A day has already passed into the new year so before it gets too much further allow me to highlight a few of my favorite essays here from the past year.

1. One of my most popular essays (and in this case it links to a full 4000+ word article) based on traffic is Worldbuilding: Religion Design.  Although it could go even further into many details, I think it is still a very good attempt at outlining many of the issues involved with designing a religion.
2. Another very popular essay written last year on the topic of Worldbuilding is Worldbuilding: Local Area Design. I do plan on writing more on the topic of Worldbuilding, but the project related to item #3 has taken most of my time.
3. This post announced my Coat of Arms Visual Designer web software. The software allows anyone to quickly create a coat of arms for a noble character, an NPC, a kingdom, some other fantasy organization or even a real life ancestor’s arms or just something the represents something about you. Here is a direct link to the software if you want to skip the post.
4. Checking in at #4 is an article on RPG Play By Message Board Best Practices. I find the information in this post very valuable considering how RPGs are evolving.  We’ve found playing by message board to be a good way to continue a campaign as people move away or just as filler between playing in person.
5. Alternatives to Magic Item Creation Experience Point Cost is a useful article that tries to find some alternate solutions to an issue many players and game masters do not like.

Honorable mentions: The Effects of Light on Combat highlighted an issue that many groups gloss over, but can cause interesting issues for the players when properly enforced.  Designing Reserve Feats gave some insight into designing this relatively new type of feat and helped clear up my own mind about them.

The Coat of Arms Visual Designer has gained many new features lately. If you are not familiar with the designer, it allows anyone to quickly create a free coat of arms in minutes. You may want a coat of arms for a knight or noble character, an important NPC, a kingdom, state or organization, or outside of gaming you may want to recreate an ancestor’s coat of arms or design your own.

The most time consuming new feature to implement was the ability to add a division to a division.  While this idea isn’t common among coats of arms, it isn’t very rare either. So now for example a shield can be divided per quarter and then any of those quarters can be divided per pale, etc. But the division change required changing many other things.

To keep this feature as easy to understand and manipulate as possible, a new approach to selecting objects on the shield was needed.  The simple list of objects (that was below the shield on the screen) was no longer good enough.  So now a user sees green hot spots on the shield and there is no list of objects.  At first, there is just one central green hot spot.  But each time a new division is added, more hot spots appear to allow a user to manipulate objects that may belong to that part of the division.  Clicking on any of these hot spots will open a menu with choices to add objects to that area, reorder objects in that area (if there are more than two) and select any of the objects currently in that area so an object may be edited.

Already a couple of new divisions are available (per chevron and per saltire) in addition to the old divisions (per bend, per bend sinister, per pale, per fess, and per quater) and more divisions will be added shortly.

Another new distinction for divisions is the notion of fitting the objects that belong to a part of a division to that division part.  This is for historical and practical reasons: Early on when a shield was divided per pale (a vertical line) and the eastern side was given a chevron ordinary, half of the ordinary was covered by the western side so there was no way to know if the eastern side had a chevron or a bend ordinary (they are nearly identical on the eastern half) by looking at it.  This ambiguity could occur with other divisions and ordinaries as well. Also, some believe the “double headed eagle” charge was caused by having a per bend division with an eagle on each side facing different directions.  So eventually, divisions were “abated” properly meaning that the charges were squeezed to fully fit their parent division part.  In the visual designer, a user can choose to resize the charges to fit by checking or unchecking a checkbox on the division’s edit area.

In addition to continuing to add new divisions and creatures and symbols, the software will soon get better support for ordinaries (the user will be able to specify a number of the specified ordinary when appropriate) and later borders and partition lines will be added (raguly, engrailed, etc.)

An essay on another blog a few weeks back reminded me that I always wanted to revise critical hits to make them more interesting. When considering ways to do this, I remembered how much I loved the old Battletech critical hit system. In that system if a hit was critical a roll determined which specific part of the battlemech (giant robot) was damaged and it noted how that hit affected the battlemech. Here’s a new system along those lines for OGL 3.5 style games that should be easily adaptable to other systems:

A critical hit is determined as per the existing game rules. In OGL 3.5, a natural roll of “20″ on a d20 to hit means there is a critical threat. (With some weapons a 19 or 18 could also be critical threats.) Another d20 is rolled and if that roll would hit the opponent, the hit is critical. In the core rules system the damage would be doubled or tripled depending on the weapon.

In this system, the critical threat is confirmed in the same way, but the damage isn’t automatically doubled or tripled. Instead, roll 2d6 and check the following chart: (Note: in most vases the target suffers these effects instead of extra damage.)

12: The target suffers a concussion and is knocked out if he fails a fortitude saving throw (DC 12+ the attackers base attack bonus). He can try to regain consciousness every five minutes by making the same fortitude saving throw. If the target succeeds the original saving throw he isn’t knocked out, but he suffers a critical hit as per the normal rules. (Double of triple damage, depending on the weapon.)

11-10: Broken Arm. The target’s weapon arm (or arm closest/most involved in combat) is broken. The target suffers a -4 to attack with the arm until healed. He also has a 20% chance of spell failure if casting any spells with a somatic component until healed. Whatever the target was holding in that hand is also dropped.

9: Shattered hand. The target’s weapon hand (or hand closest/most involved in combat) is smashed or deeply cut. The target suffers a -4 to attack with the hand until healed. He also has a 20% chance of spell failure if casting any spells with a somatic component until healed. Whatever the target was holding in that hand is also dropped.

8: Punctured/smashed lung. The target’s constitution is halved until healed.

7: The damage is simply doubled or tripled, depending on the weapon as per the core rules.

6: Severed artery. The target suffers two points of damage per round until he can be bandaged. (See the healing skill.)

5: Smashed ankle. The target’s ankle is crushed or deeply cut. His movement is lowered by 5feet/round and his dexterity is lowered by 2 points until healed.

4-3: Smashed leg. The target’s leg is crushed or deeply cut. His movement is lowered by 5feet/round and his dexterity is lowered by 2 points until healed.

2 Pierced/Smashed eye. The target’s eye is damaged causing a -1 to hit penalty (-4 with ranged attacks) until healed.

If a target doesn’t have the body part mentioned, the gamemaster should use his best judgement to determine the creature’s equivalent body part or else re-roll the critical hit effect.

A few of the above mention that the effects last until the target is healed. In the case of a severed artery, this healing is the simple healing skill. But in all other cases, a cure moderate wounds (or more powerful) spell must be used on the target. The magical effect must be solely directed to the injury.  (In other words the spell will not restore normal hit points unless the spell is recast.)

As a separate change, I find that a 1-in-20 chance (or more) for an automatic hit is a little too high.  So I make to-hit rolls “open-ended”.  If a player rolls a 20, he rolls again and that is added to the 20.  If he amazingly rolls a 20 again, he can add another roll.  In this way, a character with an low attack bonus could still hit a creature with a very high armor class, but he doesn’t have the 5% chance to automatically hit as the core rules allow for a natural 20. The natural 20 does still entitle him to a critical threat, but he must roll a 20 on his confirming d20 roll, then roll high enough on his second roll that the 20 + his second roll would hit the target.

But even if you prefer the core rules for determining criticals, you can use the rest of this critical effects system.

A We kick off this A-to-Z list of interesting blogs and discussions with an intelligent entry about Fantasy Armour. Oh, and one caveat: There are a lot of interesting discussion out there. These are just a 26 (or so) of them. I don’t see many of them and of course in some cases what I do see that isn’t interesting to me may be important to others. To each their own. Hopefully this list will highlight some discussions that deserve more looks and other lists will highlight other interesting discussions.

B can stand for BUILDER and BETA… as in the Dungeons and Dragons Digital Insider Character Builder Beta (say that five times fast!) has been released. “Living Dice” offers a tepid initial review. “Critical Hits” also has a review as well as “RPG Centric.”

C If you want some help getting into CHARACTER, check out this list of useful tips.

D How does one handle a party that wants to DIVIDE up? That’s the topic of this helpful article at “A Butterfly Dreaming.”

E “RPG Diehard” has “has rediscovered the magic of the random ENCOUNTER table.” They are fun and useful, but I disagree with one point: “Instead, it’s the game world itself that offers the threat — and the story!” I don’t see how a random encounter does much for the story, at least not very directly.

F Pathfinder continues its evolution with a number of new FEATS they want to see playtested. Pathfinder is an attempt to revise the OGLed version 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons Rules while maintaining compatibility with most of the OGL 3.5 D&D material.

G Explore Ancient Rome with GOOGLE Earth. There is a project to create 3D models as a layer in Google Earth, but it may be a bit buggy.

H “Drop the Dice” suggests that people stick with abstract HP even if you’re trying to model realistic combat in this very informative article.

I “Dire Kraken” posts about a new critical hit system for an “IDEAL” RPG. I’d humbly suggest somehow trying to merge the Battletech critical system with an existing RPG’s critical system. Perhaps add or modify some healing spells to heal critical wounds. For example, perhaps a critical hit tears an ACL. That character or creature suffers some penalty (half his dexterity, perhaps) until he receives a “cure critical woulds” equivalent that is targeted to healing the ACL, not general hit points.

J Heroes of the JADE Oath is a recently complete Patronage Project by Rite Publishing for use with Arcana Evolved.

K The KOBOLD Love Playtest Report, Part 2 describes an encounter between a few PC kobolds against an adventuring party, which really turns the tables on a traditional adventure.

L “DND Corner” offers 7 Steps to Make your Dungeon Master LOVE You. All of these tips definitely hit the mark and are worth observing. Although Regarding #6, I would suggest it is worthwhile to offer up a quick correction during the game to the DM. He may say, “Oh, that’s right I forgot…” or “Show me the rule within one minute and we’ll adjust it now.” But if the DM disagrees, save the long discussion until afterward as suggested in the post.

M “Exchange of Realities” has an in-depth article on MENTORS. I’m reminded about a Star Wars documentary that went into detail about the mentor role of Qui-gon Jinn and Obi-wan Kenobi as well as Joseph Campbell’s Book The Hero’s Journey which goes into detail discussing the MENTOR.

N 11/15/08 is NATIONAL Gaming Day at libraries throughout the US.

O Wiz Kids (makers of HeroClix, Mage Knight, and other miniatures games) will cease OPERATIONS according to the press release. It seems their parent company, Topps, is going in a different direction and is looking for another company to buy or license Wiz Kids’ games.

P Steve Jackson Games’ house magazine, PYRAMID, is going to an on-line PDF format.

Q Kobold QUARTERLY has been updated as always. Recent updates include “Bending the Rules” with Skip Williams, Tuesday Traps: Mantraps, Monday Monster: The Wendigo,

R This month’s RPG Blog Carvnival topic is RELIGION. “The Dice Bag” has a post about rewarding characters who actually observe their religion. “RPG Blog II” posts describingtheir homebrew religion. “Greywulf’s Lair” writesThe Opiate of the Masses. Losing your Religion is offered by “A Butterfly Dreaming”. My own humble post on the topic is Flavoring a Game World with Religion.

S “Seven Sided Die” looks at D&D Spells in SAVAGE Worlds.

T TIMELINES are important to add depth to a game setting. There are two examples on the ENWorld blogs.

U In the shameless plug department: My Coat of Arms Visual Designer free web-based software got a major USABILITY upgrade recently. User can now easily add several copies of an object. It also redraws the graphic much more quickly as you make changes.

V “Seven Sided Die” also compiles a list of setting resources for the Wormhole Nexus, Lois, McMaster Bujold’s series of book centering on Miles VORKOSIGAN. It says Savage Worlds is a great game system for this multi-genre series of books, although a GURPS sourbook is coming soon.

W The Bone Scroll reminds us to it is helpful and adds some atmosphere to describe WANDS and potions.

X RPGs are occasionally a topic for some very funny comics at XKCD, such as this one about exercise.

Y This week’s retro entry to the A-to-Z list is the classic game YSGARTH. It was one of the first RPGs to go classless and use a detailed skill system and a very rich magic system according to this review.

Z Heropress announces 2009 will be the year of the ZOMBIE as it unveils “Project Z.”

One final note: It seems like the best frequency for this feature is basically semi-monthly, so that will be the goal.

Some mechanisms for adding religious flavor for your game can cause you to create a complicated chart.

This month’s RPG Blog Carnival topic is religion, which is something I’ve thought about before. I won’t rehash those articles.  One describes designing religions for game worlds and another walks through a couple of examples.  Instead, the focus here is how to make a game world stand out because of its religion.

There are at least three ways to do this:

1. Make the religion very different from typical game world religions.
2. Add a lot of game-rule-neutral detail to the game world’s religions.
3. Add some game mechanics specific for the world’s religions.

First a little about methods #1 and #2 before diving into method #3.

As mentioned in my Fantasy Religion Design Guide, you can create a monotheistic or atheistic (worshiping a philosophy) to stand out from other game worlds as most game worlds are polytheistic.  Despite this difference, the game mechanics can stay virtually the same.  For example, different aspects of the philosophy can grant different priest’s powers or domains just like those game mechanics vary for priests of multiple gods.  In a monotheistic religions, different saints or angels can grant different powers. You may also stand out from other game worlds by having multiple religions in the world instead of just one religion that has many gods.  How these different religions treat each other and if their gods know of each other is another way to vary your game world’s approach to religion.  The relationship between the religions can even be a major focus of a campaign.

If you’re willing to put some work into developing your game world’s religion(s), add detail to the religions or gods to help them stand out.  In addition to a short bio or description of each god or philosophy and holy symbol and powers/domains granted, develop the god’s/religion’s/philosophy’s holidays, taboos, architecture of churches, requirements of the faithful, priest’s attire, etc.   Go as deep as you’re interested in going while focusing on which aspects of the religion will affect the players and your campaign’s plot.  (A player character priest’s religion and the religion of any key foes would be important to develop, for example.)  Then make sure you use the material you’ve developed.  When the characters meet a high priest of the religion, describe him in detail.  When they visit a temple, describe its architecture or the clothing of the priests or what the religious ceremony is like.

There must be many examples of a game world’s religion influencing game rules, but the most prominent example that comes to mind is the effect of the moons on magic in Dragonlance.  If you are not familiar with Dragonlance, three gods (one for evil, one for neutral and one for good wizards) are given domain over magic and each of these gods is associated with a moon (evil is a black moon, neutral is a red moon and good is a white moon.)  A wizard is more powerful when his moon is closer to full.  A wizard is slghtly weaker if his moon is closer to new.  This balances because while each moon’s phase cycles vary, each wizard will get the same bonuses and negatives over each cycle.

What are some other ways to do something similar?  Sticking with the celestial, one can adjust a priest’s power based on whether a constellation representing his god is in the sky.  (This can even work during the day–the constellation is still there, but it just can’t be seen due to the sun’s light.)  However, both of these approaches (moon phases and constellations) would require a game master to create a fairly complicated chart of what moons or constellations are in the sky and then cross reference this chart with what day it is in the game.

Fleshing out the holidays of your religion is another way to grant a bonus to each religion and it is less complicated tracking moon phases or constellations.  On major holidays perhaps a priest would gain a bonus higher level prayer and on worship day each week he may gain a lower level spell.  This idea could represent an infusion of power that the god received from the spiritual energy of his followers’ worship that the god then bestows on his clerical order.  For example, if we were to map a couple of real world religions to this, Jewish priests might gain a minor power on Saturdays and they would get a major bonus on Rosh HaShana, Passover, Chanukah and maybe other religious holidays.  Similarly, Islamic priests would have an extra minor power on Fridays and they might have an extra major power during Ramadan.

These extra powers could be considered by some to be balanced because all priests would gain similar powers at different times. However, you can easily think of a way to offset the bonuses if you want to better ensure overall game balance.  In the example above where Islamic priests gain a major power during Ramadan, the GM could give the priests a temporary constitution reduction to represent the effects of fasting that month.

Adding locations of power is another way to allow religion to impact the game.  A city with a particular religion’s shrine could grant priests of that religion some special ability or extra prayer related to the shrine’s purpose.  Likewise a location where some deed occurred might grant something to followers of that religion.  As an “evil” example, a temple where an egregious sacrifice was made might grant additional powers to the priests of that religion if they are within the building or within a certain distance.

Finally, if the characters are pursuing something important to the religion’s ideals or god, priests of that god or religion might gain some special favor from that god/ideal.  If there is a holy war among gods and the characters are attempting to rout a temple of the enemy religion, that god might grant the priests and paladins of the party extra power(s).  Again, to balance this the characters must suffer some penalty at other times such as when they don’t strictly follow the religion’s observances or perhaps they will be exhausted for some period of time after the current mission is completed.

[Shameless plug: in addition to writing about designing a religion for a game world, I've also written about designing a local campaign area.]

A After reflecting on the prior (and inaugural) A-TO-Z index, it needs to be more than a list of press releases, which accounted for most of the content. So the focus will be more on pointing to other blogs and message board discussions where people have something passionate and informative to offer.  Some products will still be highlighted, but there will also be a few other gems such as an inspirational place or other idea for your game.

B I don’t see The BARD’S Tale on the list yet, but Gog.com looks like a cool on-line store that lets you download vintage, classic computer games. Fallout seems to be the most acclaimed computer RPG game available at the moment.

C CthulhuTech is a strange marriage of H.P. Lovecraft’s CTHULHU mythos and japanese big robot anime series. CthulhuTech is also the first RPG by WildFire, a labor of love of just three people who created the game in their spare time. Knowing this makes the end result even more spectacular.

D Swords & Wizardry Released! Mythmere games has created a “0e” version of D&D with “a couple of tweaks here and there”. It is a free DOWNLOAD.

E EXCHANGE of Realities has some great insight into worldbuilding and plot-devising collaboration.

F FAT Dragon Games Sampler Pack is a great way to experiment with 3D buidlings and terrain in your game sesssion. The sampler pack was recently released.

G Flesh-out your game setting by giving buildings in different countries varying styles of architecture. Look for some real world examples. St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, Austria is an awesome example of GOTHIC Architecture. And now thanks to the internet you don’t have to go there to find inspiring examples and even floorplans. Use these pictures to come up with descriptions (or at least keywords) so you can better describe some of the buildings in your campaign setting.

H My own Coat of Arms Visual Designer web-based software was updated over the weekend. (Yes, a shameless plug.) The user interface was improved so creatures and symbols can more easily be positioned and resized. But that’s just phase one of the user interface improvements to this HERALDRY design tool.

I An INTERESTING, mostly catfight-free discussion about 4e vs. 3e is What’s the most significant difference you’ve found with 4e from 3e? No more wand of cure light wounds. If anything changed the entire tenor of the game, it was the wand of clw. It meant basically unlimited healing, and if you weren’t killed outright by a blow you’d be saved and back to full HP after the combat. “We almost never have to look something up at the table.” “From DM side: It isn’t hard or complex to setup engaging encounters or scenarios. From a Player side: Combat both feels and is much faster.”

J How does one handle all the JUNK out there on the many RPG blogs wonders the Gamer Dome.
In the specific case of the RPG Bloggers site, maybe they could add a recomendation system. To avoid hard feelings, people couldn’t vote blog entries down, but people could vote any blog entries up. As someone once said, “90% of it is crap, but then again, 90% of everything is crap.”

K Stands for KOBOLD quarterly (again–it was also mentioned in the last A-to-Z for “K”.) Issue #7 Shipped! How can it be “quarterly” if there seems to be cool new stuff there every other day?

L Unnatural 20 has an article on “A Better Way to Craft Wondrous Items.” The article is general and doesn’t offer a specific rule, but it suggests allowing a ritual to decompose the essence or LIFEBLOOD (my term–just so I could get this to fit under “L”) of the item to create another item to avoid spending experience points. That is one idea I hadn’t considered when I put together my own article on the subject.

M Some 4E MYTHS have been posted in order to “try to bring some rationality into the discussion.”

N “PCGen, the worlds most flexible d20 character generation software, is pleased to announce the release and immediate availability of the data set for Skirmisher Publishing LLC NUISANCES: Director’s Cut!”

O The Next OPEN Design Project has been Freedom’s Most Wanted (PDF) for a number of super-villians compatible with Mutants and Masterminds.

P The Ultimate PULP Era Gear Archive has a number of useful pdfs with pictures and system-neutral specs for many items appropriate for a pulp-era game.

Q Kobold QUARTERLY is defying their name by putting out great information (in this case an interview) more often than quaterly. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman discuss humor, character origins, collaboration, and much more.

R The Case For Castles and Crusades claims that Castles & Crusades celebrates an Old School RENAISSANCE.

S is for SUPER-Villians. Check out Green Ronin’s Freedom’s Most Wanted (PDF) for a number of super-villians compatible with Mutants and Masterminds.

T There’s a new fanzine called TROLL! It is put together by several regulars from the Dragonsfoot forums.

U In case you missed it, there was an UPDATE posted recently about the GSL revisions: “The ball is in my court and it has been for weeks. I have to get this out and until recently finding the time has been the issue. Not much has happened since I last reported anything here but it is now something that will get my attention. The changes to the license are done but it is the SRD that needs the most attention. I would like to add clarity to the who define and redefine issue. If you have questions feel free to call or email me like other publishers do (Clark and I spoke for an almost hour yesterday for example). I am not going to post these to a public forum but I will PM them to you. Bottom line, not ready yet and I’ll take the blame for it.

V RPG Blog 2 continues looking at VINTAGE Dragon Magazine Advertisements in a 4th installment of a series.

W Mad Brew Labs has done a (can it be a retro review for something that is four years old?) review of the WORLD OF DARKNESS core book from White Wolf. Even though the product is a bit old, the review is detailed and gives you a very good idea of whether or not you’ll like the game. You may even be able to borrow an idea or game rule for your favorite game system. Not only does the review give a rating, but at the end it also succinctly lists the good and the bad so you have some idea if you’ll agree with the rating.

X Looking for a bit of nostalgia? Take a look at this comprehensive overview of the classic X-series of D&D adventures!

Y Baba YAGA is based on a witch-like slavic folklore character according to Wikipedia. Maybe there are a few plot ideas or creature ideas in the Wikipedia article.

Z The RPG Site has a thread titled “Best Starship Combat Rules.” One of the games mentioned is an old favorite of mine from Ground ZERO Games called “Full Thrust.” There is a free PDF version of the game available at the Ground Zero’s website.

A A is for the A-TO-Z list itself. We’re beginning a new thing here: an alphabetical list of news, reflections and banter, posted regularly. There will be one blurb for each letter of the alphabet. It will mostly be RPG and other game news, but interspersed in those paragraphs will be some looks back at prior games, and whatever else will fit a letter and not be too far off-topic.

B Saturday, October 18th sees Mongoose Publishing holding its second BABYLON 5 Open Day at its offices in Swindon. In attendance will be Miss Claudia Christian (Commander Susan Ivanova), available to sign books, chat about her time filming Babylon 5, and even playing the odd game!

C Fantasy Flight Games announced a Warhammer Scenario Writing CONTEST.

D RPG Associate Game Designer wanted at Wizards of the Coast, according to a job listing website.

E Next month a new ELRIC of Melnibone supplement will be published by Mongoose. Cults of the Young Kingdoms will look at the different factions of the Young Kingdoms, including histories, objectives, and bonuses for the members of each group.

F Mongoose PDF role-playing game magazine Signs and Portents #61 is availble for FREE.

G GYGAX Games and Mongoose Publishing announced their agreement for the publication of Lejendary Adventure™ a multi-genre role playing game system by Gary Gygax, the father of tabletop role-playing games.

H HELIX: The Post Apocalypse, High-Tech, Fantasy, Western Role Playing Game uses just about every letter of the alphabet in the title. The new RPG game is now available at Key20 Games.

I Steve Kenson has an article about Play Styles that’s related to the new Green Ronin Song of ICE and Fire Roleplaying Game.

J Also related to Green Ronin, there’s a new Hero Lab Design Journal entry. “Hero Lab allows you to create, manage, and advance player characters and NPCs.” A few months back data files to support Mutants and Masterminds were added to the software. The entry includes several screenshots to get a better feel for the software.

K KOBOLD Quarterly released a new issue.

L Here is a wiki-List of D&D 4th Edition 3rd party publisher releases.

M Robotech: the MACROSS Saga is a new sourcebook for the recently released Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles RPG. Both are available from http://www.palladiumbooks.com/.

N D&D Insider will require NUMMARY contributions (aka money) for a subscription to the digital offerings (online play facilitators, Dragon and Dungeon articles, etc.)

O Game Table ONLINE allows people to play classic and new board games over the internet. They were going to be part of a new website run by Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast where GTO would write on-line versions of Hasbro’s classic games which includes some old Avalon Hill titles. Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast changed their plans and now GTO is hosting those games themselves, including Acquire, Axis and Allies adn RoboRally.

P One critique D&D 4E is that every player needs to look up “powers.” An issue that was only a problem for spellcasters looking up spells in prior editions. D&D POWER Cards to the rescue.

Q Not a lot comes to mind that starts with “Q”. Please post comments for what to link to that is related to “Q”. (For that matter it may be a good idea to post some “X” related links also.

R The RPG Site has an interesting discussion going about game balance.

S If you love the old school Star Frontiers game, there is a group keeping it going. They’ve released Issue #9 of their “Star Frontiersman” magazine.

T True Dungeon announces True Realm a two-day “gamer theme park” that let’s you immerse yourself in a game experience. April 3-4 2009 in Illinios.

U PCGen 5.15.4 is now available, so it is time to download and UPDATE your PCGen software.

V V is for Circus Maximus. Why? (No, I said “V”, not “Y.” The online community changes the U’s into V’s because that’s how the U’s were written in Roman Empire times. It has a bunch of great members and a cool denarii participation-reward system.

W We are still WAITING for the revised GSL. That’s not meant to be a knock on the people working it, but nevertheless a number of third party publishers have already moved on. The GSL is Wizards of the Coast’s latest license agreement allowing third party publishers to use the D&D logo and 4th edition rules. But many potential licensees were concerned over several of the terms in the license.

X There was never an official X-Files RPG. But Dark Matter and Bureau 13 come close to the feel and subject matter of the series.

Y The Emerald City Gamefest Games YARD sale will support the group’s mini-con in November.

Z Gary Gygax’s Castle ZYGAG: Upper Works will be available soon from Troll Lord Games. The boxed set is designed for the Castles and Crusades game system, but it easily converts to D&D 1st and 2nd editions and like any adventure, with some work it can be used for any RPG system.

My Coat of Arms Visual Designer project is improving steadily.  In the past few weeks I’ve added support to quarter the shield, do countercharging of ordinaries, add and customize a name or motto on the design, save the design as an image on your computer, nearly doubled the number of graphics available and more.

I think the software (which runs in your web browser) has many different uses, some for heraldry experts and some for people with a casual interest.

For a game setting, you may want to create a coat of arms for the key nobles in the game or maybe for each government or for other key organizations. Players of knights or other noble characters may want to create that character’s arms. Outside of gaming, you may want to create a personal coat of arms as an avatar for message boards or you may want to recreate an ancestor’s coat of arms.

The arms in the screenshot took five minutes to create, with no drawing ability required. The controls are simple and a similar design should only take 15-20 minutes for even a novice to create once the user has gone through the short tutorial.

If you are interested, take a look at the examples to see what’s possible, then open the instructions in one tab/window and then open the software designer in another web browser window.

Main Page: http://www.inkwellideas.com/heraldry/

Examples: http://www.inkwellideas.com/heraldry/index.php?title=Examples

Instructions: http://www.inkwellideas.com/heraldry/index.php?title=Instructions

Design Software: http://www.inkwellideas.com/heraldry/index.php?title=Design_Software

Note: The design shown in the screenshot is particularly “busy.”  In fact, many heraldry experts might disapprove of it.  However it is designed to show what is possible using the software. (In this case, creatures, quartering, furs (patterned backgrounds), ordinaries, divisions and countercharging.)

Recently in a game session, our characters encountered a room with a magical energy pattern drawn on the floor.  As anyone who is familiar with Roger Zelazny’s Amber books knows, sure enough once a character stepped on the pattern he had to complete the pattern and every step was a test of willpower.  Once the pattern walk was completed, the character was able to teleport the group as desired.  I should point out the game setting is not the world of Amber.

While I don’t fault the GM for borrowing an idea, I do think this particular encounter is a poor example of borrowing.  Before I get any further, please understand that these concepts can apply to an encounter’s design, a campaign plot, or even a particular character’s background.  With that out of the way, my point is that when you borrow an idea and it is a distraction to the other players or where their out of game knowledge would be too useful, you have borrowed too much and too directly.

Continued…

A new PC joining the party is a fairly common occurrence.  Maybe a new player is joining the group or perhaps a character has died and that character’s player wants a new character.  Often, there is a question of what level to make the new character.

The question comes up for two primary reasons:

• A sense of owing the other characters some advantage because they played in the other games.
• The idea that earlier adventures shape the personality and background of the character.  Since the character won’t have these played out, the character should have less experience.

Continued…