Ahhh, the Echo Chamber: taking other people’s stuff and talking about it on your site.
I haven’t done one of those in some time, so here’s a short post on stuff I found cool lately.
Evil in Mythic Scandinavia
Yeah, Beowulf is out and I must say that Grendel’s mom is quite the MILTFAW (…to Fool Around With… I try to keep things PG-13 here)!
Vanir over at Stupid Ranger combined his snarky mood and his recent viewing of the movie to write another excellent post on proper villainy and the types of villains we see in the movie.
According to him, Grendel’s mom is the best Big Bad of the bunch, followed closely by… Beowulf and Hrothgar (you read that right).
I don’t know if you have the time to read this Vanir, but I’d like to challenge you to tackle the Hero archetype now. How can you make believable, smart and Good guys in RPGs that don’t fall in the common pitfalls of Lawful Stupidity.
So is 4e going to Rock or Suck?
Agent provocateur extraordinaire Yax as done it again and has thrown yet another piece of pavement in the RPG fans’ pool this week. He posted another dual piece on the perceived pros and cons of 4e.
I have no intention of jumping in the fray. I’m in the ‘wait and see camp’ for the moment and I absolutely refuse to make up my mind before I actually see the material.
Keen Vorpal Vicious +2 Cycle!
Found this while Stumbling… somehow, the Masterminds of my entourage enjoyed it very much.
Wondrous RPG Superstars
Have you seen the results of the 1st round of Paizo’s RPG Superstar contest? While I have not been selected (no bitterness, I’ll post my entry foe a postmortem discussion later this week) the Top 32 items feature some very very good designs.
Descartes in Finland
I found Tommi’s new RPG blog through Daniel’s.
Tommi has a sharp mind and a sharper pen. He tackles both RPG and metaphysical issues and has given me more insight into DMing with his comments here than I have read in a long time. This post showcases the man’s skills and insight!
Holy Giant Mutant Fire Clam!
Good man of the week, and quasi-permanent member of my ‘do not kill this minion this week list‘, Graham started his own blog called Criticalanklebites.com. His second post is a very funny, albeit disturbing, survey of legendary bad RPGs.
One in particular seems to be all about hoverbikes, Fire Drakes, Hollowed-out planets and Laser Shooting bears. Man, what?
While writing about this cool-covered atrocious game, Graham just couldn’t resist creating d20 stats for Giant Mutant Fire Clams…. for reals! I’m soooo going to tackle the laser bear in a future post!
Insert witty subtitle for un-named blog here
I have another recent blog I found that shows promise but the author is not yet ready to encounter the world yet. So I’m keeping him for a later linky-day. (he he… Sorry man!)
Have a nice weekend, I’m currently looking into setting up a forum and thinking about making PDF of some of my more popular posts.
I recommend Tommi’s blog too. I don’t remember how I found it but it’s very interesting.
Ah, the World of Synnibarr.
I absolutely love the gaming cycle flowchart, too. Fun stuff.
Not steamed that I didn’t get picked for RPG Superstar, but I am mad that the content details were so vague, and some of the final 32 were just those that followed the rules a little more (and the debate among the judges show that.)
Hey Dave… they auto-rejected items that grant Class-like abilities because they said it was Artifact territory…
Like anything else, judging is a subjective thing.
But I try to be Zen about this…
😉
/me whistles innocently