RPG Bloggers

points of order from Fame & Fortune

This post at Chgowiz's blog about making clerics relevant made me smile - it reminded me of the hoary days of 2E and how the cleric as armour-plated, mace-wielding healer/detector/undead turner with... Click the title if you want to know more...

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Mapping Challenge – Day 13 from A character for every game

I love the curved hallway that sweeps over the sunken one. Lots of rooms and doors reminiscent of the adventures I played in as a kid.

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IndieCon – What’s on my “to play” list from Gaming Brouhaha » RPG

IndieCon starts tomorrow and I’m all set to go. My goal for the convention is to play in at least three games I’ve never played before (as a player) and to run a couple games my self. In addition, I need to minimize what I’m carrying because I’m flying – everything...

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Settings That Need a Game: Dinotopia from Dice Monkey

I’m not sure how many of you out there read Dinotopia as a kid (or even as an adult!) but it was a phenomenal book about a couple of people who, at the turn of the century, washed up on the shores of a mysterious and lost island populated by dinosaurs who never went extinct. [...]

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Dragon Age Design Diary #1 from Stargazer's World

Recently the first Dragon Age design diary went online. In this article Green Ronin’s Chris Pramas provides us with some details on the upcoming Dragon Age RPG that is based on Bioware’s new computer roleplaying game Dragon Age: Origins. Here’s an excerpt for you convenience: I also decided early...

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Power Distribution in Society from Alex Schroeder: RecentChanges

I use the following structure for civilization: 1 key figure, 1-3 henchmen, groups of 5-20 individuals, one boss per group.

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LARP Alliance Launches WyrdCon One In 2010 from LARP Source

The LARP Alliance has put together a convention that focuses on Live Action Role Playing (LARP) set to go live in the summer of 2010.

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Party Cohesion from Exchange of RealitiesOn gaming

The thing about most RPGs is that they involve a group. Yeah, you can have solo games, but it’s usually designed not to, and then you lose a lot of the interaction and the unpredictability. But the thing about groups is that they’re made of individuals, and individuals have a tendency...

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d20—Gone But Not Forgotten from Purple Pawn » RPGs

Ten months after withdrawing them from the market, Goodman Games is again selling all of their 3rd edition D&D products as PDFs. This includes the whole range of Dungeon Crawl Classics, Judges Guild, Wicked Fantasy Factory, DragonMech, Xcrawl, and Complete Guide monster sourcebooks. Scrubbed of...

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I hit AC 16 and do 11 damage… from TheLemming » Roleplaying Games

…or – howto improve your combat experience It’s probably 15 years ago, when we played a lot of games after school and on weekends. Back then we were pretty inexperienced and it was a different – drive. When I was younger, I think most of us were powermongers in one or more...

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There’s Fun in Table Chatter too from GamesTopica.Net » Role-Playing

Mouse Guard is a lot of things, and isn’t a lot of things…one thing for sure is that it has taught me how to appreciate RPGs in ways I didn’t notice. I always was worried about in-character presentations and the ‘mood’ of the game, yet Mouse Guard points out one thing....

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Of Chtin And Creativity, Part VI from Welcome To LizardMag!

Of Chitin And Creativity VI: The Undiscovered Country Whew. It's taken a lot longer to get here than I'd ever dreamed, but this is the finale of the series, finishing up the Cha'k for Fantasy Craft. No blather, no intros, just on to the good stuff!

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Megadungeon: Planning from Creatively Anomalous » RPGs

I’ve been thinking more about my plans for a megadungeon, and have decided that it is finally time to being posting those thoughts. I’m going to be following Jonathon Roberts’ battlemap and dungeon design tutorial over at NewbieDM.com, which I highly recommend to all aspiring...

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Thursday LINK DAY!!! from Mostly Geek » RPG

Does your barbarian or dwarf warrior need a more interesting weapon? Try this out. What war is really like. Rising star Mark Charan Newton interviews established tie-in writer Dan Abnett about writing tie-in fiction. I’ve you’ve never read Eisenhorn you should - it maybe a Warhammer 40k...

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Raising the Barr from Lord of the Green Dragons

Link to Art of George Barr. While you are at it enjoy some music:

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B/X Talent Check Charts continued! from Home

A couple other blogs in the Network prompted me to look again at the "talent chart" I had thrown together for B/X Thief abilities. The chart is an inexact conversion of the percentile chart for success at picking pockets, hiding, etc, using the d12. The numbers improve in what I'd consider the...

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Dungeon Mastering has a new look from Dungeon Mastering

What do you think of the new look?

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Okay, Now It’s Personal: Conquer the Players, Not the World from Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies

While reading this post about creating inspiring RPG villains on The Spirits of Eden today I began thinking about what kind of villains I've found to be most effective for my players. The part that struck me was at the end of the post, speaking of the goals of the villain: "I like to concentrate...

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SPUC – Week of November 11th from allgeektout » rpg bn

Why, hello there Secret Project Update Club. Remember me? No? Well, here are my updates anyway: Codename Charging Unicorn – Made some progress on this. Got an idea of what I want to include, and will get to writing this soon. Codename Backup Dancer – Recent events have compelled me to maybe...

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Running your game outside of the session from Mostly Geek » RPG

Gabe from the webcomic Penny Arcade blogged the other day about how his D&D 4e game runs outside of the weekly gaming session. The basic idea is that they continue small situations outside of the game, including skill challenges through a custom online dice roller. Here’s the example of...

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[Fantasy Craft] Class Act: The Keeper from Life and Times of a Philippine Gamer

It has once been said that knowing is half the battle (and the rest of it are Red lasers and Blue lasers). Ask a Keeper and they might tell you that knowing is the battle. Keepers are another Specialist class, one that focuses on mastery of knowledge in the form of skills. Even the Explorer [...]

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Secret Project Update Club Update – 11/11 – #spuc where are you? from A Terrible Idea » Gaming & Design

This wasn’t exactly the most productive week on any count. Not a lot of solid updates to give, but here they are. A surprise win that came from out of nowhere, something finally to put in the Trophy Case. Even if I can’t tell you what it is yet. Also, I jumped into [...]

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Staples Stole My Wallet from Destination Unknown

My students have been going nuts over making little digest booklets. They draw pictures, write stories and generally have a fine time. To encourage this, I picked up some supplies at Staples. A long arm stapler was a must, as well as 10 different color...

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Updated Crosslinks from Emergence Campaign Weblog

Here we have some of the player creations for the Federation-Apocalypse and Twilight Isles games – both of the current Eclipse Classless d20 games. The links go to the player’s blogs – putting both of these players well ahead on their game-contributions. Twilight...

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The GM’s Classroom from The Labyrinth

I firmly believe that a GM never learns so much as when he isn't GMing. Certainly you learn things when running a game, especially when things fall apart, but you learn so much more when playing. That is why I consider the other side of the screen the GM's Classroom. The key to...

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Return to Moria: Mushrooms in the Depths from RPG dumping ground

The natural caves and caverns beneath Moria are home to a variety of fungi and mushrooms. Along with the naturally occurring species there are several varieties cultivated by the Dwarves. Some of these fungi are useful, some deadly. Here are a few I'll...

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I’ve Seen Diamonds Cut Through Harder Men from A Rust Monster Ate My Sword...

Here's another Top Secret memory courtesy of the scanning project: a villain's multi-level underground stronghold.I distinctly recall drawing this up after a mid-80's viewing of Where Eagles Dare - those with a keen eye may even recognize a room or two...

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Thinking Up An Interesting Villain from The Spirits of Eden » RPG

There’s a lot of other resources out there for writing interesting villains, but this one is just my process for how I think about villains. It isn’t a surefire way to write a good villain and it’s probably a lot more work than you want to put into it. My players are often really...

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NewbieDM Tutorial: The Battlemap Part II from www. Newbie DM .com

Here is the 2nd Part of Jonathan Roberts’ battlemap series for NewbieDM.com readers. Part 1 can be found here. In the following weeks, he’ll be providing us with mapping tutorials for regional maps and world maps as well. You can visit Jonathan’s site, Fantastic Maps, to find...

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Character development: what’s my motivation? from The RPG Athenaeum

We would be ashamed of our finest actions if the world understood all the motives which produced them. -Rochefoucauld, Maxims When taking on the role of a character, improvisational actors often ask each other, “What’s my motivation?” The answer serves as a guide for how an actor...

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Long-Term Test: 4e D&D, Part Two from Greywulf's Lair » RPG

I’m looking at Fourth Edition D&D through the lens of a years’ worth of gaming experience with a critical eye on what it needed to do and what it’s done. This is a long-term test review spread over several posts covering both the theoretical and practical sides of 4e D&D....

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A Day of Memories and Rememberance from Sea of Stars RPG Design Journal

Today is Veterans Day in the United States, Armistice Day in Europe and Remembrance Day across the Commonwealth. To all of those who gave their lives to defend us across the years, we remember and are thankful. It always brings to my mind the haunting words of A. E. Housman’s Epitaph on an...

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RPG Campaigns during the holidays. from Chicago RPG Examiner

With the holidays coming up, many gamers find themselves pulled in a lot of directions with family gatherings, holiday parties, shopping and just enjoying the holidays with the patient signficant others/children who have put up with the many weekends...

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Veteran’s Day from Whitehall ParaIndustries

A rare sidestep from rpgs for a moment if allowed...Today is a important day for me. A the son of a man who served in the Army for World War II, and the father of two sons currently serving in the Coast Guard and the Navy, it's a time for reflection.Re...

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How to have fun with your kids from The Omnipotent Eye

I swear it had nothing to do with Grognardia talking about dice! Buying crayons was something we had been thinking of doing a long time now. My daughter is very good at painting and drawing, and she haven't gotten any new crayons in a long while. Gamer...

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skill systems from Jeffs Gameblog

I have heard it bandied on the internets about that old schoolers are considered to be against skill systems. Personally, I am not against skill systems. I don't care for skill systems in D&D, but in other RPGs I have no objection to them. My bi...

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All in One, One in All from Gamer Bling!

Ooh! A new review and some cool news you can use, too! Brought to you by the letter O and your favorite pontificating curmudgeon.

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People should title their posts better… from Whitehall ParaIndustries

Browsing RPG bloggers can be interesting sometimes. More often it just causes one to roll their eyes.Like this post on Justin Achilli's blog. One would think that something titled "Realism Stinks, or What's It's all About" would have something to say a...

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New Castles & Crusades Books on DrivethruRPG from Dungeon Mastering 101

The latest printings of the Castles & Crusades Player's Handbook* and Monsters & Treasure* are now up on DriveThruRPG*. The editing, art and layout has come a long way IMHO since the first printings. I picked up both books in dead tree form at Gen Con this year and I am very pleased with...

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[Thundarr Thursday] Notorious NPCs: Capt. Kordon, Queen of the River Pirates from The Savage AfterWorld

Captain Kordon - Queen of the River Pirates 9th Level Pure Human STR: 12 --- INT: 15 DEX: 18 --- WIL: 13 CON: 10 --- CHA: 16 HPs: 58 --- AC: 7 Mutations: none Described by Thundarr thusly: "As evil as she is beautiful." Captain Kordon is an old-world pirate in a new world. Known as the Queen of...

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Veterans Day 2009 from RPG Blog II

Again, a guest post from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: "As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in...

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Necromancer: Paragon Path (revised) from Dungeon's Master

We continue our reimaging of the Necromancer with this update of a Paragon Path for wizards. Perhaps I’m the only one, but I miss the old specialist wizards of previous editions. This revision results from reader feedback and a desire to provide the community with a more workable version of...

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Catch up 2: Electric Boogaloo from 4E Spoilers - Spoilers, Rumours and Teasers for 4th Edition D&D

Yeah, I'm find it hard to find time to get updates in time every single day, but I'll make it up to you all right now with a catchup update.First:Wizard's Catalogue updated showing simple things like the cover of the new Tomb of Horrors cover. (also De...

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More and more real life RPG inspirations from Mostly Geek » RPG

Sophie revived our real life RPG inspirations the other day, I thought I’d follow up with some links of my own. The first two come from Wired.com’s pretty fascinating Danger Room blog about the world of the military and national security. The US is thinking of starting up a special...

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Skill Challenge #14: Give it Back! from At Will

Merchants in ruffled silk bark over each other while mothers cluck after their children. Guardsmen walk two abreast in worn mail, leaning into each stall in search of improprieties. The market smells of bread, sweat, the forge, and perfumes all at once. You push your way shoulder-first through the...

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Awesome Pic of the Week from Rule of the Dice

Unfortunately I don't remember where I found this picture or who the artist is. I am pretty sure it comes from DigitalArt.org but I can't say for certain. I think its a great piece and an inspiring looking place for adventures in game. I just imagine the PC's entering a lost kingdom high in the...

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The Alpha Omega DM Screen Homebrew from LivingDice.com » RPG

Next month my Alpha Omega campaign begins. I am excited to try a new system and world and have studied the rule book carefully. I believe I understand the key elements of the game well enough to run a session without referring to the book too much. However, there are several charts that will see...

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Mapping Challenge – Day 12 from A character for every game

This geomorph is broken into three distinct sections that don’t make contact (but share walls). For old school play I really enjoy these areas on a map on occasion because it makes the Passwall spell useful.

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A Screen for Every Game from Held Action » Roleplaying Games

Customizable GM screens have been around for a while, starting with the now defunct Citizen Games’ Masterscreen. The next one to come along that of which I’m aware was Studio 2 Publishing’s Savage Worlds Customizable GM Screen, which also seems to have become unavailable....

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Confessions of a lazy GM from Stargazer's World

I am a very lazy when it comes to preparing roleplaying sessions. When other GMs plan and prepare for weeks I usually make some preparations just mere hours before I start running a game. Sometimes I don’t prepare at all, hoping that my improvisation skills save the day. If everything else fails, a...

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