Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff, a podcast in which writer and game designer
Robin D. Laws (
Hamlet's Hitpoints,
The GUMSHOE system) and game designer and writer
Kenneth Hite (
Tour De Lovecraft,
GURPS Horror) (
previously) talk about stuff. Stuffs include:
Why vampires are assholes and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,
stopping WWI and Beasts of the Southern Wild,
Margaret Atwood and the difference between a mystic and an occultist,
why no invented setting is as interesting as the real world and Woodrow Wilson,
Gencon and sundry RPGs,
Neil Armstrong, HP Blavatsky and theosophy,
the ebook prcing settlement, what big publishing could learn from RPG publishers, and the many crazy fictional possibilities of Charles Lindbergh and his UFO investigating chums, and
Dungeons and Dragons edition wars and Aliester Crowley.
posted by Artw
on Sep 30, 2012 -
30 comments
It's On The Ceiling! Roll d12:
1. d100 Swords of Damocles
2. City of the Intellectual Bats
3. Manhole-like trap door to maintenance level
4. Tapestry of webs depicting events in spider history
5. Stalactite pueblo dwellers: evil dungeon fairies
6. Adventurers impaled on barbed spikes
7. The furniture: nailed up by prankster
8. Alarming amount of dripping water and muddy seepage
9. Pulsating illumination from strange glass tubes in metal fixtures
10. Shriekers!
11. Eyes (d1000)
12. Hand-chiseled diagram of dungeon level
This and many other useful tables for DM improvisation at
The Dungeon Dozen. New table every day!
posted by JHarris
on Feb 3, 2012 -
22 comments
Although it's commonplace nowadays to assume that J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was the primary source of inspiration for Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax when they created the world's first tabletop roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons, a careful examination of the game suggests otherwise... James Maliszewski on
The Books That Founded D&D. Some
disagreement.
posted by Artw
on Nov 24, 2009 -
109 comments
I do not want to spend too much time beating a dead war-horse, but your average D&D game consists of a group of white players acting out how their white characters encounter and destroy orcs and goblins, who are, as a race evil, uncivilized, and dark-skinned. To quote Steve Sumner’s essay again, “Unless played very carefully, Dungeons & Dragons could easily become a proxy race war, with your group filling the shoes of the noble white power crusaders seeking to extinguish any orc war bands or goblin villages they happened across.” I would argue with Sumner’s use of the phrase “could become,” and say that unless played very carefully, D&D usually becomes a proxy race war. Any adventurer knows that if you see an orc, you kill it. You don’t talk to it, you don’t ask what it’s doing there - you kill it, since it’s life is worth less than the treasure it carries and the experience points you’ll get from the kill. If filmed, your average D&D campaign would look something like Birth of a Nation set in Greyhawk.
-
Race in Dungeons & Dragons by Chris van Dyke, a
powerpoint talk given at
Nerd Nite. Via Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog where there's a
smart discussion going on about the essay.
posted by Kattullus
on Nov 19, 2008 -
195 comments
Lexicon: An RPG - The basic idea is that each player takes on the role of a scholar, from before scholarly pursuits became professionalized (or possibly after they ceased to be). You are cranky, opinionated, prejudiced and eccentric. You are also collaborating with a number of your peers -- the other players -- on the construction of an encyclopedia describing some historical period (possibly of a
fantastic world).
posted by robocop is bleeding
on Apr 21, 2005 -
45 comments
