Building a world
Mo spread Simon C’s way to use a deck of cards to generate characters who relate to their cultures– kowtowing to social pressures, rebelling against their peers, and more.
Paul Tevis pointed out Superstruct, a game/future forecasting of the world in 2019, after one of several drastic changes. It’s a big collaborative project that started October 6th and runs through November 17th.
Speaking of ways for the world to fall apart, Tomcat at the Geek Emporium has been running an apocalypse series. He began by describing post apocalyptic society, moved on to discussing superheroes and pulp heroes in the setting, and discusses inspirational sources. In the world, some skills are more useful and several mental issues are more common as well. In the end, he gets down to the nitty gritty of ways to bring about the apocalypse.
If you want to make the post apocalyptic setting with your players, Morgan Ellis wrote up a great step by step procedure that will work for any system (with some Spirit of the Century specific notes).
Resource Roundup
If you wonder what conventions are coming up, Containment’s convention finder lets you search for any conventions within 120 miles of a zipcode. Or just click on those big cities to drool with envy. If you know of a con that’s missing, you can add it to the list.
The Forgotten Realms has a lot of information from innumerable books, adventures, and supplements. Dice Monkey links to a wiki, calendar, help site and even the old 2e downloads.
Madbrewlabs has a great 4e resource roundup, with Publishers, Custom Classes & Races, Character Generators, Character Sheets, and more all linked for you.
DnD Corner has 4e Monster Cards ready to print out and use.
Stargazer’s World has a great post linking several prop generators— you can create fake airplane tickets, magazine covers, and old photos via the links. Perfect for a tangible artifact of the game world.
Lots of 4e
The Verbing Noun got a chance to try out 4e for real. Here are his first impressions.
DnD Corner discusses character optimization. Notice that despite being for optimization, he points out that there are limits.
One Bad Egg is a new 4e publishing effort by Evil Hat Productions and Blue Devil Games. They’ve released their first supplement, The Apelord, for playing Apes with the minds of men. (It’s a full race writeup, a 10 page PDF.) They are also playtesting a new class, The Witch Doctor.
The Witch Doctor consorts with spirits to command the forces of ancestry, the elements, and the wild, armed only with her medicine stick and fearsome mask. Behold the terror of the evil eye and feel the ground shake with every tremor strike!
Robert Donoghue offers development notes for this controller class.
Another publisher, Alea, has a new supplement, Feudal Characters: Noble, a pure multiclass.
The Chatty DM has released the Kobold Love Playtest Pack.
Greywulf has a post asking about your favorite new monster. His is the
Spiretop Drake. He adds a minion version to annoy your players even more.
Scott (Schimmel, not me) has begun a series about Stealing. No, not thieves– a step by step example of borrowing from one game and using it in another. Part one and two.
Oh yeah, Wizards of the Coast has a playtest version of the Barbarian. So far it’s getting positive reviews.
General Roleplaying
Amagi games just moved to a new site. Don’t worry, the great gambits and situations made it intact.
You remember how I squawked about overlapping character roles? Ben Robbins has a way to make it work: Wedge Issues. It’s a brilliant solution– when you see the problem (two characters are too similar), push the players to develop their character’s self image around a difference between the characters. If they aren’t different now, keep pushing til you find that wedge issue.
Vincent Baker just put up a playtest version of his new game, Storming the Wizard’s Tower. It’s a fantasy (but closer to historical than, say, 4e setting) game with a quick progression of foes.
Not Quite Roleplaying
Via Tor.com, I found a link to The Outbreak, a choose your own film set in a zombie uprising. It’s fun– and it doesn’t take too long to explore all the paths.
Thanks for mentioning my 4e Resources post!
I am impressed with the google-fu Scott. It never ceases to amaze me; all those links you churn up.
Now I have the song “Witch Doctor” stuck in my head. I hope you’re happy.
Another couple of interesting 4e product reviews via Critical Hits: Forgotten Heroes and Advanced Player’s Guide. They’re both books that add back classes currently missing from 4e– Barbarian, Bard, Druid, and Monk.
Just an update, my Mad Brew Labs finally went legit and got a real host and domain, the linked article can now be found at:
http://www.madbrewlabs.com/index.php/2008/09/23/dd-4e-resources/
Thanks again for mentioning me!