Friday, March 25, 2011

Fight On! Random Table Contest

I try to avoid posts like this one, but the idea behind this contest is too damn brilliant to ignore. Not just what it's about, not just the prizes, but the way the prizes are determined. I say again: brilliant.

Random tables are a big part of what I love about RPGs. I'm already trying to think up a decent submission or two.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Wikity Wack

I haven't had a game session for a couple of months now, and I'm fiending for an RPG fix pretty badly. Since I'll be starting grad school (and hopefully finding work) soon, I'm worried I might not have time to play for a while. Still, I need some kind of creative outlet.

I'm thinking about writing up my D&D mini-setting, which I've been calling Cosk thus far, in some detail. I don't want to go overboard with it - as a more prolific blogger recently pointed out, providing a lot of setting detail is problematic at best. Too often, that way lies tedium for anyone involved besides the author. But occasionally a potentially neat concept or an interesting tidbit of information will pop into my head, and I want to start scribbling them down someplace.

At the moment, the best way to do this seems to be to create a wiki. New York Red Box's DMs use one to keep track of campaign notes, character stats, house rules, and setting info, and for the most part it works well. Scott Driver also put together an impressive wiki for his Wilderlands of Darkling Sorcery setting. The advantages of organizing setting notes (and the potential to keep DM and player information in the same place if I actually get to run a campaign with it someday) seem to outweigh any drawbacks.

Unless somebody knows of a better way to do it, I've more or less made up my mind to launch a wiki for Cosk (though I'll have to come up with a more impressive name for it than that). The real question is this: is anybody interested in reading the wiki material here on the blog, or should I just post a link to the wiki once and leave it at that? I seem to be gaining followers even though my posting has slowed, so obviously, somebody's interested in what I have to say, but I don't want to clog up the blog with the details of traditional swamp goblin ear-hair braiding in the Maggele Slough if people are just here for random tables and witty commentary on old module covers.

Thoughts?