Last night I worked up a ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ map. It was sort of a quick map, but in the spirit of Mother’s Day I am going to go ahead and post it up today! Now you can get some dungeon crawling in while celebrating Mother’s Day!

These can be printed for last minute Mother’s Day cards too!

Parchment Background Version

White Background Version

 

There's still a few days left to throw your support behind the Kickstarter campaign to fund season three of Dungeons & Dragons-inspired web series Standard Action.

Although Season Two is only part-way through, the show's makers are already planning for the future.

As the Kickstarter pages says: "We're leaving our team in hot water at the end of Season Two... Will the land ever be safe from evil? Will the team ever find a place where they truly belong? Will we ever figure out what the deal is with the squirrel?"

Season Three continues the story of four misfit adventurers - Edda the Elf Barbarian, Fernando the Half-Halfling Bard, Wendy the Sorceress and Martin the Druid - as they bumble and careen haphazardly through a world of questing, betrayal, dragons, pompous wizards, kobolds, true love, and pop culture references.

The funding [...]

Character creation and leveling up can be confusing, even for experienced players. There's a lot of keep track of, including abilities to choose and statistics to be recalculated.

The Character Workbook: Fighter for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is a game aid designed for the core combat-oriented class, walking you through the process of character creation and help you keep track of all those changes as you level up. It's not a character sheet -- you'll still need one of those -- but it will help you make sure you've filled out your character sheet completely and correctly. You'll never have to [...]

Different strokes for different folks. Or groups. Or "just because" ;)

Currently I'm running Rappan Athuk, which is a Mega Dungeon with more than a single rail - multiple ins and outs from each level (and the possibility to bypass levels) and players can easily stumble into areas and opponents beyond their capacity to dispatch - "Oh Shit! Run!" most certainly applies.

So, not a "sandbox" but not strictly "railed" either.

My other irregular campaign just kicked off, and initially it will be more of an "adventure path" until the players build up some character knowledge of the area, and which point it will transition to be more of a "sandbox" in nature.

As most of you know, I am immersing myself in the Razor [...]

Dark Horse Comics. Fantasten, die in den letzten Jahren nicht auf der dunklen Seite des Mondes lebten, knnen zumindest ansatzweise etwas mit Dragon Age und der Welt Thedas anfangen.

Die Marke wurde von der kanadischen Firma Bioware fr das Computer-Rollenspiel Dragon Age: Origins kreiert. Es gibt mittlerweile diverse Ergnzungen, Dragon Age 2, Romane, Comics, ein traditionelles Pen & Paper Rollenspiel und ein drittes Videospiel-Abenteuer befindet sich in Arbeit.

Dragon Age: The World of Thedas – Volume 1 sammelt nun erstmals fr Einsteiger und Anhnger erste Einblicke, Geheimnisse und bislang unverffentlichte Bilder dieser Spielwelt.

Dragon Age: The World of Thedas (private picture of the [...]

Troll Lord Games is running a preorder for the Free City of Eskadia: Jack of Lies for the Castles & Crusades system. There is seven days left to get in on this and try to push the product from a softcover book to hardcover by reaching the $4000 pledge level.

The preorder is being run in a very similar manner to a Kickstarter, minus the Kickstarter site! There are various pledge levels ranging from a PDF of the book at $10 to a $125 Master Thief Pledge which will get you the PDF of the book, a physical copy [...]

Congrats to Martin Ralya and the gang at Gnome Stew on their five year anniversary!  Check them out here!

Still finding more and more ships... I hope you enjoy this series of posts.

 EDIT: I erroneously contributed the homemade zine to Peter Regan, he had emailed me earlier in the week and when I got a envelope from across the ocean and automatically contributed to Peter.  When it was in fact from +Simon Forster who has been making some incredible maps of late.  I apologize to both Peter and Simon for my mistake. 

Yesterday was a shit day.  Huge piles of it everywhere.  Couldn't wait to get home and get away from work.  I get home and Ivy said their was mail for me.  I said, where's it at.  She said its [...]

Dungeons, especially the upper levels, are often rife with graffiti. Whether it's adventurers making boastful statements or dungeon denizens warning others out of their territory, or some cryptic message scratched into the door frame, evidence of past visitors can help to bring the dungeon to life and give it history. To help out in those situations when the players are asking what type of graffiti is around, or if you want to have some premade, I've created this little chart to help you figure it out.



Roll Age [...]

This isGaming Notes, the weeklynews-magazineabout all kinds of games and the home ofSpace Gaming News,Designer Spotlight,Blog Watch,andSciFi Smackdown.This week's special guest is Andrew Metzger, the designer of the “Barbarians at the Gate” sponsored counter sheets for the upcoming Ogre Designer’s Edition.

Previous installments of Designer Spotlight featured:

• Jim Krohn–Space Empires 4X
• Bill Cavalier–The World’s Worst Dungeon Crawl
• Rob Eaglestone– Deneb Sector

—

Space Gaming News:

In the mail… tatoos, a book mark, and a post card from The Fellowship of the Troll!

Heroes & Other Worlds (Christopher Brandon)Magi Carta COMPLETE — The Magi Carta will provide over six hundred spells for the Heroes & Other Worlds retroclone, the [...]

One of the main things encouraging corpse-looting in D&D  is the unquestionable fact that troop-type monsters - orcs, goblins, the occasional bandit - each carry a small personal stash of low-value coins, something to tide you over while you're looking for the main lair.

But what's behind this assumption?

Superficially, it seems silly that a horde of goblins or gnolls out on a raid would value coins at all. After all, what would they spend it on? No human town would trade with them. Desperate raiders just look to get by, day to day. They'd be much more [...]

Here's a bit of living archaeology for you: A fellow named Darrel Markewitz and his team here have produced a clay smelter that's an analog to viking-age smelters of Scandinavia and they are, in this rather long and difficult-to-hear video, at the final steps of a two-day process of blooming bog iron. Dunno why I can't embed them, so here's the link.

Ghost in the Shell: Arise. Kazuchika Kise in Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell in vier Teilen. Am 22. Juni 2013 wird der erste Teil ARISE border: 1 Ghost Pain in die japanischen Kinos kommen. Der Soundtrack wird von Cornelius stammen.

“A bomb has gone off in Newport City, killing a major arms dealer who may have ties with the mysterious 501 Organization. Public Security official Daisuke Aramaki hires full-body cyber prosthesis user and hacker extraordinaire Motoko Kusanagi to investigate, but on the case with her are “Sleepless Eye” Batou who believes Kusanagi is a criminal, Niihama Prefecture Detective Togusa who [...]

About 20 minutes into the pilot episode of Zombieland: The Series the new Tallahassee (Kirk Ward) declares: "It ain't over yet!" But you'll be wishing it was.

If you've been wandering what Amazon is doing with all the money we're throwing at them, they've been producing their own television shows and have recently launched a number of pilots - available through Lovefilm (Amazon's answer to Netflix) in the UK - that people can rate and comment on. Those that do well will merit their own series later in the year.

One of these shows is Zombieland: The Series - spun off of the excellent 2009 movie starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin.

And, boy, do we miss those stars. Their bargain-basement, teeveeland replacements - Tyler Ross, Kirk Ward, Maiara Walsh and Izabela Vidovic - are a pale imitation. But the actors can't [...]

The Da Vinci Code
by Hans Zimmer

I will not use this post to debate on its accuracies or fallacies and the like.  I will not use this to debate on whether the book or the movie is better.  This post is whether or not the soundtrack will work for games and that's what you're going to find inside here.  For those not familiar with the movie, or the book it is based in, feel free to google up the title.

The soundtrack is by the renowned Hans Zimmer, whose approach to music will always have a distinct approach to [...]

2 Down one to go. Used to hate superman, cos he just wasn’t cool. Smallville hepled things a lot, as did Superman/Batman. Hoping the new Man of Steel film does him justice. Unlike Superman returns… Superman (Kal-el, Clark Kent) Solo d10, Buddy d6, Team d8 Man of Tomorrow Truth, Justice and the American way Big […]

Jain Dilwara temple, India
From Spamers illustrierte Weltgeschichte (Spamer's illustrated history of the world) vol. 1, by O. Kaemmel and R. Sturmhoefel, Leipzig, 1893.

Asbak Mo-dar, Woodelf Ranger Cost: (25) 11+4+10 Strengthd6 Skilld10 Willd8 Witsd8 Distinctions Woodelf Ranger Hot headed Take them all on Gastro chef Talented Ranger Ranged Combat Talent d10 Invisibility d6 Wolf Attack d10 Wolf Reflexes d8 Wolf Senses d8 SFX:Arrows and Claws: Add d6 to attack pool. Step down highest dice. Step up Physical Stress […]

This is just as an example of how dice spends work. Recap: Attributes Strength, Skill, Will, Wits Choose one at D10, 2 at d8 and 1 at d6, OR 2 at D10 and 2 at d6 OR 1 at d12, 1 at d8 and 2 at d6 Creation dice -- choose 20 dice steps (d6=1,d8=2...) […]

Resources Resources can be allies, minions, locations or Gear. The first 3 count as permenant assets and work as such (also – see Smallville) Gear works as powers and can also have SFX. Types of gear are Limited to certain powers. Again, powers straight from MHR (C) MWP. Power Starts at Non-Magial Non-Tech MAgical Tech […]

Specialties/Talents Specialties come in Four types: Rookie, Expert, Master and Legend. These are at d6, d8, d10, d12 Optional : If a skill is attempted without a die, roll a d4 in the pool. * Expert Specialties can be used as a d8, or split into 2d6. Master Specialties can be used as a d10, […]

1. Lord of the Coffer corpse Oasis.
2. Sewers of Morteon de Gagnentin.
3. Journey into the Katie Gardner Caves.
4. Oasis of the Fuchsia Crown.
5. Unknown Fort of Gaius Antistius Merula.
6. Sinister Desert of Paula the Unyielding Earthborn.
7. Sword of Fury.
8. Quest for the Dorfa Vukarorthor’s Gold.
9. Journeyman Haven of the Wastes.
10. Wastes of Rubgramramph of Clan Jebli.

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My Reaper Miniatures Bones Kickstarter Vampire Level miniatures arrived in the post on Friday and I am flabbergasted by the sheer weight of minis.  I admit that I was incredibly foolishin not backing it originally when I had the chance and so I've had to resort to ebay to acquire mine.   Which undoubtedly means I've paid over the odds, but even at the 120 I paid, that less than 50p a miniature, ie: cheaper than chips.

A big box of Reaper BonesThe first bag unbaggedThe conclusion to my Monster Mini Box Level One post highlighted just how expensive it [...]

It's that time of the week again, where I look at the most interesting stuff I found in RPG blogs.

1. Geek Native gives us a review of Better Angels, Greg Stolze's "superhero" game about evil versus eeevil.
2. Also from Geek Native, we get a review of the God-Machine chronicle (the complete chronicle book, not the free rules update).
3. Random Wizard has an overview of the rise and fall of the UK branch of TSR.
4. The Free RPG Blog reviews Siege, a game of tension dealing with hostage situations.
5. Gnome Stew takes a look at The Caller (no, not the Gentleman Caller, the player role) and [...]

Class/power groupings Gifted Special powers. Can select from any power grouping up to d10, some up to d12 Can choose relevant sfx Can select talents up to d8 Can select Specialties up to d10 Talented Exceptionally Skilled. Technically Gifted, but much more subtle. Can select from certain power groupings up to d8 Can choose relevant […]

Five years ago today, Gnome Stew went live with 10 articles and around 250 RSS subscribers. In that five years we've published around 1,400 articles, had 1.7 million visitors, drawn 25,000 comments, won three ENnie Awards and an RPG Site of the Year Award, and published three GMing books (soon to be four). The Stew has gone places and done things I never expected. We've had some downs, but it's been mostly ups -- and the ups have been pretty damned awesome. And much of that, so much of that, is because of you, our readers. You motivate us, read our [...]

Full disclosure: the author approached me to do a review and I agreed, on the condition that I would make the review fair but there was no guarantee it would be favorable. I'll try, but as Nick Lowe said, "Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind."
A couple days ago I received a package containing The Future Belongs To Us Player's Guide (hereafter TFBTU) from Ataraxy Publishing. It is 192 pages long, soft-bound book with a full color cover that could do with less deformed-breasted porn-star. The back cover blurb says: "After the Dragons...  After the Wolf...  The next generation of role-playing excitement" And [...]

Here’s a few characters from our up and comingLiberty Citycampaign using theMarvel Heroic Roleplayingby Margaret Weis Productions that just got jerked out of print by Disney.

PARADOX (Dr. James Fravik)

Affiliations: Solo d8, Buddy d10, Team d6

Distinctions: It’s All Just Math, Just Lucky I Guess, What the @#$% Did I Do?

POWER SETS:

Probability Manipulator: Probability control d8, Intuition d8, Teleport d8; SFX, Can I Help?: Can loan his Probability Control Die to another player and shutdown the power until the other player has used the die. Can recover the die early with a plot point; SFX, Need a Lift?: +d6 and step up [...]

Introduction : 
I've just gotten back this evening after running my players over my friend Larry's house through the mega-dungeons of  "The Incredible Petriefied World" . This one has everything I needed for a Crypts and Things hybrid game. The Incredible Petrified World is a 1958 public domain science fiction film directed by Jerry Warren and starring John Carradine. I used the idea of the characters following the first expedition in the diving bell into the no man's land of the inner caverns  of the "Petrified World". 



Plot Outline According To Wiki : Professor Millard Wyman's (John Carradine) sends a crew of two men, Paul [...]

Hey folks! In order to speed up the dungeon prep process for my ongoing Hulks and Horrors play-by-post game over on theRPGsite, and thus leave more time for writing Arcana Rising, I've been toying with the tools over at Wizardawn, and I've managed to put together a handy alternate way to generate your dungeons for Hulks and Horrors via the web!

We start by generating a map for our dungeon, using the Sci-Fi Map tool. This tool can generate cool sci-fi maps in three styles, Buildings (great for individual buildings in colonies or urban environments, or even for well laid [...]

Erul the Lame, aka Erul Oakfoot, was a great clan karl (like a chief or jarl) who rode a large black stallion believing its height and breadth made him more fearsome. Well it did until it cost him his left foot.

He attempted to ride down a battleaxe-wielding enemy who didn't break and run as all other men before had. Instead the warrior took one last mighty swing before being crushed beneath the pounding hooves of the warhorse. The swing hacked off Erul's foot and dealt the horse a mortal blow, crushing its ribs into its lungs. Erul survived [...]

Talk about getting sidetracked, I haven't touched Tenkar's Landing for ages it seems (actually, nearly 6 weeks)

Consider this placed on a back burner for now, at least as far as anything beyond what I need for my irregular Sunday Morning Crypts & Things / S&W game.

Why, you may ask?

I've been dragged into the far depths of the Razor Coast. I'm only about 10% into the main book (plus having read the Freebooter's Guide) and I'm already thinking of ways to kick off a party of newbs into the campaign instead of moving established characters there at levels 3 or 4.

So yeah, the shark bit me.

Actually, I think the Bard Class I'm working on would do very [...]

I don't play a whole lot of Dungeons & Dragons for three reasons. First, I seldom can find a game that works with my schedule. Second, there are other fantasy role-playing games I think are much better. But the primary reason is that most D&D games seem to be set in knockoff Tolkien worlds full of enigmatic elves, subterranean dwarves, and furry-footed hobbit ripoffs. I'm not a huge fan of that setting. Not because I dislike Tolkien; I enjoyed The Lord of the Rings (although I find The Hobbit unreadable). It's because I was much earlier in my life drawn [...]

I enjoy all sorts of role-playing games, but by far my favorite type is super hero role-playing. I have more super hero role-playing games than I can shake a stick at, including newer ones such as Marvel Heroic Roleplay and DC Adventures, but the ones I keep coming back to are the earlier models that managed to include a complete gaming system in a slim box and not too many pages. I just can't get into the sesquipedalian games produced nowadays. They take forever to get to the point, and try to jam in rules to cover every eventuality no [...]

Who's to say whether the Silver Age of comic book super heroes would have taken off as it did if not for the contributions of Carmine Infantino? He designed the second (and best) Flash's unforgettably streamlined Jet Age costume and drew his adventures from 1956 to 1967, then returned to draw the Flash's final tales from 1981 to 1985. He was the artist on The Flash when I began reading super hero comics as a kid. The Flash was my favorite super hero even when his comic book became bogged down in an interminable and legally erroneous (as it was [...]

So much happened this session that it's probably best to break it into two posts.  I mean, look at this post!  It's long enough but it still only covers the first half of things.  Everyone was present.  We had Tokyo the hacker-infiltrator, Miami the occultist-private investigator, Oxford the scientist-explosives expert, London the soldier-detective, Nomad6 the well-travelled pilot and Leningrad the assassin.  Dallas, a Changeling NPC who was picked up in a wrecked supermarket, also put in an appearance at a few points.

Firstly, they went over the assassination of the Auroch Minister and decided it was important to ensure [...]

This post is also inspired by the reading I've been doing about life in England in the 1700's; it's a theater, based on the Globe in London. Not surprisingly, it can provide numerous diversions for a band of pirates.

-Nate



Interlude 42: The TheaterAt the same time that Queen Elizbeth of England was helping to establish her nation as a maritime power throughout the world--aided as she was by such famous captains as Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins and the like--another type of flourishing was taking place in that [...]

I am planning a Serenity/Firefly game. Would you use Savage Worlds or the Serenity RPG?

Yesterday we were so busy getting everything ready for ToddlerGeek's 3rd birthday party (today) that I forgot to publish this week's Eternal GM article. So, it's a day late. This week's topic? Being a new GM. I will be discussing suggestions that I think will help new GMs transition into their role in a (I hope) more comfortable fashion than I was able to.

I've been a game master from the moment I discovered RPGs. Being a writer (in my head, anyway), it was a more or less natural transition for me. That being said, there were still plenty [...]

Alright, lets see what other uses we can get from the Cleric's Turning Chart (reproduced here for your ease of reference and mine).


So, how different is a Bards "Fascinate" ability from a "Turn Undead" ability? Not much really.

Here's how it works in 3e:

Fascinate (Sp)A bard with 3 or more ranks in a Perform skill can use his music or poetics to cause one or more creatures to become fascinated with him. Each creature to be fascinated must be within 90 feet, able to see and hear the bard, and able to pay attention to him. The bard must also be able to see the creature. The distraction of a nearby combat or other dangers prevents the ability from [...]

Yesterday was a shit day.  Huge piles of it everywhere.  Couldn't wait to get home and get away from work.  I get home and Ivy said their was mail for me.  I said, where's it at.  She said its over there.  I said no its not.  She said yes it is.  I said no its still not.  So she went over there and said, oh, its not here.  Maybe I left it in the car.  She went out to the car.  It wasn't there.  She searched the first over there place and it was over there.  How many of you [...]

Although in many localities barter is common, it is the dollar which makes Wampus Country go 'round.  Gold, silver, and copper coins are in circulation, as well as paper notes with a value equal to multiple gold coins.  Most frontier adults are savvy enough to recognize obviously fake or clipped coins; don't be surprised if some of your gold pieces have bite marks in them.

COINAGE is minted by multiple concerns, including the Silver Scorpion Casino in River-Town - which, as you know, is run by religious-types.  The Red Bear Lumber Company also mints its own coins. [...]

Being that it's Mother's Day weekend and some members of the group have a busy couple of days, we decided to take tonight off. Same goes with my Sunday morning group, but that group is probably on hiatus until the end of the month.

So, with all of this free time, what shall i do?

Finish watching Le Mis with the wife? Even she doesn't want to finish the Hugh Jackman flick. Heh

Instead, I think I'll read some more of the Razor Coast (I've started Chapter 2 "How This Work" and I'm really digging the various Plot Arcs) and do some writing on the S&W Bard Class Revision as well as a piece I owe +Andrew Shields . I mean, Andrew is [...]

The kickstarter was here.
A few quick points before we start getting into some details.
The points
Heroine sits squarely in the camp of games that are typically known as 'Story Games' rather than 'Role-Playing Games'.
Heroine is deceptively simple.
It is beautifully laid out.
Its sixty pages contain far richer instructions for storytelling and narrative based play than most "Dungeonmaster guides" or "GM guides" contain in two or three times as many pages.
I read half of the book irritated by the fact that the Wizard of Oz was not written by Victor Fleming, but was in [...]

Theme Army – Revelations of the Creator Originally presented in Warmachine: Colossals An Intercessor Kreoss force can be chosen from any of the options available to the Protectorate of Menoth, but a themed or Tier list can only be built from a select number of units, (warjacks or warbeasts) and solos. The units required to […]

Bunch of sales coming up at DriveThru RPG.

Here is one of the first.


Tabletop Adventures, LLC is running their "Moms are Gamers too" sale for Mother's Day.
Get 20% off selected products between now and Wednesday.

Wow! just ran a game on google hangout with one of my players. Since we both have young daughters and can’t leave the house we thought we’d try a RP session on hangout. Used Dicestream for die rolling and then Googledrive with sketchpads and note pages. IT worked great. Sketchpad was useful to have images […]

This module is 35 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1/2 page ToC, leaving us with 32 1/2 pages of content - and a missing SRD that needs to be included in the pdf. This being an adventure-review, the following contains SPOILERS, so potential players may want to skip to the conclusion.