The Dragon’s Tower

Lifehacker wrote a tidbit on a little app called Exploratree. They talk about using it to plan a project and you know… an adventure is a project. Continue Reading »

Roleplaying Tips is a weekly email newsletter by Johnn Four that’s been going since 1999! Eight years is certainly nothing to sneeze at and well worth your time. He just published #383: part 1 of Jail Design. If you’re a newcomer to his site, the archives alone will give you weeks of ideas and fun! There’s something here for players and GMs alike.

Small Note: Chatty DM’s entry has been updated with his new link. Love the new look!

Here’s a website that’s been out there awhile - Hero Machine. It has some serious limitations (the only sex selectable for human fantasy is female) but if you’re having some trouble coming up with a character portrait, consider it.

One fun thing to try is using the die button near the bottom of the options section, setting everything to “all random”. This is especially cool if you’re stumped for new character ideas. And who hasn’t been?

I’m traipsing cheerfully along the internet when I trip over a Thing in a Jar. You’ve probly seen other version of them out there. It’s a pretty common idea but what caught me was this:

“The glass jar acts as a physical barrier, preventing the viewer from directly accessing its contents. The murky fluid acts as a visual barrier, making the exact details of the form indistinct. The viewer is forced to fill in the gaps with their own imagination.”

You can do this to your players. It’s fun! First, you have to be running a system you know inside and out. Can you make up monsters on the fly? Without ruining the game? That’s harder than it sounds and I never did get to know d20 well enough for it. It won’t always work, alot depends on the party and their imagination but it’s excellent when it does.

We were playing a modern game and it was at night. I had gunmen on the roofs of nearby buildings waiting to ambush the party. The players got rolls to see the ambushers vs the ambushers hide. One player succeeded and immediately began fretting as it was a smaller party than usual and she’s a nervous type to begin with. “Oh god, I hope they don’t have crossbows!” This weapon recently got an upgrade and had been made particularly nasty in the game so she feared its effects.

So of course, all the NPC rifles suddenly morphed into crossbows….

Use it carefully but when it works, the players face their worst nightmare without ever even realizing they created it!

We all know Druids liked trees, right? How about snakes? Check out this site on Irish Druids and old Irish religions. Not only are Irish Druids covered (obviously) but also the German and French varieties. Wait. French Druids?

If you’re as clueless as I am about all these Druids, and they’re in your game, you want to read it.