Battle Royale

Hermione Granger is getting absolutley stomped by Jamie Lanister in an ongoing Battle Royale over at Suvudu.  I always find these battle royales interesting but I admit this one match up surprises me a little bit.  Harry Potter fans are legion and Hermione is one of the most popular characters.  Jamie Lanister is from ASIF, also a very popular series, but he is far from the most popular character and was villainized in the early books.  That having been said, GRRM (author of ASIF) has "Called the Banners" so to speak and is mobilizing his fanbase and ensuring that the Kingslayer remains firmly in the lead. 

Other matchups in this battle royale include:

Cthulhu vs. Lyra Silvertongue
Polgara the Sorceress vs. Anita Blake
Temeraire vs. Haplo
Albus Dumbledore vs. Vlad Taltos
Raistlin Majere vs. Ender Wiggin
Kvothe vs. Garet Jax
Aslan vs. Eragon

The other matchups are going more like one would expect with Cthulhu having a commanding Lyra and Aslan dominating Eragon.  Harry Potter fans will be happy to know that though Hermione is getting houses Dumbledore is more than holding his own vs Vlad.

Head on over to Suvudu and let your opinion be heard.  You can vote as many times as you like so go over and support your favorite character against the competition.  

Obsidian Portal and a Reason to be Greatful

I love Obsidian Portal.  Some of you may remember that I originally talked about it a while ago when I first found out about it.  For a while I was developing a game on the site to give it a test run.  I found it a great tool for campaign development, keeping things more organized than I could with standard text files.  In short, the wiki feature is invaluable. 

But that isn't the reason that Obsidian Portal filled me with an overwhelming sense of gratitude today.

To explain that I have to point out another equally impressive feature of the site, the Map. Now obviously I love cartography, but that isn't really what I mean in this instance.  The Obsidian Portal Map feature is an amazingly useful feature that plots out where various games are taking place.  Using this tool players can find a group to join by searching the various games near where they live.  In a time when many an FLGS is going out of business it is a new and highly effective way for Gamers to branch out and find one another. 

So why so grateful?  Well while searching near where I live I found about 10 games going on.  Most of those 10 games were 4th Edition games.  Now I'm not going to launch into a rant on 4th Edition D&D, but just know for these purposes that I don't like it and have no interest in playing it.  Of the remaining games on 2 were feature a rules system (3.5 D&D) that I would be willing to play, and they seemed pretty dull and poorly designed.  So my gratitude was not for the site itself, though as I say I think it's great, but rather for something else that I often give very little credit to.

My group. 

We've been playing together for almost ten years now (God how time flies!) and though that time hasn't always been smooth what with the cancellations, personal conflicts and all the other drama that happens when people come together, I still find myself gathering with them every week and having a great time playing with my friends. 

It isn't easy to find a group of people that you like, enjoy the way they game, and want to play the same game.  I think that is one reason why you hear about so many gaming groups sticking together for years, even decades.  Before I joined this group I spent years without one wishing I was gaming regularly.  Now that I am I often forget that fact.  Not today though. 

If you, like me, are lucky enough to be a member of a solid group of gamers whose company you enjoy enough to set aside time from your busy schedule you may want to stop and smell the roses.  Be greatful for what you have because it isn't easy to find. 

What I've Been Reading Lately

I've been reading some great articles on the internet over the past few days.  It is cool that despite the loss of Gaming magazines like Dragon (sniff) and Dungeon, a wealth of great gaming information is still out there just waiting to be read.

Now you all know that I love Gnome Stew and have been an avid reader of the site for quite a while now.  What you may not know is that I actually have a favorite Gnome, DNA Phil.  I have found a consistent quality in Phil's articles that always put them right at the top of my reading list.  His series 'Lessons from the Long Campaign' was awesome.  Recently he did a piece that I really enjoyed called, 'That Cool Thing You Character Does.'  In the article Phil points out that people can become dissatisfied with their characters even if the setting and story are perfect.  A player unhappy with their character looses interest and it can ruin the game.  To prevent this from happening he offers a series of ways the GM can work with the player to prevent it.  Very good read.

Other than Gnome Stew my favorite Gaming blog is probably the RPG Blog II. Zach, the owner of the site, is extremely consistent, and his articles often offer great insight.  He is something of an old-school Gamer, one of the reasons I enjoy his site.  One of his recent articles, 'Low Magic Wizards' really hit home for me.  The article deals with the amount of magic in a game and how he constantly feels that there should be less and it should be more mysterious.  You don't have to convince me that Magic needs to be toned down in most games.  Again this is a good read, short and to the point.

The final article I'd like to share with you I stumbled across quite by accident.  It comes from a blog that I'd never read before called The Tao of D&D.  The author has done a immense amount of historical research to provide insight into the kind of economy one would encounter in the middle ages.  A word of warning, this article is extremley long, but is worth it.  Check it out here.

JourneyQuest!

Dead Gentlemen, along with a new production company formed by some of its members, Zombie Orpheua Entertainment (ZOE), have announced a new web based series, JouneyQuest! 

I am very excited about this new series and expect it to follow in the tradition of some other high quality web based shows such as GOLD and Doctor Horrible.  I'll be updating as more information comes available!

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! 

D&D Touchscreen

Man... this is just cool.

Surfacescapes Demo Walkthrough from Surfacescapes on Vimeo.

Website Woes

I want to apologize for the technical difficulties we've been experiencing as of late.  The site was down for a few hours, as some of you noticed, and it was a real pain to get back up. 

But out of this mini disaster comes Polls!  Something I was unable to make work before (for reasons I still don't understand).  So please feel free to vote!  Our first poll is what is your favorite gaming system. 

D&D 3.5 is off to an early lead! 

Hackmaster Review by Gnome Stew: Part 2

Part 2 of DNAPhil's Hackmaster Review is up on Gnome Stew and can be seen here. Again, this is a great review and I encourage everyone to check it out.

One final note is that The Labyrinth's own Revil Fox is mentioned in the review as giving the author a bit of advice on the count up system... Very cool.

Hackmaster Review by Gnome Stew

DNAPhil from Gnome Stew has posted the first part of his Hackmaster Basic Review. The vast majority of HMB reviews I have read (and I have read a lot) have been written by people who didn't read the book, and/or didn't play the game. I just don't understand how anyone can properly review a game they haven't read or played, but people do it. DNAPhil is guilty of no such thing and his review is very informative.

Just a reminder, this is only part one of his review, and it deals with character creation. Part two, involving a fight between the PCs and some wolves will be posted in the future (likley tomorrow).

Enjoy!

Review: Critical Hit Deck & Critical Fumble Deck

Gamemastery produces some interesting products for those who are still playing 3rd edition, decks for critical hits and critical fumbles. Essentially the decks of 52 cards that have various effects of a positive (critical hit deck) or negative nature (critical fumble deck).

The Critical Hit deck breaks down the various effects on each card by what type of attack caused the critical hit; bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, or magic (for ray spells). With these cards damage is no longer guaranteed to be doubled on a successful critical. Many of the cards include some type of status effect instead of enhanced damage, such as making the target sickened for 1d6 rounds. Not all cards are equal either. One particularly nasty card sees the target's hand severed and he takes bleed damage in addition!

The Critical Fumble deck works in much the same fashion as the Critical Hit Deck. It breaks attacks down into Melee, Ranged, Natural, and Magic (again for ray spells). Again a variety of status effects are used on many of the cards as penalty for critically fumbling. Some make you sickened, others make you fatigued or shaken. A number of cards also cause you to drop your weapon (for melee and ranged attacks), or cause you to draw an immediate attack of opportunity (for melee or natural attacks). Again not all cards are equal. One critical fumble card sees you struck by your own spell. A nasty surprise if you were tossing around the ever popular Disintegrate spell.

Overall, if you are tired of the same old double damage, or whatever critical fumble effect you use, the Gamemastery decks are a great way to mix things up. I used both decks for my last D&D campaign and got mixed reviews. Some players really enjoyed the randomness of the decks and felt that they kept things interesting, while others stated over and over that they would rather have had the normal double damage. My own opinions was that the decks were good, though not quite as good as I had hoped they would be when I purchased them. They certainly made for some very memorable moments, and really that is the point. By randomizing the effects even when someone scores a critical hit everyone is on the edge of their seat because no one knows what is about to happen.

If you check the Critical Hit Deck and the Critical Fumble Deck on Paizo's website you can see some sample cards for yourselves. Each deck is $10.99 over at their website.

Catographer's Corner: Caliburn Political Map

Did a modern political map of Caliburn. Just a quick overlay with the shields of the Lords/Kings on top. I used this great resource to create all the shields. If you need shields I highly recommend it. Much like Heromachine it is a flash program that is fast and easy to use. Here is the updated version of the map.

Hero Machine

I've always wanted to do character portraits, both as a player and a GM, but as you all know I am artistically challenged (to put it politely). For a long time I would make do without pictures or else make do with other people's art that I found online. But before my most recent game I found Heromachine, and it solved a lot of my problems.

Heromachine is an online application that allows you to create portraits of all kinds of characters. Male, Female, Dwarf, Ogre, Monster, Angel, Sci Fi portraits, or Fantasy portraits, Heromachine can do it all. It is simple and straightforward, but its wealth of options more than make up for its simplicity. I used the program to design all the villains from my Legacy of New Lago campaign, here is an example of a collage of several of them.


Anyone can use Heromachine and it doesn't take long. Head on over and check it out!

Clever Gnomes

Those of you who frequent the blog know one of my favorite Gaming Blogs is Gnome Stew. Recently one of their writers, Martin Ralya, had a great post about the Myth of the Never Ending Game. It is a really great piece, and a topic my group has been discussing a lot as of late. Obviously I agree with the writer and feel that games should have a memorable ending that provide closure.

While you are over at the Stew checking that out check out DNAPhil's Gen Con recap. He has his initial reactions to Hackmaster Basic and a way to follow his progress though the book in preparation for his full review. Enjoy!

Pathfinder PDF Delayed

The Pathfinder core book PDF has been delayed a few hours by Paizo. The product which was supposed to originally be available at 1:00pm EST has been pushed back to 3:00pm EST. This is no doubt to prepare their website for the massive barrage of Internet traffic that will befall them as soon as the product becomes available.

To help decreased traffic Paizo has disabled their message boards, and asks that anyone who can wait until Friday to purchase their book does so. How big will PDF sales be? That is an excellent question that I can't wait to find out the answer to.

PDFs have become very popular with the roleplaying community, particularly in the last few years. Many gamers were outraged when Wizard of the Coast announced that they would cease selling any and all PDFs of their products. Their decision hit sites like DriveThuRPG, who specialize in PDF sales, hard. Paizo has gone in the other direction by making their Pathfinder Core book available on PDF though out development. Both the Alpha and Beta were available on PDF for free and the core game will be available on PDF shortly for $9.99. The demand from the gaming community is obviously there and Paizo is filling it wholeheartedly.

Cartographer's Corner: Tutorial

I forgot to add this excellent set of tutorial videos I found on Youtube. The gentleman who does them does an excellent job of explaining to beginners the necessary steps to create a basic map in Campaign Cartographer.

Here is the first in the overland mapping series. Enjoy!

Pathfinder Sold Out!

Paizo has just released word that its Pathfinder Core Rulebook has sold out. That's right, sold out. Ten days before it's release and all that remains are the copies that they set aside for Gencon. According to their press release they originally believed the number of copies they had printed would last until the end of the year. Boy were they wrong.

My group plans on playing a Pathfinder game once we finish our Hackmaster Basic game. Fortunately one of our members pre-ordered the book months ago. The rest of us will have to make due with the PDF that Paizo is supplying for the very reasonable price of $9.99.

It seems Pathfinder may far exceed expectations, despite those expectations being quite high. We'll just have to wait and see...

Going for the Gold

One of the Blogs I've discovered recently is the RPG Blog II. It's a great general RPG blog and if you haven't checked it out I highly recommend that you do. The owner of the blog, Zachary, is a big supporter of the internet series Gold. I had never heard of it before and am indebted to him and his blog informing me.

Gold is a web based series much like The Guild (and if you haven't seen that either you should check that out as well) except that Gold is about table top RPG players. Well... not just any RPG players these guys are Olympic level RPG players who compete internationally for the gold medal. I could give you a more detailed description but I'd rather show you the trailer...

Personally, I really enjoyed season one. Overall Gold is hilarious show dedicated to the hobby and all gamers should check it out. Head over there, and if you like what you see click on their donate button and do what you can to make sure you get to see more!

Obsidian Portal

Recently I was reading Gnome Stew and came across an article about a gaming website called Obsidian Portal. For those who have never visited I sincerely suggest that you do. Obsidian Portal allows people to create a wiki for their campaigns, making information more easily available than ever. I was unsure of how useful a wiki for my D&D campaign would be until I made one.

I am a believer.

Not only is this site great for creating a wiki to archive campaign information, but it is a great tool to use to design campaigns. I started designing one using Obsidian Portal and have found it a great way to build an interesting setting from the ground up, keeping everything perfectly organized.

I am not great with HTML but you really don't have to know any to use the site effectively. On top of offering an amazing service Obsidian Portal is free, at least to a certain extent. Any user can create two campaign wiki's for free. They also have a premium service called Ascendant Membership. Those members enjoy some cool benefits the biggest being an unlimited number of wiki campaigns. You can also upload more maps, attain a higher zoom level on those maps, and you can say goodbye to all those pesky advertisement banners.

In addition to being a great campaign tool players can also use Obsidian Portal to find a group. The tool uses a map of the United States and players can see what groups are in their area. Recently Obsidian Portal has teamed up with Pen & Paper Games to enhance their search feature.

Go on over to Obsidian Portal and I think you will like what you find.

World Building with Obsidian Portal from Michael Harrison on Vimeo.