Tag: setting element

March 19, 2013

A Single Google Search for All the RPG Inspiration Pictures You Need

One of my new gaming buddies recently asked for advice about finding inspirational pictures for RPGs. He’d been mostly looking at video game concept art (which is a pretty good idea in itself). Responses were pretty typical. Google searches. Deviantart. Whatever. I suggested that he start from some pieces of art that he likes, find out the artist, and look...

January 4, 2012

The Dwarves of Kor

In the new game I’m running, Dwarves are weird. Before the refugees settled in Kor, they had no idea how weird. First off, the dwarves who headed to the surface were all young. Dwarves in Kor will live nearly a thousand years. Typically, dwarves spend their young adulthood either in the military, in an apprenticeship, or as an entrepreneur. Adventurers...

January 3, 2012

Kor, Dwarfhome

As mentioned previously, I recently started running a new Pathfinder game. It is set in Kor, an enormous, ancient Dwarven city-state. Kor means “home” in Dwarven. Kor is more than a city. It is nearly a nation into itself. The Open Market – where dwarves trade with outsiders – is itself larger than most human cities were… and it only...

April 24, 2011

Wasterunners: campaign idea

A friend of mine was jonesing for some Shadowrun. It didn’t come together, but it got me thinking… What sort of Shadowrun game could I run? I don’t know all the metaplot and setting, and I don’t really see myself researching it. I like some of the basic ideas, though… and I was feeling a bit of a post-apocalyptic vibe…...

September 4, 2010

Should I run a game?

I’m more of a world-builder and game designer than I am a GM. I’ve certainly run games before, and most of them have been fairly successful, but I get a lot more satisfaction out of creating (or modifying) a setting and planning a game than I do out of actually running it. The social aspects of running a game are...

January 27, 2010

Orcjournal.com

Orcs have lousy memories. No. That’s not right. Orcs have superb memories that retain far more detail than that of the average human. If you ask an orc about his breakfast, he’s likely to be able to tell you how many bites it took him to eat it. That’s assuming he didn’t take a nap in the meantime. For orcs,...

October 14, 2009

Thoughts about Swords and Sorcery

I’ve never been a huge fan of Conan. It isn’t so much the idea of the setting, but Howard’s writing style. I’m not a fan of the florid prose of that age. I’m not a big Lovecraft fan for much the same reason. That said, I do like a lot of the implicit ideas in the Hyborean/Cthulhu mythos. The idea...

October 8, 2009

Natural or Monstrous?

In your favorite fantasy game, is there a difference between animal and monster? If so, why? One thing that bothered me about some versions of D&D is just that distinction. Druids, for instance, could speak with animals. Could they speak with Owlbears? Displacer Beasts? Stirges? My understanding was that they generally could not… because these were monsters rather than animals....

October 1, 2009

Shadowrunning the Dungeon

I’ve only played Shadowrun a few times. Most of them have been with the same group of people. Our playstyle focused upon extensive recon and planning, and – while that style of game might annoy some people – I enjoyed it quite a bit. Yesterday, I got to thinking about how that playstyle could be merged with a dungeon crawl....

April 21, 2009

Awesome resource for historical games

Do you ever run games set in the last 100 years or so? WWI, WWII, the 1980s… pulp games set in the 1930s? If so, check out Google News Timeline. You’ll thank me. I’ve been waiting for something like this for some time….