Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Your RPG Museum

So Alexis has been talking about putting together a sort of database/museum/wiki/library of the best DIY D&D stuff--both in terms of rules and setting materials.

Not all the stuff, just the best stuff. So I'm wondering what such a resource would consist of.

My very simple request for today for y'all is:

"Give me a link to at least one on-line DIY RPG resources you have found to be useful in creating a game."

This should be, if possible, something that you actually used.

You are NOT allowed to link to any commercial product, to a novel, to any .pdf longer than 3 pages, or to anything I--or anyone else reading the comments--can't immediately read from the comfort of his or her home computer right now. You also can't link to anything you yourself wrote or to anything on this blog (though that's sweet and thanks if you were planning to), since I already know about everything on this blog.

This list helped me write up a random book table--which, yeah, I use, since snakes are books, and also I liked the throwaway rule about how owning a book on a subject helps with knowledge checks on that subject.

Also:
Noisms 25 word description of his Yoon-Suin setting: Tibet, yak ghosts, ogre magi, mangroves, Nepal, Arabian Nights, Sorcery!, Bengal, invertebrates, topaz, squid men, slug people, opiates, slavery, human sacrifice, dark gods, malaise, magic.

Always seems to me a marvel of precision and concision, and has helped me think about what different places in my campaign should be like.

Oh, and P.S...
it's Wednesday...

11 comments:

crowking said...

Here's something I don't think most people know about. It's a collection of spells, monsters and stuff created from one of Dave Hargrave's old players.

http://www.spybeam.org/text/gaming/

Anonymous said...

I frequent suptg fairly regularly.
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html

It archives interesting threads from 4chan's tabletop board. Also has a bunch of random resources.

Likewise http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Main_Page

Reading DM of the Rings + Darths and Droids, especially the author's commentary,
has helped me articulate aspects of what it's like being both a player and a dm.

[ http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?cat=14 ]
[ http://www.darthsanddroids.net/ ]

I suppose these are more theoretical/inspirational than tables and game mechanics.

thekelvingreen said...

Well, you pointed me in the direction of this one, a webpage cloning the old WFRP mutation tables. I've had lots of use for this, not only for mutations, but also for random "special abilities"; it can make spellcasters more interesting if they're sporting something from this list rather than a standard magic missile.

Roger G-S said...

Meatshields!

http://nerd.christophergeisel.com/index.php/hireling

Simon Forster said...

http://www.dinglesgames.com/tools/MonsterGenerator/dnd35

I use this NPC/Monster generator to create base stats for my baddies, then tweak them as necessary. Saves me a lot of time.

Telecanter said...

The original thread was lost in a forum move, but Grognardia still has T. Foster's Dungeon design guidelines:

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/02/old-school-dungeon-design-guidelines.html

They've been very helpful to me as a scaffolding to work off of and ignore as need dictates.

Grimm's roll-all-the-dice technique in making charts has been really fruitful for me. You can download three of his charts here:

http://www.swordsandwizardry.com/?page_id=18

but I know of nowhere on the net that discusses it as a technique except my own blog.

SirAllen said...

I prefer names that are regular to made up 'fantasy' names. My players have names like Rick, John, Sid, and Steven instead of Glastrog or Khazheon. Ergo, my NPCs do as well. This site allows me to come up with names of any nationality as needed.

http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/

Also, if one enjoys the decoding of 1e AD&D initiative rules as written (yes I am in the minority,) this is a wonderful treatise:

http://members.cox.net/dmprata/ADDICT.pdf

Álvaro said...

Ive done my own DND/microlite 20 game in a DIY/fanzine format. The background its a little tribute to Jack Vance and his exotic view of fantasy. Here you can download it http://frankenrol.es/dadocornudo/?page_id=4&did=2
So its in spanish... :D

James said...

Al from Beyond the Black Gate has some great Random Tables.
Also his Megadungeon Resources page

krazmo said...

The Big List of RPG plots is always handy:

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/plots.htm

The Green Box Generator is intended for Delta Green, but is also useful for any modern campaign and fun to browse too:

http://www.nemesis-system.com/greenbox/

Kyle said...

Never actually done a game myself, but just reading... so far here and http://tao-dnd.blogspot.com/ are offering up a plethora of good house rules to use