RPG BLOG CARNIVAL #1 DONE!

Today is the closing day for the RPG BLOG CARNIVAL #1, "Character Death, Resurrection, and The Undead". I announced this new carnival earlier this month as an open event for all the bloggers in our burgeoning RPG blog community. So far, I think this has been a great success - especially since I am so new to the 'scene'. Frankly I wasn't expecting anyone to take me up on my idea, but much to my surprise we received over ten entries! OK, that might not be earth shattering, but its definitely a solid start to something good. If you are an RPG blogger, please link back to this post from your own blog so that people can find links to these great articles that were contributed to this carnival. The more noise we make, the better this carnival will become.

Now, before I (briefly) summarize the posts from each of the participating blogs, I have two things to say:

1. THANK YOU! and HATS OFF! to all the bloggers who participated. The participating blogs included: Tenletter, MadBrewLabs, Greywulf's Lair, Imaginary Vestibule, Fantasticate, Netherworld Stories, Malevolent & Benign, Paper & Plastic, and of course The Core Mechanic. Each of their posts are summarized, and linked, below. CHECK IT OUT!
   
2. DONNY_the_DM WILL BE HOSTING THE NEXT CARNIVAL. The whole idea behind a blog carnival is to stimulate your blogging community to all write one, or a few, post(s) about the same topic; then sum them all up at the end of the event and spread the "link-love" around. For this event to continue to be a success, a new host is selected for each carnival. Thus, RPG BLOG CARNIVAL #2 will be hosted by Donny_the_DM at his blog The Art of the TPK. The topic for the blog carnival is completely up to Donny too; so... keep you eyes peeled for his announcement. The third (#3) RPG Blog Carnival, we have Bryant signed up. After that .. it's open to anyone who wants to host it.
   

SUMMARY: RPG BLOG CARNIVAL #1
Character Death, Resurrection and THE UNDEAD.

1. Tenletter's entry titled "Who Wants to Live Forever?" discusses the careful balance between GM/DM vs. Player expectations of Character Death. He writes, "... DnD is game that is inherently filled with danger and the threat of death. If it wasn’t, then we wouldn’t need the dice..." A good point; often forgotten.
   
2. MadBrewLabs' contribution to the carnival is likely the most comprehensive. He covers nearly all the topics suggested by the initial announcement. My favorite section? Fossilfungus as a "fungus that has evolved into a near symbiotic relationship with the undead, specifically zombies." This is just simply so cool.
3. Greywulf's Lair offers up an entry about "Death & Superheros". While I've never played an RPG about superheroes, his closing remarks hold true for all RPGs: "when a character dies, it’s a world-changing event, at least for the folks around them." True dat!
   
4. Imaginary Vestibule sent in a post titled "The Wages of Death are Sin" where he provides an interesting game mechanic that could be used to increase the significance of a character's death in the game.
   
5. Fantasticate's blog contributed "D&D: Handlign a Character Death" where he suggests that a good course of action is to make the death "part of the story", even if its not something the DM planned/expected to happen. So often - this is the case. There's also a funny Roll or Die d20 graphic...
   
6. Netherworld Stories writes about the undead in "Blog Carnival: There Goes the Zombiehood" and makes an excellent point: "Why are undead things near-universally assumed to be evil?". Its always good to think of bad things in good ways - makes ya think, eh?
   
7. Malevolent & Benign presents the Zombies of Vanth in "Now We're Feeling Zombified", part of the Encounter Critical project. Play a Zombie character with these d20 (?) rules. This wins the Most Unexpected Contribution Award - its like Lovecraft meets the Jetsons. Awesomeness... chuckled about 100 times.
   
8. Paper & Plastic adds the Rotten Carcass and the Upper Carcass as two additional zombies usable in 4E. There's also a nice discussion about Minion experience points in 4E in the comments section.
   
9. The Core Mechanic wrote a three part series titled The Dead Queens of Morvena, detailing two sister-queens who were betrayed by their king and died to rise again as a pair of liches. Part 1 has backstory, Part 2 adventure hooks, and Part 3 statblocks for 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. Enjoy!

Well, that wraps it up for the RPG Blog Carnival #1. Altogether, these post produced 45 comments from blog readers following the carnival. Heck.. that's almost as many comments from one post by The Chatty DM or Critical Hits! Wohoo! The power of 9! Heh... (/wink)

Thanks again to everyone who participated, and I'm really looking forward to Donny_the_DMs announcement and NEW TOPIC for RPG Blog Carnival #2!!!

Let's keep this thing going... so let us know if its going to be you...

That'll Learn em! WotC puts the smack down on McCainculus

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20080828

The president of Wizards of the Coast tell's the McCain camp to STFU. Nice!

(shortest post ever? sry.. I'm at work)

Ars Magica Players & Info about Troupe Style Playing

Yesterday I posted about an alternate style of running your Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition role playing game (ok.. take THAT search engines!). Or any RPG for that matter. Unfortunately... nobody bit. Maybe it was the International Take a Break From Your RSS Feed Reader Day - I dunno. Nonetheless, being the stubborn type, I blog on.

I mentioned that I had nearly zero success looking with Google for more information about "entourage gaming". Now, the interneTz are huge. Massive in fact. And there BILLIONS of board people in the world - someone had to of come up with this idea before; I just knew it. I mean - maybe Sham came up with this idea. It was possible, but given the millions of people who have played RPGs in the last 40 years, it was also very improbable.

Fortunately, ChattyDM mentioned in a recent post of his about ars ludi's West March campaign which uses a troupe/entourage style of game play (only with 1 DM). I've added these links to my growing Google Notebook on the subject.

Also, an eagle-eyed patron of the Gleemax forums pointed out that Ars Magica introduced something very similar to this back in 1987. The reason I missed it was because they referred to it as "Troupe System" or a troupe system for RPG gaming. Ars Magica is still around (5th edition), but its a game I've never played. I'm curious about how Ars Magica's troupe system would be adaptable to a similar game like D&D. In any case, I now have half-a dozen web articles to read about the troupe/entourage system for role-playing games. While I'm not convinced that the Ars Magica troupe system, as written in the rules of the game, are the same as what I'm looking for - at least it is a solid start. And now that I've got the materials in hand to explore this idea further - I'm definitely going to be writing about my findings here on The Core Mechanic.

When you are trying to break in something new, explore a new idea, or try a new style for game table - its better to stand on the shoulder's of giants, than build your own step-ladder, IMHO. Why reinvent the d20 when you don't have to?

So, are there any readers of this blog out there that have played Ars Magica? If so, I would love to hear you comments about troupe-style gaming. Good? Bad? Hard to manage? What are the pros and cons?

Entourage Gaming?

A few weeks ago, Sham's Grog'n Blog posted about the "Entourage Approach". Ever since reading his post I can't get the idea out of my head. It just... won't... go... away. I'm thinking that, if extended, this approach could be a boon to all those people who can't get a regular weekly game together because they are just too damn busy with work/life. I'm going to start digging around the internetZ about this approach to running a game (because everything has already been done before) and, hopefully, I'll have enough material to start a series about it summarizing my findings.

In the meantime, I've also started a discussion over at (gulp) Gleemax: "Entourage Gaming: Designing a campaign with large cast of PCs".

So... have you ever run an "Entourage" campaign? What were the pros and cons? What sort of things did you like about this style of play? What did you hate about it?

"Tinglefoot, Tinglefoot, Tinglefoot Cube" Rediscovered...

Many moons ago I submitted an adventure to DUNGEON magazine. I think it was sometime in 2001. It was the only (gaming related) thing I have ever written that I felt was worthy of possibly being published. I was sure that it would get rejected. I was a complete amateur (still am), and had zero experience with creative writing or formal adventure design (still do). But, much to my surprise my proposal was returned with positive reviews from the Editor (Chris Thomasson), only he suggested I rework the ending a bit and then resubmit. I was stoked. My inner-geek was all giddy with nerdrenaline.

There was a 'problem' though. I was in the middle of working on my doctorate at the time and I ended up not being able to find the time to put the new revisions together. The material I had produced ended up buried in some folder on an external firewire drive. After a while, it was a forgotten brick of text. It may have been forgotten forever too, if I hadn't been poking around on said harddrive last weekend.

Here's an excerpt from my DUNGEON proposal:

"... At the adventure’s start the heroes meet Beret Tinglefoot at a roadside tavern while on their way to Enstad. They find him to be a talkative gnomish merchant with a dark sense of humor. He explains that he has traveled far and wide the known realms, selling everything and anything that can be carried on the back of his pack mule, Gordi. On this particular occasion, he suggests that he “quite assuredly” has things of interest to a group of “heroes” such as themselves (which he does, but at slightly inflated prices). During this encounter, the PCs undoubtedly notice an unfinished, yet ornate, wooden cube among his wares. After quickly hiding it from further scrutiny, Beret explains it is absolutely not for sale, being a present for one of his nephews in Tarkenook. The cube, however, serves as an important clue for the upcoming adventure.

Beret has a soft spot for conversation, no matter how trivial. Through role playing, the PCs may discover that he often travels to Enstad and Verbobonc for business. If asked about the trouble in Enstad, they find Beret knows only the common rumors. Inquisitive players find that he resides in Tarkenook, a small gnomish community in the Kron Hills, and that he maintains a shop in nearby Enstad, “The Tinglefoot Tinkerer”. The Adventure Prologue should provide the PC’s with a memorable encounter with a rather unusual gnomish merchant, as well as give them the opportunity to lighten their purses a bit with some new gear ..."

With the rediscovery of "Tinglefoot, Tinglefoot, Tinglefoot Cube", I remembered that I invested a respectable chunk of time with it. Having it "go to waste" would be a shame - so I was thinking that I might solicit the opinions of the few readers I have of this blog to see what I should do with it.

Should I...

1. Put all the materials together, as suggest by Chris Thomasson in 2001, and submit them to the _new_ DUNGEON magazine (aka DDI)?
   
2. Trickle out the materials here at The Core Mechanic, and get feedback from the community at large? This seems viable, I only wonder if this is the wrong venue for it.
3. Package the materials into a nice and tidy PDF with the help of my sister (she's an illustrator) and then sell it _cheap_ on Lulu.com? with a free-preview via the blog?
4. Submit the adventure to KOBOLD, or some other small-press magazine?
5. Or something else?

The adventure is basically a 3E adventure that was set in Greyhawk - but it could be easily ported to some any other setting or even a generic setting.

Comments?