the community.