Hey, everyone. Today, I’ll be pimping someone else’s site. Online Dungeon Master, originally located on a WordPress.com site, has officially moved to his own address at Onlinedungeonmaster.com! Why am I talking about this? Two reasons.

Reason 1: I did the site design for it. Now, I’m no coder, but I do understand HTML and how WordPress templates work. I’m primarily a graphic designer, so my forte is in logos and the look of things. If you’re interested in shifting your site over from a WordPress or Blogger site over to your own, contact me. I’d love to work with you.

Reason 2: Michael the Online DM has a fantastic website. I’ve been utilizing a lot of his tips in my online Pathfinder game. He runs games almost exclusively online, and has some amazing tips and code for doing so. You need to go visit his new site and check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

Here’s a little story I saw over on Reddit, and I thought you all might enjoy it.

This reminds me of a story I heard from one of my friends about how he played an undead kobold wizard. He was quite powerful, and so came back as a lich. Most people wouldn’t recognize the sheer power of this little Kobold, so he created a Shield Guardian, placing it in massive robes and giving it a large staff. When he would travel with his Guardian, he would channel all of his spells through this creature. Anyone who saw the two simply assumed that the guardian was the powerful wizard, and his undead kobold companion was his servant. As such, they generally left the kobold alone.

Not a point here. Just saw the picture, and wanted to pass it along.

You’ve done it! You’ve come up with the perfect plot. Great!

Your players have just told you they don’t want to play another Fantasy game. Not great.

 So what do you do? Easy: Convert your plot wholesale to the new genre. It can work, and I’ll show you how.

There’s often a MacGuffin associated with a plot. I’ll use the Godfell Stone campaign as a general guide throughout this. In the case of my campaign, the MacGuffin is, in fact, the Godfell Stone. It’s the thing the players want, it’s the thing the bad guys want.

In my plot, the Godfell Stone has been stolen, and it’s up to the players to recover it, following the clues as to its whereabouts.

How do you convert this over to a different genre? I’ll use the GFS as an example:

Star Wars: A powerful device, the Forcekiller, has been discovered on a distant planet in Wild Space. While being transported to the Jedi Temple (or whatever center of power exists in the era you’re playing in), the ship was attacked, and the device was stolen. Rumor has it the Forcekiller is capable of destroying the mind of any Force-Sensitive being within a star-system radius of it. The heroes must track down the device before its too late.

BattleTech: A powerful piece of LosTech, of Star League origin, was found on a planet in the Periphary. The LosTech has been stolen, and the players must recover it before its powerful EMP powers can be brought to bear.

Dresden Files: The UnSeelie Stone, an artifact capable of sundering all magic around it, has been found buried in the sewers of (the city you’re playing in). As it was being taken for safekeeping by the White Council, it was stolen. Can the characters track it down and recover it?

As you can see, there are a lot of ways you can go with a plot.

If you have a particular plot you’d like ideas converting over to a different genre, even as a thought experiment, post it below, and I’ll do a blog discussing how to convert it.

Terrible art is terrible art. It’s not “Classic”. It’s terrible.

I see a lot of RPG books come out with art that looks like old, classic D&D:

What.

Now, when D&D first came out, they certainly couldn’t afford to hire the best artists for their art, so they made do. There wasn’t a lot of artists out there doing fantasy art, so they made do. Art (frankly) wasn’t that great at the time, so they made do.

Above is the result; something I could have drawn (and I’m not an artist).

So how is it you explain RPG books coming out nowadays with art of the same quality… or worse?

Now, I fully understand when someone is coming out with a small supplement, something that’s not meant to be a full-fledged print product. But how do you explain it when a small-press company comes out with a print core rulebook with art that looks like this piece of 1st edition art:

Again: What.

There is no excuse. There are plenty of fantastic artists waiting to be hired for your next RPG book: Brian Patterson, James Stowe, and a ton more. You want to make a clone of old-school D&D? Fine. Why can’t your book look like this?

Do I understand that not everyone can hire Tony DiTerlizzi? Absolutely. But why can’t you find an artist that’s at least somewhat comparable? You’ll never get new players into the game with art like the examples above. It looks like something someone drew in Junior High.

You want line art? Fine! Take a look at this:

That looks great! And it doesn’t look like the terrible art of Old D&D.

You’ve got to spend money to make money. If you want to make a retroclone, do it with style, and make some good-looking art for it.

Take a look at that sheet to the right. Just look at it.

I’ll wait.

Did you fall asleep? Probably. I know I did.

In its defense, it is for Palladium (yeah, I went there). However, most character sheets aren’t any better.

Why not? Why can’t character sheets be sexy?

What makes it necessary that a character sheet look like it was designed in Excel? Why shouldn’t it look like it was designed in Photoshop?

To toot my own horn a little, take a look at my Star Wars Templates. Not to sound arrogant, but those are some sexy looking sheets. They give you all the information, in bright colors and with pictures that draw your eye. Now, I can’t claim full credit. The sheets are inspired by the D&D Encounters character sheets. But it’s a great way for players to really get into their character, seeing the character right in front of them. If I new any kind of programming, I’d make one that makes up those sheets for players, with the art they choose.

So why is it that most sheets look so ugly?

Are there any RPGs out there that look really attractive?

Bridget and I make occasional trips to the Dollar Tree. It’s a great place for decorations for the different holidays, as well as folders, notebooks, and things like that.

One thing the Dollar Tree offers is an opportunity for great gaming supplies!

First up: Mounts! You can easily make your own horses for the party quite simply: Pick up some toy horses (they sell them with a much larger horse unsuitable for gaming), glue them to large stands, off-center so you can place your minis the stands too, and voila! You’ve got horses! Take a look at the picture on the right. It’s from my Godfell Stone campaign session. On the right of the image are the horses I made for the party. Click to enbiggen, of course.

Secondly: Trees! Your flat, 2D maps will look much better if you overlay the trees on the grid with actual 3D miniature trees. You can do this really well, right now, but you have to act! You can get them at the Dollar Tree, two to a pack, in the Christmas Village section. There are a few varieties. If you’re playing a winter campaign, perfect. Buy them all! Most of them have a white flocking on them. If not, one in six of them have no white at all, and are just green. Their bases are a white ceramic, but just repaint that brown, and you’re good to go! Snatch them all up before someone else does! Spend 20 bucks, and you’ve got 40 trees! More than enough for your game.

Third: treasure chests. Sometimes, in the craft section, they’ll have small, unfinished wood chests. These are about the size of a paperback book. You can also find glass beads here, which you can put in the chest, to represent the riches of a dragon’s hoard. You’ll need coins…

Fourth: COINS! Yes, you can find a ton of coins in the toy section. The pirate costume sets often come with a lot of coins. Pick some of those up!

Fifth: Spellbooks! The Dollar Tree usually has a CCG section, with CCGs you’ve never heard of. One of them: Zatch Bell. While you may have never heard of this card game (I hadn’t), they have a cool way to keep your cards: Cool little “spell books”. They are empty, and have little clear sleeves for your cards to go into. Slide all your power cards in, and they’re ready to go! They look pretty cool. Here’s a link to see what they look like.

That’s all I can think of! If you pick any of this stuff up, let me know! I’d love to see what you all find!

A couple years ago, I wrote up the stats for Jack. I had found a nifty mini, and wanted to run a Halloween game based on him.

This didn’t happen.

The following year, it didn’t happen.

This year, with a 4e group, it was gonna happen. I bought the mini, I even printed off and assembled a pumpkin patch. The mini was painted, the stats written up.

No one showed up for the game.

So, as a small consolation to myself, here is the updated rules for Jack. Enjoy!

Mr. T.W. Wombat is running a Blog Festival, to commence Friday, Sept. 23, coinciding with the Autumnal solstice. The festival is for bloggers around the net to write a post using a winter theme, and spread the love around to the other blogs that participate. In his post, he said he was looking for a logo, so I happily complied. Below, you’ll find the official Winter Is Coming logos, to be used in conjunction with bloggers’ posts. I have three designs: One is black, and is meant to be used for blogs with light backgrounds (like mine), one is white, meant to be used for blogs with black or dark backgrounds, and a third, which has a white raven. I call it the Game of Thrones Accurate version, as the ravens sent out from Oldtown in the Song of Ice and Fire series are white when the maesters have decided that winter, indeed, is coming. Enjoy!

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you the following special bulletin.

Longitude: 74 degrees, 0 minutes, 23 seconds West. Latitude: 40 degrees, 42 minutes, 51 seconds North. Follow the sound of sirens.

Some things are beyond words. Beyond comprehension. Beyond forgiveness.

The questions come: How could you let this happen? Why didn’t you know this was coming? How do you say we didn’t know? We couldn’t know. We couldn’t imagine.

Only madmen could contain the thought, execute the act, fly the planes. Even those we thought our enemies are moved. Because some things surpass rivalries and borders.

Because the story of humanity is written not in towers but in tears. In the common coin of blood and bone. In the voice that speaks within even the worst of us, and says “This is not right.”

Also here are those who face fire without fear or armor. Those who step into the darkness without assurances of ever walking out again, because they know there are others waiting in the dark. Awaiting salvation. Awaiting word. Awaiting justice.

Ordinary men. Ordinary women. Made extraordinary by acts of compassion. And courage. And terrible sacrifice.

 ”We’ve voted, and we’re going to try to take the plane.”

        “It’s the only way to stop them hitting Washington.”

        “I love you.”

Ordinary men. Ordinary women. Refusing to surrender. Ordinary men. Ordinary women. Refusing to accept the self-serving proclamations of holy warriors of every stripe, who announce that somehow we had this coming.

  “…probably what we deserve….

        “All of them who have tried to secularize America…

        “the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians and the ACLU….

        “I point the finger in their face and I say, “You helped this happen.” — it is God’s will that America should fall through their iniquity and their sin –”

We reject them both in the knowledge that our tragedy is greater than the sum of our transgressions.

Bodies in freefall on the evening news.

Madness in mosques, shouting down fourteen centuries of earnest prayers, forgetting the lessons of crusades past: That the most harmed are the least deserving.

There are no words.

There are no words.

The death of innocents and the death of innocence. Rage compounded upon rage. Rage enough to blot out the sun.

And the air still filled with questions. Is it going to happen again? What do I tell my children? Why did this happen? What do we tell the children?

Do we tell them the evil is a foreign face?

No. The evil is the thought behind the face, and it can look just like yours.

Do we tell them evil is tangible, with defined borders and names and geometries and destinies? No. They will have nightmares enough.

Perhaps we tell them that we are sorry. Sorry that we were not able to deliver unto them the world we wished them to have. That our eagerness to shout is not the equal of our willingness to listen. That the burdens of distant people are the responsibility of all men and women of conscience, or their burdens will one day become our tragedy.

Or perhaps we simply tell them that we love them, and that we will protect them. That we would give our lives for theirs and do it gladly, so great is the burden of our love.

In a universe of Gameboys and VCRs, it is, perhaps, an insubstantial gift. But it is the only one that will wash away the tears and knit the wounds and make the world a sane place to live in.

We could not see it coming. No one could.

We could not stop it. No one could.

But we are still here. With you. Today. Tomorrow. And the day after.

We live in each blow you strike for infinite justice, but always in the hope of infinite wisdom. Because we live as well in the quiet turning of your considered conscience.

The voice that says all wars have innocents. The voice that says you are a kind and a merciful people. The voice that says do not do as they do, or the war is lost before it is even begun.

Do not let that knowledge be washed away in blood. When you move, we will move with you. Where you go, we will go with you. Where you are, we are in you.

Because the future belongs to ordinary men and ordinary women, and that future must be built free of such acts as these, must be fought for and renewed like fresh water.

Because a message must be sent to those who mistake compassion for weakness. A message sent across six thousand years of recorded blood and struggle. And the message is this: Whatever our history, whatever the root of our surnames, we remain a good and decent people, and we do not bow down and we do not give up.

The fire of the human spirit cannot be quenched by bomb blasts or body counts. Cannot be intimidated forever into silence or drowned by tears.

We have endured worse before; we will bear this burden and all that come after, because that’s what ordinary men and women do. We persevere. No matter what.

This has not weakened us. It has only made us stronger.

In recent years we as a people have been tribalized and factionalized by a thousand casual unkindnesses. But in this we are one.

Flags sprout in uncommon places, the ground made fertile by tears and shared resolve.

We have become one in our grief. We are now one in our determination. One as we recover. One as we rebuild.

You wanted to send a message, and in so doing you awakened us from our self involvement.

Message received. Look for your reply in the thunder.

In such days as these are heroes born. The true heroes of the twenty-first century. You, the human being singular. You, who are nobler than you know and stronger than you think. You, the heroes of this moment chosen out of history.

We stand blinded by the light of your unbroken will. Before that light, no darkness can prevail.

They knocked down two tall towers. In their memory, draft a covenant with your conscience, that we will create a world in which such things need not occur. A world which will not require apologies to children, but also a world whose roads are not paved with the husks of their inalienable rights.

They knocked down two tall towers. Graft now their echo onto your spine. Become girders and glass, stone and steel, so that when the world sees you, it sees them.

And stand tall.

Stand tall.

Stand tall.