The Weekly Buzz for October 30, 2010

Here’s the best of the rpg related messages from Google Buzz this past week.

Dungeonographer

The Game Snob links to the Hexographer‘s sibling, the Dungeonographer, a tool to create your own dungeon crawl. One of the options available in the free version allows you to create your levels in the classic blue. The paid version will allow you to create 3rd Edition style maps. It has quite a few features, but it still has a bit to go.

Warriors of the Red Planet

A new old school type game that take place in a Barsoom inspired setting now has it’s own home.

Birds in Hand

I am always inspired by my children’s imagination. When I saw this creature from Teleli, I immediately thought that this would be something my daughter would create. I mean this in a positive way. I can’t wait to see the “WHAT THE..” look on the players’ faces when they see a few of these.

Speaking of creatures, Roger the GS makes a good point about the value of grimlocks. Not only are they essentially human, they are thoroughly familiar with being underground. I agree with the last line, sometimes the Fiend Folio is better. (Don’t make me defend the flyumph, though.)

What’s in a Name?

jgbrowning points out that An Etymology of the Scottish Language can provide depth and verisimilitude for your characters’ names. There’s something about this that appeals to my inner language geek.

Of course, to really scratch the itch, here are two more words to stir the imagination for your next creature. Inchoate and chalcolithic. HT to jgbrowning for chalcolithic. Inchoate means – just begun and so not fully formed or developed; rudimentary. Chalcolithic refers to a time between the stone age and the bronze age when many civilzations specialized in using copper.

An inchoate golem could be one that has a moving patch on its body that is ethereal. This makes it hard to hit and prone to break weapons (and arms). Chalco as prefix could be combined with other words to make a copper snake (scales can blind, immune to fire) or other copper beastie.

Being inspired by words is an email thread amongst the developers here at NMP. I plan on making a post of our discussion in the near future. Jerall has an interesting take all stated up for Pathfinder (hint hint) that I think everyone can enjoy.

Hit Points

An interesting series of posts discuss the pros and cons of hit points in OD&D. It started with JB at B/X Blackrazor talking about why all weapons in B/X D&D do 1d6 damage. Essentially, because non-heroic zero-level characters can be struck down in one blow with any weapon. The Tao of D&D counters that normal people are “tougher than a d4“. Finally, Cyclopeatron make reference to the Arduin system of hit points. I must confess that I mention these points mostly because of the interesting discussion, but also because it mentions Arduin. Arduin is crazy, but there’s just so much there to use.

Lastly…

I wanted to mention the idea behind the OSR Toolkit. The first post mentions a FASA style mecha. On Buzz I mentioned a Portugese Nao. Soon, I’ve have the HMS Victory, an Abrams M1A1 tank, a sports car (a la James Bond) and a few other vehicles. I’m taking requests for vehicles. I want to break the system if I can. Anyone that can do that, I’ll give a full write-up of their vehicle and what I had to change to make it work.

See you next week!