I have returned!

Please excuse my long absence.  After a week in Sin City for my bachelor party my immune system was apparently shot and I got very very sick.  After a full week of recovery I am back to peak condition... or at least as close to peak condition as I ever get.

A few notes on my trip.  It was amazing.  I had a great time thanks to my friends who organized and paid for most of the trip.  They are also amazing.  Of the things we did that are gaming related I first want to talk about the Excalibur's Tournament of Kings.

Now I had never seen it, but my expectations were very high.  This is the Excalibur's main draw (as far as shows go) and though I had been to Medieval Times a couple of times in the past I counted on this to be even better.  (Yes, I love Medieval times) The logic behind this thought was the amount of money that the Excalibur would be able to put into their show that would catapult it far beyond what their competition could hope to achieve.

Privacy Policy

Here at the Labyrinth we take your privacy seriously. This policy describes what personal information we collect and how we use it. (This privacy policy is applicable to websites falling under the primary holder http://rpglabyrinth.blogspot.com)

Routine Information Collection

All web servers track basic information about their visitors. This information includes, but is not limited to, IP addresses, browser details, timestamps and referring pages. None of this information can personally identify specific visitors to this site. The information is tracked for routine administration and maintenance purposes, and lets me know what pages and information are useful and helpful to visitors.

Cookies and Web Beacons

Where necessary, this site uses cookies to store information about a visitor's preferences and history in order to better serve the visitor and/or present the visitor with customized content.

Advertising partners and other third parties may also use cookies, scripts and/or web beacons to track visitors to our site in order to display advertisements and other useful information. Such tracking is done directly by the third parties through their own servers and is subject to their own privacy policies.

Controlling Your Privacy

Note that you can change your browser settings to disable cookies if you have privacy concerns. Disabling cookies for all sites is not recommended as it may interfere with your use of some sites. The best option is to disable or enable cookies on a per-site basis. Consult your browser documentation for instructions on how to block cookies and other tracking mechanisms.

Special Note About Google Advertising

Any advertisements served by Google, Inc., and affiliated companies may be controlled using cookies. These cookies allow Google to display ads based on your visits to this site and other sites that use Google advertising services. Learn how to opt out of Google's cookie usage. As mentioned above, any tracking done by Google through cookies and other mechanisms is subject to Google's own privacy policies.

About Google advertising: What is the DoubleClick DART cookie? The DoubleClick DART cookie is used by Google in the ads served on publisher websites displaying AdSense for content ads. When users visit an AdSense publisher’s website and either view or click on an ad, a cookie may be dropped on that end user’s browser. The data gathered from these cookies will be used to help AdSense publishers better serve and manage the ads on their site(s) and across the web. Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

Contact Information

Concerns or questions about this privacy policy can be directed to GygaxLives@hotmail.com for further clarification.

Bachelor Party

My friends are taking me on a trip to Las Vegas for the next week for my Bachelor Party.  Unfortunetly this means that I won't be around to talk gaming with you guys but rest assured I'll be back (hopefully) unharmed next week.

See you then! 

Moran Map

Same style as Rhyneria map, but I tried some different things... none of which worked.  I don't want to say any map I do is a waste of time because I learn from it, but this is close.

Oh well.

Dragon Age

Normally we only concern ourselves here with pen & paper RPGs, but today I'm going to mention a new game I'm playing for PC, Dragon Age Origins.  

Dragon Age, for those of you who don't know, is made by BioWare.  They are the company responsible for bringing us some of the greatest games in history.  Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, and of course the amazing Baldur's Gate are all products of BioWare.  Given their past success expectations for Dragon Age were extremely high.

Gnome Stew's 10 Stupidest D&D Monsters

For a real treat head over to Gnome Stew and read this article.  Step 1: Choosing the 10 monsters includes some really hilarious commentary on each of the ones selected.  I challenge you not to laugh! 

The GM's Classroom

I firmly believe that a GM never learns so much as when he isn't GMing.  Certainly you learn things when running a game, especially when things fall apart, but you learn so much more when playing.  That is why I consider the other side of the screen the GM's Classroom.

The key to learning is to experience a game in the role of a player.  Learning what you like and don't like as a player, paying attention to how the person running the game approaches things, and often just taking a break from the strain of GMing are all crucial. 

Gamemaster's Corner: Sage Wisdom

I recently was cleaning out my storage unit (my parent's attic) and there I came across a ton of my old gaming stuff.  Old notes, adventures, GM Binders, Character sheets, and my Dragon Magazine collection.  Of Dragon, I have a fairly large collection.  I even bought the first 50 issues, which ran before I started gaming, on ebay several years ago. 

Looking through my collection I found one issue that I don't ever remember reading, issue 307 from May 2003.  The issue (the cover of which can be seen to the right) dealt largley with GRRM's setting of Westeros, something that I obviously have a great interest in.  I flipped though the pages remembering everything great (Gygax's up on a Soapbox!) and terrible (unbalanced game material) about Dragon. 

Finally I came to Westeros material.  The first article was more a recap of ASIF than anything else.  The second article dealt with the Night's Watch.  It included things like the Night's Watch Ranger prestige class.  The Third article discusses translating some of the characters from Westeros to D&D and also has an interesting side bar on how to deal with the low level of Magic in Westeros should you choose to use it as a setting for your game.  The fourth and final article is the one I want to discuss today, it is an article about the author of ASIF, George R. R. Martin, and includes excerpts from an interview conducted by Dave Gross. 

Cartographer's Corner: Rhyneria

Here is the recent Rhyneria map that I did.  Named after James' Rhino people he created when we played Dawn of Worlds recently.  

Frandor's Keep Pre-Orders

Kenzerco is now taking Pre-Orders for Frandor's Keep!  For those who don't know Frandor's Keep is the Hackmaster version of Keep on the Borderlands.  The original, written by the Late Great Gary Gygax himself, is considered by many to be the greatest module of all time.

Kenzerco originally published Frandor's Keep for 4th Edition in an adventure suppliment called Little Keep on the Borderlands.  Little Keep did a great job of staying true to the original while adding material of its own, including their Beneath the Little Keep addon.

Quick Town Map: Crendorn

Our normal Pathfinder game is on hold as the GM has some work related issues keeping him out for a few weeks.  I ran a HMB game last night with this town as the setting.  It was made mostly in City Designer, though I did some touch up stuff in photoshop.  The trees really suck, but I was too short on time to fix them.