Greetings friends and welcome to another issue of the Friday Knight News! Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.
RPG Showdown – David Szilagyi
Not a whole lot to report on from my end of the universe… I’m prepping for a D&D 4e game to run the day before Thanksgiving and it’s been kind of fun. It’s been quite a while since I last ran a game and I’m more than a bit rusty, but there are all sorts of fun tools to use to help make the process simpler – everything from tools to create random names and roll dice to full-blown apps to help manage initiative order and monster stats. So I’m sure you’ll see an article or two on that topic before long.
Other than that we only had a few articles here this week:
- Had a chance to chat with Marc Hutcheson from the InKarnate team a few weeks ago about their toolset. He was kind enough to answer a few questions afterwards.
- In The Gassy Gnoll this week, I pondered a bit about why I write about games. Long story short, it’s a passion and has been for three decades.
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- And I reviewed 100% Crunch: Zombies by Julian Neale from Raging Swan Press. If you want to give your zombies a bit of zing, there are some great ideas in there!
Next week, because of the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US, I may only have a few articles as well. We’ll see how everything goes and if I get a chance to get some writing done with a bit of time off.
So let’s just dive into the links, shall we?
Note that this week I’m doing something a little different. Instead of commenting on each link, I’m just going to provide the naked links with attribution back to the original site. Please let me know if you prefer the simple lists to all the commentary. I’d really like to know! I’m playing with some ideas to continue to do the news round-ups but give myself more time to write reviews and other content. Each of the detailed 3,000+ word news round-ups I do on Fridays takes me anywhere from 3-5 hours to pull together and keeping it thinner has kept it to about half that.
Food for Thought
- How To Make Random Encounters Good - Jason Schreier @ Kotaku
- How a Real-Life Astrophysicist Found Superman’s Planet Krypton: The Inside Story - Clara Moskowitz @ Space.com
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Wandering Planet Without A Star Discovered - Ian Chant @ Geekosystem- The Story Board Ep. 4 – “The Play’s the Thing” - Geek & Sundry @ YouTube
- Author D&D – Epic Confusion, January 2012 - Peter V Brett @ YouTube
- 10 Bizarre Death Rituals from Around the World - George Dvorsky @ io9
- Enough - Tracy Hurley @ Sarah Darkmagic
- Howard Shore’s ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ Score Streaming For Free - BAADASSSS! @ Geeks of Doom
- How to write a fairy tale - Tolovaj @ Squidoo
- To Use Social Network Sites or Not for RPG Research Project - Hawke Robinson @ RPG Research
- Mark Cuban: Facebook Is Driving Away Brands – Starting With Mine - Dan Lyons @ ReadWrite
- Fukushima Ocean Radiation Won’t Quit - Slashdot
- target="_blank">Salt Lake City Police To Wear Camera Glasses - Slashdot
- Alignment in Kickassistan: Neutrality - Adam Muskiewicz @ Dispatches From Kickassistan
- Medieval manuscripts go digital - David Szondy @ Gizmag
- The Future of Non-ownership is Now – The Id DM
Wandering Planet Without A Star DiscoveredGames and Gaming
- Revised Geomorph Series One - Hereticwerks
- Magic Items With Charges - Ameron (Derek Myers) @ Dungeon’s Master
- Evolution of My RPG Writings - JourneymanGM
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D&D Next: Isle of Dread Playtest- David Guyll @ Points of Light- 10 Adventure Seeds - Mobius @ Ennead Games
- 10 Arcane Critical Hits - Mobius @ Ennead Games
- Musing on Maps - Lord Karick @ Savage Legend
- Nimblewright - Joe Sparrow @ Dungeons and Drawings
- RPG Blog Carnival – Writing the Game - Shorty Monster
- Seven Chapters, Seven Uses And Way More Than Seven Lists - Nedjer @ Thistle Games
- Dwarven Highway Fort - John Carr @ Age of Ruins
- Relationship Mapping - Phil Vecchione @ Gnome Stew
- Johnny’s Five – Five Really Unique Elements To Add To Your Fantasy Planet - John Arcadian @ Gnome Stew
- How Dungeons & Dragons taught me to survive the apocalypse - Jack Wallen @ The Zombie King
- Eldritch Skies Design essay - John Snead @ GeekNative
- D&D and Me: Playtime never ends - One Die Short @ Dungeon Mastering
- NagaDemon – Week One - Wandering Monster Studios
- NaGa DeMon update. The Adventures you’ll have… - Shorty Monster
- [NaGaDeMon] Counting Coup and Editing - Jim White @ Wombat’s Gaming Den of Iniquity
- Worldbuilding: Maturity and Age - Scott Martin @ Gnome Stew
- The Night Children: Goblins in the Age of Ruins - John Carr @ Age of Ruins
- Lively Locals 11: The Ironbone Tower - LS @ Papers and Pencils
- The Social Megadungeon - Black Vulmea @ Really Bad Eggs
- Gaming on 50 Copper Pieces a Day - Matt Timmins @ Big Blue Die
- [D20] Dungeoneering Equipment, Simplified - Matt Borselli @ Asshat Paladins
- Greyhawk Adventure Time! - Dave Bone @ The Wargate
- Oh, Just Roll a 14, Fer Chrissakes! - Joseph Bloch @ Greyhawk Grognard
- Designer’s Corner: In Defense of the D6! - Larry Vela @ Bell of Lost Souls
- The Next D&D 4E Homebrew: Fun with the Feywild’s Bright Beauty! - Michael @ Neuroglyph Games
- Fantastic Huricanes - Kobold Enterprise
- Gamma World and Group Creativity - Stephen Brandon @ The Duchy of Brandonshire
- Random Appearance Table - Brendan @ Untimately
Kickstarter
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In which I plug. Or, another Kickstarter to back - Rogue Games- The Otherworld Miniatures Adventurers Got Funded! - Brennon @ Beasts of War
- A Boxed Magadungeon of 1E on Kickstarter? Cataclysm at the Acaeum - Erik Tenkar @ Tenkar’s Tavern
- Cataclysm at the Acaeum - Kickstarter
- ShadowSea – Battle for the Underlands by AntiMatter Games - Kickstarter
- Kickstarter: Camp Myth: The RPG - Michael Wolf @ Stargazer’s World
- The Littlest Shoggoth, a Holiday Tale of the Cthulhu Mythos by Super Genius Games - Kickstarter
- The Saga of Dragon Star & N.R.G. Core Rulebook RPG by Game Smiths LLC - Kickstarter
Publisher News
- RPGs Booming, while Video Games are Down - Hawke Robinson @ RPG Research
- The Solar Echoes interview with Andy Mitchell - Andrew @ GeekNative
- Unleashed RPG - Epic Prime @ Epic The RPG Blog
![]( "Star Wars: Edge of the Empire - Beginner Box - Fantasy Flight Games")
an RPG that can teach Korean language - WJWalton @ The Escapist Blog- Raging Swan Press: 2013 Schedule - Creighton Broadhurst @ The Raging Swan Press blog
- target="_blank">Learn to Design - Design courses for $99 each (InDesign, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and others)
- Sertorius Playtest - The Bedrock Blog
- Against the Slavelords Hardcover - Mortellan @ Greyhawkery
- Edge of the Empire for Novices - Fantasy Flight Games
- New “basic level” AD&D adventure from WOTC -Zenopus Archives
- 100% Crunch: Liches – Raging Swan Press
- Oriental Interiors – DramaScape
- Ancient World and Ancient World Player’s Guide – Mystical Throne Entertainment
- Tunse’al Setting Guide Savage Worlds Preview – Obatron Productions
- NeoExodus Chronicles: Usual Suspects (PFRPG) – LPJ Design
- BareBones Fantasy Role Playing Game and Keranak Kingdoms Fantasy Setting - DwD Studios
- Tangents #2: Black Ichor Mines – D3 Adventures
- #30 Alchemical Gadgets – Rite Publishing
Reviews
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Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space Review - Paco Garcia Jaen @ G*M*S Magazine- Nazis and Cthulhu? Achtung! Cthulhu – Three Kings and Heroes of the Sea Reviewed - Jeff McAleer @ The Gaming Gang
- Elminsters Forgotten Realms - Sean B @ Wine and Savages
- How Fantastic Is Fantastiqa ? - Jonathan H. Liu @ GeekDad/WIRED
- Night`s Black Agents: Corebook - Megan Robertson @ G*M*S Magazine
- The Book of Nod Review - Michael Holland @ Flames Rising
- Monsters of Sin 6: Sloth - Thilo Graf @ G*M*S Magazine
Site News
- Writers wanted for The Trollish Delver - Scott Malt @ The Trollish Delver
- Gamers Save and Support Great Causes - DriveThruRPG
- An Interview with the PhilGamer - Daniel Quiogue @ Hari Ragat Games
- Friday Question - Tim Shorts @ Gothridge Manor
- Valhalla Calling: An Adventure Design Competition for Pathfinder and AGE - Kobold Quarterly
- On the Table Season Premiere – Geek & Sundry
Tools
- PyMapper @ SourceForge.net
- Star Wars: The Essential Atlas Online Companion - StarWars.com
- text generators - Petrifying Forms
That’s it for this week on the news front. If you want a bit more, check out:
There’s definitely plenty of news go go around!
I hope everybody has a great weekend!
As always, if you feel I missed something (and it would be impossible NOT to), drop me a quick note via the contact page or drop me an e-mail at news(at)gameknightreviews(dot)com and I’ll add it to the list for next week!
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