This week’s links are all over the map, from plot without conflict to Marvel datafiles, to bartering with gods, to editorial cartoons. Enjoy!
At Home
Articles posted here on The Gamer Assembly.
Check out Brent Newhall’s audio series about the monsters of the Shattered World below.
Away
Content from people involved with The Gamer Assembly posted elsewhere across the Internet.
- Monsters of the Shattered World #1: The Sea Devils by Brent Newhall: An audio series following the exploits of a scholar documenting the odd creatures found in the Shattered World, this time featuring Sea Devils.
- Iceman Editable Datafile by Brian Liberge at Stuffer Shack: Take a look at the Iceman Player Character for the MarvelRPG.
- Season 4 Episode 13 – A Rose By Any Other Name | RPG Circus by Brian Liberge at RPG Circus: Have a listen to this podcast covering Virtual Tabletop Software, Simple vs Complicated Monsters, and Character Names.
Product Announcements
New products and special events announced this week.
- Dementalism – An Ingenious Game of Ingenious Ingeniousness by Andy Hopp at Kickstarter: Here’s the Kickstarter for an entertaining card game based on the Low Life RPG. I love the art.
- Toypocalypse Falls – Campaign Setting by Trevor Christensen at Kickstarter: “Become a toy in a world very much like Toy Story meets Lord of the Flies.” The winner of the RPG Geek 24-Hour RPG contest in 2011 comes to Kickstarter to raise funds for editing and layout.
- Guide to the Village by the Sea by Lillian Cohen-Moore at Kickstarter: Is it a work of fiction or a setting book for horror RPGs? It’s both! The narrator of the guide has synesthesia, which gives insight into how the author perceives the world.
- The Expedition Journals of Amestus Armen by Timothe Loya at Kickstarter: Using Kickstarter as a subscription service could work. The Journals are monthly supplements written as field reports from an expedition into the unknown, rules-free and suitable for any system.
- Republishing, Synnibarr: The original Scifi-Fantasy RPG. by Raven McCracken at Kickstarter: Featuring a new system, this gaming classic is raising funds to buy art and a print run.
- The Bestiary of the Curiously Odd by RKDN Studios at Kickstarter: Here’s an interesting idea: donating allows you to submit a monster to the project. This collection of monsters was designed as a lexicon of fluff with companion Stat Books allowing you to use the creatures across different systems.
- The Kobold World Conquest Challenge at Kobold Quarterly: Take a picture of yourself playing an Open Design adventure in July, and one entrant per continent will win a pile of PDFs! Offer extended to one year to allow time for conquering Antarctica.
- We Who Are Lost at Indiegogo: An adventure for Lamentations of the Flame Princess in which you tell stories of madness, terror, and terrible decisions.
- Shadows of Esteren: A Medieval Horror RPG by Jim Searcy at Kickstarter: Fitting somewhere between Ravenloft and Call of Cthulhu, this low fantasy horror tabletop RPG focuses on exploration, survival, and player interaction.
Notes From Abroad
Other interesting articles and cool links.
- Free Pantheon of Gods – Circa 1986 at Tenkar’s Tavern: I enjoy uncovering notes and pieces from past campaigns like this. Here’s a list of homebrew gods from the mid-’80s.
- The significance of plot without conflict – still eating oranges: A crash course on the oriental concept of kishōtenketsu, or plot without conflict. Can this approach work in an RPG?
- Omnivoracious: Character by Design: Three Steps to Creating Distinct Personalities: This article focuses on characters for traditional fiction, but using these concepts can really flesh out a PC or NPC in your game.
- TO TRUCK, BARTER AND EXCHANGE? On the nature of our digital economies | Valve: A fascinating look at the barter and gift economy of Steam, Valve’s trading platform. I’m busy brainstorming analogues in game world economies and with the economies of points and actions in RPG rules.
- Belt of Vigor at From the Sorcerer’s Skull: Patent Medicine and Snake Oil Items in a world where magic works. I endorse this take on helpful-yet-cursed items.
- Nostalgically Wishing I Would’ve Been Part of the Old School at Take On Rules: Rewards aren’t just about monster trophies, they’re tied to exploration and the ongoing story as well.
- The Prestige Class in Old-School D&D at A Wizard’s Kiss: Prestige Classes are simply campaign-specific ability add-on packages for your character which absolutely make sense in OSR games.
- Who Guards the Queen? by Tracy Hurley at Sarah Darkmagic: Using female bodyguards provides the advantage of surprise in cultures that don’t think of women as fighters.
- Review: T1 The Village of Hommlet at Tabletop On the Desktop: Is the moathouse the adventure or can you get more mileage out of the town full of NPCs?
- Google Statistics on the Edition Wars: D&D & Pathfinder at Awesome Dice Blog: Analysis of Google statistics showing searches for D&D vs. searches for Pathfinder. Nicely done!
- A Mighty Fortress Gunpowder Rules at Untimately: A summary of gunpowder rules contained in the AD&D supplement HR4, presented for ease of conversion to other versions of D&D.
- Reality Makes the Best Fantasy: PANTS at Troll in the Corner: On the societal pros and cons of pants and trousers, and how they can fit into your game.
- The Arizona Initiative: A playset for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying including datafiles and setting information.
- Immersive Gameplay – Interview with Sarah Lynne Bowman: The Guy in the Black Hat interviews the contributors to Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media, starting with Sarah Lynne Bowman. Her essay on Jungian archetypes in RPGs sounds fascinating.
- Zen and the Art of Dungeon Mastering #3: Mind your Players’ Styles, Part 1 of 4 at Critical Hits: Here’s the start of Chatty DM’s 4-part series on dealing with different player styles at your table.
- Heroes Against Darkness by Justin Halliday at The Free RPG Blog: A glowing review for a streamlined D&D clone, inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s TED talk about spaghetti sauce. It’s complete and available as a free PDF download containing all sorts of hackable GM inspiration.
- These Cthulhu LEGO sets will drive you insane with little plastic bricks at Jeffro’s Car Wars Blog: That’s right, fan-built LEGO scenes of unspeakable horror.
- The Avengers As Dungeons And Dragons Characters: Great art depicting fantasy versions of The Avengers. Nicely done!
- Between at d20 Monkey: For not wanting to do editorial cartoons, Brian totally nails this one.
- Dungeons, Dragons, and my Daughter at The Secret DM: A touching gamer-as-parent story of raising kids using the D&D Red Box rulebook as bedtime story material.
- Episode 5: Project Ninja Panda Taco, Never Unprepared, and Dog Eat Dog at Roll for News: Cool interviews in under 20 minutes. That’s a podcast I can get behind.
- Wait, Wait, Don’t Kill Me at A Wizard’s Kiss: On bartering with supernatural beings and gods for more time for your character.
- What If? Featuring The Hulk at Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd.: The Hulk and the U-Foes for your home Marvel Game.
- Kids, Moms, and Cons – the Sequel at Amanda Valentine: Great tips on going to gaming cons with kids. Also mostly applicable to congoers without kids.
- Creating Gods: A Bottom-Up Approach at Gaming as Women: Where do gods come from? They spring out of what’s wrong with the world. A great exercise to try with your own pantheon.
- Talking to People at Gaming as Women: Nervous about approaching someone at a con and starting a conversation? Check in with these tips from Meguey Baker.
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 Independence Edition to see the history of the Drow, adding different dimensions to fantasy weapon combat, and the Indie+ Bundle at RPGNow.
- Roving Band of Misfits publishes their Weekly Roundup column every Sunday. This week's Your Date for the ENnies Edition gives us power creep in gaming, the history of magic items, and coming up with character names without using a generator.
- Keith Davies maintains In My Campaign and on Mondays 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 has once again been pushed off in favor of working on the aggregator site.
- Gaming As Women gathers links in their This Week in Gaming and This Week in Feminism series of articles on Sundays. Both series are collected under the News category. This Week in Gaming features the petition to get a female PC in Aliens: Colonial Marines, modules for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and very cool Kickstarter projects.
- Critical Hits aggregates their Twitter feed and publishes it on Sundays under Critical Bits. This week’s Critical Bits mentions combat speed in D&D Next, Summoner Wars for iOS, and the ENnies Dream Date Auction.
