Links of DOOM - 01/28/11

You know the drill, read the links or we all get consumed by eldritch horrors and twisted nightmare demons of the abyss.

If you haven't read them yet, check out the two articles written by the new guys here at Rule of the Dice.

My First Time, by C.D. Gallant-King

Gaming Without Borders, by Joe Nelson


Stuff that I haven't had a chance to read yet but will read soon so I can help save humanity from certain doom.

Grognardia - Creation Through Play

Gothridge Manor - Editing RPG Products: Part 1

Gnome Stew - Never Make This Mistake

The Book of Worlds - Nefarious Arts

The Grumpy Celt - Cloakwork Brain Crabs

Rather Gamey - Chekhov's Can of Soup


New blog that I haven't read yet, but like based solely on its name

Cyborg Trucker's Role Playing and War Gaming Blog


The Regulars

Visit the Underdark Gazette for all your OSR news.

Chicago Wiz always has something good to say.

Zak at Playing D&D with Porn Stars is always full of weird ideas.

Visit A Paladin in Citadel, because he's awesome.


Friends

Visit my wife's adorable blog My adorable small town life.

Check out the art at J.H. Schmitz Art.

Visit Viking Dad, for a dose of Viking goodness.

Read the Happy Whisk for all the best culinary awesomeness.

Greatest Hits

Top 4 Bands That Write Songs Based on Their D&D Campaign

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There are many bands out there who like to play loud, ass-kicking, speaker-bursting music with thrashing guitars and pounding drums. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, most of them are total geeks. They may look like hard-ass biker leather fetishists, but in reality they're just D&D and Lord of the Rings nerds who hope that if they sing about dwarves and elves loud enough, people will think they're tough and not pick on them anymore. He was almost cool. Then he opened his mouth. Although I'm sure we could list thousands of bands that could fall into the genre, I'm just going to list The Top 4 Bands That Write Songs Based on Their D&D Campaigns. Actually, they're just my 4 favourites, but whatever. 4. Iron Maiden Seriously, how many kids back in the 80s ran home after school to play D&D and listen to Iron Maiden? Well, probably not THAT many, but if you're reading a blog about role-playing games and you're over 30 years old, you know what I&#
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10 Zombie Survival Intro Scenarios

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Can you smell Halloween on the air? Smells like non-toxic face paint and burnt pumpkins. In case you weren't aware, I've been playing around with a zombie/horror game based on the Dungeon Crawl Classics Funnel system - basically you send in a gang of 0-level schlubs, hoping that at least one survies to become a level 1 character in an on-going post-apocalyptic survival game. It uses basic d20 rules that everyone is pretty familiar with. To keep the game as chaotic as possible, in our first playthrough I just rolled the scenario out randomly as we went along - determining encounters, locales, etc purely by a toss of the dice - and I plan to continue doing the same thing. Partly this is to keep my prep work down, partly it's to keep the tension and suspense high as the party never knows what to expect. Sometimes the group meets 1d4 stray dogs, sometimes they meet 1d4+1x100 roaming zombies. I've been using the many tables in Palladium's DEAD REIGN ™®© books (a
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10 More Zombie Survival Intro Scenarios

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Last year I shared a list of 10 Random Zombie Survival Intro Scenarios based on my ad-hoc zombie survival/horror game (which is kinda like a DCC Funnel but set in the modern world, and with zombies). It was actually one of the most popular posts I ever wrote on this site (people still really seem to like zombies , go figure) so I thought it was time for a sequel. Last time the set-ups were pretty standard fare. Scenarios you've seen in many zombie movies, games and books. A rag-tag bunch of strangers, thrown together in an every day situation (a crashed bus, locked in a mall, hiding in a cabin in the woods) and they must survive the overwhelming onslaught of the undead. Death is rampant and expected (each player begins with four 0-level characters), and only the best (or more likely luckiest) will survive. This time a few of the scenarios are quite a bit weirder and may take some more prep work. If you don't want them, don't pick them, or if you roll them randomly,
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5 More of the Most Despicable Things Ever Done by Player Characters

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Player characters in role-playing games are generally supposed to be the "heroes" of the story, the good guys or at least the "anti-heroes." But as well all know, as often as not, the PCs end up just being homicidal maniacs. We affectionately call our characters in D&D "murder hobos" for a reason. A long ways back I told you about some of the most horrifying things that my players did at the table in the name of "fun." It's been a while, so I've since found a few new choice treasures to add to that list. Note: I'm not trying to imply that my friends are all psychopaths that should be locked up (well, except maybe for one guy). All of these stories are presented in good fun, and should not be used as evidence in any trials or psychological tests performed in the future. 5. Dancin' Jack I talked about my DCC-style funnel grinder zombie game in depth awhile ago. Haven't had a chance to play it in ages, which is u
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