D20 System

Some recent posts showing off an interesting method for making abstract looking art:

Making Colorful Abstract with X-particle in C4D from albehany on Vimeo.

Hoi, Chummer. Welcome to the 21st Century of gaming. With a return to gaming as a player, I've taken up the task of just trying to get notes down about what has happened in the game sessions so that some of the information isn't lost over time and help track what the group is up to. Rather than just using something simple and old fashioned, like paper, or slightly newer ideas, like a Word document, I've taken to utilizing a new tool that has been discussed before.

 Golarion, the default world for the Pathfinder system from Paizo Publishing is not a fully mapped out world, but what has been revealed has allowed at least a few attempts at a more complete map of the world. Taking one of the best that could be found that is actually detailed:

which appears to be based on the less detailed map that has been available on some sites:

How many times has this happened to you as a GM, or seen it happen as a player? The night started great. The adventure is underway and suddenly the group just veers off into left field and keeps on going. Who knows why. Maybe the group got caught up by some little detail the GM let out or maybe the evening wasn’t really planned and now, you’re forced to come up with information on the fly; things like NPCs with names and backgrounds, places to go, things to find, creatures to kill. All of that is great, at least when the imagination is awake and working.

Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, Astounding Science Fiction, Galaxy Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. Weekly or monthly titles that fed the imaginations of millions with colorful images and headlines whose titles would rival the best catchlines that a muckraker of the turn of the century would envy. Creating such as a GM might make for great ways to introduce players into the flavor of a campaign, but not everyone is an artist, or has the time to create such works.

More and more electronics are invading lots of spaces that used to be the domain of the ripped off piece of paper that was hastily scrawled upon to create a reminder of something for the next adventure. Laptops and Tablets have become more affordable and the use of PDFs and other file formats and programs have reduced the large, heavy library of books for one’s game to a much more manageable weight. On top of these devices comes the ability to manage one’s campaign with digital tools; from the basic like Word/Excel to more advanced programs like The Obsidian Portal site.

I've been trying to follow the goings on in the RPG world with the Star Wars license. In early 2010, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) gave up the license to the Star Wars merchandising that they had been doing for several years (D20 RPG, Miniatures, etc...). By the end of that year no more of WotC's Star Wars RPG or Miniature products were to be found on shelves.

Reaper Miniatures is doing a Kickstarter project to get funding for more Bones miniatures.

A lone figure sat quietly atop a rock, looking down into a shaded vale high in the mountains as the last light of the sun rose up behind him. He was dressed in a pair of simple, yet well worn pants, a long tunic with slits down the sides below his waist to keep it from hindering his movement and a cloak of unusually exceptional make was clasped at the neck with a simple, yet elegantly designed leaf. His thick, stiff dark hair was shorn almost to the scalp of his deep, brown skin.

Nostalgia: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition; also: something that evokes nostalgia

Remember those days when getting together with friends and running the latest adventure meant brightly colored maps in nice, neat hexagons? You know the ones. A few bright colors, with each terrain type fitting so nicely into each little area. Well, I stumbled across a site, Mystara.thorf.co.uk that resurrected or recreated quite a few of the old maps from the old D&D modules and campaigns.

On top of the color maps, the site also has a FAQ on the various fonts that were used to produce the modules and boxed sets from the TSR days. So, if you’ve ever wanted to produce your own adventures in a similar looking fashion to the old TSR modules, check out the fonts section to mimic the look of the old settings.