I tweet and I blog, yet some ideas are the wrong size or shape for those places.

So here I am, becoming entumbled. Yes, I have started a tumblr. It’s called Worldforge.

I plan on posting ideas and thoughts there that don’t have anywhere else to go. Sometimes they will be something I think is great. Sometimes they’ll just be something I need out of my head. Some will be about roleplaying games or stories or other worlds. Some will be about whatever.

Sometimes I see pictures and things I want to interpret and comment on: an ecology for a creature, the origins of an item, what’s going on in the place depicted. Those sorts of things. You may see them here from time to time. I’ve already done some Dungeon World stats for some cool art I found online of a creature called The Mushroom King (yes, you can see Alice in the foreground of the artwork, but I was imagining the thing about the size of a wagon. So I say that’s shrunken Alice, not giant mushrooms… though maybe there is a giant Grand High Mushroom King. Who knows?).

Other things are likely to appear from the Worldforge too.

Right now, it is all experimental. What could possibly go wrong?

—

So, that’s paraphrasing my introductory post on my tumblr from yesterday. Why do I need to tweet, blog and now tumble, too? Mostly because I have some ideas or sometimes find cool things, that are too big to tweet but that I don’t feel warrant a post here. As I said, it’s also an experiment. You’ll find non-roleplaying stuff there too.

Anyway, if you’re interested, my tumblr tweets every post I make, so you can grab the RSS of Worldforge or just follow me on Twitter. I hope that tumbling will let me make and share some new and different content.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

You might also be interested in reading...

• Tweets of Doom for the week ending 2010-11-07
• Tweets of Doom for the week ending 2010-11-28
• Tweets of Doom for the week ending 2010-10-31
• Tweets of Doom for the week ending 2010-10-17
• Revamping Skeletons

Monsterhearts is a story game by Joe Mcdaldno (@mcdaldno) about the messy lives of teenage monsters. Short and sweet version: go here to read about and back this great game; you’ll get some other cool game PDFs too and help an indie developer out.

Not convinced? Interviews with the developer are here and here. Example of play here.

Read on for why I’ve backed the project and why I think you should too. Continue reading…

You might also be interested in reading...

• Dungeon World: Sarrenor Rules Compendium
• I Am Your Champion: Act for Peace
• Aruneus – Zombie Apocalypse Meets High Fantasy
• Kickstarter & P20 Modern
• Monsterhearts Actual Play – Edgegate, Part 1

I haven’t posted in over a month. Nanowrimo is one reason, but not the only one. I mentioned several post topics back in September and had a pretty good run that month then less posts in October and November. Looking back at the topics I intended to post about but haven’t yet, some still interest me and others don’t. So I’ve been thinking about what Pyres of Vam means to me and what I intend to do here.  

Spoiler: I’m gonna keep posting but change how I do it a bit. Read on for why and how.

Continue reading…

You might also be interested in reading...

• Tweets of Doom for the week ending 2010-12-05
• Tweets of Doom for the week ending 2010-11-07
• Tweets of Doom for the week ending 2010-10-31
• Entumbled (Or, I Also Have A Tumblr Now; Or, Welcome to Worldforge)
• Tweets of Doom for the week ending 2010-11-28

Yes, this is a post about not posting. I’ll keep it brief.

For regular readers, I apologise for the extended radio silence. Lots has been going on in my offline life. But all is well, I’m back and I have several posts on the backburner that I’m pretty excited about. If all goes well you will hopefully see a steady stream of posts for a while.

Here’s a preview of what’s coming up:

• I’ve reached the end of two campaigns in the last few months, so I’m going to suggest ways to wrap everything up and end your long campaigns memorably.
• I will post some musings about creating a character on the fly, during play.
• Worldbuilders build lots of worlds, more often than not; I’ll try to share some of mine and some ideas for organising your thoughts when worldbuilding.
• I’ll present a tool to help you generate quick and simple motivations for your NPCs, on the fly.
• Vam will reveal the truth about some classic monsters you thought you knew so well.
• I’ll translate the tropes and concepts of some new blockbuster movies into setting and adventure material for your fantasy roleplaying game (featuring X-Men: First Class and The Rise of the Planet of the Apes).
• And much more…

You might also be interested in reading...

• Entumbled (Or, I Also Have A Tumblr Now; Or, Welcome to Worldforge)
• Dungeon World: Sarrenor Rules Compendium
• Monsterhearts Actual Play – Edgegate, Part 1
• Monsterhearts: ‘Ask Questions’ Reference Card
• Savage Worlds with Aspects Revisited

I Am Your Champion has been an awesome, exciting experience. I recommend it to everyone. Everyone has something to offer. Here’s how the week went for me.

For many years I have supported Act for Peace at Christmas through their Christmas Bowl appeal. I knew I could always donate more, but this was the first time I had felt like I could do something more with my skills and gather donations for this worthy cause.  And it has inspired me to donate more to the charity. I’ve contacted them to see how else I can help, but I’ve got the feeling they won’t have a lot of opportunities. If that’s the case, I’ll set up a regular monthly donation. I had been meaning to do this, but IAYC gave me the motivation I needed.

I have a sense of satisfaction writing this post. I’ve done something good for people in need and helped out other Champion’s charities that I may not have even known about before, let alone donated to. I’ve made new connections in the roleplaying community and I now get to create a fantasy newspaper knowing that it has helped people in need.

I Am Your Champion update! If you don’t know what IAYC is, check out this link and/or my original post about this awesome challenge for charity. In that link you’ll learn about the charity I am Championing – Act for Peace – and how you can help me.

I’m supporting Act for Peace by making a free PDF-format fantasy newspaper full of adventure locations, artefacts, NPCs and the like. Donate $5 to my charity and you’ll get your name in one of the articles. Donate more money and you’ll get cooler articles that are more focused around your namesake (or your namesake’s artefact or adventure location!). See my original post for the full reward/goal structure.

I’ve gotten really excited about this since people started throwing in and throwing down and offering combined challenges. So, I’m upping the ante! I’ve added some more sections to the newspaper: obituaries and an advice column.

Read on for info on extra rewards and how you can help out some awesome charities.

A Terrible Idea has come out with another great idea. I Am Your Champion is a game/challenge played in five rounds that will challenge your existing ideas regarding charitable fundraising. Basically, you choose a charity and support it, but it’s more like you use your creativity to provide rewards or thank you gifts to those who contribute to your charity. Jump over to the website to catch up on the requirements for each round. It’s not too late to join in! I’m participating, and this post is me announcing myself, my cause, my goal and my reward.

This is too good to not post. You should be backing Joshua A.C. Newman’s Human Contact, a hard science fiction roleplaying game about what happens when a rationalist, free, democratic society explores its universe and finds others that have different values than it has. It deals with those interactions on both a personal and societal level. It will be awesome, but there is now another incredibly cool reason to back the project.

Any current backers and anyone else who backs the project before time runs out in 18 days will receive a free exclusive Apocalypse World character playbook written by Vincent Baker. The character is called the Quarantine. Here’s a run-down:

The Quarantine has been locked away, suspended in ignorance of the outside world, throughout the Apocalypse. But his ignorance is nothing compared to what he knows: he remembers what came before and knows what caused it.

Not that it will help him.

If that doesn’t sound good, then you probably haven’t read Apocalypse World. If it does sound good, get over to Kickstarter and back Human Contact. It’s shaping up to be a great game and now you get a cool supplement for another great game, too. You can’t lose.

You might also be interested in reading...

• Tweets of Doom for the week ending 2010-10-31
• Dungeon World: Sarrenor Rules Compendium
• IAYC: Fantasy Newspaper (Free Download)
• ZILLA! – Free ‘Classic Character Pack’
• Tweets of Doom for the week ending 2010-11-07

Check it out! Over at Troll in the Corner they’re doing a crazy D&D contest. You could win the Red Box, Rules Compendium, Heroes of the Fallen Lands and some Dungeon Tiles! All you have to do is shoot them an email. However, if you want more entries into the competition you can tweet about it, blog about it, and post on the Gamer’s Haven forums to net yourself some additional entries into the contest. Best thing is: it’s not limited to America! If the US can ship to you, you can enter.