Has the weather gone crazy everywhere or just in the eastern United States? This week we had snow and hail and wind and temperatures in the 50s Fahrenheit, sometimes all in the same day. For now just hold onto your hat and enjoy this week’s links.
At Home
Articles posted here on The Gamer Assembly.
- Only 32 Gaming Days Until PAX East! If you’ll be in Boston on Easter weekend April 6-8, you owe it to yourself to attend the best gaming con. Three-day passes have sold out, but you can still pick up day passes. We’ll be there running the “Fix Your RPG Problems with the RPG Doctor and Gamer Assembly” panel on Friday, April 6 at 7 pm in the Merman Theatre. Will we see you there?
- March’s Blog Theme at The Gamer Assembly is “Gaming in the Modern Age”. Have an RPG article idea set in Information Age earth? Contact us for guest blogger opportunities!
- Campaign Season is upon us. Sign Up for our military-themed RPG Blog Festival hosted here at The Gamer Assembly. It runs from 19-26 March 2012.
- The Call To Assembly, Volume 1, our collection of the first 2 months of Gamer Assembly posts is now available as a free PDF at RPG Now and as a not-free printed magazine at Lulu!
- Wealth: Cash and Assets in Modern Assembly by Brian Liberge covers abstract wealth and purchasing power in the modern port of the D&D 4e rules.
Away
Content from people involved with The Gamer Assembly posted elsewhere across the Internet.
- Why Is D&D the 800 Pound Gorilla of RPGs? by T.W.Wombat takes a look at all the gamification ideas that have been a part of D&D since before the term gamification even existed. No wonder we’re addicted to playing D&D.
- Let’s Play an Interesting RPG, Episode 7: Marvel Heroic Roleplaying by Brent Newhall shows us an actual play example of the new Marvel game. The video continues in Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
- John Constantine Sketch by Symatt and Skulkey’s Fractal Art are part of T.W.Wombat’s experiment to spotlight artists over at Wombat’s Gaming Den of Iniquity. If you’re an artist, drop him a line to talk about an upcoming spot.
- On RPG Circus – Dungeons and Dragons 5ed Wishes, Brian Liberge and the Circus crew discuss what they’d like to see in D&D Next! A topic by request.
- We just spotted this review of Brent Newhall‘s Spelljammer 4e hack called Voidjumpers of Space.
- Schrödinger’s Gun GMing by T.W.Wombat got mentioned by Josh Mannon this week on Podge Cast #182. They discuss Josh’s kickstarter, Within the Devil’s Reach, adventures for Dungeon World.
Notes From Abroad
Other interesting articles and cool links.
Wizards of the Coast went public with their announcement about the next edition of D&D on Monday 09 January 2012. We’re collecting D&D Next links in our wiki. If we’ve missed any good ones that you’ve read, feel free to let us know in the comments or join us in the chat.
- Sex, Lies, and Game Development by Elizabeth Sampat tells the story of sexist pit stops on the way to her dream job, and her discovery that “breaking into the industry” is a myth. Just make sure your “To Do” list is in the right order: do the work first, then worry about joining the industry.
- Planning for a Kickstarter gives the inside scoop on the School Daze kickstarter with some tips for making your Kickstarter project run smoothly.
- A Brief History of Vancian Magic from The Evil GM takes us on a tour through how AD&D magic worked. Nice overview in there about fighter vs. wizard power level increases.
- Nevermet Press gives us Four Things to Love About RPGs. These apply to any RPG, not just your favorite one.
- The Rhetorical Gamer muses (and rants) about agency, narrative control, and the opportunity to do awesome things in Agency? (Pheh.) I Want Opportunity.
- Selling a Convention Event at Howling Tower shares some of Steve Winter’s experiences in writing event blurbs for conventions.
- Thought Crimes Games is a new game design (and other associated cool stuff) blog from Quinn Murphy. Keep up with the discussion on Twitter at @doubleplusfun.
- Handholding for the Wrong People at Deeper In The Game asks for clarity in RPG rules. Give clear procedures first then explain your reasoning rather than asking a potential player to follow along as you ramble through a pile of rules text.
- Combat Fatigue, Weakness, and Wounds for OSR D&D gives us even more optional combat rules for Old School D&D.
- Random Table: Healing from the Spider God lets us easily add some creeptastic side effects for anyone healed by a cleric of the Spider God or even the Queen of the Demonweb Pits herself *cough*Lolth*cough*, courtesy of the twisted minds over at Giblet Blizzard.
- The Storytelling King by Chris Perkins explores seven tips for your game based on passages from Stephen King’s book about writing fiction entitled On Writing. It’s an excellent book and well worth reading. I’ve got a loaner copy if you need one.
- Inspired by the Chris Perkins article, Character Drive D&D links to several articles on Sly Flourish covering different ways to develop your characters in D&D, both protagonists and antagonists.
- In an scholarly stab from the past, gamestudies.org has this gem of an article entitled On the Role of the Die: A brief ludologic study of pen-and-paper roleplaying games and their rules. Written in 2006, it’s still an interesting but long-winded and academic read.
- Also from the archives, Fantastic Martial Arts – Design Journal 1 gets us thinking about martial styles and schools for your campaign, starting with an overview of Elven martial philosophy. How would a graceful Elven fighting style differ from a more stalwart Dwarven style?
- If you’re looking for a modern horror adventure site, a post-cold-war abandoned secret base, or a post-apocalyptic underground setting, get inspired by pictures of this abandoned iron mine.
- If you like LEGO and mechs, check out the just-announced Mobile Frame Zero kickstarter! Feast your eyes on their Flickr pool if you need convincing.
MetaRoundup
A roundup of roundups featuring links of interest to the tabletop RPG community.
Please let us know about other weekly roundups in the comments!
- Game Knight Reviews comes out with Friday Knight News articles on Fridays. Check out this week’s news to see rumors about a new Baldur’s Gate game, a system to create names with meaning, and post-apocalyptic Victorian London.
- Roving Band of Misfits publishes their Weekly Roundup column every Sunday. This week’s Departing Player Edition gives us ideas for regulating magic in your fantasy world, Rob Donoghue on the Jennisodes podcast, and using Microscope to create a dungeon rather than a world.
- Critical Hits aggregates their Twitter feed and publishes it on Sundays under Critical Bits. This week’s Critical Bits mentions a D&D-style magnetic word set, an analysis of damage per level in D&D, and the GM’s Day Sale now through March 7 at Drive Thru RPG.
