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.
Thank you very much for letting me stay at the “H” room this month (or semi-month??) I didn’t think that people would find that part of the article particularly informative, but you’ve given me a bit of an urge to delve deeper into the issue.
Thanks again!
Fred.
Just an FYI
Heroes of the Jade Oath is a fully funded but still in production patronage project
We just released the first chapter of the manuscript to our senior patrons.
Thanks for noticing us
The indirect way: It makes the gaming interesting when you don’t know what will happen and it provides groundwork for further improing the game onwards. That is, it supports play, which will also support building a story, if you are already doing that.
The direct way: Custom-build encounter charts such that they include consequences of events that have come to pass and hints at what might be happening. If player characters have enemies or friends, adding them to relevant encounter tables makes good fun. Stories are all about choices and their consequences, and random encounters, when correctly built, are one among many tools that can be used to enforce the consequences part.
Thanks for the link–I’ve really enjoyed this feature! Keep it up!
Wow! I never expect that I would make it into the list. Thanks for the linkback!
Thanks for the linkback!
Thanks for the kind words and link to my post on Fantasy Armour. “Intelligent” is not a word I hear at home very often (or the day job for that matter)! Keep up the good work.
Well, I have to say, I’m impressed to make the list. I didn’t expect that at all. Thank you.