February 7, 2009

Around the blogs...

Well, I made it through the first week at my new job without any major problems. In fact, I managed to squeeze a fair amount of "auxiliary reading" in between all the other work-related reading and orientation meetings. What have I been reading this week? Well... take a look!
  • Yet Another D&D Fanzine is going to be published by Goodman Games under the GSL license. Says Ogre Cave, "... According to Joseph Goodman, a primary goal of Level Up is to get gamers down to their local retail stores, so for the time being, a subscription plan has not been determined..." Well - at least the goal of the fanzine is somewhat novel. And I expect that FLGSs need all the help they can get these days to get more folks in the door. Purple Pawn also covered this news.
  • Maps? What Maps? While not necessarily a post aimed at this months RPG Blog Carnival - Dragon Avenue wants to know where all the maps are for Thunderspire Labyrinth. Fortunately, a bunch of fellow geeks over at EN World made some to supplement those in the adventure.
  • Oh THESE Maps... Speaking of maps... Zach over at RPG Blog II found another Hex Mapping application he likes. And NewbieDM gets a gold-star for being the first blogger to jump in on this month's theme for the RPG Blog Carnival. Monsters and Manuals also kicks out some new maps in "Unfinished Map of Mollusc-People States".. the Mollusk people. Mollusk people? Really? LMFAO...
  • Join the Discussion... oh, and speaking of Zach... he makes an excellent point when asking the question "Are RPG Blogs Supplanting RPG Forums?". It's a topic I'm rather partial too... and from the looks of it... tons of other bloggers and blog readers are too.
  • Remember the Masters. Uncle Bear wants the RPG blogosphere to remember Gary Gygax on the anniversary of his death by building a sort of "blog memorial". I think this is a great idea - but I'll likely honor the man by having a moment of silence on The Core Mechanic.
  • Progressive Fantasy... I've been thinking alot lately about the evolution of technology in fantasy game settings. So, I've been doing a bit of rpg blogosphere research of sorts. Gamergrene wrote back in 2006 "Mix Genres, Open Doors", an excellent post about fantasy setting mashups. About a year later, the same site offered up "What I Bring to the Table #4: Magic and Technology" - which is a bit off target, but was worth the read nonetheless. Zach (again!) posted back in 2006 as well an article called "Failed Gnomish Weaponry", which gave me some ideas. KeyOurCars offers up "Warhammer Firearms for DnD" (which I may have linked to before) which is also relevant. I'm starting to think this sort of fantasy must have a name - but alas I can't find one so I'm dubbing it "Progressive Fantasy".
Well, that's about it for now! Stay tuned! On Monday I'll have the weekly update about the anthology project Open Game Table - there has been some very good news recently that involves these guys.

3 comments:

  1. I have a nominee for next week's Around the Blogs already. I thought this article was so interesting I want more people to see it.

    10 Useful Pieces of Gaming Technology.

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  2. Oh wow! thanks for the tip Noumenon! At first glance, I agree... I'll give a full read later this weekend once I have time. thanks again!

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  3. @Noumenon: Great link!

    @Jonathan: Thanks for the mentions! It was a very good week in blogging, all told--a lot of discussion going on. I think we're all finally getting in gear for this year.

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