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.

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• Revamping Skeletons

Saw this word cloud maker on Google+ recently and threw my website in there.
Here’s a word cloud of what I’ve been saying here.

Click to embiggen

Obviously, Reverb Gamers is prominent after a month of posts. Some of the other words are just things tacked onto the end of each post. But it’s  interesting to me to see the size of the other words to give myself an idea of the content I’ve been putting out.

Just for fun, here are the Wikipedia articles for role-playing games, magic, zombies, superheroes, cthulhu mythos deities, and Bas-Lag. Click any of them to enlarge. Favourite thing out of this: Batman is hanging upside-down in grey just under ‘comics’. Continue reading…

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• Entumbled (Or, I Also Have A Tumblr Now; Or, Welcome to Worldforge)
• Why We Pyre
• Tweets of Doom for the week ending 2010-12-05

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…

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• 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

No Plot? No Problem! is a great little book that describes itself as ‘a low-stress, high-velocity guide to writing a novel in 30 days’. It’s written by Chris Baty, the guy behind Nanowrimo, which I’m participating in this month for the fifth year running. Writing a novel in 30 days requires at least some improvisation. GMing often requires a lot. I’ve read this book each year but I figured looking at it from a different angle it may have some hidden insights into gamemastery. And I think I’ve found some.

The book talks about, among many other things, making two lists: one with all the things you like in novels and one with all the things you don’t. It’s not quite a pros and cons list, but close. It’s sort of a list of cues or reminders for yourself. I realised that doing the same thing for RPGs could keep us GMs on track, especially for on-the-fly or improv-heavy GMing.

It’s done!

Life has run away on me this year, but I have finally managed to complete the fantasy newspaper I promised as my contribution for I Am Your Champion. I had some interest, but few donations, and that’s fine. I had fun making it and I hope those who donated to my charity are happy with the result. This isn’t just for them though, it’s a free download for everyone. I’ve made a parchment version and a print-friendly version. I hope you enjoy this and get some use out of it

Game masters can the newspaper for hooks, NPCs, adventures and worldbuilding or even just as a source of random rumours, information and goings-on. I think the best use for it, though, is for GMs to read it, think about it, then next time the PCs are in a tavern tell them “Someone’s left a newsletter on your table. It looks like this…” and then just give them the handout. I love doing this sort of thing in game and I hope you’ll enjoy my attempt at a fantasy newspaper, inspired by a thoughtful present my wife and friends made for me a few years ago.

If I get enough interest I might just make another issue. Enjoy

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I just finished playing the demo for Dragon Age II and I found it had an interesting take on storytelling. Gameplay was sometimes cut with scenes of a character, in the future, talking about the hero. It was interesting because a) the storyteller was alluding to events that had yet to unfold, and b) the storyteller sometimes lied. What was cool, though, was that you played those lies and then played the truth. This technique is a kind of frame narrative (a story within a story), and twists on storytelling like this can be interesting in pen and paper roleplaying games too.

Here’s an outline of another campaign setting I’ve been working on. Feel free to use and alter it as you wish. If you do use it or have some ideas about it, I’d love to hear them.

Very young children use the spark sporadically, for play and their own simple purposes, without thought. As children grow older, they begin to understand their powers better, using them consciously and with more control. Around age 10 for girls and 12 for boys, Transition begins.

Children undergo many physical and psychological changes during this stage and it is when their spark is at is peak, very powerful and unpredictable.

Transition is a stressful and strange time for children and many lose control of their magic as the power flares and fluctuates, burning brightly before it is snuffed out entirely. Girls usually complete the Transition by ages 15-17, while boys usually complete it by ages 16-18. After this, the spark is dead forever.

Because adults are unable to harness magic, children are highly valued for their abilities. Many children do not utilise the spark effectively and are more dangerous to themselves than others, or are merely an annoyance. However, children of particular talent and power are recruited into harsh military programs to perfect their control over the spark and harden them into tools of war. Children are taught from a young age that fighting for their faction is the highest honour and the greatest deed that one could hope for. Propaganda floods the schools, homes and streets, and armies recruit children as young as 8 to train to fight their horrendous battles.

I participated in and completed Nanowrimo last year, for the fourth year running. I’ve learnt more and more from it each year, about myself, writing and even roleplaying and gamemastery. This time, there were some particularly useful things that I wanted to share. So, here’s what Nanowrimo taught me about roleplaying.

• 2121 words left. Tomorrow, I win! #nanowrimo
• I have few words to go but a fair chunk of story left. I feel like this is one I actually care enough about to keep writing after #nanowrimo
• VICTORY!!! I wrote 51,145 words in 30 days. I am a #NaNoWriMo WINNER!
• I’ve participated in #NaNoWriMo for 4 years, enjoyed it and won each time. If you didn’t join us this year I highly recommend you do in 2011
• I’ve neglected my website this month. Now, I want to focus more on it and try to post more regularly. I’ll have some new content up soon.
• Making a note here, HUGE SUCCESS! Jonathan Coulton + Portal + #Nanowrimo = http://bit.ly/hQM8zM
• December’s Fiasco playset is fantasy-based! Play as dragon-slaying adventurers who “saved” a town. So much awesomeness! http://bit.ly/fLctIj
• Order of the Stick is exceptionally good right now. Great story arc.
• Donkey Kong Country Returns is a nostalgic fun-fest. It’s challenging and I’m having lots of fun. Great music, graphics and level design too

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• Why We Pyre
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• Tweets of Doom for the week ending 2010-09-12