Interactive Greyhawk Map

Hey, retro gaming fans!

Check this out!  Ever want to see a really cool, zoomable map of the early D&D campaign setting of Greyhawk?  Well, now you can.

Zoomable Greyhawk Map

Sad tale for comic book speculators

See the Businessweek article below, if you'd been saving onto non-key issues of your favorite comics from childhood.

Ouch $3 for one guy's seemingly top pick.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/those-comics-basement-probably-worthless-095537403.html

Ravenloft walk-through map from WotC site

I ran an updated version of Ravenloft twice.

The first time, I read the module through and through, prepared for an epic campaign, and the players decided to do a frontal assault of the castle after I completed the introductory text, and were dead within 15 minutes of rolling way too many dice.  

The second time, a different party decided that becoming vampires would be more fun and the game lasted about 20 minutes.  We then watched a Christopher Lee Dracula movie, which at least made for a better evening than the first game that went bust.

WotC has put together the below walk through map of dozens of other permutations of things that could have gone badly:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/toon/Ravenloft

Good post on EnWorld about the benefits of recounting RPG adventures

Saw this post and it made me think of the exercise my colleagues and I undertook when we created our Obsidian Portal blog for our Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons game, years ago.  Keeping an online log, which we all contributed to, helped us keep perspective on where we were in the campaign and our goals, but it also helped as a way to flesh out character development and story.

Some good ideas, in here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?1268-7-Advantages-to-Retelling-your-Adventures

Ed Greenwood has officially written about every aspect of the Forgotten Realms, now

Wow.

There are no words.

Ed Greenwood on the vendors that dispose of Chamber Pots in the Forgotten Realms

Holy ****....

Space Hog

Watch "Spacehog - In the Meantime (Music Video)" on YouTube

I had this song stuck in my head from the moment I got up, today.  Watching the video, I remember how representative this song was of college radio in the 90s.

Roll20 in Google+ Hangouts

A long while back I'd asked if anybody had tips for using Google+ Hangouts for gaming.  Looks like the folks from Roll20 have put together a pretty bitchin' integration to use Google Hangouts for gaming.  Anybody had a chance to use it yet?  Any advice?

Ed Greenwood has an adventure hook

Three wizards walk into a bar...  No, it's better than that.  My gaming hero Ed Greenwood has posted what he refers to as the Lone Wizard adventure hook.  Check it out.  I can't do it as much justice as he - it's a great idea for a one-on-one campaign (like old school O2: Blade of Vengeance) it's a wizard against the world set up.  (Granted O2 was really an Elf versus the World, but let's face it, it was the spells that made Basic D&D elves badass...)

Steve Jackson Games continuing to give back to the hobby - an open letter to game designers to acquire their firms and IP.

This one's a tricky subject.  Is a mid-sized gaming company offering to acquire others:

• a way of giving back to the hobby, by keeping some smaller scale games/intellectual property going?
• RPG colonialism?
• or an effort to make a beachhead against larger firms?

Gotta say, ever since GURPS Cyberpunk, I've had a soft spot for Steve Jackson Games as a provider of high-quality games with an anti-authority (read: anti-elves) edge.  Any game designer whose hot rulebook of the day cited The Cure and Neuromancer as influences sold me.  But, curious to see what others think of SJG putting out a cattle call to acquire other firms.

Green Ronin's Freeport Kickstarter a huge success!

I have been fortunate enough to be a playtester for Green Ronin over the years, playtesting some of their "Advanced" 3.5E titles, one of their Freeport upgraded editions, the original Game of Thrones RPG and the Dragon Age RPG. As a happy hanger-on, I'm proud of the work they've done to adapt-to/adopt different systems over the years. In case you missed it, their Kickstarter to convert their Freeport mega-city campaign to the Pathfinder game system was a HUGE success. 146% funded. Nice job, folks! More details, here.