Much like fonts, the ownership of the little icons used to make hex maps is one of those topics that falls under potential vague licensing. Inkwell Designs of Hexographer has put out a range of hex icons with a license to allow their use in commercial products. But what if you are using Photoshop or GIMP? Are there any free or inexpensive hex sets out there that can be used in a commercial product?

Thanks to Dominique Crouzet, there is a nice black and white hex map icon set that he released to the public domain.



After [...]

Most of the games revolve around PCs who travel from place to place, like starting in England, going through London, Cairo Tokyo and finishing in New Zealand. Others do the same in a homebrew fantasy setting: Starting in Rockey, going through Ezrypoold and finishing in Yorikhoold. But here's the problem: most of this cities feel too much the same in our games.-"You travel for four days and you arrive to a city with big walls and lots of people buying things in the market."-"A main road?"-"No! A Cardo."So how can we make a place feel different? The answer is simpler [...]

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: Wizard for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is a game aid designed for that keystone arcane spellcaster 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 [...]

A shirt design from Woot!

This evening I attended a social gathering. My sister has just turned 14, and I had dinner with her and the rest of our family. It proceeded as family gatherings often do, which is to say that it wasn’t an experience I’d share on a gaming blog. Late in the evening, though, my sister commented that she’d like to join me in playing D&D someday.

“Want to play now?” I asked.

By happenstance, I had a set of 7 dice with me, and I always try to keep pens and paper handy regardless of where I am. I had everything I needed to run a game, and it was a perfect opportunity to try out an experiment I’ve been wanting to attempt for awhile. The experiment is simple: using whatever tools are on hand at the time, introduce a group of new players to gaming by making up a game on the spot.

The three siblings sitting nearest to me were all interested, so I wrote out the six basic stats on three pieces of paper. I told them all to roll 3d6 for their stats, in order, to roll 2d8 for their HP, and to write down one thing their character was good at. From there I figured everything could be handled by d20 checks against their stats, until I encountered a situation where they needed something deeper.

The process proved to be a little awkward. Not because any of my players had difficulty understanding my instructions, but because we only had a single six sider to share, and three people each needed to roll it 18 times. It wasn’t a quick process, and unfortunately the players weren’t even able to explore the first room of the dungeon before the rest of the dinner party agreed that it was [...]

Watching my DVD of the BBC's already-dated adaptation of Gormenghast from the year 2000 the other day (Jonathan Rhys Meyers again) got me thinking again about the post Kelvin Green put on Google+ about the Japanese language RPG Meikyuu Kingdom, that he, in turn, had discovered via an old post on Barking Alien.

In a nutshell, the game is set on a world that has been magically transformed into a single, massive dungeon complex. Yes, you read that right: a literal dungeon-world.

Then yesterday we had Zak posting images of real world architecture - from Santorini, a Greek island also known as Thera (and a rumoured location of Atlantis) - that looked like traditional D&D dungeons and it got me thinking that the universe was trying to hammer me over the head with an idea.

Santorini - from Playing D&D With Porn StarsAdd to this [...]

Greetings gaming fans! There's currently an IndieGoGo project going on to get some industry gaming pros to GenCon (or PaizoCon), where they can network, run games, and meet the fans....

Wandered Roads of Varisia
Session 15
September 29, 2012
Campaign Timeline



HauntedStarday, 8th of Lamashan

VexeronEllieBefore continuing with their search of the Hambly Farm, the party was joined by Vexeron and Ellie, who had gotten a ride from a local farmer. Vexeron had learned some important news that he felt the rest needed to know as soon as possible. He had learned from some locals that the Misgivings, a cryptic phrase uttered by the insane Grayst Sevilla, was a nickname for the nearby Foxglove Manor, which was located a mere 3 miles to the west of [...]

Here we are in the month of May, kicking off Epic Level Artistry again! This month we have two great artists who both happen to reside in the city I hold dear to my heart and now live in: Portland, OR. I ran into Adrian (and next week’s artist, Michelle) at Stumptown Comic Fest and fell in love with his illustration of Daenerys Stormborn with her three dragons. Also, strange story: both Adrian and Michelle recognized us, though mostly my spouse, I assume: we used to manage apartments back in the day and they were some of our tenants. After [...]

1. a dangerous-looking raccoon has claimed an apple cart as his own
2. large beetle buzzes around head
3. insect swarm/nest on building
4. crow squawks repeatedly at approach
5. group of bats rise in the distance
6. customer angry with shopkeeper
7. parent scolding child
8. a fish vendor bends over to vomit and people point and laugh
9. people cheer for the party
10. smoke rises in distance (brush fire)

Related articles

• 10 urban events/encounters (enneadgames.com)

 

Greetings, readers -- this week's blog is all about another topic I feel strongly about; managing freelancers. I've been very lucky in my career to have worked with dozens of different freelance writers, editors, artists and proofreaders on various projects from D20 to the Warhammer 40K Roleplay system.
It is important to note that for the rest of this post I'm going to be talking about freelance writers.Working with freelancers is something I feel like I have gained a lot of skill with over the years; many of my freelancers have gone on to work [...]

Entombed with the Pharaohs and The Pact Stone Pyramid

Today I bring in a couple of my favorite Paizo modules both written by Michael Kortes. One is a sequel to the other, though they can easily be played as separate adventures. They share similar themes of pyramid exploration and bring in more than just the usual dungeon crawling. I believe these are the best pyramid based modules since the Desert of Desolation series that I still need to run for my current group. We did play through both of these modules and I believe my players had as much fun playing [...]

There are a multitude of planets to be found in the Star Wars galaxy, even just amongst the Outer Rim where Fantasy Flight Games' upcoming Edge of the Empire RPG is set. While most people tend to think of the Corellian line of transports when they hear the words “light freighter,” the Corellian Engineering Corporation is not the only game in town when it comes to space transports. And while few of their competitors manage to even come close to the CEC’s track record of success, that doesn’t mean the occasional transport model won’t end up an unexpected long-runner. Take [...]

- Credit to John M. Ford, Oc.D.

This is a continuation of The Battle of Crestley part 1 and part 2. Thelius stayed in Calthisport. That was where the heaviest stroke would fall---besides, Tarquin seemed almost frantic when he suggested that he might withdraw to Crestmont. The emissary was fretful and nervous and spent a good deal of his days talking with the other imperial wizards. Thelius, for his part, instead paced the

Entombed with the Pharaohs and The Pact Stone Pyramid

Today I bring in a couple of my favorite Paizo modules both written by Michael Kortes. One is a sequel to the other, though they can easily be played as separate adventures. They share similar themes of pyramid exploration and bring in more than just the usual dungeon crawling. I believe these are the best pyramid based modules since the Desert of Desolation series that I still need to run for my current group. We did play through both of these modules and I believe my players had as much fun playing [...]

For those who follow the Dens regularly you've probably read about the D&D movie that Warner Bros. announced was in production. This came about two weeks ago, with the studio bringing on board the talent of the Wrath of the Titans screenwriter. Wizards of the Coast contested that announcement last week, remarking the movie license had reverted to WoTC.

Today WoTC sued Sweetpea the production company that has long had the rights to D&D movies. Filings today noted that Sweetpea has not held up the time clause of the contract and has not made enough D&D movies. Sweetpea countered [...]

The Hollywood Reporter shared the news yesterday that "Hasbro Sues to Stop Warner Bros. 'Dungeons and Dragons' Film." Read more here!

Dracula is an old favorite here at The Other Side.
I have seen just about every movie featuring the Count, read scores of books about him and I was even in the play back in High School.

So it is with some excitement and trepidation that I report on the new series coming to NBC.



The trailer looks interesting and I am glad it is set in the Victorian Era rather than modern times.



The trailer looks good, and it seems to be a retelling of the Dracula novel and/or play.  There [...]

Anything that addsambianceto your games is a good thing. We’ve tried to hint at a few things in the past, but this lamp from Hilden and Diaz must be the most interesting ‘instant ambience’ piece I’ve seen for a while. It’s not in production yet, but the makers are considering …

Welcome to Season 5 Episode 9 of RPG Circus

Episode Topics

• Favorite Monsters : Devils
• Kickstarter : The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
• Listener Emails

Hosts

• Jeff
• Brian
• George

Show Links

• Happy Jack's RPG has a new Feed URL
• Always-Never_now At DrivethruRPG
• Mega Miniatures Going Out of Business Sale
• Steve Jackson Games Shares Financial Health 2013
• Margaret Weis Productions to Drop Marvel RPG License
• KS: Dark Dungeons: The Move
• Should Dark Dungeons Be turned into a Movie?
• KS: OVA : The Anime Role-Playing Game
• KS: The Tome of Horrors 28mm Miniatures
• KS: Sovereign Stone Pathfinder Edition
• RPG Quaterly Issue #2
• KS: Torchbearer

Greetings,

I was informed by a follower this morning (my time), that they couldn't find the RPGBA twitter account. I thought that odd. So I went to take a look. And guess what, they were right, it is missing. Seems Twitter decided to suspend the account. We are currently trying to appeal the suspension. That is going to take a few days to hear back from. I'm still not sure why they don't send an email to you when they suspend your account.

All of which leaves us with the issue of no Twitter feed. I'm not sure actually what to do about it other than the appeal that I've done. If they turn it back on, then great. If they don't we have about two options. One is that I create a new Twitter account. Which may not be a good thing if I never know why the suspended the old account or we just don't have a twitter account. Not sure which way to go yet. I'll keep everyone in the loop as I know more.

- Jeff

There is a special note at the end.*

"It is the worst and best thing about living beneath the earth. The endless responsibility and pleasure of
slaying the revenge of the stone." - Smoke

Nomenclature: Kobolds, Cobalts, Koboldi, Knockers, The bold,

Description: Underground demons spawned from earth

Things that are known:

• They are small
• They hate gnomes
• They have an aversion to melee combat
• They are sensitive to light
• They have facility with traps and mechanical object
• They can see in the dark

Rumors and other whispers in the dark:

• They are actually halflings. When a dragon [...]

The town of Greenbran in the northern reaches of Amn seemed a perfect place to raise a family with its placement on the Greenway and so close near the mountains that it seemed protected on all sides. This was before the Yawning Portal of Pandemonium was opened by the demon marelith Caris who vowed to make a home for her Wormblood residents among the streets of the town.

So impressed with her performance that the demon balor lord Errtu of the Mushroom granted Caris her own dominion over the northern reaches of Amn much to the disagreement of the council [...]

All right, let's finish this series off. I may not use these rules in the game I'm running right now, but it would come in handy if I run another campaign with more bells and whistles attached. Any interest in a pdf of all of these?

The submissions are starting to roll in, but I want more. We're a month out from Free RPG day, so there's plenty of time to trim those ideas into 140 characters.

This post is also to add a twist to the contest. I will be running the best hook on Saturday as a one-shot at my FLGS. I'll either post audio or a play transcript of the session.

Ok. So this week has been a bit crazy and I apologize for the lack of posts. End of the school year and spring soccer season always brings with it some insanity. But today I want to bring up the concept of anniversaries and birthdays in our game worlds.

Gassy Gnoll

When is your PC’s birthday? Any ideas? I certainly don’t. I have an age for both my current characters but have absolutely no idea what time of the year they were born or whether they were even hatched. Are their birthdays important? Perhaps. How much emphasis does the culture place on [...]

I’m a big fan of a blog carnival, and even happier when they’re hosted by a blog I already love. So Age of Ravens popping up to write about the campaign they want to run had me thinking long and hard. And sad to say, I’m not really itching to run a new campaign anytime soon. I’m at the tail end of a long game, and it’s been great fun, but I’m looking forward to taking a player role next year, and not just because it means not dragging down a whole bunch of books to the pub every week. [...]

An interesting study marks the evolution of dogs and humans in tandem and has found surprising similarities in our genome . . . both species seem to evolve in tandem. Studies trace the genomes for thousands of years and have discovered that human and dogs have tracked similar changes in neurotransmitters, cholesterol and cancer genomes. All this affects diet, personality and interaction.

Much of it can be attributed to the living environments of both species are similar...well exactly the same since we live together, so those outside stimuli that affect and impact humans have a similar impact on dogs.

Watch it live or link to the YouTube video afterward.  Below is the first ever "On Air" event for our Traveller campaign.

EPIC! RPG Blog. In Anlehnung an denSwords & WizardryAppreciation Day veranstaltet der Blogbetreiber am 14. Juni 2013 einen vergleichbaren Fan-Tagzum formidablem Earthdawn-Rollenspiel. Fasa, der Lizeninhaber, steuert ein paar Preise bei.

“Create new original content for Earthdawn. This can include, but is not limited to:
Thread
Items
Adventures
Horrors
Cities
Monsters
Namegivers
Tables
Charts
Maps

NPCs

New Sections of the Map (South Africa, Antarctica, Atlantis,
Lemuria, Mu, Australia, North/South America, Greenland…The Moon, Mars?)
New Disciplines
New Talents
Equipment

Savage Worlds and Pathfinder Versions are acceptable as well.

 

Prizes (edited)
FASA Games via Drivethru RPG with 100% discount vouchers.
(requires valid email address)

First prize = choice of [...]

The party had just finished The Eternal Boundary and had found a treasure map that would lead them into The Gray Waste. I prepared a very linear adventure that you can see on the on the right. I decided that the map represented an incomplete list of dangers to be overcome:

• near the roots of Yggrasil sleeps the dragon Nhggr…
• in the woods the “children” of Hekate roam freely, the trolls of Niflheim (I’m claiming that Hel and Hekate are the same)
• there are big, flightless birds in the swamps with big hands instead of wings and they are called Diakka…
• there is a plain where nightmares ride, the mighty horses of black riders…
• the larval petitioners live in the sea of fog…
• the island of the black trees is the realm of a ghoul-witch

I also had a number of NPCs in mind:

• Njal, a priest and a drinker and a melancholy man who would act as a guide, if they wanted to pursue their connections with priestess Anja of the Freya temple
• Raud, another priest and a gloomy, apathetic victim of Hades, who can provide them with information about Hades and who’ll offer to lead them to Hopelessness and through its gate to Hades (but this is a false lead since this gate will lead to the upper layer called Oinos where the Blood War rages)
• Lissandra “gate-seeker” will contact them if they brag about the portal they know; she is described in Uncaged: Faces of Sigil; she can lead them to Alluvias Ruskin (in the same book) who will sell them “the holy axe with the wooden root-grip of wisdom” which will be required to travel to Niflheim via Yggdrasil

This was the first challenge: figure out whom to trust and discover through questions that Raud would lead them to the wrong layer on Hades since [...]

In a previous post I wrote about the Droste Effect, a form of optical illusion using recursion, which provoked an exploration of other illusions, particular those of a physical or architectural nature. 

Now I'm sure everyone is familiar with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and remembers the final Grail test where Indy has to make "The Leap of Faith" out into the chasm to find a hidden walkway.  This is a good example of a forced perspective illusion, the walkway is painted in such a ways as to  render it invisible from the only perspective that the [...]

Tips On Co-Gming a Game 
by Tobie Abad

Not that many groups have ever tried having more than one game master in their games.  There are many possible Perhaps the gm is new to the hobby, and wants to run a game but isn't that confident yet with handling system-related decisions?  Or perhaps the group is a large one, and the gm doesn't want others to be bored while individual scenes are run?  Ultimately, the co-gm role is an interesting one because a second person is there to engage the others players even while the first gm is still [...]

Roll 1D6
1 – 4: Table 1
5 – 6: Table 2

Table 1:

Roll D66

11. Mitsubishi Shadow (Sports Car)
12. Peugeot RM780 (Sports Car)
13. Chrysler -Nissan Jackrabbit (Sub-Compact)
14. Citroen Ztana (Sub-Compact)
15. Ford Swift (Sub-Compact)
16. Dodge Glow (Sub-Compact)

21. Leyland-Zil Tsarina (Sub-Compact)
22. Opel Rana (Sub-Compact)
23. Kia Zephyr (Sub-Compact)
24. Volkswagon Messenger (Sub-Compact)
25. Mitsubishi Runabout (Sub-Compact)
26. Honda Spirit (Sub-Compact)

31. Mazda Watcher (Sub-Compact)
32. Renraku Konichiwa (Sub-Compact)
33. Volkswagon Elektro (Sub-Compact)
34. Toyota Cirian (Sub-Compact)
35. Aztechnology Sol (Sub-Compact)
36. Peugeot 401 (Sub-Compact)

41. Chrysler-Nissan Patrol-1 (Sedan)
42. Ford Marshal (Sedan)
43. Kia Justice (Sedan)
44. Mazda XZ250 [...]

Wherein I offer up a second campaign I'd like to run for this month's RPG Blog Carnival. You can find more info over at the Age of Ravens. You can read my first entry, Mage:  Technocracy Risen, here.


Night's Black Agents: Deluxe Campaign Edition
Conspiracies exist everywhere.
Some conspiracies are so good, they must be true.Some conspiracies are so inept, they are not true.Some conspiracies are true.
A team of former special agents, spies, and wet works specialists are assembled to stop a possible rogue CIA agent from purchasing nuclear and biological weapons for the terrorist organization [...]

I am a HUGE sucker for action-serial style pulp. I love the Indiana Jones films, as well as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and the Mummy films. As a kid, I loved Disney's Tale Spin, and still would if the dang furries hadn't ruined Don Karnage for anyone who doesn't want to see a cartoon fox drawn anatomically correct. I chose a career in museums, in part because I could see myself winding up like Marcus Brodie in my later years, and getting lost in my own museum actually sounds appealing.

Also, remember that time when [...]

Adventuring for  gain is a trope that Hari Ragat will have in common with a lot of other RPGs, and one of the things I like about the way it's going is that the milieu itself exerts constant pressure to keep adventuring, through the custom of gifting.

Every significant occasion -- courtship, birth, marriage, funerals, accessions, etc. -- requires giving gifts, which in turn takes from your character's Wealth. In the most important occasions, the gifts can't be just any good, they have to be a Bahandi, or heirloom, item: jewelry, luxurious textiles, fine weapons, intricately [...]

SO...got to the printer yesterday. Figured out how to do everything. Got the call into the Chessex people for the large order of custom dice...should be here in three weeks. The printer figures they'll be able to have books ready in a week or less once I send them the images. The extra pages I needed to add to Book 1 have all been written...I only wish I had enough room for one more illustration I wanted to include. Tim's shrink-wrap machine is fired up and ready to go. The money has been stockpiled for the run.

Jeez, [...]

So it looks like we're cutting down the mecha rules down to a more manageable size. Which is good setting wise, as I came up with GolemMart, Malmart's Golemmech customizing garage. Of course, just like real stores, you're not going to have a lot of choices. More like some swapping out and adding on, in minor amounts. So for example if you hae a scout power armor, you can add a couple points of

Today it's another special request; how to buy a rather straightforward, if very high level, d20 character; a 15th level Wizard / 14th level Fighter with a +1 ECL race and absurdly high attributes (which I think were set quite arbitrarily in the original build). Now this isn't really necessary – Eclipse IS fully back-compatible, so there actually isn't any actual need to rebuild old characters or convert feats if they're the way you want them. Still, building a similar character is really pretty easy.

Honestly though, as a build for a twenty-ninth level character, Wizard 15, Fighter 14, +1 ECL [...]

I’ve perused the internets and found a few RPG-related posts of note.

The Immaterial Plane is running a sort of informal Savage World Plot Point Campaign using Rory’s Story Cubes. If you’re not yet acquainted with Rory’s Story Cubes, they’re a collection of nine six-sided dice with various pictures on them. You can play several different simple story based games with them. My son and I roll the dice, and take turns grabbing one die and adding a bit to the story. This is a great idea for a contest, and some interesting campaign ideas might come out of it.

Glimm’s Workshop [...]

I’ve had a bit of a hectic weekend and a hectic night, so I didn’t even think of a solid idea to write a late-night post today. But in the interest of having something up …

1) New Quick and Dirty Deed — Follow-Through Throw:A warrior is fighting with one-hand and no shield, and wearing a belt or bandolier of throwing daggers. On a successful mighty deed, the warrior gracefully follows through to draw a dagger and throw it a second opponent with a -1d attack roll (wondering if that should be -2d though). Credit for the idea goes to Matt [...]

The Pawnee were a powerful tribe that dwelt in the Kansas/Nebraska region. They dominated the central plains for a while but eventually pressure from the Sioux to the north, Osage from the east and Commanche from the south dislocated the tribe; all this after it was ravaged by diseases such as small pox. The Pawnee practiced some agriculture and never fully adapted to the horse culture of the Great Plains, but because of the turmoil caused by their warring neighbors they frequently assisted the US in its conquest of the region.

But with all that they may have been [...]

Notes on the ROM-ER-Zero Complex by T. Savini

I. Introduction
Some have opined that "Ghoul" is the fastest growing danger to health, safety, and security in this nation. I would say the some think to small - this may very well be an international threat of unforeseen proportions. A bastardized perverted illicit formulation of a widely available clinical compound, the famous Robin-Onkhet-Michael regeneration therapy drug, abuse rapidly leads to dependance, violent action, and disregard for the consequences.

II. The Robin-Onket-Michael Complex
The ROM Complex - when used properly - one of the greatest wonder-drugs mankind has developed, [...]

Third Session(12 page pdf) – We continue to kill already-dead emperors in the Well of Demons. They’re livelier than you’d think. There’s devils and demons and daemons and whatever else they could think of. And then we fight Lo Pan!

First, after a conversation with the totally worthless kami who guards the holy waters (his main superpower appears to be “tastes good in butter”), we go back into the rift and fight stuff. First up are giant spellcasting boggards! Or hydrodaemons, as it turns out. With summoned water elementals and spell-likes and them being in the water it takes a really [...]

Introduction

PDF bookmarks are great. They can serve both as a table of contents and a quick navigation tool for all users. Tablet and desktop users alike appreciate the ability to jump to specific sections of a book without having to navigate back to the Table of Contents, look up a page number, and then search for that page number. Best of all, they’re not very difficult to add to your documents.

In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through creating bookmarks using Adobe Creative Suite, which includes InDesign and Acrobat Pro. For the purpose of this tutorial I will be [...]

This is going to be the last post, for this week, on positive thinking to help with your game. That said, despite the previous two posts, I forgot to mention one of the most important factors in enjoying your gaming time: you need to have fun. See, the G in RPG stands for game, and games are supposed to be fun. We get together with our friends for our regular gaming sessions to have fun. So, why are we letting all this other stuff get in the way of that? So here are some quick and dirty ways to remove [...]