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Religion in Fantasy Worlds

December 13, 2009 in Design, GMing, Inspiration, Resources, Rules, World by Fitz | 8 comments

Welcome back!

This post was inspired by a post at the KORE rpg blog about the topic. And it got me thinking, which is sometimes not a good thing…

Religion is definitely one of those hot buttons in the real world, like sex, money, politics, and many other hot buttons. As soon as you breach the subject however, some people want to either convert you or condemn you – and neither option really appeals to me.

I’m an atheistic-leaning agnostic… or an agnostic-leaning atheist. Just depends on the day. From my point of view, religion is a good thing for a lot of people, so I don’t make a fuss about it. If you want to talk to me about religion, that’s fine – but I don’t like being preached to. Just a personal thing. The door-to-door folks concerned with saving my soul should just move along. (I’m nice about it, but don’t want to waste their time or mine.)

What’s funny is that it’s also not one of the things I typically think about in my roleplaying. I’m more likely to play a cleric or priest as an NPC than a PC, which goes along with my leaning towards creating worlds with conflict these days.

My Immortals’ Wake setting has a church – the Church of the Mother – that has been twisted in the last thousand years to preach a message of no tolerance. History in the real world shows that many faiths have had issues with tolerating views other than their own. And I wanted to bring that aspect into my setting.

And, as with all things, there are those people within the Church who are more liberal in their views of brotherhood than others. A militant arm has sworn to destroy a group of so-called “demons” simply because they are an affront to what they believe. Other groups within the Church are more tolerant of the “demons” and even helps them from time to time.

However, priests in my games tend to be focused on the personal aspects of the mortal condition – helping the sick and poor, aiding those seeking sanctuary, providing spiritual guidance, and so on – not just the traditional D&D cleric point of view as far as mobile MASH and holy smash unit. As mentioned, there are militants in the Church of the Mother who certainly focus on what they think of as fighting the good fight. But most priests would rather tend to their flocks than fight I think.

As such, my priest NPCs tend to be more philosophers and scholars than weapon-wielding crusaders of faith. They’re more likely to talk you to death than beat you with a blessed club. These folks are also just as likely to be warped by greed or lust as any other mortal, so they may not be the paragons of virtue they’re made out to be. They’re simply men and women doing a job they believe in (or want you to believe in).

This is not to say that they don’t apply their healing abilities to those who need them. Nor do they stray away from praying regularly to the focus of their devotion. And miracles do happen. But these are mortal representatives of their faith who only rarely become vessels to the divine power of their gods.

When you bring in the whole wizard vs. cleric debate and wonder whether a priest might directly oppose a wizard and try to have them lynched. Many priests would decry that wizardry is evil and therefore should be destroyed. But many others would state that if their divine hosts could work miracles through the faithful, why would they allow magicians of other types not to exist? What’s to say that the wizard isn’t working divine miracles of his or her own and simply doesn’t appreciate the divine side of the equation?

A priest whose power base is threatened might turn his flock against a rival wizard, but that would erode his power base. The wizard would most likely fall to greater numbers eventually, but how many members of the priest’s flock would die first? Wouldn’t that give them pause?

So there is definitely room for religion in my games. I’ve only had one player ever convincingly play a priest in a campaign I ran. But I’m always hoping for another!

How do you use religion in your fantasy games? Is it a force to be reckoned with?

Should Players Suffer When PCs Die? from Dungeon’s Master (dungeonsmaster.com)
The Moral Of The Story: The Morality and Ethics of playing an RPG from Campaign Mastery (campaignmastery.com)
The Perils Of Prophecy: Avoiding the Plot Locomotive from Campaign Mastery (campaignmastery.com)

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Tags: Atheism, Death, Faith, Fantasy, Game, Games, Non-player character, religion, Role-playing game, Roleplaying, RPG

Friday Links, December 4, 2009

December 4, 2009 in Advice, Articles, Friday Links, Resources by Fitz | No comments

Another week of awesome posts in the gaming blog community means I’m back with a new list of links for Friday!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving (if they celebrated) and is looking forward to some happy holidays. Winter has finally arrived in Colorado (with most of this week spent near zero degrees fahrenheit), so even I’m starting to think about Christmas.

But I digress.

Here are a few posts to contemplate when winter weather hits in your neck of the woods:

In the “Not Necessarily from This Week” category, we have “Fistfull of Lead: All the Monsters on a Budget” from Jonathan Drain over at Kobold Quarterly. The article tells us where to procure a solid collection of miniatures for your gaming pleasure. Everything from humanoids and skeletons to demons and insects is included in this mix and match collection for a bit over $100 US. Not bad!
http://www.koboldquarterly.com/k/article3132.php
Is Chivalry dead? The RPG Athenaeum offers some suggestions on how to bring knightly orders into your game in “Chivalry doesn’t have to be dead…” The tips on designing a knightly order are very cool – including what to do if a knight fails to live up to the code. As someone who’s designed a few knightly orders, I wish I’d had these tips when I was writing them.
http://rpgathenaeum.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/chivalry-doesnt-have-to-be-dead-use-knightly-orders-in-your-game/
Also from the RPG Athenaeum, we have “Flesh out your hero with an anecdote or two,” which offers some awesome suggestions on quirks for characters that might not have occurred to you. The article covers things like quirky appearance bits, emotional bits such as memories that surface during certain conditions, or unique phrases from their adventures or where they grew up. Cool stuff to consider for NPCs as well as PCs I think!
http://rpgathenaeum.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/flesh-out-your-hero-with-an-anecdote-or-two/
From Abstract XP, we have an article on “Writing effective setting in adventures (part three)”. Weather is one of those things I never get right in campaigns, from what it should be from a seasonal perspective or what it should be from a geographic perspective… So tips and hints for using weather in an adventure is quite welcome. And when you add in tips for avoiding cliche’s and bringing in culture, the article starts overflowing with ideas!
http://abstractxp.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/writing-effective-setting-in-adventures-part-three/
Rob Lang over at The Free RPG Blog brings up some intriguing ideas about making fantasy RPG rules into something that doesn’t fall flat in “How to turn your stock fantasy RPG into a unique delight.” As someone who’s trying to make a generic RPG and start with the fantasy aspects, this was particularly well timed. By not only going back to the source of fantasy ideas – fiction, myth, and folklore – but researching games and other mechanics to borrow ideas here and there to add crunch to otherwise not crunchy bits, I may have enough ideas to finish something soon. Thanks Rob!
http://www.thefreerpgblog.com/2009/12/how-to-turn-your-stock-fantasy-rpg-into.html
Ravyn at Exchange of Realities proposes three ways to think about solving problems in “Three Problem-Solving Question Sequences.” And though this was meant for gamers, I might actually suggest it to my daughters as ways to approach many different things in life. It’s hard to argue with “What do I have and how can I use it?”, “What do I want and what do I have that can help me get it?”, and “What could solve this problem and how could I get it?” Although they all pose similar questions, it’s HOW they’re asked that’s the key… Very though provoking!!
http://exchangeofrealities.today.com/2009/12/01/three-problem-solving-question-sequences/
And lastly, we have a throwback to an earlier time for me… This picture of Orcus from the Lord of the Green Dragons just made me smile as I thought back to my youth and the early days of playing D&D. Good times. Does it reflect poorly on me when I think back on a big demon prince as a symbol of my youth? Maybe.
http://lordofthegreendragons.blogspot.com/2009/12/old-school-orcus.html

Thanks to everyone who wrote the articles above and to the many more I have yet to read on the various RPG blogs I follow.

Have a great weekend!

–Fitz

100 Descriptors for nondescript NPCs from The RPG Athenaeum (rpgathenaeum.wordpress.com)
How Much Metagaming is Too Much? (gnomestew.com)
Emotional Attachments for Story Construction in Virtual Game Wolds (slideshare.net)
The Top Ten Ways to Know Your Campaign Sucks from Rule of the Dice (ruleofthedice.com)
How to turn your stock fantasy RPG into a unique delight from The Free RPG Blog (thefreerpgblog.com)

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Tags: Articles, Colorado, Fantasy, Friday Links, Game, gamemaster, Non-player character, Resources, Role-playing game, Roleplaying, Universal

Blog Post: Friday Links for November 20, 2009 (on Sunday, November 22, 2009)

November 22, 2009 in Advice, Articles, Friday Links, Resources by Fitz | 2 comments

Yes, I’m a bit behind. To say that the past couple of weeks have kicked my arse is an understatement. That said, there have been some awesome articles in the gaming blog community that caught my eye when I had time to check ‘em out… So without further adieu, here are a few posts for your reading pleasure.

In the “not in the gaming community” category we have Philip Palmer from the Orbit Books Blog considering the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. We all know the answer is 42, but Palmer goes deeper into the numerological aspects of the answer and… the fourty-two texts of Hermes Trismegistus! (If you haven’t heard of Orbit Books, be sure to check out their website. They deal in some wonderful urban fantasy, fantasy, and science fiction materials that are full of story and campaign ideas!)
http://www.orbitbooks.net/2009/11/19/the-meaning-of-life-you-read-it-here-first/
Next, in the “bad news for small publishers” category, we have bad news from Outlaw Press with their Tunnels and Trolls products. According to Andreas at the Omnipotent Eye, there are some questions regarding the use of artwork without permission among other things. I’m hoping it’s just rumor, but we’ll see how it all plays out…
http://theomnipotenteye.blogspot.com/2009/11/latest-bad-news.html
Over at the RPG Athenaeum blog, we’re reminded to consider tactics in our D&D battles, not only as players, but as GMs. Using your opponents’ weaknesses presupposes a bit of knowledge on the part of those in the combat and some D&D critters, such as the kobolds used in one example in the article, should have enough brainpower to put 2+2 together to get 4. However, the trick is gaining enough knowledge of the battleground and your opponents before the battle to take advantage of such information… Looking forward to parts 2 & 3 of this three part series.
http://rpgathenaeum.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/let-slip-the-dogs-of-war-part-i/
It seems RPGNow is having an extended Black Friday event between November 27 & 30, according to the Gaming Brouhaha. Next weekend will be a great time to find some awesome materials on sale!
http://rpg.brouhaha.us/?p=1988
Brent Newhall has released a year of his earnings and web traffic for the two RPG PDF products he released about a year ago. I’m enthusiastic about such information as a self-publisher. It means people are making at least a little money with their hobby, which encourages other folks like myself to try to do the same. Thanks Brent and good luck with all your endeavors!
http://brentnewhall.com/blogs/role-playing/21-Nov-09-one-year-of-tabletop.php
Zzarchov over at Unofficial Games pointed at a great article comparing DMing and software development concepts. As a software developer, I have to admit I’d not thought about gaming in those terms but will strive to do so in the future. Having the right bits that you can rearrange to suit particular needs in a just-in-time environment is a great way to view running a game.
http://trollandflame.blogspot.com/2009/11/dm-and-sd-parrellels.html
And lastly, over at Gnome Stew, DNAPhil has encouraged us to properly care for and feed our creativity. Mine’s been starving a bit lately, so his advice is well received by yours truly. I love the idea of creating a new NPC, location description, or plot idea every day or every few days. It’s something I hope to put into practice soon!
http://www.gnomestew.com/gming-advice/the-proper-care-and-feeding-of-your-creativity

This isn’t a complete list of all the articles I’ve noted over the last couple of weeks, but a representative sample at least. I’ve been trying to share these out in Google Reader when I see them, which makes it easier to find them again in the future and keeps them available for others to find if they so desire.

If you’re in the U.S., I wish you a happy Thanksgiving. And no matter where you are, I hope you’re enjoying yourself!

Until next time…

MFJAHXWUHDX6

30 Fiction Writing Tips That Will Make You A Better DM (part 3) from Dungeon Mastering (dungeonmastering.com)
Freethinking Game is a Go from Game in the Brain (gameinthebrain.blogspot.com)
Magazine Review: Kobold Quarterly Fall 2009 Issue 11 (moebiusadventures.com)
30 Fiction Writing Tips That Will Make You A Better DM (part 2) from Dungeon Mastering (dungeonmastering.com)
Gamers Deserve Better from Theo Dudek, Ultimate Game Master (ultimatedm.com)
Need Feedback – Where do we go from here? from Moebius Adventures (moebiusadventures.com)
Mutant Future – Rules Lite or Not Enough Rules? from Warning – Mutagenic Substance (mutagenicsubstance.blogspot.com)

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Tags: Articles, Black Friday, Friday Links, Game, gamemaster, Google Reader, Hermes Trismegistus, Orbit Books, Resources, Role-playing game, Roleplaying

Elemental Appearance – Should it depend on the environment?

November 9, 2009 in Articles, GMing, Inspiration, Magic, Resources by Fitz | 2 comments

While driving around during a recent snowstorm (not much snow, but lots of wind), I saw a “snow devil” as the wind whipped across the road and created a mini-tornado of snow and it got me thinking… How would elementals manifest themselves in different environments?

And after thinking about it for a bit, I’ve come to the conclusion that elementals most likely change when faced with different conditions. For example, an air elemental may manifest as a dust devil in a desert or arid climate, as a waterspout on a larger body of water, or as a blizzard or “snow” devil… Size would be determined by the materials available as well as by the power of the elemental itself… a minor elemental on a grassy plain might not be seen easily, whereas a supersized elemental in the desert might present itself as a monstrous sandstorm.

Man on Fire Putting aside how the elemental got there in the first place (summoned, naturally-occurring, accident, etc.), you end up with some different ways elementals might appear in a game.

I’ve already talked about air elementals… Let’s think about fire elementals…

A fire elemental is dependent on two things – the initial spark that brought it to life and the fuel it needs to survive. So why wouldn’t an enterprising wizard wishing to consult with or capture such an elemental go to a cold place with little fuel or a place where the wizard alone controls the fuel. How vicious would a fire elemental be in a small firepit in the arctic?

But someone seeking to give rise to a large, uncontrolled fire elemental might summon one in a forest to consume it in flames, in a fuel depot (oil for lamps, etc.), or a brewery (or other alcohol-rich depot). Imagine the devastation with such a wild creature loose consuming large amounts of fuel or tinder…

Or what about earth elementals? Far too often I think of the rock monster from Galaxy Quest as your usual earth elemental. What about one made entirely of sand in the desert? Or tiny stones? Or even the silt from the edge of a river or lake?

Water elementals are also very dependent on the immediate environment… An elemental summoned from a puddle would be tiny when compared to one from the ocean or a large lake. Or what happens when one of these has a constant supply of rushing water vs. a finite supply? Then consider the consequences of a slow-moving water elemental made of snow or ice as opposed to one made of freely flowing water…

Then consider battles between different types of elemental and how they might appear in the world. A blizzard may be the battle between a large air elemental and a water elemental or a forest fire raging out of control may actually be a fire elemental and an air elemental at odds with each other. Stormy seas could be air vs. water and tidal waves could be created by undersea battles between earth and water…

Really the combinations are as endless as Mother Nature herself.

So the next time you want to include an elemental in a session… Think about how to introduce it to the characters, what form it may take, and the effects such a creature would have on the surrounding environment.

I know I’ll be paying more attention to the weather.

Leave a comment and let others know how you use elementals in your campaigns – I know I’d like having more food for thought!

–Fitz

Dust storm in Australia (boston.com)
B.C. fire doubles in size overnight (canada.com)
Drought (slideshare.net)
Sydney Begins Clean Up After Red Dust Storm (news.sky.com)

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Tags: Arid, Dust storm, elementals, environment, Games, gaming, Lake, monsters, Mother Nature, Roleplaying, RPGs, The Earth, Water

Friday Links for November 6, 2009

November 6, 2009 in Advice, Articles, Friday Links, Resources by Fitz | No comments

Hi all!

While my own efforts have been bashed in the head with the baseball bat that is reality… I have to show the work of a few other folks whose creativity makes me realize that even if my brain has a dent, I should keep plowing on – because how can you not be inspired by these people??

Over at the Free RPG Blog, Rob Lang has done a review of… the Nevermeet Press website?? Yes, that’s right – he’s reviewing the website as a source of great, free, system-generic resources for roleplaying games. This has to be one of the best breakdowns of what a particular site provides that I’ve seen. Jonathan and Michael have done amazing work and Rob is just letting us all know we should pay more attention.
http://thefreerpgblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/illuminate-your-tired-grey-matter-with.html
At Game in the Brain, Nikolas has provided a list of great free open source resources you can use to create your game materials. Everything from OpenOffice to create the textual content to GIMP for the graphics to Scribus for the desktop publishing. As someone who has been working in open source for the last 4 years or so, it brings tears of joy to see open source applications heralded outside the software industry! I’d also add FreeMind, an open source mind mapping tool, to his list as a great resource.
http://gameinthebrain.blogspot.com/2009/11/some-open-source-tools-for-game.html
From The RPG Athenaeum we have a wonderful list of 100 street scenes for Medieval settlements – otherwise known as “adding crunch” to what might otherwise be a static world. I know that I will soon be leveraging any number of these simple prompts in a game to spawn some creativity when things go stagnant. Why don’t you roll 2d10 and see what you end up with? Ah… #50 “While walking past a temple, a hero is struck in the back with rotten fruit (in warmer months) or a snowball (in winter). The only person visible when the hero looks behind him is an elderly woman, ambling about nonchalantly.” Happens to me all the time!!
http://rpgathenaeum.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/one-hundred-street-scenes-for-medieval-settlements/
Wimwick at Dungeon’s Master.com has some thoughts on getting players engaged. Starting with a little, tantalizing bit of information sometimes gets the imagination going into overdrive and causes players to… ask questions, get involved, and generally dive into the world and adventure to find answers to the questions that they have to answer or else go insane…
http://dungeonsmaster.com/2009/11/engaging-your-players/
And Yax over at Dungeon Mastering has come up with 30 fiction writing tips to make us all better GMs… And, like Wimwick’s thoughts about engaging players, Yax’s #1 tip is to focus on the well crafted detail or NPC to help tell a great story. How can anybody really argue with that?? This is the first 10 tips… more are coming in the next couple of days!
http://www.dungeonmastering.com/tools-resources/30-fiction-writing-tips-that-will-make-you-a-better-dm-part-1

Hope everybody has a great Friday and a wonderful weekend!! And if you feel like providing some feedback, take a look at my Design Question of the Week and throw your $0.02 into the mix. I’d love some more input!

–Fitz

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Tags: Articles, Games, GIMP, Mind map, Open source, OpenOffice.org, Programming, Resources, roleplaying games

Friday Links for October 30, 2009

October 30, 2009 in Friday Links, Inspiration, Resources by Fitz | 4 comments

Hey all…

Yes, I’m a bit late this week. Sorry about that. First ugly cold of autumn for me and work has been keeping me busy. That didn’t stop a whole mess of people coming up with some interesting articles to keep us all thinking about gaming.

We’ll get the list started off this week with some Halloween-themed posts:

Dungeon’s Master has an awesome Zombie Survival Flowchart this week, which made my week. Definitely check it out! I started giggling as soon as I hit “Are you prepared for the zombie apocalypse?” -> no -> “You wet yourself.” -> “Do you change into clean clothes?” Zombie Survival Flowchart
And from Dungeon Mastering, we have an awesome summary of all things “zombie”… You must know your enemy to combat it! And it definitely helps to follow rule #4 – “Find the Necromancer.” Zombie-pocalypse

A few posts about magic:

Tankards & Broadswords today brought up using magic actually inspired by the realms of the occult, wicca, and so on. And though I won’t be sanctioning trying to summon beings from the lower planes in real life, I have to admit to a fascination with the “rules” of magic practitioners in the real world. Great food for thought, whether your campaign is in a fantasy realm or the “real” world!Putting Some Real Magic in Your Gaming
At Troll and Flame, I found myself presented with an idea that I’d bounced around with Mike (our GM) a number of times. “Magic Missile” is a pretty boring spell name when you think about it. I changed it to “Finger of Death” so I could give your enemies the “finger” whenever we were in combat… The solution in the article is to NOT name the spell – but let the player name it. What a concept – easy way to get the player involved in the world by defining a part of how his character interacts with it!Magical Monday – Personalized Magic

A few posts about the RPG industry:

The Seven-Sided Die has an interesting article about the cost-effectiveness of POD and shipping, which I found very interesting because I’ve used Lulu for publishing Moebius Adventures Core Rules. It is definitely not cost effective for one copy, but gets more cost effective the more copies you buy.A Comment on POD and Shipping
LivingDice has a very interesting way of looking at the RPG business model, from The Citadel to the Beer Garden and finally to the Bazaar. Anybody involved in publishing (or trying to, like myself) RPGs should give it a look and see what they think. I know I’ll be spending some brain power on it.The Citadel, the Beer Garden, and the Bazaar
Another article about RPG business comes from Wondrous Imaginings by Joe the Lawyer… He contends that D&D at Wizards of the Coast might not have gone the same way it has if it had focused more on PR and customer service. It definitely makes me think that PR & customer service should be high on the priority list for any small game company or game designer. Honestly that’s a good idea in any business. The Role of Customer Service in a RPG Company

And finally, a scattering of posts on a variety of other topics:

Over at the Sea of Stars, I found a well-thought-out view of evil and why evil characters work in a campaign. It’s along the lines of my own idea that there really is no good or evil, but an individual working toward a goal. If you think it’s ok to chop off a few heads along the way, you might be evil. Game Theory: Moral Dilemmas – Playing Evil
At Abstract XP, we get a bit of a primer on the difference between plot and story. And it’s a great refresher if you haven’t considered the difference for a while (like me!).Plotting Adventures: Part One
Also in the vein of defining “evil”, at the World of Alidor blog we find them discussing a greedy, but not quite evil god named Yol. But what really got me thinking was the comparison of evil to a deadly virus like ebola. Sure, it can spread, but it typically kills so quickly that it dies out and becomes dormant, waiting for the next opportunity to strike. I like the analogy. The Good, the Bad, Gods and Spirits of Alidor
Critical Failure – the GURPS Podcast pointed us at a great article on the anatomy of Japanese folk monsters, with some amazing images. You have to love the Japanese for their dedication to detail, even if it’s for a mythological creature!Potential Encounters: Anatomy of Japanese Folk Monsters points you to… Anatomy of Japanese Folk Monsters
And lastly, in the category of “go ahead, lay some history on me” we have an amazing article on the Persian Empire from the Sea of Stars blog… This is another one I’m going to have to devour a piece at a time to milk as much as I can out of it. Through the Lens of History 5: The Great King

As per usual, thanks to all the writers of these great, thought provoking posts! Have a great weekend and a wonderful Halloween!

–Fitz

Black Blade Publishing takes on S&W and Knockspell from Akratic Wizardry (akraticwizardry.blogspot.com)
The Equilibrium of Complexity from Whitehall ParaIndustries (whitehall-paraindustries.blogspot.com)
Setting Design for 4E – Teerna (Part 2 – Races & Classes ) from Gaming Brouhaha ” RPG (rpg.brouhaha.us)
Earthdawn Player’s Guide, 3rd Edition Review from Roleplaying Pro | Roleplaying Games, Miniatures, DnD, Gaming (roleplayingpro.com)
Flavor Text of Eden (And 4e!) from The Spirits of Eden ” RPG (spiritsofeden.wordpress.com)
Pathfinder Playtest from High Adventure Games ” rpg (highadventuregames.wordpress.com)
Swords & Wizardry Coming Soon to a Game Store Near You! from RetroRoleplaying: The Blog (retroroleplaying.com)
A Dragon’s Horde of D&D Resources from Dungeon’s Master (dungeonsmaster.com)
Goolies and Ghosties and Things That Go Bump in the Night from Evil Machinations (rpggm.com)
Necromancer: Heroic Tier (Revised) from Dungeon’s Master (dungeonsmaster.com)
Latest Material Index from Emergence Campaign Weblog (ruscumag.wordpress.com)

Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

Tags: business, customer service, Fantasy, Game designer, Games, Magic, Magic of Dungeons & Dragons, POD, Role-playing game, Roleplaying, RPG, Wizards of the Coast

Review: Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs, Volume 1 Edited by Jonathan Jacobs

October 21, 2009 in Books, GMing, Inspiration, Resources, Reviews by Fitz | 2 comments

Hi all…

As my contribution to the RPG Gamer Network’s Small Press Week, here’s my review of Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs, Volume 1.

As a lifetime player and gamemaster of tabletop roleplaying games (RPGs), I’m constantly amazed at the amount of passion, knowledge, and depth of other members of this collective of people who play RPGs. There are players that might as well be actors with as deeply as they get immersed in their characters. There are gamemasters (GMs) who know not only the art of story construction, but how to keep campaigns alive for years by constantly changing things up.

And then there are people like me. I straddle between the two camps, or at least try to, gleaning what I can from experts on both sides of the divide. I try my hand at writing roleplaying games, playing myself, and hopefully soon starting to GM again.

So when I come across new resources such as Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs, Volume 1, I am blown away by the creativity and imagination bound up within. There are countless roleplaying blogs now, and Open Game Table aims to collect some of the finest blog articles from 2008. The articles may have been dusted off, edited, and illustrated to make them shinier, but they are the same thoughts that appeared on the internet first.

Jonathan Jacobs runs a blog known as The Core Mechanic and participates in a network of roleplaying bloggers known as the RPG Bloggers Network. And it’s many of the writers from that network that grace the pages of this first volume of what I hope will be many.

Jacobs and the other editors have arranged the book into broad chapters – Play Style, Game Play, Characters & Players, Monsters & NPCs, and so on. Each chapter collects a number of articles on the broad themes for that chapter. I have to say that with the sheer number of authors, pages, articles, and words, there were bound to be a few typos here and there, but they were all extremely minor and never caused any issues.

Some of my favorite content includes:

“Giving the Players a Reason to Enjoy the Campaign” by Brandon Daggerhart from Turtles all the Way Down – actually ASK the players about their characters and get them involved in the campaign earlier in a more interactive way.
“Extreme Makeover: Tavern Edition” by Stephen Dewey from Musings of the Chatty DM – so you’ve got a ratty old tavern in your campaign… maybe it needs some atmosphere, better descriptions of the food, or a gimmick?
“The Adventure Funnel” by Andrew Reyes from I Waste the Buddha with my Crossbow provides a stone simple way to focus your adventure ideas and funnel them into a complete experience – including the idea, obstacles, details, assistance and rewards

This is just a sampling of the many, many great, thought-provoking articles throughout this collection. What’s exciting about this is that it’s just volume 1! The potential is here to produce volumes of this sort of content as long as people are playing roleplaying games and blogging about them.

I have to commend Jacobs and the many authors and editors for putting together such a quality product. Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs, Volume 1 should be on the “want list” of all gamers, whether you’re a player, a GM, or a writer. Order your copy from Lulu today as a hardcopy or PDF or check out RPGNow.com! (Jacobs also let me know that the book was picked up by Studio2Publishing, and is now in retail distribution so you should be able to pick up a copy from your friendly local gaming shop!

–Fitz

p.s. You can also order it from Amazon:

All I know about Tabletop RPGs, I learned from Video Games from Life and Times of a Philippine Gamer (philgamer.wordpress.com)
Nerd Watching: Are you a backseat GM? from Dungeon Mastering (dungeonmastering.com)
Geeks Next Door – The Wiz from Dungeon Mastering (dungeonmastering.com)
Being an impartial DM and a WIP Map from Chgowiz’s Old Guy RPG Blog (oldguyrpg.blogspot.com)

Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)

Tags: Books, Dungeon Master, Fantasy, Game, gamemaster, Games, gaming, Jonathan Jacobs, Lulu, Non-player character, Open Game Table, Role-playing game, Roleplaying, RPGs, Universal

Friday Links for October 2, 2009

October 2, 2009 in Friday Links, News, Resources by Fitz | 1 comment

Hi all…

It’s time for another episode of the Friday Links! No, we’re not talking about golf here. We may however be talking about chain mail, perhaps a ball and chain, or just another link in the chain… Wow, it just gets worse from there.

Anyhow… Here’s the list of interesting links I found this week while perusing the ‘net…

Ben McFarland on the Dungeon Mastering Blog came up with some awesome ways to enhance villains in any campaign – just think of the flying monkeys!
http://www.dungeonmastering.com/campaigns-adventures/crashing-hill-giant-parties-and-other-fun-activities
Looking for treasure? Look no further than Badelaire’s Tankards and Broadswords blog with links to a real-life treasure hoard found in Starffordshire, England this past summer. There’s pictures, descriptions, and everything when you follow the links in the article.
http://tankardsandbroadswords.blogspot.com/2009/09/real-life-treasure-hoard.html
Ravyn at Exchange of Realities is suggesting that we sweat the small stuff for a while to encourage a mental change. Often as gamers – players and GMs alike – we lose track of the little things. Ravyn proposes a little exercise to help train a part of your head to look at things… differently. Change is good! Even if you don’t use this as a gamer, this sort of exercise is excellent for those of us who choose to write now and then.
http://exchangeofrealities.today.com/2009/09/25/mindset-exercise-learning-to-see/
The latest in a series of blog articles on “Building Better NPCs” was posted on the Evil Machinations blog this week… Here’s that one and the two prior to read up on making NPCs memorable.
http://www.rpggm.com/blog/2009/09/21/building-better-npcs-i-extras-walk-ons-bit-players-and-major-characters/
http://www.rpggm.com/blog/2009/09/23/building-better-npcs-ii-8-steps-to-memorable-npcs/
http://www.rpggm.com/blog/2009/09/25/building-better-npcs-iii-character-webs/
Continuing the NPC improvement theme this week, Ravyn says it’s time to get some better minions!
http://exchangeofrealities.today.com/2009/09/27/the-generic-villain-on-the-qualities-of-a-good-minion/
Every GM now and then has issues coming up with an original adventure idea… The Abstract XP blog suggests you ask yourself a few questions…
http://abstractxp.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/coming-up-with-original-adventure-ideas-part-2/
For anybody looking for a game, whether as a GM or player, The Free RPG Blog came up with an awesome list of resources to check out. I’m now using a couple of these to find a group here in Colorado Springs willing to let me torture them GM a campaign…
http://thefreerpgblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/free-resources-to-help-you-find-players.html
And finally, on RPG Centric, an article showing that our schools are not a wasteland devoid of roleplaying humor. How to support reading, creativity, and gaming in school… This is hard to ignore and impossible for me not to applaud!!
http://rpgcentric.com/when-rpgs-meets-theater-everybody-wins.html

There were many more great articles this week, but I’m sure there will be just as many next week.

Thanks to all the great article authors on all these wonderful blogs. It’s all great food for thought and my brain is always hungry.

Have a great weekend!

–Fitz

RPG Design – Designing for your Players from Emergence Campaign Weblog (ruscumag.wordpress.com)
When GMs go bad – Powergamers from abstract xp (abstractxp.wordpress.com)
Think About Your Game As If It Were A Movie Or TV Show (gnomestew.com)
My Biggest Mistakes: Defying Expectations in the Zenith-3 Campaign from Campaign Mastery (campaignmastery.com)
Top Ten Tips for GMing from abstract xp (abstractxp.wordpress.com)
Something Old, Something New: Great DM’s from www. Newbie DM .com (newbiedm.com)
Friday Five… No Ten! from Ravenous Role Playing (ravenousrpg.com)
Deep as a Puddle: Characters and Culture (gnomestew.com)
[Fantasy Craft] Customizing your Campaign with Campaign Qualities from Life and Times of a Philippine Gamer (philgamer.wordpress.com)
Blog Carnival: Mistakes, Me? Never! from Advanced Gaming & Theory (advancedgaming-theory.blogspot.com)

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Tags: Colorado Springs, Game, gamemaster, Non-player character, NPC, Role-playing game, Roleplaying

Five (Plus One) Questions for Players to Answer for a Character

October 1, 2009 in Advice, Inspiration, Resources by Fitz | 3 comments

All of this discussion of finding that emotional bond with a character in a campaign brought up something I was discussing a while back with Mike (forged). There are questionnaires all over the ‘net for fleshing out a character, but that only gets you so far.

drama_masks I was reading an issue of SciFi Magazine a couple of months ago and found an interview with actor Joe Morton (Eureka, Terminator 2). He was talking about how he prepares for a role. And he said he tries to answer five basic questions when he works on any particular story.

1. Who am I?
2. Where am I going?
3. Who do I expect to meet?
4. What do I want?
5. What extent am I willing to go to get it?

These questions work just as well for characters in a roleplaying game as they do for an actor or actress in a feature film, television, or other kind of performance project.

I’ll add another question to this list also… because we as roleplayers don’t have a props department or costume designer at our beck and call.

6. What does my outward appearance tell others?

This may not help me create a character I can emotionally engage with right away, but it might help me gain some perspective before gaming. Looking at these before a session may prepare me in ways I can’t immediately see.

For example, in our current gaming group we only get together once a month or so. Answering these questions would reacquaint me with my character and what we were doing during the last session, as well as reconnecting me with my fellow PCs – all of which would hopefully get me engaged more quickly than I have been in my current campaign. I might even go so far as to write down answers to these questions at the end of a session so I might quickly refresh my memory at the beginning of the next.

What do you think? Six simple questions to help get back into the swing of things.

–Fitz

p.s. If you’re interested in some ideas to answer question #6, check out the freebie PDF that you get if you subscribe to the Moebius Adventures News – 7 Areas to Consider to Make Magic Users Unique!

Upcoming Eureka Episode To Be Directed By Joe Morton (screenrant.com)

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Tags: Fantasy, Games, Joe Morton, Player character, Role-playing game, Roleplaying, Science fiction

Great List of Roleplaying Websites at Dungeon Mastering…

December 6, 2007 in Resources by Fitz | No comments

Hi all…

Thought I’d post a link to this amazing list of resources over at Dungeon Mastering… The top 50 (or 52, but who’s counting) RPG websites.

It includes some of my favorites, including:

But it also includes many I hadn’t seen and will now be visiting frequently like:

Be sure to check it out!

–Fitz

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Religion in Fantasy Worlds

Friday Links, December 4, 2009

Blog Post: Friday Links for November 20, 2009 (on Sunday, November 22, 2009)

Elemental Appearance – Should it depend on the environment?

Friday Links for November 6, 2009

Friday Links for October 30, 2009

Review: Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs, Volume 1 Edited by Jonathan Jacobs

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Five (Plus One) Questions for Players to Answer for a Character

Great List of Roleplaying Websites at Dungeon Mastering…

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