Friday! Glee! GMing links!
Gnome Rodeos are our regular link roundups. Provided everyone doesn’t simultaneously stop talking about GMing for a week, you should see one most Fridays.
GMing Regulars
→ Musings of the Chatty DM: I don’t think I’m smart enough to entirely get Chatty’s Debates: Black Box vs Process-Response design, but it has useful things to say about a fundamental difference between types of game mechanics.
→ Roleplaying Tips: Issue 403 is 15 Holiday Adventures (for both fantasy and sci-fi settings), and how can you not like an article that starts with The Great Eel-Culling? I also enjoyed The Great Races (#5) and Humanity’s Memoriam (#7).
GMing All Over the Place
→ Critical Hits: So what IS D&D anyway? looks at an important distinction: “This is not D&D” vs. “This is not D&D for me” — something that applies to nearly any multi-edition RPG. (Via The DMs Blog.)
→ Deeper in the Game: The Concept Hurdle breaks RPGs into four categories based on how much you need to know to “get” them. When Bankuei writes about GMing, it’s always worth reading.
→ The DMs Blog: Want to hear more about the D&D 4e preview module, Keep on the Shadowfell? You’re in luck.
→ Jeff’s Gameblog: Jeff is posting scans of his old character sheets. My first thought was, man do I have folders full of character sheets that look a lot like that. His get schmancier over time, just like mine have — and I bet yours have, too. It’s fun to think about what your group uses now and compare it to old sheets like these.
→ Kobold Quarterly: Until the end of May, new KQ subscriptions are 5 issues for the price of 4, making it more like Kobold…Quinterly? Anyhoo, more kobolds = better, unless you’re a 1st level OD&D magic-user who just cast her only spell for the day.
→ SquareMans: Christopher Tolkien Must Die! is a fun read in its own right, but as a GM I dug it for this sentence (which refers to two types of players): “I long ago gave up trying to turn audience members into co-creators because I learned that they’re both appreciating the game, and to the same degree, just in different ways.” Amen to that. (Via Jeff’s Gameblog.)
For those of you in the land of hamburgers, boring looking currency and Wal-Mart (America, baby!), enjoy your Memorial Day weekend. That goes for everyone, but you get one less day to enjoy — nyah nyah!
Good links. I only had read one of them which is amazing given the amount of time I waste/spend on the web.
By the way this website is quickly turning into a daily stop. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for all these links! If anything highlights the positives of the globalization of the Internet, it’s the fact that all of us DMs, GMs, Storytellers and whatever else can discourse intelligently (in the main) through all these forums and sites. That which provokes new thought can’t be all that bad.
@Yax: My highly scientific technique centers around transcendental meditation, beer, closing my eyes and serendipity. But mostly the beer and serendipity. 😉
@Omnus: Yep, I’ve always been impressed with the general level of discourse among GMs online. It’s one of the biggest reasons why I enjoy blogging for GMs.