Friday Knight News – Gaming Light Edition: 16-NOV-2012

Greetings friends and welcome to another issue of the Friday Knight News! Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.

RPG Showdown – David Szilagyi

Not a whole lot to report on from my end of the universe… I’m prepping for a D&D 4e game to run the day before Thanksgiving and it’s been kind of fun. It’s been quite a while since I last ran a game and I’m more than a bit rusty, but there are all sorts of fun tools to use to help make the process simpler – everything from tools to create random names and roll dice to full-blown apps to help manage initiative order and monster stats. So I’m sure you’ll see an article or two on that topic before long.

Other than that we only had a few articles here this week:

• Had a chance to chat with Marc Hutcheson from the InKarnate team a few weeks ago about their toolset. He was kind enough to answer a few questions afterwards.
• In The Gassy Gnoll this week, I pondered a bit about why I write about games. Long story short, it’s a passion and has been for three decades.
• And I reviewed 100% Crunch: Zombies by Julian Neale from Raging Swan Press. If you want to give your zombies a bit of zing, there are some great ideas in there!

Food for Thought

• How To Make Random Encounters Good - Jason Schreier @ Kotaku
• How a Real-Life Astrophysicist Found Superman’s Planet Krypton: The Inside Story - Clara Moskowitz @ Space.com
• Wandering Planet Without A Star Discovered - Ian Chant @ Geekosystem
• The Story Board Ep. 4 – “The Play’s the Thing” - Geek & Sundry @ YouTube
• Author D&D – Epic Confusion, January 2012 - Peter V Brett @ YouTube
• 10 Bizarre Death Rituals from Around the World - George Dvorsky @ io9
• Enough - Tracy Hurley @ Sarah Darkmagic
• Howard Shore’s ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ Score Streaming For Free - BAADASSSS! @ Geeks of Doom
• How to write a fairy tale - Tolovaj @ Squidoo
• To Use Social Network Sites or Not for RPG Research Project - Hawke Robinson @ RPG Research
• Mark Cuban: Facebook Is Driving Away Brands – Starting With Mine - Dan Lyons @ ReadWrite
• Fukushima Ocean Radiation Won’t Quit - Slashdot
• target="_blank">Salt Lake City Police To Wear Camera Glasses - Slashdot
• Alignment in Kickassistan: Neutrality - Adam Muskiewicz @ Dispatches From Kickassistan
• Medieval manuscripts go digital - David Szondy @ Gizmag
• The Future of Non-ownership is Now – The Id DM

Games and Gaming

• Revised Geomorph Series One - Hereticwerks
• Magic Items With Charges - Ameron (Derek Myers) @ Dungeon’s Master
• Evolution of My RPG Writings - JourneymanGM
• D&D Next: Isle of Dread Playtest- David Guyll @ Points of Light
• 10 Adventure Seeds - Mobius @ Ennead Games
• 10 Arcane Critical Hits - Mobius @ Ennead Games
• Musing on Maps - Lord Karick @ Savage Legend
• Nimblewright - Joe Sparrow @ Dungeons and Drawings
• RPG Blog Carnival – Writing the Game - Shorty Monster
• Seven Chapters, Seven Uses And Way More Than Seven Lists - Nedjer @ Thistle Games
• Dwarven Highway Fort - John Carr @ Age of Ruins
• Relationship Mapping - Phil Vecchione @ Gnome Stew
• Johnny’s Five – Five Really Unique Elements To Add To Your Fantasy Planet - John Arcadian @ Gnome Stew
• How Dungeons & Dragons taught me to survive the apocalypse - Jack Wallen @ The Zombie King
• Eldritch Skies Design essay - John Snead @ GeekNative
• D&D and Me: Playtime never ends - One Die Short @ Dungeon Mastering
• NagaDemon – Week One - Wandering Monster Studios
• NaGa DeMon update. The Adventures you’ll have… - Shorty Monster
• [NaGaDeMon] Counting Coup and Editing - Jim White @ Wombat’s Gaming Den of Iniquity
• Worldbuilding: Maturity and Age - Scott Martin @ Gnome Stew
• The Night Children: Goblins in the Age of Ruins - John Carr @ Age of Ruins
• Lively Locals 11: The Ironbone Tower - LS @ Papers and Pencils
• The Social Megadungeon - Black Vulmea @ Really Bad Eggs
• Gaming on 50 Copper Pieces a Day - Matt Timmins @ Big Blue Die
• [D20] Dungeoneering Equipment, Simplified - Matt Borselli @ Asshat Paladins
• Greyhawk Adventure Time! - Dave Bone @ The Wargate
• Oh, Just Roll a 14, Fer Chrissakes! - Joseph Bloch @ Greyhawk Grognard
• Designer’s Corner: In Defense of the D6! - Larry Vela @ Bell of Lost Souls
• The Next D&D 4E Homebrew: Fun with the Feywild’s Bright Beauty! - Michael @ Neuroglyph Games
• Fantastic Huricanes - Kobold Enterprise
• Gamma World and Group Creativity - Stephen Brandon @ The Duchy of Brandonshire
• Random Appearance Table - Brendan @ Untimately

Kickstarter

• In which I plug. Or, another Kickstarter to back - Rogue Games
• The Otherworld Miniatures Adventurers Got Funded! - Brennon @ Beasts of War
• A Boxed Magadungeon of 1E on Kickstarter? Cataclysm at the Acaeum - Erik Tenkar @ Tenkar’s Tavern
• Cataclysm at the Acaeum - Kickstarter
• ShadowSea – Battle for the Underlands by AntiMatter Games - Kickstarter
• Kickstarter: Camp Myth: The RPG - Michael Wolf @ Stargazer’s World
• The Littlest Shoggoth, a Holiday Tale of the Cthulhu Mythos by Super Genius Games - Kickstarter
• The Saga of Dragon Star & N.R.G. Core Rulebook RPG by Game Smiths LLC - Kickstarter

Publisher News

• RPGs Booming, while Video Games are Down - Hawke Robinson @ RPG Research
• The Solar Echoes interview with Andy Mitchell - Andrew @ GeekNative
• Unleashed RPG - Epic Prime @ Epic The RPG Blog
• an RPG that can teach Korean language - WJWalton @ The Escapist Blog
• Raging Swan Press: 2013 Schedule - Creighton Broadhurst @ The Raging Swan Press blog
• target="_blank">Learn to Design - Design courses for $99 each (InDesign, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and others)
• Sertorius Playtest - The Bedrock Blog
• Against the Slavelords Hardcover - Mortellan @ Greyhawkery
• Edge of the Empire for Novices - Fantasy Flight Games
• New “basic level” AD&D adventure from WOTC -Zenopus Archives
• 100% Crunch: Liches – Raging Swan Press
• Oriental Interiors – DramaScape
• Ancient World and Ancient World Player’s Guide – Mystical Throne Entertainment
• Tunse’al Setting Guide Savage Worlds Preview – Obatron Productions
• NeoExodus Chronicles: Usual Suspects (PFRPG) – LPJ Design
• BareBones Fantasy Role Playing Game and Keranak Kingdoms Fantasy Setting - DwD Studios
• Tangents #2: Black Ichor Mines – D3 Adventures
• #30 Alchemical Gadgets – Rite Publishing

Reviews

• Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space Review - Paco Garcia Jaen @ G*M*S Magazine
• Nazis and Cthulhu? Achtung! Cthulhu – Three Kings and Heroes of the Sea Reviewed - Jeff McAleer @ The Gaming Gang
• Elminsters Forgotten Realms - Sean B @ Wine and Savages
• How Fantastic Is Fantastiqa ? - Jonathan H. Liu @ GeekDad/WIRED
• Night`s Black Agents: Corebook - Megan Robertson @ G*M*S Magazine
• The Book of Nod Review - Michael Holland @ Flames Rising
• Monsters of Sin 6: Sloth - Thilo Graf @ G*M*S Magazine

Site News

• Writers wanted for The Trollish Delver - Scott Malt @ The Trollish Delver
• Gamers Save and Support Great Causes - DriveThruRPG
• An Interview with the PhilGamer - Daniel Quiogue @ Hari Ragat Games
• Friday Question - Tim Shorts @ Gothridge Manor
• Valhalla Calling: An Adventure Design Competition for Pathfinder and AGE - Kobold Quarterly
• On the Table Season Premiere – Geek & Sundry

Tools

• PyMapper @ SourceForge.net
• Star Wars: The Essential Atlas Online Companion - StarWars.com
• text generators - Petrifying Forms

That’s it for this week on the news front. If you want a bit more, check out:

• Links for the Week @ Intwischa (and part 2 this week)
• The Friday Five @ Ravenous Role Playing

There’s definitely plenty of news go go around!

I hope everybody has a great weekend!

As always, if you feel I missed something (and it would be impossible NOT to), drop me a quick note via the contact page or drop me an e-mail at news(at)gameknightreviews(dot)com and I’ll add it to the list for next week!

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