Monday, December 19, 2011

The Power Of Disloyalty+Top 10 Posts of 2011

So, first:

MySpacebarIsBroken.ThatMeansItIsATremendousEffortToNot
WriteAllScrunchyLikeThis.

Second:

DIY D&D (AndAllOtherIndependentRPGPublishers) ShouldDo this.

Basically,OfferIncentives(likeFreePDFs)ToCheckOutOtherPublishers
LikeThem.

Like,SayIfYouHaveProofOfPurchaseFrom BuyingAFrogGodGames
ProductAndAnLOTFPProductYouGetAFreeGoodmanGamesProduct.

Etc.

TheNiceThingAboutThisIs:

WeAllKnowTheOnyWayToCompeteWithWalMartIsFor
IndependentsToStickTogether.

ButStickingTogetherIsAnnoyingBullshit. There'sPolitics
AndResourceProblemsAndTasteDifferencesAndAll
That. ThatIs,AfterAll,WhyTheyWentIndependent
InTheFirstPlace:TheyDon'tGetAlongWithOtherPeople.

WithIncentivesLikeThis,EverybodyIsHelpingEverybody
Else,ButWithoutHavingToActuallyWorkTogetherAnd
ThingsDon'tGoAllAltamontAllOfASudden.

ISuggestThatThePoolOfPublishersParticipating
ShouldBeRelativelyLarge,ButTheNumberOf"Proofs
OfPurchase"YouNeedToGetAFreebieBeRealtively
Small. Like:20PublishersParticipateButYouOnlyNeed
2ProofsOfPurchaseFromAny2DifferentOnesOfThem
ToGetAFreebieFromAThird.

ThisWayYouDon'tHaveToBeAnInsaneOSRJunkie
ToCollectOnThePrize.

Now,Top10PostsOnRPGBlogsThatICanRememberAbout
LikingIn2011:

one--D100 table from Scrap Princess

Token Jeff post to stand in for 60% of all Jeff posts


This worked wonders for my game and you can do it too, only $0.00!


Rolang's Bring It Series


Huge Ruined Scott knows how to keep the old reliables interesting


Small But Vicious Chris has an even rarer skill: making an on-the-face-of-it-niche-translation between 2 extremely similar systems into the first fun-to-read-rulebook-plus-commentary-on-that-rulebook in history.

Am I cheating, putting another download here? fuck it. Challenge of the Frog Idol is impressive, ladies and fellows


It's easy to lose track of how things actually get figured out and understood and new useful pieces of verbal technology get created after long discussion and lines being drawn, but it does happen once in a while. -C getting all pissed about the Quantum Ogre and sparking off other posts on it all over got some shit explained this year.

The Emiras Necklace is an impressive distillation of the wondrous persian-miniature beauty of Teleleli

Jeremy the Underdandy is a dab hand with tables.
(yes that's more than one table and thus more cheating. Fuck off with your rules.)

________
Proof of Concept:

If your comment below provides evidence that you read at least 3 of the links above, I will write a short holiday-themed couplet in your honor, absolutely free.

20 comments:

Bill said...

Jeremy the Underdandy's tables are spectacular, probably second only to yours and Jeff's in terms of usefulness (and inspiration) for my game. I'm especially going to be stealing the one about the forms summoned demons appear in.

Granny Grimtits is good, though her appearance would probably inspire too much comedy from my group. However, the prices she demands for her boons are probably going to appear (in a modified form) in the setting I'm currently designing, in which Magic Users are less Merlin, more Faust.

And the first thing I got out of the Forge linked to over at Monsters and Manuals was "Fire Toad." This pleases me more than I can put into words.

James said...

Given the disparity in PDF pricing, maybe a monetary credit per purchase would work better? Say, a $1 or $2 credit for every product you purchase from a participating publisher?

Peter D said...

I've used that monster generator to whip up some monster names. Nothing has made a game appearance yet, but it's early yet. You don't want to waste a name like Rampage Fungus or Spore Worm on a critter in the Caves of Chaos.

I found the Challenge of the Frog idol from your short review a while back, read it, reviewed it for my blog, and threw that sucker into the swamps near the Keep on the Borderlands. The PCs will run into him if they want to go swamping.

And I like Jeff's table, but I never did like elf villages that much. It needs entry 13: Village is one big freaking graveyard, and the last of the elves are buried, unhappily undead, and waiting to eat you.

Zak Sabbath said...

Peter downloads a lot of things and hasn't used them yet
So he gets this christmas rhyme but not a new corvette

christ im bad at this

Miranda said...

The best result on Jeremy's demon summoning table is definitely the hunter with clothes made of an infant's skin.

I love the "(this may be the worst result of all)" notes in Scott's Granny Grimtits entry.

I'm currently using the critical rules from SBVD in my Nightwick game.

Miranda said...

Also, Chris's refusal to do a videochat game using SBVD desperately makes me want to run one myself, though Nightwick comes first.

Zak Sabbath said...

you better not shout you better not cry
cause otherwise the zombies of nightwick abbey will hear you and you'll die

SirAllen said...

Zak, if you are using Windows I can build you a registry key that will allow you to remap one of your unused keys to be your new spacebar, if you want.

LanceToth said...

I made a javascript utility that converts any character to space. Copy your text (with something like underscore instead of space) and paste it and press replace. Though you do have spaces in all your comments, that's weird. Anyway: http://jedi.atw.hu/spacer

Menace 3 Society said...

Rolang's series is interesting as a creative process (even though I suck at art I am always interested in thought processes of the creativer-than-me) as it distributes the task of coming up with things to be creative about to a large number of people and then has one person do all the putting together--the reverse of how crowdsourcing works. Given that the Forge name generator has shown that it's possible to pull this kind of creativity out of a random generator, could you put together a script that would randomly generate a demand for something: a list of 11 ninja poisons, a writeup for a demon worshipped by blind fish, a table of penalties suffered from failing to fulfill a geas. The disloyalty card is a cool concept but may suffer from the fact that RPG bloggers already do that, linking to and building upon cool ideas they found and thereby encouraging people to visit new blogs, try new ways of thinking, etc. Not that your idea is wrong but as a result it may see low uptake.

Anonymous said...

The Quantum Ogre is such a good post. It makes me nuts, because also this year I, and not much later than -C's post, I saw a post arguing *in favor* of the Quantum Ogre -- something like, "Don't worry, man. You can give lots of plot options and only plan for one path, by making all the choices end up having the same thing! Isn't that great! The lady or the tiger, but they're both the lady!" [ HEAD A SPLODE ]

The post on the monster forge made me nuts. I had it sitting in my browser for WEEKS waiting for me to hit the "yes, it's okay to load Flash." then I did, and I hated all the things it gave me, but that made me want to go write my own random X name generator, which I've done about a half dozen times since for different values of X. I did the same thing to replace the random tavern name generator in Vornheim, making it use a bunch of different templates, and now all my tavern names are awesome and setting-appropriate. (Favorite so far, The Druid's Green Fist.)

Jeff's elfin architecture post is awesome. Duh. Reading his posts often makes me feel like something happened to me in college and made me forget how to have cool ideas. I am become a synthesis machine. Also, when I turn my dials to eleven, they sort of flip back to 6 while I'm not looking. That's okay, I'm pushing for a weirder 2012.

I hadn't seen Granny before just now. For some reason, the first thing that sprang to mind was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baubo

Peter D said...

@ZakS: That rhyme is terrible. But I appreciate it regardless. Thanks! :D

Zak Sabbath said...

rjbas wrote that thing and its hannukkah time,
so he gets this here cheerful ummm...rhyme.

Erik Jensen said...

The Quantum Ogre guidelines remind me of improv class - there isn't any 'No', only 'Yes And' and 'Yes But', preventing participants from negating or invalidating one another's choices.

I dig 'Emira's Necklace', as it has that fairy-tale quality (in parts) that I love in my games. Hollow Mockeries? Yes, please.

I love Jeremy's 'rival parties' table the most of 'em -- that one will see use in my game as part of my 'don't forget to use more humans' self-improvement campaign.

Zak Sabbath said...

Erik bells erik bells erik all the way
oh what fun it is to not be dead on christmas day
hey

PapaJoeMambo said...

When Jeff mentioned dolomite channels I immediately thought of Rudy Ray Moore - and then I started thinking about how cool a grindhouse Marvel Superheroes game set in the mean streets of 1970s New York might be for my group.

We may or may not be incorporating Warhammer FRP styled chaos magic into the new sandboxy thing I'm putting together but the fact that Chris keeps polishing ASBVD til it shines like Innsmouth Jewlery makes it really fricking tempting. Take CHALLENGE OF THE FROG IDOL and making it so that the Big Bad is our game universe's equivalent of Tsthouggua makes me want to plant some earlier references to him as a Force Of Evil for the players to stumble across.

"Don't Be A Dick" is pretty well the guiding dictum to life itself, but there is much good advice that Hack & Slash put forward - also his Psionic Rules are pretty cool.

Have a good holiday Zak - best to you and Mandy

Zak Sabbath said...

papajoemambo the guy who commented here had a very shiny nose,

And if he gambled on baseball, he'd be kind of like Pete Rose.

Jomo Rising said...

Make it stop.

Zak Sabbath said...

i wish i had a choice.

bombasticus said...

Whoisthis'Walmartofgaming'thatwearecompetingwith,again? Andaninterestingthinghappenedhere:playingtreasurehuntwithdwarfhags,demonappearancetablesandthealwayssordidRientsdistractedusallfromyourmainpoints.