Archive for July, 2009

10 Ways to Vary Your Game World’s Cultures

Cultures should not have a one-to-one relationship with countries or states in your game world.  Many provinces will have more than one culture and in many cases the cultures may overlap.  In some cases where they overlap, one of the cultures may be oppressed by the others. Likewise, some cultures may span multiple countries.  Perhaps [...]

July 31, 2009 ·  · 5 Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: worldbuilding

RPG Resource of the Day: 25 Inn and Tavern Maps

A list of free inn and tavern maps continues this semi-regular series that features interesting and useful RPG resources.  I would highly recommend printing a few of these out and keeping them in a GM’s notebook so you can pick one out when you need it. Wizard of the Coast’s “Map a Week” archive has [...]

July 23, 2009 ·  · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: rpg inspiration

Game Design Tips from the Paizo RPG Superstar Contest

This year’s RPG Superstar contest from Paizo Publishing has been over for a few months, but there has been some discussion ever since.  If you haven’t followed it, the contest was divided into several phases: An open contest where anyone could submit a wondrous item.  From there, 32 winners designed a villian’s backstory, then 16 [...]

July 14, 2009 ·  · 2 Comments
Tags: , , , ,  Â· Posted in: advice, gm tips

Hexographer (Hex Mapping Software) Nears Version 1.0

My Hexographer hex mapping software is only a release or two away from version 1.0. (I hope.) If you haven’t seen it before, it allows a user to make quickly and easily make maps in the style of 80′s/early 90′s D&D maps. (The Known World, Mystara, The Voyage of the Princess Ark, etc.) Free and [...]

July 13, 2009 ·  · One Comment
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Experience Points Should Reward All Gaming Styles

Most role-playing games have some form of experience points that allow characters to gain strength and abilities over time.  But sometimes experience point awards don’t factor in all the aspects of RPGs that most people want to encourage. Several years back, I wanted to encourage better role-playing among my group.  I also wanted to reward [...]

July 10, 2009 ·  · 2 Comments
Tags: , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: gm tips

RPG Resources of the Day: Two Sites with Hundreds of Real Historical City Maps

Yesterday’s post of 101 Fantasy City/Town/Village maps made me think about real historical city maps.  I was going to links to many of them (not 101 of them because doing upwards of 101 links in one or even two or three sittings is tedious), but I ended up finding two exceptional websites that include historical [...]

July 9, 2009 ·  · 3 Comments
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RPG Resources of the Day: 101 Fantasy City, Town and Village Maps

I’m sure there are thousands of fantasy maps posted on-line. Below are links to over 101 fantasy cities and towns.  It can be useful to see such a large and varied set of examples to help you design your map. While looking at these, you may want to borrow part of a city or town’s [...]

July 8, 2009 ·  · 4 Comments
Tags: , , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: worldbuilding

RPG Resources of the Day: Random Generators for Names and More

The RPG Inspiration site has a slew of random generators for names and other things.  Names are broken down by race (elf, dwarf, orc, etc.) or by sex and culture for modern names (Chinese male, Spanish female, western male, etc.).  In addition there is a tavern name generator, a book generator that lists several books [...]

July 7, 2009 ·  · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: tools

RPG Resource of the Day: Foldup Paper Models

I love adding a 3-D element to my games.  A few years back we often used Dwarven Forge’s “polystone” pieces for 3-D dungeons.  I’ve also bought some of Fat Dragon Games’ foldup dungeon models.  But Wizards of the Coast published a “Map Folio 3-D” product a few years ago and it seems they released several [...]

July 6, 2009 ·  · One Comment
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: tools