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.

Comments

  1. James SJanuary 28, 2011

    Thanks for the Shout-out! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. John WilliamsJanuary 28, 2011

    No problem, glad to give the shout-out.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

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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'sDEAD REIGN™®© books (about the …
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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'm talkin…
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Steal this New Map

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After watching these videos , I started playing around and drawing up some topographical maps in photoshop. They aren't my typical style, but I think my first effort turned out pretty decent.

So, here you go. Key up this map and use it for your game. The only thing I ask is that if you post it on your blog/Twitter/Google+/Facebook that you link back to here, or my Twitter, my Google+, or my Facebook page. Have fun.


The picture is quite large, so don't forget to zoom in to see the details.
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Several people have inquired whether they could my maps in their commercial (for profit) projects. The answer is: No, you cannot use these maps for any commercial project. Read the creative commons copyright below.

But, if you are a DIY RPG person, with little to no money, and really want to use one of the maps for something that you're working on, that might earn you a bit of money, let me know. We can talk, and if I like your thing, I will mos…
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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, then ju…
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