Neitherworld Stories

January 11, 2009

Dungeon map doodle

As I’ve mentioned before, I have an arguably bad habit of doodling while gaming. I fidget. It gives my hands something to do. During Thusday night’s Exalted game, I decided I would doodle dungeon maps. Here’s one: I obviously played with it in Photoshop. I think it turned out decently, though.

January 8, 2009

Cave maps

The other day I was, as I often am, doodling. This time, though, I thought I’d turn my doodle into a map of a cave system. A problem quickly developed. I wanted vertical tubes connecting small areas. I wanted those tubes to be interesting – have cutbacks and ledges and such. In order to do this on paper, I’d need...

January 7, 2009

RPG minigames

As I’ve mentioned, I have been playing Fallout 3 a lot lately. One thing I haven’t mentioned is that I really like one of the minigames in it. For those who don’t know, in videogames a minigame is a small, relatively simple game contained within a larger one. It usually focuses on a subsystem within the game, and is often...

January 6, 2009

Evolution and creationism in fantasy

Where do monsters come from? Many people won’t care. Monsters are. Perhaps they should not be (and the PCs are dedicated to fixing the situation). If you are running a particular sort of game – or designing your own setting – asking where the diversity of monsters comes from can be useful. Popular debates in our own world give us...

January 5, 2009

Making Magic Mysterious

I finally began reading the Black Company novels recently. I’m still early in them, so – while I’ll say that I’m enjoying them so far – this isn’t a review. One minor thing I noticed is that the wizards of middling power who are part of the Black Company often use magic to produce horrors. These might be swarms of...

January 2, 2009

Let me tell you about my characters… now

It has been a year and a half since I’ve done this. I think that’s reasonable. 1) The only character I’m still actively playing on that list is Bart. Back then, I wrote: Sunday, Angela’s D&D Game: Bart Fliegenbart, Dwarven Chef (Rogue 2/Ranger 2) Bart has become the de facto group leader… of a group of misfits. I enjoy playing...

December 31, 2008

Transformative Character Classes

A post contributed to the Transitions and Transformations Blog Carnival. I was introduced to transformative character classes by 3rd edition D&D. You know what I mean here – a 20th level monk becomes an Outsider… a 10th level Dragon Disciple becomes a Half-Dragon… that sort of thing. Transformative classes might have existed before then. I suppose you could say that...

December 30, 2008

Year-end evaluation and thoughts for the future

I think that the release of 4e this year has knocked my blogging for a loop. I haven’t really posted much d20 OGC since then. I’m not sure of the relevancy of it any more. I feel like this blog’s mission, which has been fuzzy at its best, has become more scattered with time. With the upcoming new year, I’d...

December 29, 2008

What I’ve been up to…

Not too much, gaming-wise. I mentioned that I thought Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera series would be great for gaming. I’ve been toying with some ideas about it. One of the interesting things about the books is that the main characters essentially change their roles and careers somewhat regularly. This got me thinking about a Warhammer FRP – style system. Of...

December 19, 2008

Gaming, the year in review: Best and worst

Best game I hadn’t really been aware of until this year: Spirit of the Century I’ve written a bit about my thoughts on Spirit of the Century and FATE (the underlying system). In brief: it rocks. The GMing advice is awesome; while it is tightly focused on pulp gaming, a lot of it can be adapted to different genres. The...