The Ghoul’s Shrine
Posted by Joshua on May 12, 2009
Well, I finished my One-Page Dungeon Contest entry and mailed it in. It was interesting and fun, though I’m not sure that what I produced was any great shakes. I spent a lot more time than I had planned just wrestling with the format and trying various tools. I ended up drawing it free-hand with GIMP, using Chgowiz’s GIMP graph-paper template, mostly because that was the easiest way to guarantee that the result fit neatly into the dungeon template itself. GIMP is far from my favorite tool for drawing, mostly because that’s not really what it’s for, it’s designed as an image manipulation tool; next time I’ll either figure out how to do what I want in Painter, or really spend some time learning either Inkscape or AutoRealm. I fooled around with the latter two just enough today to realize that if I tried to use either I’d never have finished in time for the contest deadline.
One of the things I found interesting was just how easy and enjoyable it was to write a systemless dungeon; freedom from having to stat up anything at all let me write it for a party of completely indeterminate size, composition, and power level. Of course, that means that whoever picks it up and tries to use it will be faced with plugging in numbers from their favorite system, but I deliberately stuck to just a few monster types to make that a little less painful.
On the other hand, it was a bit painful and frustrating to keep trimming the text to stick to a single page. It pretty much precluded introducing any unique monster or puzzle, and drastically cut down on the flavor text. I think that Chgowiz’s template really comes into its own when it’s used the way Amityville Mike does in Stonehell: a single page for the map, wandering monster table and notes, and a separate page or two for the key. That’s definitely my plan for my next project, which will probably be a sample dungeon for my RPG write-up.
Writing a Free RPG
Posted by Joshua on May 12, 2009
The Free RPG Blog: Rob Lang’s free guide to organising your RPG is a nice guide that I’ll definitely be returning to when I try to write up my system notes for my latest franken-brew. The part that I’m unsure about is just how necessary setting information is. I never use it myself, except perhaps to cannibalize it for an idea here or there, but Rob feels it’s the lifeblood of any free RPG. Michael Wolf (aka Sanastar) has encouraged me to include some, so I probably will…
Megadungeon.net Launches!
Posted by Joshua on Apr 9, 2009
James Maliszewski’s project to collaboratively create an old-school Megadungeon online has hit the net. It was inspired by Monte Cook’s DungeonADay.com, but with a decidedly more Old School slant and without the subscription model. More than just a megadungeon for delvers, it’s intended to provide a discussion of the philosophy of building a megadungeon. Most of the content is OGL, so you’re free not only to use it, but to republish and repurpose it as long as you follow the OGL.
Megadungeon Home – Megadungeon
Welcome to Megadungeon.net
DateThursday, April 9, 2009 at 12:01AMWelcome to am exciting new venture: the creation of an old school “megadungeon” on the Web. This project was first conceived of on my blog, Grognardia, and is now finally starting to take shape. Over the course of the coming weeks and months, with the assistance of many people, I plan to present the dungeon of Urheim and the ruined Monastery of St. Gaxyg that rests on top of it. You can see an overview of the entire locale below in this sideview map drawn by cartographer extraordinaire Rob Conley, co-author of Points of Light.
The Pirates Who Don’t Buy ANYTHING
Posted by Joshua on Apr 8, 2009
In light of WotC’s recent “anti-piracy” move to block all sales of legal D&D PDFs (including ones that I bought and paid for and still had downloads, thank you very much) I could write a whole rant about how the pirates aren’t even going to notice it happened, or I could outsource it to somebody who’s already done so and provided an amusing cartoon driving home the point to boot:
Twenty Sided » Blog Archive » The Truth About Piracy
The up-side is that at least now people might stop asking “Why bother with a retro clone and the whole OGL thing when you could just buy a PDF of one of the originals from Paizo or DriveThru? WotC obviously has no incentive to ever stop selling them.”
By the “What Pisses You Off Heuristic“, it’s probably an interesting psychological fact about me that I’m far more outraged by the fans that defend WotC’s actions as “just business” than by WotC’s all-too-typical idiocy.
My Copy of Open Game Table Arrived
Posted by Joshua on Mar 30, 2009
And it shore does look purdy.
I haven’t read it cover-to-cover, it’s not that kind of book, but leafing through it there are a number of interesting articles that I hadn’t seen before…either they hadn’t caught my eye in the RPG Bloggers Network feed, or they had been posted before I first joined. And of course there are some of my old favorites, like the piece on adventure design from I Waste the Buddha With My Crossbow, or Jeff Rient’s How to Awesome-Up Your Players, immortalized in print.
My hat’s off to Jonathan Jacobs, who did a bang-up job.