Categories
Roleplaying

Roleplaying epherma

Roleplaying links, assorted mix:

  • A thread on the rpg.net forums about the worldbuilding in Robert E. Howard’s work vs. that of Tolkien devolves pretty quickly into a petty flamefest, but picks up when the Ent posts his idea for a high-concept cross-over:

    As I always do when threads like this one crop up on Open, I’ll mention my über-campaign idea (or, is that ûber-campaign, since Tolkien’s involved? ):

    Conan and Elric team up and enter Middle Earth in an attempt to hunt down that bad mofo badass, Kane, who’s masquerading himself as “Sarukane” and, as usual, is attempting World Conquest!!!, by way of extreme threachery and extreme violence. On the way, Conan “makes love to” various female LotR characters (without asking permission, really), Elric kills various heroes by mistake, Kane destroys everything that’s even tangentially involved with him, and in the end, when Kane flees to some other dimension, still with Conan and Elric on the trail, they leave only some savages living in still-smoking ruins, “but, then, the civilizations had all stagnated and went into decay 1,000 years ago anyway, so no big loss, damn reactionary buggers!” as all three main characters agree on. Possibly except the Rohirrim, but “the Rohirrim just HAD TO DIE” as Conan put it.

  • Two threads on the rpg.net forums singing the praises of Shadowrun: newer, older. In the newer thread, SteveD quotes himself saying in the older one:

    Shadowrun is the most perplexing of games. From the outside, it looks like RIFTS.
    From the inside, it’s almost as good as Buffy.
    It is a FANTASTIC game. Every chapter, you’ll find something that’s now a staple of our hobby, because so much was inspired by Shadowrun.

    It’s not the setting.
    It’s not the system.
    It’s the QUALITY.

    A useful link from one of the threads explains the differences between the 2nd and 3rd editions of the game. I was particularly interested in the explanation of how the changes in combat in the 3rd edition even the playing field a bit for characters that aren’t combat monsters or mages.

  • A set of GMing advice essays, including a nice series on How to run game X.
  • Jürgen Hubert’s development journal for Urbis, a d20 setting he originally conceived for WoTC’s setting search contest. Here’s a post where he takes apart his original submission for the contest.

And if you’re reading this on LiveJournal, you may have not noticed that I completed the entry on my deceased campaign (LJ link).