The Golden Geek Awards are now accepting nominees, and if you’re an RPGGeek member and a fan of the Stew’s latest book, Unframed: The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters, I’d like to ask for your nomination.

Voting only takes a few moments and runs through February 8th. Unframed is eligible for Best Supplement and Best Artwork, and to nominate it you just search for Unframed, click nominate, and repeat for the second category.

if you nominate Unframed, thank you very much for your support!

An old school adventure encounter in which the PC's are recruited to dally with the powers of an ancient sea captain and wizard to free him and his crew from the claws of the Devil himself in the icy waters surrounding Iceland?Dare you risk your PC's immortal souls?Right OverHERE

It would seem that we haven't quite pin pointed when homo sapiens developed precision use with thumb and forefinger...meaning, they can put pressure there. Our neighbors the chimpanzees cannot manage this. Anthropologists have tied it to tool use or climbing trees or both. Tool use appears way before homo sapiens wander on the scene, so its hard to say when it was.

The bone adjusts quickly to new uses...you can see this in archers... so the transition may have been very rapid.

I’ve been reviewing ship designs and deck plans for articles in the Frontier Explorer and this has had me thinking again about a topic I’ve pondered on before. Namely the relative sizes of the various races/species in a game and how that affects things like construction and design of buildings and more specifically spacecraft. If you want an excellent set of articles on how to develop and design species specific tools, furniture and whatnot, I strongly recommend this pair of articles over at Campaign Mastery: Ergonomics and the Non-human and its follow-on article By Popular Demand: The Ergonomics Of Dwarves. [...]

A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong sustained winds of at least 56 km/h (35 mph) and lasting for a prolonged period of time---typically three hours or more. A ground blizzard is a weather condition where snow is not falling but loose snow on the ground is lifted and blown by strong winds.

In the United States, the National Weather Service defines a blizzard as a severe snowstorm characterized by strong winds causing blowing snow that results in low visibilities. The difference between a blizzard and a snowstorm is the strength of the wind, not the amount [...]

Nathan "Drifter" Pullen

As if the world's most revolting lapdog had somehow learned to walk on its back legs, this sickly creature slinks forward carefully.
Source: Bestiary 2 Pathfinder

     Gremlins are tiny mischievous creatures that hail from the realm of fey. When ties between the material plane and the realm of fey overlap you can find Gremlins residing in the world's unseen reaches. Abandoned buildings, sewers, ruins, etc are the homes of the Gremlins. These Gremlins delight in ruining and breaking things. Each Gremlin has a particular specialty that could include magical auras, complex machinery, luck, etc. 
    Pugwampis [...]

“Futurese: The American Language in 3000 AD” is an interesting extrapolation of where linguistic trends will take the language over the next 1,000 years. It’s a useful reminder that the English we speak is in a state of constant change.

One thing I will note, however, is that “Futurese” seems to be postulating a shift in English over the next 1,000 years that’s fairly equivalent to the shift in the language over the last 1,000 years. In doing so, I think it’s ignoring two vital factors:

First, the advent of print and widespread literacy had a significant effect in slowing vocabulary shifts.

Second, [...]

Released last year as a kind of sequel to the Arkham Asylum video games, Batman: Assault On Arkham is primarily a Suicide Squad mission that has Amanda Waller sending a half-dozen villains into the infamous asylum to steal a thumb drive loaded with sensitive information. The story is told largely from the villains' point-of-view with Batman being out of the picture for most of the first half

From my favorite comic book as a youngster. I have all these issues piled around here somewhere . . . the Warlord.

Good people don’t often kill people and when they do they generally suffer with the psychological problems that doing so …

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Greg Stolze. Der (Mit-)Autor von Unknown Armies (!), Reign (ORE), eCollapse und A Dirty World hat mit The Forgotten Monk einen 13th Age-Roman verfasst, den er jetzt in Abstimmung mit Pelgrane Press ber Kickstarter anbietet. Bis zum 25. Feb. kann jeder mit mindestens $7,- einsteigen.

The Forgotten Monk – A Novel of the 13th Age by Greg Stolze (Image: Greg Stolze)

“The Forgotten Monk tells the story of a man under a curse. His past has been stolen, and he wants it back. Fortunately for him, without memories to distract him, he’s exceptionally observant. He soon falls in with a cavalry unit [...]

Please away with us to the fabled lands of Asgard where heroes are mighty, monsters area deadly, and the mead is cold. Sure, Thor is the most well known hero of Asgard, but there’s got to be a three-way tie for second most well known. The Warriors Three!

Fandrall hides a broken heart behind the mask of a swashbuckling Lothario. But can even the fabled dangers of the Nine Worlds comfort him? Or needs must he mend that broken heart…and let another lovely lady take up residence within it?

Why is Hogun so grim? I took a page from Thor: The Dark [...]

Targi Game Review

Targi is a fabulous, 2-player game by Andreas Steiger and published by Z-Man Games. It is a worker placement and set collection game, but mixes things up by using intersection points between your vertical and horizontal Targis (on the perimeter) to control inner squares. Tribe cards and resources layer in perfectly to create a great, euro-style, 2-player game.

Please like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Want to do a guest review? Shoot me a note.

This past weekend I got a little time to sit down with Chris Fasulo, designer of a myriad of titles published through his publishing company, Grognard Simulations. This was the second year that Chris brought his most recent design, Incredible Courage 100 Days: Quatre Bras. Last year he was in the final playtesting phase and this year he is the delivery stage of the completed game.Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to sit and really get invested in to the system, but we did chat about the game mechanics, the overall design and what’s next from Grognard Simulations.

This year marks [...]

I am on a really bad losing streak in FFG’s X-wing Miniatures game.

How bad? I'll break it down a few different ways:

• Three consecutive league nights with no wins...
• At least five hours of planning, playing, and testing to no avail...
• Six consecutive games of getting clobbered...
• Six and a half hours of stinking it up...
• Three hundred and ninety minutes of being beaten to smithereens!

So yeah, I'm not doing too well. I went from first place in the league to next to last in our championship. The only guy I beat was the guy who missed the first two rounds (of three). I'm stinking [...]

Over on the AAAI Video Competition YouTube channel, they recently uploaded a video titled "Mario Lives! An Adaptive Learning AI Approach for Generating a Living and Conversing Mario Agent."  Enjoy.



Finally, NASA tells how the "SPIDER Experiment Touches Down in Antarctica" here.


Also, on neatorama.com, they explain "How to Build a Flamethrower with Rabbit Poop" here.

Tech Tuesday on CreativeMountainGames.com News focused on Technology
as it might interest gamers.Please Like, Share, Plus, Tweet, Follow, and Comment!

In recent days, the DM's Screen for D&D 5th Edition has been released and this has brought up some interesting discussions around my tables. Over my D&D career, I've played with dozens of Dungeon Masters of both sexes. Some were experienced, some were green, others were comfortable in the big chair, and some were not....

In recent days, the DM's Screen for D&D 5th Edition has been released and this has brought up some interesting discussions around my tables. Over my D&D career, I've played with dozens of Dungeon Masters of both sexes. Some were experienced, some were green, others were comfortable in the big chair, and some were not....

Today I’m continuing the Exploration Age magic item preview with a category of items unique to my campaign setting. These items are different from the weapons, armor, rings, rods, staffs, wands, and wondrous items about which I’ve previously posted. Once All of Exploration Age’s magic items have been presented I’ll add them to the Free Game Resources section of this site.

Bioarcane items have their own rules. In order for a PC to use such an item he or she must remove a body part and attach or implant the item in its place. This procedure is risky and done improperly [...]

I wrote an article entitled "Herding Kittens," all about time management and something I now refer to as "Pants and Responsibilities." How there comes a time when you have to ditch the PJs, put on some pants and deal with all of the baggage that comes with being a responsible adult.

I really should have saved that article title for this week. As you may recall from reading last week's article, I had a good/not good experience helping a group of ten to twelve year old children make their characters for a two session Age of Rebellion game at the Community.

It [...]

I've been looking through some old Dungeon magazines lately and in issue #37 (1992) they had a Dungeon Survey asking people what they were looking for from the Dungeon Magazine. For fun I decided to fill but with how I would do it for a Dungeon magazine being produced today. After my choices I've included a copy of a blank form in case anyone wants to download it, fill it out and put it up on

So, you've decided set collecting is a good idea.

A number of people have questioned the purpose of pitting the players against each other.

The purpose of the competition is to make the choices meaningful. If you simply require the set collection for the bonus, that just makes treasure annoying. The players will trivially solve for the best outcomes. It's like "Here, you have some treasure, but you don't actually get it yet, heh, heh, heh" and then they have to both track and wait for the outcome.

This way, the players are incentivised to have their [...]

  Heled the troll, Ethex the grimalkin & more Sigil Courier   The character generation session on Saturday was productive. We have not completed the process, as there are a lot of choices to be made. The process is not difficult, but the Players made careful choices about how to portray their characters. It is …

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To the north of the Thunder Mines and down the long twisting stairs from the Hall of Bronze are the flooded mines. These were the first set of mines worked by the local dwarves and were mostly worked out when the dwarves partially sealed them off in favour of the hematite mines.

The Flooded Mines (with grid)

Originally built around the river that creates the falls in the thunder mines, the water flow in said river continued to increase while the dwarves were working these mines. Eventually it overflowed into the lower areas of the mines themselves. Through most of the wet areas water is roughly two to four feet deep, with the most northern room and associated tunnel being completely submerged.

Like the two other mine maps, this map is drawn at a scale of 1 square = 20 feet (or 1 inch = 100 feet at 300dpi).

Initially the danger of this level would appear to be the slimes and molds that are found within the dank environment. But dark things have crawled in from the waters. A foul mastermind of a beast crawled in along the Lost River cave and into the mines and has settled into the chamber just north [...]

As a complement to the short documentary about archery that's setting the Internet alight, here's something for those who prefer a bit of sword fighting:

Artwork can make or break a game. No matter how awesome a game system is, lack of pleasing art can sink it (in a mainstream [...]

Last time I showed how easy it is for a party of players to turn a half joke roleplay adventure in a blood soaked murder fest.  So this time around I figured I'd show how sometimes expecting your players to be good little murder hobos can really surprise you.  Here's a small random encounter for when the party is traveling through the woods, but thanks to my players once again going off book from what I expect of them it turned into an entire adventure of it's own.

Plot:
This one is about as simple as it gets. [...]

Narthrex fell back onto his throne, burnt bones clattering in his robes as his body collapsed into ash. A ruby fell from the blackened finger bones, coming to a stop at Feris' feet. The stone pulsed with barely contained energy and even through his boot Feris could feel it's radiating heat. The stark blue-white glow of the were-light warred with the flickering red of the ruby's glow.

Rathgar slumped to the floor with a deep sigh as bits of scorched flesh, cloth, and leather flaked off of him. Allianora knelt down and prayed behind him, smoothing over and [...]

Booker seemed suddenly eager to give his stuff to other people, perhaps anticipating his Chosen One-ness being the death of him. Well, that didn't pan out.

First of all, Gorbash and Booker found Rita's Horcrux in the astral room. It was guarded by something and it was kicking off, so Gorbash got out of there. He'd never explained exactly how you leave the astral plane before the Psychedelic Dreams drink's timer runs out, so he ended up having to go back in to get Booker. Eventually they both returned.

Rita was happy to save the world as she had her little soul urn back, so we headed toward the place where Gabriel had set up the big portal/gate thing. (Did we mention Ulmolf, prior to joining the party, was one of the people working on putting that thing together? *slow clap*)

A big bomb full of shrapnel [...]

In a perfect world, every PC would be roughly as capable as his fellows. However through unbalanced rules, player skill or GM interference sometimes a PC gets broken.

By William McAusland (Outland Arts)

 

 

Broken characters are just better than their fellows. Whether they are good atavoidingdamage, slaughtering enemies or their magic is neigh on impossible to resist, dealing with broken PCs can cause a GM real problems.

I've had this problem several times in my Borderland of Adventure campaign. I've learnt it's imperative when dealing with a broken PC to remember the player is invested in that character. Be open and honest about [...]

Today, I want to take a moment and talk about the games that got away.

I guess I should explain what I mean by "games that got away", but I don't literally mean games that hoped off my book shelf and ran out the door. That would just be silly. This blog is supposed to be super serious, after all.

At one point in everyone's gaming career, they've stumbled upon a game they thought sounded awesome. Maybe the concept grabbed them, or maybe the mechanics seemed pretty cool. The reasons are endless, but you found yourself captivated by [...]

As most of you are probably already aware Marvel Comics are heading towards a soft reboot via The Secret Wars event later this year that is said to smash together the main Marvel Universe with the Ultimate Universe and throw in a few alternate realities for good measure. I think it goes without saying that on the other side of Secret Wars, most (if not all) of the Marvel titles will start

Fantastic Feats
Volume 32 -- Dragon Disciple
Fantastic:
Adjective – Strange, different; imaginary

Characters in rpgs often have abilities are not tied to their class, race or skill, although they may be related/useful to it. These are called Feats.

They may be combat related, a way to tweak spells or even to do with the crafting of an item. Some will be useful to almost everyone, others only in very certain circumstances.

This edition of "Fantastic Feats" -- a series of feats based around a certain theme or subject -- is about the prestige class called the dragon Disciple -- the arcane magic [...]

It's Tuesday, which mean someone, somewhere, decided to just create their own holiday today! Because that's like a thing now! But here at the Stew, we're exceptionally excited by any gaming holidays, especially those that lend assistance and inspiration to prospective GMs. Enter National New Gamemaster Month or---wait for it---NaNewGaMo!

The brainchild of the folks over at Monte Cook Games, NaNewGaMo---as the name strongly indicates---focuses on helping new gamemasters find their own voice. The name, while inspired by National Novel Writing Month, isn't related to that month-long exercise; you don't have to write a 50,000 word adventure, for example. (Whew!)

All January [...]

This is part 4 of my solo RuneQuest adventure log. Part 1 can be found here.

Having returned to town from Scorpion Hall, Gerg Droffats spent an entire year in game living in the city and paying for taining.

First hiring somone to teach him to read Imperial. He found the scroll was instructions on how to fight with a scimitar.

He spent some time studying out before settling it and then hired someone to teach him to fight better with his spear and buckler.

Later moving on to learning how to hide and sneak hoping to [...]

This week we get to see the B&W art for the deva race section in A Sundered World.


Here we got a deva shaman, with her angelic-looking spirit, and a big-ass stone club, floating before the rotting face of a dead god.

I know I said I was going to do dwarves next, but Melissa is rolling up a kobold pirate for our upcoming A Sundered World campaign, so I figured I'd do those next.

Kick The Box Jan. 26th Edition

Nearing the end of January and excited for the many projects I have started up. Not only will I be continuing my weekly Kickstarter updates and picks with Kick The Box, but also hosting a new podcast called Docking Bay 94 with Jason Washburn, of Talon Strikes Studio, as my co-host . The first episode is complete and published! You can find it on Stitcher or iTunes, or here.Also, working on another guest video review for Edo and starting my own YouTube channel. Be sure to check it all out as the projects complete and of [...]

What do we mean when we say role playing? Especially when it comes to characters in our video games?

More importantly, what can the limited role playing opportunities in our video games teach us about role playing at the table?

And how does this article influence this video?

http://archive.org/download/Fiddleback_gmail_P2P2/P2P2.mp4

You can find Pixel2Paper and other Society video content on YouTube and in it's own playlist for easy following.

Follow David on Twitter @AkaAgentShades

If you enjoy this show, please consider supporting us on Patreon so we can continue to bring amazing content to you.

Direct Download: http://archive.org/download/Fiddleback_gmail_P2P2/P2P2.mp4

Please give feedback in the comments.

Click on the picture to get the full-sized version.

Note that the full image is relatively large (about 7 meg).

We take a look at The Be Awesome At Dungeon Design OSR systemagnosticbookon the Dark Corner Blog, this is a resource on the care, feeding, and preparation of one of the corner stones of the old school hobby, the dungeon.Right overHERE

I'm in such a foul winter mood with this "blizzard of the century" that is taking it's damn sweet time to be a blizzard here in NYC.

So what do I do?

I search the net for evil snowmen.

I found the above by Zeeksie over over at DeviantArt. This is my kind of evil snowman. He must have some magical ability to turn folks into mini-mees, which he then toys with before destroying.

I could easily stat this out as a Tunnels & Trolls monster. OSR tho? Hmmmm.

Maybe an exercise for tomorrow...

(holy crap but Zeeksie has some good pieces)

Session 46 of the Montporte Dungeon Campaign ended with Duncan (Dan's character) becoming King of the Gnomes (by popular acclaim). The quest to return a group of rescued gnomes to their subterranean was completed with the surprise royal ending.

We are going to take a break from Montporte to do some other things with our Monday night gaming sessions. Next up is Rob Conley running some D&D 5e sessions. We'll come back to Montporte at some point in the not too distant future.

http://tinyurl.com/nmwoenx
Episode 23 is out and ready to impress!

• Sean reveals that he's been reading short stories on the internets, and he tells you where to find them.
• I tell you about my Twelve "C's" of Preparedness.
• Nicki Kenyon discusses Foreign Policy Fails
• The recent incidents of SWATting are making Miguel Gonzalez angry.
• Barron B. pours cold water on the idea that cops are going to search your home with radar.
• Weer'd explores the frequent anti-gunner refrain that "There's no such thing as a law abiding gun owner." 
• And to top it all off, hosts Adam and Sean talk about the hidden gun rights message in [...]

The card decks I ordered from OneBookShelf have arrived, and I'm really happy with the quality. They look suitably grungy, but slick; and as a result they'll be great for setting up the post-apocalyptic battle terrain for the Ghost City Rangers. 
Now I need to activate the card deck on the shopfront.