As the Prancing Pony Inn thread continues to grow, many interesting tools and links have been brought up. This thread is intended to gather those together so that new players and GM's can find them easily. It will hopefully be updated as more are added.
iG's on-Web RPG Tools.
Irony Games provides instant map makers for Villages, Taverns, Cities, and Dungeons, among other things. While not terribly detailed, they can give GM's a starting point, and a frame of reference that players can share as they explore at will.
Skotos Storybuilders
A collection of articles of interest. Particularly recommended isHandle With Care on "why tactful communication is crucial in roleplay."
The MUD Role-Playing Gamer's Survival Kit and
The Scenariowriter's Survival Kit
More articles, this time focusing on creating and developing a character and planning worlds and stories,
The Cave
Another set of tools for generating Villages, Names, and NPC's
The Trap Page
Another site with some good tools, tips, and Adventure sketches. The site itself is oriented toward GURPS® (by Steve Jackson Games) and the "trap collection" is somewhat for DM's running table-top games in that environment who are having trouble with "problem players" - they might not go over so well here, but there is some good generalGM Advice as well.
If you like what you see there, you can find a link to it, and many other interesting sites, on the Links Page atThe Blue Troll's Notebook
Added 30-Nov-02
The Role Playing Assistant Homepage
Here's another interesting site with some freeware tools for Character, World Map, Tavern, and City Block Generators. It data base driven for a number of popular RPG games and rulesets, and can create and store entire parties. Prints out character sheets, keep stats in balance by race and class, and allows for trade-offs between items/abilities and stats. Even has a spell book manager. The stat sheets are oriented toward more online or table-top dice roll games then the interactive fiction of course, but still handy and head and shoulders above most other generators out there. Fairly large download though (11MB) so you'll want to look over theFAQ and Sample Screen Shots first.
Roleplaying Tips
The homepage of a regular newsletter for GM's, Johnn Four's site includes a completeArchive of past tips, as well as a selection of longer articles. Many of them with the mechanics of running a game, but there's a lot of good information there for players as well and the site as a whole is well worth a read.
[21-Jul-03] Two recent articles of particular interest are:
The 10 Commandments Of The RPG Player and
The Ten Commandments Of The Gamesmaster
Both of these should be considered required reading for anyone playing here.
Jeff Wilson's RPG Page
This is another homesite, based largely on the GRUPS system, that nonetheless is worth taking a look at for examples of how broad general background can be incorporated into a world to enhance the atmosphere. There is for instance a section onFantasy Agriculture covering things such as the types of livestock, crops and methods one might reasonably expect to encounter in a medievil setting. This in turn dictates what sort of provisioning one should expect, as well as how NPC's and event settings like farm villages might be formulated.
There's also aRPG Glossary of terms common to many sites.
Added 31-Mar-03
Got Game?: The future of play
Thanks to Angel Zen for the heads up on this one. This site is a relatively new blog[internet diary of sorts] by RIT professor Andrew Phelps. Not really a resource site, but looks as though it will prove to be interesting reading. He addresses himself to the social issues of gaming in the modern world, rather then to the games themselves. In Phelps' own words
Stuff of Legend!
Billing itself as "a free resource for role-playing gamers" this site lays out the basic frame work of a simple RP system based on character descriptions, or "Legends" with "traits" that are relevant to the situation rather then complex rules and tables. While not totally free-form in that there are some dice roll rules for GM directed turn-based games, they are straight forward enough to be easily adaptable. There is also a welth of tips on character and world creation in theRoleplaying library along with references to other RPG sites.
Added 10-July-07
Wow, four years without an update. My bad. :redfaced:
Right then. I mentioned this in The Inn, so now I'll add here. For those who don't already know, Shamus Young is a writer and DM who runs a blog calledTwenty Sided on his site. It's full of the usual self-musings one finds in any blog, but is oriented toward DM's in particular. Intermittently within it, he is running a photoshop comic, "DM of the Rings" - a send-up of Peter Jackson's interpretation of the Tolkien classic.
Read both, if you can. If not read the comic for the funnies certainly, but read the comments under it as well. There's a wealth of insight and tips for all RPers there, and not just DM's or just D&Ders either.
Added 23-Aug-07
I mentioned in one of the discussion threads a paper on dice rolls, distributions, and probabilities in RP gaming. For those who care to wade through the math, a PDF file can be foundhere. You'll need Acrobat Reader and a plugin for you browser, or you may wish to simply save the whole thing to read through off-line. For those wishing to skip the math, there's a shorter write-up in th "Roll The Bones" column at RPGnet
Added 01-Jan-08
So, first new blurb of the year, but it's (hopefully) a good one. There's a brand new website out there, home to theCommittee for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games (CAR-PGa), an informal group that started out some years back to research and counter some of the more outrageous anti--RPG/D&D sites. There's some nice FAQ's and sections there to answer questions from those who "don't get it." Not that I'd expect anyone here to need them (those of you who need it have all got permission from your parents, I trust) but take a look anyway.
Added 23-Feb-08
Just a quick note: agerthat one Elf recently posted this link to an SRD Rules online page in a D&D thread he's starting in response to one of his player's mention of lacking a convenient copy of the Players Handbook. Per his post
Added 10-Nov-08
This came up in a background discussion, and I frankly don't know why I haven't gotten around to it before, but Rich Burlew (the Giant ofGiant in the Playground Games] has been running a series of background articles on the design of a successful RP campaign gameworld, something he has a proven track record at. A lot of it of course is specific to the example he is laying out, but he takes a tutorial approach of explaining not only the what, but more importantly the how and why.
You'll find it, along with a lot of other essays and some interesting fictions,linked here.
Oh yeah, there's a couple of really cool webcomics there too.
Irony Games provides instant map makers for Villages, Taverns, Cities, and Dungeons, among other things. While not terribly detailed, they can give GM's a starting point, and a frame of reference that players can share as they explore at will.
A collection of articles of interest. Particularly recommended is
More articles, this time focusing on creating and developing a character and planning worlds and stories,
Another set of tools for generating Villages, Names, and NPC's
Another site with some good tools, tips, and Adventure sketches. The site itself is oriented toward GURPS® (by Steve Jackson Games) and the "trap collection" is somewhat for DM's running table-top games in that environment who are having trouble with "problem players" - they might not go over so well here, but there is some good general
If you like what you see there, you can find a link to it, and many other interesting sites, on the Links Page at
Added 30-Nov-02
Here's another interesting site with some freeware tools for Character, World Map, Tavern, and City Block Generators. It data base driven for a number of popular RPG games and rulesets, and can create and store entire parties. Prints out character sheets, keep stats in balance by race and class, and allows for trade-offs between items/abilities and stats. Even has a spell book manager. The stat sheets are oriented toward more online or table-top dice roll games then the interactive fiction of course, but still handy and head and shoulders above most other generators out there. Fairly large download though (11MB) so you'll want to look over the
The homepage of a regular newsletter for GM's, Johnn Four's site includes a complete
Both of these should be considered required reading for anyone playing here.
This is another homesite, based largely on the GRUPS system, that nonetheless is worth taking a look at for examples of how broad general background can be incorporated into a world to enhance the atmosphere. There is for instance a section on
There's also a
Added 31-Mar-03
Thanks to Angel Zen for the heads up on this one. This site is a relatively new blog
What is this Blog ?and, more importantly
This blog is about tracking the rise of games as a medium of popular culture, and perhaps the medium of the times. The Jones’ kids all have game consoles, but more and more it’s not just Saturday morning entertainment - games are impacting peoples lives in a way never seen before.
What this blog is not.Added 05-May-03
A Game Review Site. There are plenty of places to go read reviews of new games. While this blog may occasionally refer to some new game to point out an interesting point relative to the goals above, rarely will it feature a simple review of a game and say‚ this is good, go buy it’ or some such. More important to us are games that break new ground, be they good or bad, successful or not.
A Game Technology Site. We will discuss technology, in terms of what it affords, how that impacts the community, what it means and how it affects any number of issues. I do not plan to write, here, how it works.
Billing itself as "a free resource for role-playing gamers" this site lays out the basic frame work of a simple RP system based on character descriptions, or "Legends" with "traits" that are relevant to the situation rather then complex rules and tables. While not totally free-form in that there are some dice roll rules for GM directed turn-based games, they are straight forward enough to be easily adaptable. There is also a welth of tips on character and world creation in the
Added 10-July-07
Wow, four years without an update. My bad. :redfaced:
Right then. I mentioned this in The Inn, so now I'll add here. For those who don't already know, Shamus Young is a writer and DM who runs a blog called
Read both, if you can. If not read the comic for the funnies certainly, but read the comments under it as well. There's a wealth of insight and tips for all RPers there, and not just DM's or just D&Ders either.
Added 23-Aug-07
I mentioned in one of the discussion threads a paper on dice rolls, distributions, and probabilities in RP gaming. For those who care to wade through the math, a PDF file can be found
Added 01-Jan-08
So, first new blurb of the year, but it's (hopefully) a good one. There's a brand new website out there, home to the
Added 23-Feb-08
Just a quick note: ager
This is almost the entire core rulebook set for v3.5 as an online source, as well as some on psionics and such. Not only do you not need a copy of the PH with you when you play, but you don't technically have to have one at all!Might be of interest to others as well.
Added 10-Nov-08
This came up in a background discussion, and I frankly don't know why I haven't gotten around to it before, but Rich Burlew (the Giant of
You'll find it, along with a lot of other essays and some interesting fictions,
Oh yeah, there's a couple of really cool webcomics there too.
[This message has been edited by ChowGuy (edited 11-10-2008 @ 02:19 PM).]