Greetings! It’s been a while, and with Sandy romping across the eastern half of the US last night, that got me to thinking that we probably have enough links to share. I hope the linked Kickstarters haven’t expired yet – there are some good ones in there. Here’s hoping you and yours are safe. Enjoy!
At Home
Articles posted here on The Gamer Assembly.
Away
Content from people involved with The Gamer Assembly posted elsewhere across the Internet.
- The Story of the Haunted Guard Post by T.W.Wombat at Wombat’s Gaming Den of Iniquity: Here’s what happened in the first adventure of the RPG for Kids. I think they did quite well, and everyone had a blast.
- Plugging a Couple of Lightweight RPGs by T.W.Wombat at Wombat’s Gaming Den of Iniquity: I’ve been playing with and working on a couple of very cool lightweight game systems, so I thought I’d give them a shout.
- Kids RPG: Lessons Learned and Ideas for Next Time by T.W.Wombat at Wombat’s Gaming Den of Iniquity: Notes to self: some things worked well and some really didn’t in that RPG for kids. Try these tips for the next game and see how they work.
- I used to date an adventurer like you by ~thedandmom on deviantART by thedandmom: Skyrim pinup art. Ideal for displaying on a T-shirt.
- Supplement Review: Midgard Campaign Setting, Part 1 by Fitz at Game Knight Reviews: Take a look inside the Midgard Campaign Setting. It’s so big and dense, even the review needs to be broken into parts.
- Modern Assembly: Analyst Theme by Brian Liberge at Stuffer Shack: Do you want your Modern PC to never miss a clue? The Analyst theme has your PC’s name written all over it.
- GenCon Report 3: Playing New Games by Brian Liberge at Stuffer Shack: Brian tells us about his new game experiences at GenCon this year. He played Dread, the Midgard Campaign Setting, his own Modern Assembly hack of D&D 4e, and Project Ninja Panda Taco.
- Bishop – Marvel Datafile by Brian Liberge at Stuffer Shack: Take a look at this version of Bishop for Civil War. He’s got his traditional plasma rifle, but not his cybernetic arm.
- The Story of Red Ax is now being told by Brent Newhall at Brent P. Newhall’s Home(page): Bodyguards, assassins, and slaves blend in this tale of social inequality in a felinoid society. If you like the first issue, share it and watch for a Kickstarter to help fund issue 2′s production.
- Rebuilding Zanzer Tem’s Dungeon… by Adam Page at Daily Encounter: Follow Adam’s journey to build Zanzer Tem’s dungeon in 3D plater terrain from the map contained in the Easy To Master D&D Boxed Set featuring Dungeon Cards.
- Dressing up Zanzer Tem’s Dungeon by Adam Page at Daily Encounter: Adam talks about planning, specifically all the moulds he needs to cast pieces for Zanzer Tem’s Dungeon.
Product Announcements
New products and special events announced this week.
- BareBones Fantasy Role Playing Game – DwD Studios at DriveThruRPG: BareBones Fantasy is out! If you’re in the market for a lightweight fantasy RPG that’s remarkably complete with some inspirational random tables for plots, dungeons, obstacles, and rewards, look no further.
- Emergence: A Sci-Fi/Fantasy Roleplaying Game by Emergence at Kickstarter: Fantasy, modern day, and SF genres crash together as 1982 Earth discovers a portal to a resource-rich fantasy world. And if you ever wanted to play a 1/4 elf, 1/4 orc, 1/2 human with power armor and a castle, Emergence is for you.
- Sagas of the Icelanders Roleplaying Game | Indiegogo at Indiegogo: This Apocalypse World hack explores the relationships and daily challenges of Norse settlers in Iceland around 900 AD.
- BORDERLAND KEEP: Deluxe Edition by Tom Tullis at Kickstarter: This Fold-Flat terrain lets you print out as many towers and wall sections as you want, then fold them flat for easy storage and transport. Layers let you customize terrain with gargoyles, stains, statues, or ivy.
- A Tragedy in Five Acts by Matthew McFarland at Kickstarter: A five-person RPG where players compete for tragedy points and the right to narrate the ending. Based on Shakespearean tragedies. Winner of the 2011 Game Chef competition.
- Spears of the Dawn RPG by Kevin Crawford at Kickstarter: An African-themed fantasy RPG built on the Stars Without Number system.
- SHAKER: An RPG by Brenda Brathwaite & Tom Hall by Loot Drop at Kickstarter: This computer-based first-person RPG offers the Old School RPG pen & paper game as a reward. Interesting.
- IRPMUS Ultimate Role Playing Game by Notting Hill Games at Kickstarter: A rollicking fantasy improv system. “It’s like D&D meets Whose Line Is It Anyway?”
- d20Monkey: First Edition by Brian Patterson at Kickstarter: The first year of the webcomic d20 Monkey is being cleaned up, reformatted, and published in book form. Throw in 40 pages of bonus content and a one-of-a-kind Boner Fairy plush doll and it becomes hard to pass up.
Notes From Abroad
Other interesting articles and cool links.
- KHORGHIL FANTASY MAP by *Khorghil on deviantART: All campaign maps should be this cool. I love the names organically growing out of the landscape.
- Zanzer’s Dungeon Map: A classic TSR map, ripe for repopulating and repurposing.
- About | National Game Design Month: If you have time this November and don’t want to crank out a novel, crank out a game instead. NaGaDeMon is on.
- Deities And Demigods Is Totally A Book You Should Be Using Because This at Playing D&D with Porn Stars: Here’s a way to adapt the old school Deities & Demigods into a cult and follower generator.
- The H.P. Lovecraft Institute of Software Design: It’s hard to tell if this blog is fiction or subtly twisted reality. Anyone in the software industry should enjoy reading the entries, chilling though they may be.
- Bildwirkerey von Bayeux: A historic tale construction kit. Create your own medieval storytelling art using drag-and-drop images from the Bayeux Tapestry. Very cool little generator.
- Play With Intent | Emily Boss & Matthijs Holter: Playing with intent calls for moving beyond the traditional idea of rules into the realm of pure shared creation. Download the guidebook here. Definitely food for thought.
- Reality Makes the Best Fantasy: Graveyards and Final Remains at Troll in the Corner: What happens to the dead in your game? After they’re raised as undead and destroyed by your PCs, of course.
- 7 Habits of Highly Effective Players, Part 2 at Thoughtcrime Games: Talking about your character’s thought process is a great tool to increase characterization without falling into the trap of metagaming.
- Muddy Colors: 10 Things… About Talent: Originally written to describe the author’s experience with oil painting, this article exposes talent as a myth. If you want to do something like, say, write RPGs, then act like you can do it and learn from every experience you have. Fabricate your own talent.
- Talkin’ About Edits and Expectations at Machine Age Productions: How to set expectations and work smoothly with your editor.
- Cyberpunk 2020 Handy Utilities: Programs for Players and Game: For those of you looking for quick and random character backstory, check out this online Cyberpunk 2020 lifepath generator. The events are generic enough to apply to any setting.
- Discussion About Discomfort Mechanics at Google+: Here’s an interesting discussion about how instituting systems to prevent discomfort at the table can backfire by people assuming that the group doesn’t trust anyone to act like an adult.
- Mini-Review: Take On Magic Items at RPG Musings: Aaron takes a look at a PDF of 24 magic items for Dungeon World from Jeremy Friesen of Take On Rules.
- Raising the Bar at Room 209 Gaming: A look at the assumptions around having the party meet in a tavern and how those assumptions limit player choice before the game even begins. Collaborative character creation, such as the system in Infinite Earths, does wonders to avoid this cliche.
- Armor by Class at Untimately: Here’s a simple system that makes class skill just as important as equipment when wearing armor in OSR games. Thieves can wear Plate, but Fighters will get much more of a benefit from it.
- Kickstarter Opportunity Costs at Quest For Fun!: A look at how expensive pre-ordering books through Kickstarter actually is for a retailer.
- Be A Better Player at Truly Rural: A series of articles designed to teach ways to be a better player and increase your usefulness at the game table.
- Prismatic Art and Glimm at Glimm’s Workshop: Need art depicting a gnome spellcaster? Take a look at Glimm as drawn by Brian Patterson of d20 Monkey for the Prismatic Art Collection Kickstarter.
- An Inspiring Ms. Marvel: A great memory about posing for pictures with a little girl while cosplaying as her favorite hero Ms. Marvel.
- This short movie about cyborgs running amok in Bangkok’s red light district is totally worth your 5 minutes at io9: Spend the 5 minutes on this cyberpunk vid. Totally worth the time investment.
- Make Politics Interesting in Your Fictional World at World Building Academy: Here’s how to inject politics into your game world in ways that make sense and make good stories.
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 Sunday Knight News Halloween Edition to see Dragonlance AD&D modules run under D&D Next, 5 resolution mechanics that don’t use dice, and an answer to the question “Is tabletop gaming good for you?” (Spoiler: Yes.)
- Roving Band of Misfits publishes their Weekly Roundup column every Sunday. This week's Two Year Anniversary Edition gives us a list of horror RPGs to try for Halloween, a Danish school using LARP to teach their entire curriculum, and ways to make undead creatures even more creepy.
- Gaming As Women gathers links in their This Week in the News series of articles on Sundays, collected under the News category. This Week in the News features using real-life monsters in your game, an article on Zombie LARP for The Guardian, and a few misconceptions about diversity in gaming.
- Intwischa publishes a collection of links for the week every Monday. Take a look at Links for the Week of October 22 to find maps of both geography and information, using plot ideas like ingredients for your campaign recipe, and managing the tension between PC freedom and party plot progression.
- Critical Hits aggregates their Twitter feed and publishes it on Sundays under Critical Bits. Apparently Gato has been bored to tears since early October. Poor Gato. We’ll keep an eye on him.