Howdy, campers! This week we’ve added Gaming as Women’s weekly game links to the Metaroundup. Please let us know if you find any other weekly series of link collections we can add. And speaking of links, we have a huge list this week. Enjoy!
At Home
Articles posted here on The Gamer Assembly.
- April's Blog Theme at The Gamer Assembly is “Gaming Fools”, covering the outlandish, crazy, and over-the-top games and situations that grace every table at least once. Have a gonzo RPG article idea? Contact us for guest blogger opportunities!
- 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!
- Background Questions for Players by Brent Newhall lists some starter questions to get your players thinking about what makes their characters tick.
Away
Content from people involved with The Gamer Assembly posted elsewhere across the Internet.
- T.W.Wombat writes about his PAX East experience in several chunks, including Field Guide to the New England PAXbound Wombat, The First Day of PAX East, PAX East: Saturday Retrospective, PAX East: Goals Checklist, PAX East: The Secret to Great Gaming, and PAX East: Other Voices.
- Helping Player Play Better by Brent Newhall introduces a tool for more effective player immersion. Try declaring “Drama Time” at your next game and encourage your players to get into their characters.
- Brian Patterson, the d20 Monkey showcases the creator of the d20 Monkey webcomic in this week's Art Spotlight from T.W.Wombat.
- Take a look at T.W.Wombat's gaming to do list in Irons in the Fire.
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.
- Monte Cook thinks Crunch vs. Fluff is a false dichotomy that ignores the essence of role playing games. Robin Laws takes a different angle on that idea in False Dichotomy, or Real, Though Annoying Dichotomy? This discussion took off this week, spawning other articles like Fluff vs. Useless Fluff at 9 and 30 Kingdoms, and Robin Laws revisited it with Crunch vs. Fluff: The Unstackening.
- D&D Next Design Considerations at Wizards of the Coast gives a peek into how the designers approach the rules revision with a list of directives. Syntax Error gives us a reaction to this article in D&D Next Design Considerations.
- Role Playing Tips for Beginners at the new blog Leaping Wizards gives some guidance for players and GMs just starting with RPGs. You can also find some great food for thought in GM Tips: Story vs. Mechanics.
- The Gassy Gnoll: How I Came to Love/Hate Combat at Game Knight Reviews takes a look at combat avoidance and how to keep combat interesting as an entry in the April RPG Blog Carnival being hosted at Exchange of Realities.
- Gnome Stew published a couple of great articles this week. Story Mashups for Improvising provides a framework for taking several story plotlines and combining them into a richly-detailed game at the drop of a hat. Also, DNA Phil lists the approaches and elements that work well for his games and encourages you to do the same in Signs of Campaign Greatness.
- Liz at Character Generation lists the five role playing games that have shaped the way she sees gaming in My Five Games.
- Ryan Shelton muses about emotional manipulation as a reason why he plays RPGs in this Google Plus post.
- Cutting Away Messiness (Game Prep) at Deeper in the Game gives some ideas to simplify game prep. Spoiler: Don't overprep or you'll bury yourself in notes you don't need during the game.
- Why do authors publish proofread but unfinished writing? Amanda Valentine reminds authors who self-publish to Respect Your Readers.
- ChaosGrenade Update: WyRM SF gives us a taste of what will be in the upcoming WyRM SF game.
- Skwervo Games just released the alpha playtest version of The Writer's System, a flexible RPG focused on storytelling and characterization.
- If you remember the “No Elves” ads in Dragon Magazine, you'll be happy to know that Talislanta books of all editions are being scanned in and made available for free downloads. Talislanta also got a mention this week over at Tenkar's Tavern.
- If you're in the mood to play a totally random superhero, check out this Random Marvel Datafile Generator. It's a little clunky, but then again it's totally random.
- A ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world has been statted up for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying in The Gang's All Here: G.I. Joe's Cobra at Exploring Infinity.
- Telecanter's Receding Rules decides to take a completely different approach to dungeon design with The Rule-Based Dungeon, where the specific dungeon features shift based on set rules like performing prior actions or how many characters are in the party.
- Dave Chalker takes a look at four levels of mapping and miniature usage in The Easily Lost Explorer's Guide to Dungeon Crawling at Critical Hits. The issue goes a little deeper than battle grid vs. no grid.
- Dungeon Painter Online at Pyromancers gives you a way to create your own dungeon tiles or other maps and export them in image or PDF formats.
- Where are the moons tonight? Jeff's Gameblog has a very cool random tool to answer that question, called The Orrery of Sarpedon.
- From Old Books provides free public domain images and pictures copied from old books. I'll need to take a closer look at this site for some upcoming projects.
- Every game has the threat of death, but very few groups spend time on coming up with funerary rites. Take some time to work through the questions posed in Reality Makes the Best Fantasy: Death and Funerals at Troll in the Corner and you'll provide a much richer game world experience for your players.
- The RPG Stackexchange is out of beta, and they've got a great new design to boot. Check out this free Q&A site for RPGs. Ask or answer questions and help out the community!
- If you're interested in Kickstarter projects, Geek Industrial Complex has done some analysis on crowdsourced projects in 2011-2012 Report on 150 RPG Crowdfunding Projects.
- House Rules, Intent, and Affordances at Gaming As Women takes a look at the various possibilities in the intersection between design and perception. The cases of mismatched design and perception are fascinating to think about – either you've designed something that nobody uses or your players have made something you didn't intend.
- It may be unintentional, but some situations make women uncomfortable, like this one described in Sexism in the Industry at OMG Lazer Kittens.
- 100 Monkeys, 100 Typewriters, 100 Wands of Magic Missile by Vanir at Critical-Hits inspires me to submit while the Dragon and Dungeon submission window is open.
- And while on the subject of inspiration, take 3 minutes to watch Ze Frank's An Invocation For Beginnings. Powerful motivation juice. FILDI.
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 the Triskaidekaphobic Gaming Edition to see how Wizards of the Coast got its name, the Dice Chuckers Kickstarter campaign, and embracing epic failures at the game table.
- Roving Band of Misfits publishes their Weekly Roundup column every Sunday. This week's Site of the Year Voting Edition gives us character motivations beyond simple survival, crafting tentacles for your game, and leaving monster traces to foreshadow encounters while heightening dread in your players.
- Keith Davies maintains In My Campaign and he publishes a collection of Links of the Week including recommended Kickstarter projects and interesting YouTube videos. Take a look at this week's collection which includes the athletic body diversity reference for artists, John Cleese on creativity, and the magic of Polyhedral Pantheons.
- Gaming As Women gathers links in their This Week in Gaming and This Week in Feminism series of articles. Both series are collected under the News category. This Week in Gaming features increasing diversity in the art for D&D Next, the importance of story over combat in Prose Before Blows, and a plea for more entries into this year's ENnies.
- Critical Hits aggregates their Twitter feed and publishes it on Sundays under Critical Bits. This week's Critical Bits mentions PAX East panels, designing Halls of the Undermountain, and the OGRE Kickstarter from Steve Jackson Games.
