Category: Roleplaying

IC Punishment, OOC Reward, a good post about a common and tricky subject. I wonder how much this thought should apply to common things, like wounds.

West Marches: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. An interesting persistent world experiment. A cool setup for a game people can drop in and out of randomly. New: Part 4: Death and Danger.

Learning to explain failure brings attention to a common stumbling point.

Cool modern fantasy art.

DM’s Haven Generators page

DNA Phil’s blog. His post about what’s he’s learned over the years is particularly good.

Cool way to collaboratively flesh out backgrounds, etc. (Stolen shamelessly from this Gamecraft thread🙂 Here’s a technique that’s been in use by loads of people, for a long damn time, which was put into print in the game The Mountain Witch:

Instead of mining a character background or world stuff for a figure suitable to some need in the game, tell a player that they see someone or react in some way to a feature, and then ask them why.

“A figure comes out of the sweathouse. It is a man from your past, a respected mentor. You move quickly to greet him. Who is he, Joe?”

“Joe, your character pauses at an unmarked grave by the side of the road for a moment, and bows his head before moving on. Why did he do that?”

Read the thread for some good discussion about when and how it works well.

Out in the wide world of roleplaying, I’ve recently found some very nice blogs. They started off scattered around the previous post. I decided to move them here, since they’re a recurring destination, not just a one stop read the post place. With no further ado:

Critical Hits, a good general gaming site.

Dugeonmastering.com, focussed on D&D. Cool tools are scattered around. There are lots of good short posts and series. Quick D&D game prep is good advice for spending your time gaming, not prepping.

Hack/ is another D&D 4e focussed blog.

Save vs DM: Geeks on the Borderlands is an interesting blog… that just got restarted.

Musings of the Chatty DM, a nice, general roleplaying discussion blog. More craft than theory.

One Angry Gamer is a website covering RPGs– both computer and tabletop.

Not just a blog, but…Ground Zero Games now has a real net presence.

A new, very intense version of the Paladin (for D&D, of course).

Cool shortcut: One Sentence Character Motivations.

Three tiered conflict webs: an expansion on a great idea.

I thought this was interesting to stumble on, since it matches my “Hero Points” idea and raises: FYIA tokens.

Twist of Fate World Creation: very similar to Universalis style world building. More open ended than Dawn of Worlds.

Barebones systemless character questionnaire.

Quick character background: randomized backgrounds with linked feats, great for first time players.

In 4e news, they’ve shifted their release schedule. Instead of May/June/July for the three core books, they’re now going to release all three books on June 6th. Just after Dad and Jennifer’s birthdays, of course…

PTA+Spirit, a post I need to check out. It sounds cool.

Spirit of the Verse, a SotC/Firefly cross.

Bliss Stage is a cool RPG I’ve been following through creation. The “alpha” version is out, and it sounds like the lengthier version is due soon.

Easy Point Buy calculator (found via Hack/). Pick your stats and race and get realtime results. Also: Expendible Item (scroll, potion, etc.) cost calculator.

Instant Campaign Builder is a solid, well linked blog series.

Ross Win interviews Rob Donoghue