I played Dark Sun module first thing in the morning. For this campaign setting Wizards is making many new rules. One of the new rules is to simulate the use of bone or stone weapons. It goes like this: when you roll a one on an attack you can re-roll and your weapon is broken or you can take the miss. The GM said that is why many heroes carry multiple weapons. An other rules change is that there is no divine magic in Dark Sun. The gods abandoned the world may years before. They are also introducing two new races. They are the Thri-Kreen, a mantis man, and the Maul, a half man/half dwarf race.

When I got to to play I had a great time. The adventure was 4 adventure encounters long. Two taking place in an arena, it gave you the ability to get the feel of the pregenerated characters quick. Mine was the Elf Resilient Battlemind. We were told that in this world elves are now more like grifters who are always looking to get something over on others. Also, the battlemind is a new psionic defender. Psionics is popular in Dark Sun since arcane magic causes destruction of the world. The battlemind had a mechanic that instead of attacking on shifting away, the battlemind follows. To see the character sheets go to this link at the Critical Hits blog: http://critical-hits.com/2010/01/29/dd-xp-2010-dark-sun-characters/

When I was wrapping up the Dark Sun preview adventure it was announced over the public address system that some of the Wizzards staff would be GMing the dungeon crawl. I could see Rich Baker walking over to DM and was hoping I could play with one of his groups. First, I had to wrap up my Dark Sun Adventure and get tickets. Unfortunately, I could see people assembling and going over to play with him. I was bummed. Just in case, I walked over after getting my tickets. No one else was there in line so I waited for enough people to form a group. As I waited, I watched Jim Baker finish up and walk away. I sunk to a worse case of the bummed out.. When enough people showed up, the coordinator said we would be getting a Wizards GM. To my surprise it was Rich Baker. I was thrilled. He said he walked away for a short time because he did not see a group waiting and he was surprised when he saw us as he came back. I had a good group with a couple less experienced delvers that would not be ready and would take time selecting their attack and roll slow. I caused us to only get through one encounter. I did not care for two reasons. First, I was a new player at one time and it was embarrassing when others would get on me. Second, I got to run under Rich Baker. I even had fun teasing him when he had to look up a rule. I said, "Aren't you a paid professional? You should have all these rules memorized." He just ignored me like some smart-ass.

The second half of the day I played Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) Battle Interactive where all the tables playing the adventure had to start and end each part at the same time. Then, the cumulative results of all the tables playing would effect later modules. (I played it the next day and the results varied and it did change). I played this with DM Tim of the podcast Radio Free Hommlet (RFH) and Jeff Ensor, who I just happened to play with a lot. Tim played a mean one handed fighter that used two weapons. I forget what they were called but each weapon could transform into different weapons that he changed depending on the opponent he was fighting. Jeff played a tricked out warlord that could buff and deal mean damage. I played Kildrak, my Artificer. He specializes in healing and buffing and hangs back like a laser cleric. He may not be as good as a cleric but I am an Eberron player and was hoping for a living Eberron campaign. The other players we were with in this pickup group were also real good. In one section we were almost able to kill two bosses but, we missed it by one round. This was the first 4E interactive module. It was fun. I is most fun when the coordinator would introduce each section and he would ask if we were ready and all the tables would scream in unison. I overheard some people say it was the best D&D game experience they ever had.

Overall it was a great day of game play, I had good people to play with and that made all the difference.