This week I was feeling puny on Thursday night so didn’t get the Friday Knight News ready to go on time. The first half of the links appeared yesterday, but here are the rest of the links you may want to check out… May I present… The Sunday Knight News! Sort like the Sunday funnies, but more gaming-related. 
Games and Gaming
- Remember Dragonlance? Yeah, me too – but barely. The original novels came out at the tail end of high school. Wonder if I still have ‘em? Well, Greg Bilsand @ Wandering Bard has been rediscovering Dragonlance by playing the classic modules in D&D Next! Sounds like they’ve converted pretty well…
Long-distance gaming, whether playing via one of the virtual tabletops or Google+ has been getting quite a bit of press in the last year or so. Runeslinger @ Casting Shadows has recently begun running a PBeM game via Google+ and shared his experiences. Seems the positives outweigh the negatives at this point.- Frylock @ Frylock’s Gaming & Geekery has come up with some HP charts and pre-generated characters for the latest season of D&D Encounters. And he’s shared them for others looking for some additional resources!
- Over at Savage Games, jnarvey has put together a Savage Worlds campaign built around General Zod taking over the world. He arrived, took over, and things have largely stayed the same. Eerie, ain’t it, how we can adjust to damn near anything as a species?
- Are megadungeons old news? I don’t think so… Neither does Courtney @ Hack & Slash…
- Andy Hauge @ The Player’s Side of the Screen has been pondering how each side (GM and players) in a tabletop RPG session can “win”… Last time he talked about the player side. This week it’s the GM’s side.
- Have you looked at the good old Dungeon Master’s Guide from old D&D? Chris O’Dell @ The Grognardling has been doing a deep dive section by section into the old DMG and commenting along the way. Two of the posts I saw were on Cleric spells and Druid spells. Sometimes it’s good to go back to the Gygaxian source.
- Do you need a hero for a game but don’t want to step on any toes with hero names, backstory, or powers? Check out the list James Hutchings points us to at Teleleli… The Public Domain Super Heroes wiki!
- Berin Kinsman, the guy behind Asparagus Jumpsuit, recently posted a list of RPG rules systems he recommends. Included are RPG systems like Cortex, Fate, and GURPS are on this list – but he offers reasons and a bit of an overview of each.
- James Desborough @ Postmortem Studios asked a key question this week… Is tabletop gaming good for you? His reasons put words to what most of us already know – the answer is yes!!
Cartography
- Nathan Smith’s series of map-making articles @ The World Building School is awesome. In a recent article he walks through finishing a map with typography and borders… (And he points to a great set of random generators at Muddle’s – Wilderness Locations, Deities/Demigods, Cities/Towns, and Dungeons.)
- Need a dungeon map? John L @ Tales of Kaeleross has you covered with “The Fungal Caverns.”
- Have you ever thought about creating a star map for a sci-fi campaign? Enderra has a great article on building a better one!
Creatures
Sean Holland @ Sea of Stars has a new undead creature for you… A Boneflower Skeleton (with full stats!). Remind me not to run across this undead elk any time soon, ok?- What monsters are typically associated with witches? Tim Brannan @ The Other Side has come up with a great list of suggestions. What others can you come up with?
- Nosferatu. To this day, that movie still creeps me out (in a good way). HereticWerks has put together a set of stats for a Lesser Nosferatu that includes the creepiness without too much trouble.
- Need a demon? John Slater @ Nod has six for your exploration… Each has been bound by an earthbound conjurer. And even when the conjurer has lost their life, sometimes the bindings remain…
- Graveyards can be creepy. Tom Coenen @ Dungeon Master Tom has one example where he made it creepier.
- That’s one big, ugly rat at 50 lbs and 3 feet long. Christian @ Destination Unknown has some stas for it so you can terrorize your PCs with a few…
Design
- Looking for an alternate mechanic to simply roling dice? Scott M @ The Trollish Delver has five different resolution mechanics to explore, from dominoes to Jenga.
How often should players succeed? Trask @ Living Dice asked this question and is curious about how little or how much success is required to keep a game fun.- Designing places can be a challenge. Giving them enough crunch to make them come to life is even harder. Andrew Shields @ Fictive Fantasies has managed to give the country of Scarabae some heft useful to GMs and players alike.
- The idea of “sandbox” play comes and goes into and out of favor occasionally… Shorty Monster is creating an open metropolis and cutting the players loose. But he’s putting in some signs to give them a few directions.
- Keith Davies continues to detail the “Node-Based Megadungeon” concept he’s been exploring for a while now. This week he highlights some of the information paths… How do players find out about different locations? Word of mouth… Hints and clues…
- Villains. Have you ever thought about the world from their point of view? Ravyn @ Exhange of Realities has. What’s the villain’s relationship with the protagonists in the campaign? Great question!
- Have you tried Co-GMing? I haven’t, though I’ve talked about it with a few people over the years. Apparently Mike Bourke @ Campaign Mastery has and he has some tips and advice on how to make it work… (He also has a fascinating article about trying to keep everyone – all of the PCs – involved in the story, comparing campaigns to the difference between how the cast worked in Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. In one, there were a few key characters and non-key characters had to work hard for the limelight; and in the other, everybody got a fair shake.)
Randomness
- Check out the random “Table of Awesome” from James Desborough @ Postmortem Studios the next time you need a plot idea. Roll a few times and see what you get!
- Need a random crappy weapon? Omlet @ Underworld has a list of 10 just for you! (I love #7 and #10 – twisted!)
- How about a random Marvel villain to throw at a Supers campaign? Needles @ Swords & Stitchery has the answer with 200 villains to choose from!
- If Marvel heroes aren’t your style, perhaps you’re looking for something from the DC Universe? Needles has one of those too with 40 different random drugs from DC comics – from Anabolus Serum (a super soldier serum) to White Kryptonite.
Kickstarter
- Do you like horror movies? How about card games? Mythos Labs suggests that perhaps the two can be merged! Check out YOU are the Maniac! – a campy horror card game to play with your friends.
Maybe you’d like a zombie card game where one player plays the humans and the other plays the zombies? That’s what Relentless: The Game of Non-Stop Zombie Carnage promises from Crucifiction Games. Looks like it has some deep game play, so I’d definitely like to see it funded. Love me some Zombies!- Or if you’d rather play a superhero game using the FATE system? Base Raiders: Superpowered Dungeon Crawling by Ross Payton looks like a fun combination of comic hero worlds and traditional dungeon crawls with some unique open-ended mechanics as only FATE can provide.
- I’m behind the curve and hadn’t heard of Houses of the Blooded until I saw the Houses of the Blooded: Wilderness Kickstarter from John Wick. It looks like some deep world design with great role-playing potential for revenge!
- Wow. Mutants & Masterminds has hit the decade mark! To celebrate, Chris Pramas and Green Ronin Publishing are doing a limited edition of the Deluxe Hero’s Handbook. Sounds like they’re going all out for this one and have nearly doubled their funding goal with three weeks to go!
- Ars Magica is one of those games I always wanted to play but never had the right group for. Well now Black Chicken Studios wants to bring it to the PC as a video game. If done well, this could be very cool. There’s a broad depth of history and rules to pull from, so it could be quite a rich game. They have a long way to go to make their funding goal, but with three weeks left anything’s possible!
- Sometimes things don’t always go well for successful Kickstarter projects. The folks at Mob Rules Games behind Haunts: The Manse Macabre are a case in point. Issues with developers leaving the project to work elsewhere have left the project leads high and dry…
- Imagine a dark fantasy “Choose Your Own Adventure” style story… That’s what Maelorum promises from Will Fincher. The art looks interesting and the story looks cool, but he’s got a ways to go to meet the funding goal. Can you help?
- Do you play a lot of board games with square pieces? Games like Carcasonne can be destroyed when tables get bumped or things don’t quite line up. Game Grids from Dave Kinzer seem to take care of that beautifully.
- How do you feel about the Wild West? Fearlight Games has created the Spectrum System and Coffins and Tombstones is the first game to use it. This is a Hollywood “skirmish” kind of game pitting posses against each other and a simple d6 mechanic where you compare successes…
- Villains. You can’t have a superhero game without them, right? Well Gallery of Evil is a supplement for Capes, Cowls, and Villains Foul from Spectrum Games with quite a wide selection to choose from. Fun art, stats, and everything you need to step into the shoes of these “villains foul” included!
- Occasionally I get sucked into video games just like I get sucked into tabletop RPGs. Well, Sandy Petersen (creator of Call of Cthulhu) has a new Kickstarter that combines turn-based gaming on an iOS device and H.P. Lovecraft – Cthulhu World Combat. Honestly he had me at hello with this one. Check out the video – it looks like tons of fun!
- Shadows of Esteren released their first book via Kickstarter a while back and now are introducing a Prologue to set the stage… Gorgeous art. Rich world. Dark fantasy with plenty of crunch. It has it all!
Site News
- Shorty Monster posted a list of bloggers who helped him out recently with a big milestone – G*M*S Magazine, Tenkar’s Tavern, Hero Press, and Cirsova. It’s always nice to offer some recognition to those who offer support, so this is awesome.
Are you looking for some cool Halloween clip art, some serious, some fun, for your games? Check out the Halloween Vectors, Brushes, and Textures deal at MightyDeals.com. There’s some great stuff in there, including some paper textures you could use for publishing RPGs… The Halloween deal is only good for another 4 days or so, but check Mighty Deals frequently for new graphic elements you can use!
There you have it!
I hope everybody has a great weekend!
As always, if you feel I missed something (and it would be impossible NOT to), drop me a quick note via the contact page or drop me an e-mail at news(at)gameknightreviews(dot)com and I’ll add it to the list for next week!
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Thank you for your support. two links in a week from you guys is pretty awesome. I must be doing something right…
shortymonster recently posted..A sandbox with sign posts.
@shortymonster – I love your site. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for the links, Fitz. To expand on one point: I not only have co-GM’d, I do it every month, and have done so for about 6 years now. The advice I offer on doing so is absolutely born of experience.
Mike Bourke recently posted..Ensemble or Star Vehicle – Which is Your RPG Campaign?
@Mike Bourke – That’s awesome. And it seems it’s done well for you if you’ve been doing it for years now.
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