Posted: May 25, 2012 | Author: Dennis N. Santana | Filed under: Campaigns, D&D 3.5, D&D 4e, Fluff/Inspiration, Homebrew, Legacy D&D, Meta, Online Gaming, Other Hobby, Other Systems, RPG, Warhammer 40k |
I have had fairly strange interests in RPG games. My first roleplay experience was when I was ten at a freeform play-by-post forum. When I learned D&D 3.5, I was 14 and had nobody to play with. So I played it over MSN Messenger with some friends. Since then I’ve played a lot more maptools, chat games, and play-by-posts than real life stuff. I’ve always liked running the game with text. I think it lets you do some fun story stuff that you couldn’t do around a table because people don’t have the text they can go back to, manipulate, or take their time with. The way I play takes more time than a normal game, but I enjoy it, especially because I have limited time to allot to running games over Maptools or Google Hangouts. I can play more leisurely. Google Documents has been a big help hosting play by post stuff for me. So I thought I’d briefly discuss how I play on it.
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Posted: May 3, 2012 | Author: Dennis N. Santana | Filed under: D&D, D&D 3.5, D&D 4e, Expedition, Fluff/Inspiration, Homebrew, Legacy D&D, Meta, Other Systems, RPG |
I’m working on a sample adventure for Expedition soon that will hopefully give you something to start with on creating your own adventures with the system. If you’re already familiar with fantasy games of any stripe, you can use adventures from other systems, and things you’ve learned from building adventures for other systems, in Expedition. I intended Expedition to be a game where these kinds of narratives can be ported over without great shock. Things like Skill Challenges from D&D 4e, or the merciless dungeon crawls of AD&D, or even some of the gimmicks from newer Pathfinder Adventure Paths, can be interpreted as Expedition adventures with some time spent converting the monsters, and a little imagination for porting the challenges.
You don’t have things like definitive spells, so if a module requires a spell to be cast for something then that might seem like trouble brewing, but you can turn those into Favors or just have players engage in Events using their Potentials to solve those problems. I think you’ll find the game can be very flexible about these things.
Expedition’s been downloaded 167 times now. A friend of mine is planning a campaign for his players, and Shaun Welch has created a character on his Gnoll’s Den blog. I’m pretty excited about it all! My time for running my own games is limited so right now I’m just planning to play with some friends, but hopefully I can inspire you to try out the game in your own way.
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Posted: April 7, 2012 | Author: Dennis N. Santana | Filed under: Campaigns, Characters, D&D, D&D 4e, Fluff/Inspiration, Legacy D&D, Meta, News, NPCs, Other Systems, RPG |
The Prismatic Art Collection is a Kickstarter aiming to create several pieces of high quality fantasy artwork. These pieces will be released as Creative Commons Share-Alike, so that they can be used by anyone in any product. This, by itself, is a very laudable goal. But the Prismatic Art Collection is more ambitious than this – they’re also aiming to recruit a diverse variety of artists to create this artwork featuring a diverse array of characters, male, female and of varying ethnicity. So you’ll likely see many new faces, both the artists and the characters alike – always a worthy goal to me.
I am a person with diverse interests in people, and most fantasy stuff doesn’t meet them. Hell, I’m a bisexual Puertorican male whose parents are Puertorican devotees of Hinduism – I generally don’t exist in fantasy at all! When I take on projects I try to represent people who are often made invisible in these fantasy stories and fantasy games. In the World of Adel I’ve made all kinds of characters, and in their stories and descriptions in my articles I try to include all kinds of physical characteristics, sexuality, sexes and genders. Because I’m interested and inspired by all kinds of people, and also because I want readers of all kinds to find people with whom they can connect on some level, or to believe that in my world they could exist as characters without barriers. I’ve consumed nothing but “ordinary” works for so long that I wish for more diversity.
I think that the inclusion of more people, ethnicity, sexuality and so on is a very reasonable and achievable goal, especially in fantasy, where there’s such a variety of ways to make that not only justified but interesting and inexorable in the history and culture of the fictional milieu. I feel very excited and happy with what I’ve done with Adel on that order, and I wish more people would try their hand at such projects as well. Thankfully though, I’m far from alone in these endeavors. As usual with Kickstarter, there’s various tiers of involvement. The more funding it gets, the more ambitious the project can become. I’d like to see some alchemists, myself! So head on over to the kickstarter site, look up some of the contributing artists and see what you think.
Maybe at some point someone will draw a couple of fox-eared villagers!
Posted: April 3, 2012 | Author: Dennis N. Santana | Filed under: D&D 3.5, D&D 4e, Fluff/Inspiration, Legacy D&D, NPCs, Other Systems, RPG, Spirits Of Eden |
The Andalian Southland is a fertile stretch of fairly low land with a cozy climate, broad plains, winding rivers, and a few truly thick or difficult areas of floral wilderness. Its biggest city is Impel, but it is most known for the villages dotting the map. Each village tends to its crops, gathers or trades for its materials, and protects and cares for all of the villagers within. At the heart of each village is its Guardian Spirit, a little deity that protects and helps the village in exchange for community, affection, and nourishment. Of course, Spirits being bound by their own laws, there are things they cannot do.
The little village of Mahal on the edge of the Nrwenya wood has seen an untimely and tragic event, and are still reeling from the occurrence, and trying to decide how they will proceed with what must be done.
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Posted: March 13, 2012 | Author: Dennis N. Santana | Filed under: Characters, D&D 3.5, D&D 4e, Fluff/Inspiration, Legacy D&D, NPCs, Other Systems, RPG, Spirits Of Eden |
The Five Nations of Adel, as well as the lesser political powers of the world, are each led by a different style of government. It is the dream of many in Adel to shake hands (and brush shoulders) with the powerful among them, and thanks to the stability and potency of the governments and military powers of the world, the leaders below are unlikely to fall soon. Anyone who becomes influential and powerful enough may eventually capture their attentions, and even the smallest people can, either by luck or opportunity, become embroiled in their lives, their schemes, or perhaps, even their fateful demise. We’ll explore the rulers of adel, their follies and victories, and what the world might be without them.
Posted: March 1, 2012 | Author: Dennis N. Santana | Filed under: D&D, D&D 3.5, D&D 4e, Dark Heresy, Deathwatch, Legacy D&D, Meta, News, Other Hobby, Other Systems, Products, Rogue Trader, RPG, Warhammer 40k |
Today is DriveThruRPG’s GM’s day sale, which is typically their biggest sale of the year. This year it lasts a whole week, and has a nice countdown timer for you as well. I got some neat stuff from them on sales like this before, so if you like PDF’s I encourage you to check it out. What’s more, if you’re looking for one of the following products:
You can get 20% off by using the code: GeekLoveRules2012
So get out there and do some shopping! You might be interested in some products I’ve reviewed on DriveThruRPG in the past. See if perhaps they’re on sale, and maybe you’ll enjoy them too.
through this affiliate link, for any item, and some of the sale will be used to support this blog.
Spiritual Talk