Categories
Roleplaying

Art and high level campaigns

Inspirational Gaming Art– Edwin Rhemrev & Jeremy Mohler

Treasure Tables continues to run his October Blogging for GMs project, which is filled with advice from all sides about a huge array of issues. (The focus is largely on D&D, but nods to other subjects do come up.)

Excessive prep & high level D&D. A discussion thread (with links to several more) about increasing difficulties with high level game preparation.

Campaign Prep for DMs, an RPG.net thread, about wishes for easy NPC creation options, and systems that support it.

Found via Treasure Tables:
Styles of Campaigns, a handy starting point for discussing what you look for in a game. General Starlight’s whole site is here.

[Note: This post expanded & reorganized; if you read the original, you’re not seeing things– they’ve changed.]

Categories
Memes

8th Grade Math

Not too tricky, though I almost read 10-5 as 1.0E-4, instead of the obvious. I guess they haven’t hit exponentials yet…



Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!
Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?
Categories
Game Group

Game the Next: Friday Oct. 28th

Right now it looks like the next game will be on Friday night, the 28th. If you have a conflict, let me know. If it gets changed, I’ll correct it here.

Categories
Roleplaying

Lots of goodness around

I’ve spent a little too long reading forums and blogs recently– there’s a lot of good stuff out there.

First, a cool tool helping gamers find gamers: Findplay. Another: Frapper.

Backstory vs. Strong Character Creation is a good forum thread about how you can make a strong, interesting character without pages of backstory.

People and Props is a good discussion about when you should bother rolling dice in a dramatic game.

The PTA TV Guide is great way to show off lots of very cool actual play. Meg and Emily have started Fair Game, an interesting blog.

I doubt this is all I’ll add, but it is what I’d clipped to scribble about soon.

Categories
Game Group

Next Game: Friday October 21st

Update: I’ve confirmed with everybody by phone. Friday Night, 6:30 pm is a go!


The weekend of the 15th is off; a certain couple’s skipping town. The next game (starting up from the bridge holding engagement) should be on the 22nd 21st. Let us know if you have any problem with that.

Right now, we’re probably aiming at a 2 pm start– if something else works better, let’s figure it out. Dad got confused & committed his Saturday. Does Friday night work for you? {Also: Would Fridays be better most weeks?]

Categories
DnD Roleplaying

D&D die rolls: When and why

I thought I’d contribute to Martin’s Blogging for GMs project.

Last night Jennifer and I were talking about calling for die rolls in adventures. I repeated a bit of truth that I’d read on an advice site: don’t roll dice when it doesn’t matter. (I can’t track it down at the moment; it was delinked long ago.)

For example, if the PCs are coming up on a hallway junction, it’s usually not worthwhile to call for listen checks. Why? Well, you’ll generate a result per person, usually with the effect that someone will succeed. (Enough die rolls and someone’ll usually succeed.) And they’ll turn to their companions and say “I heard X”. All of the time checking skills, gathering rolls, etc. boil down to a bit of information everyone winds up with anyway, which is a waste of time.

Categories
Misc

Archive meme

The Blog Archive Meme, poached from Artichoke Heart:

1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

It concentrates power, feeds the vrondi, and does other nifty magical stuff.

That’s certainly a bit of strangeness. (from my post IRE #4 Zuider Ze).

Categories
Game Group

Coromyr Politics

Kostrick: Uncle to the current kind (Crazy), king’s cousin & son of uncle is Stanis (A Necromancer, with estates that border Sembia). Kelemvor: Bad

Maerbourne: A shipping magnate with holdings on the Peninsula of the capital. Led by an admiral (purchased), they’re very worldly and externally focussed. Greedy. Kelemvor: Bad

Jendra: Strong & benevolent, favored by the populace. Led by Viscount. Holdings in the north, trade w/ Deep Woods elves to their north. 2 sons. Not in line for the throne at all. Kelemvor: Favored Our contact in the capital is Farshall, nephew to Viscount.

Lorins: Near the thunderpeaks. Kelemvor: Neutral

Yurlada: Duke. Conflicts with Jendra; power hungry. Allied w/ Maerbourne. Gifted us with enchanted saddles upon hearing of our efforts in the south. Kelemvor: Neutral.

Categories
Game Group

Game in Limbo: October 8th

UPDATE: Everyone’s agreed to a Friday Night game. We’ll start at 6:30, and go til we run out of steam. When we left, we had just bypassed the ambushes with Coromyr’s army…

Remember how during the session, someone said “I think there’s something going on next weekend?” Well…

Saturday the 8th is Camp Night at Kearney Park. After getting passed over for tickets, a friend of Jennifer’s made a second effort & got us a pair of tickets to Camp Night. So that’ll take up our Saturday, from 5 pm on.

Does Friday night work? A short Saturday (12-5) might also be possible? Any other ideas?