Neitherworld Stories

October 8, 2008

Reprint: Planescape, Revisited

This is a reprint of a post published on February 7, 2008 in honor of the fact that the D&D game Angela is running has moved to Sigil. I wrote this up a long time ago as potential notes for a neo-planescape campaign. I’ve added a couple notes since then. Maybe I will do something along these lines someday. Until...

October 6, 2008

Random Comment Table

1d121-3 | This is a cool idea for generating NPCs while defining the culture they come from… I don’t know that I’d use the card mechanic, but the bit with the suits is a useful way of thinking about an individual’s relationship to a cultural framework.4-5 | Saturday was Exalted. We chatted with a Deathlord and fought a Fair Folk...

October 3, 2008

Giant lizards

Our heroes fight their way through the Ruins of the Reptile Gods and face dire beasts such as… Giant Lizards! We can do better than that. Really. Meet the Grumpysaurus. I was thinking about using one of the leopard geckos, but they weren’t likely to sit still long enough…

October 1, 2008

Goofy Gaming

Gaming is entertainment. I think that much is uncontroversial. How silly any given game should be is somewhat less so. Example the First: Nobilis The Nobilis game that I’ve been playing is has been mostly serious, despite the fact that our Imperator (a not-totally-sane angel) is sort of goofy. He often appears distracted and wears robes with t-shirt-style slogans on...

September 29, 2008

Hack Game Design

Sometimes I read non-rpg-related blogs on gaming and game design (for boardgames or video games). Sometimes they help me come at rpg gaming from a different perspective. Video game level design, for example, can tell you a lot about rpg adventure design – and not just about dungeon adventures either. Today, I ran across this post: 10 Ways to Know...

September 26, 2008

Axe of Lovingkindness

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom at war. The king was a petty man, and the war was his plaything. He persecuted neighboring kingdoms for no other reason than to aggrandize himself. He cared little for the effects the war had upon his own subjects, and gloried in the death of his own soldiers – in the fact...

September 24, 2008

Superstitions in a magical world

A lot of the superstitions we have today are leftovers from earlier times. The meanings of many of them have changed over the years. Some of them are ritualistic behavior meant to bring good luck or protect against supernatural influences. Others are things to avoid for fear of acquiring bad luck. What would superstitions be like in a world where...

September 22, 2008

Sex-starved dwarves

It occurs to me that the title of this blog post might show up in some… uh… inappropriate searches. Ah, well. Anyway: the (fantasy rpg) Dwarf. I don’t know why people started stereotyping them as Scottish, but it has never really resonated with me. In Angela’s game, in which I play a dwarf, I go for more of an Amish...

September 21, 2008

New classic monster?

We were in Michael’s the other day looking at art supplies and decided to check out their Halloween selection. Among other things, they had some monster busts. They had the classics – skeleton-guy, vampire-guy, Medusa, and… hey! Who is that at the bottom?Let’s take a closer look: Vincent Price?

September 15, 2008

Whose game is it, anyway?

About a week ago, Angela picked up Spore. I’ve tinkered around with it. The character modeling and such is really cool. That’s not what I want to focus on, though. If you look at the Amazon link (above), you’ll note that Spore has a lousy rating. It isn’t because the game is bad (although parts of it seem very oversimplified),...