Name: Benoit

Posts by Benoit:

May Of The Dead: Papercraft Ghost Ship

May 18th, 2012

As you know, this month Going Last is hosting the May of the Dead blog carnival. (You can click here to see the other articles, but not until you’ve read mine.) When they announced the carnival, one of the first things that came to mind for me was “ghost ship.”

This is actually an experiment that came to mind when I was making World Works Games’ (WWG) ”Sea Maiden,” but instead I decided to try out someone else’s papercraft – I went with the “Sea Dragon” by Fat Dragon Games. The idea is this: instead of printing the ship out in full color, could you create a simple ghostly effect just by printing in black and white? Read the rest of this entry “

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Weekly Roundup: Unhallowed Grove Map Edition

May 13th, 2012

So this weekend, I decided to dust off Dundjinni and whip up a quick map for Friday’s Unhallowed Grove encounter. You can find it below, and I’ve also added it to the article’s page. The article’s page includes explanations. It’s not super fancy, but then, it’s been a while since I used the program. I’m beginning to remember how easy and fun the program is, so I hope to make some more maps in the coming months.



There was a great article at The Illuminerdy this week about how to make cons more fun. Everyone needs to add the phrase to their vocabulary, so that we all have more fun at cons.

Steve Winter at The Howling Tower mused upon the random encounter. Once a staple of D&D, it has in recent editions gone away. Steve takes on what a random encounter should be, and how to make them a good part of your game.

The Dungeon’s Master this week addressed the use of torture by PCs. Also, how intimidate is not the same thing. We have also addressed this subject (from a different angle) here.

Alex Schroeder, the guy who runs the One Page Dungeon Contest, wrote up a cool little post on how he strung together some of his favorite one page dungeons from the contest to make a campaign out of them.

We haven’t linked to The Labyrinth in a while, but they’re still making some beautiful, free world maps over there!

From The Sorcerer’s Skull posted the true story of a cave that was found in North America, full of skeletons and treasure. Complete with a map just begging to be dropped into a game.

The Retro Roleplaying blog talked about why some OSR players reject improvements to the D&D system. We disagree to an extent, and feel that the author cherry picked some of his examples, but it’s still worth a read.

Finally, in Wired this month, there was a very interesting article that I think absolutely should have talked about D&D. But it didn’t. Apparently the author, Clive Thompson, doesn’t know what we do. Check it out, and here’s a quote – email the author if this sounds familiar:

Paracosms are the fantasy worlds that many dreamy, imaginative kids like to invent when they’re young. Some of history’s most creative adults had engaged in “worldplay” as children. The Brontë siblings, in one famous example, concocted paracosms so elaborate that they documented them with meticulous maps, drawings, and hundreds of pages of encyclopedic writing.

Blast From The Past (Weekly Roundup: Last Call For Dungeon Geomorph Dice Edition)

Initiative Or What? had a cool article this week on different found objects that were useful as props for their D&D game.  We especially like the idea to use novelty ice cube trays for casting 3D terrain decorations.
(5/14/11)

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Interesting Encounters: The Shaman’s Unhallowed Grove

May 11th, 2012

This post is part of the May of the Dead blogfest being run by Going Last. If you’d like more undead type goodness, head over here for lots more.

This particular encounter has been kicking around in my head for a while now, but it was too… unformed for me to feel comfortable publishing. Fortunately, the May of the Dead blogfest gave me a kickstart; by applying an undead theme to the encounter, it now had purpose and flavor.

I’m not going to dictate the specific background to the encounter in order to give you the opportunity to take it in your own direction. However, the very basic setup is this: a shaman is attempting to use lightning to animate or raise a body. He has converted a ring of standing stones into a primal conduit to channel a storm’s energy into the body, which lays in the center on a slab of stone. His motivations, backstory, and the plot leading up to the encounter, I leave up to you. Sounds very “Frankenstein’s Monster”? Yup, it’s supposed to. Except in this case, instead of using science, the Good Doctor is using primal power. Read the rest of this entry “

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Two Parties, One Goal: Ideas for Playing D&D Against Another Group

May 9th, 2012

Although I like to stick to terrain projects and general advice here, I have, in the past, used this blog to put forth D&D thought experiments I’ve had. These mostly deal with non-traditional ways of playing the game; I suppose I like to put the ideas out there for feedback, or maybe just writing them out forces me to flesh out the idea into something that’s logical and cohesive. In any case, this is one of those posts.

I originally asked Dice of Doom to kick around this idea in one of their podcasts. I kind of forgot about it until The Angry DM posted this tweet, and got me thinking about the topic again. Someone else tweeted this in response to a comment I made that both groups of adventurers should be actual play groups. This got my brain churning even faster. Read the rest of this entry “

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Weekly Roundup: Wayne Foundation Charity RPG Bundle Edition

May 6th, 2012

In case you didn’t know, there is currently a sale of an RPG bundle going on to benefit The Wayne Foundation. By purchasing this bundle of RPGs, you’re not only getting a ton of awesome content, but you’re also benefitting a charity that is dedicated to eradicating undearage prostitution. To further entice everyone to buy the bundle and contribute to this charity, we will donate $1 for every bundle purchased, up to $1,000. Just send us the receipt from Drive Thru RPG. You can purchase this huge bundle of RPGs and RPG content (including 4e content!) from Drive Thru RPG by using this link. You can track the status of our match over on the sidebar there. 
(UPDATE: You don’t need to send us a receipt, just buy a bundle. We now have access to the total number of bundles sold.)

First up this week is not a blog article, but a fun little choose your own adventure game that we thought we’d link to in honor of the May of the Dead carnival going on over at Going Last. It places you in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

We were pleasantly surprised to see Legend4ry DnD begin a conversion of the old school Dyson’s Delve. We’re excited to see the final product. The original Dyson’s Delve (here) was written by Dyson Logos.

With the public playtest of D&D Next coming up on May 24th, Greywulf’s Lair tackled the issue of playtesting, and what it is (and isn’t).

Every once in a while, we see an article that really sparks our imagination. DMG 42 hit the ball out of the park this week. He described a system in which worldbuilding between the DM and players was collaborative in a really hands on way. We really really want to try this.

Dungeon’s Master did a little thinking this week about the fate of the Character Builder.  Has it become as necessary as the PHB? Do you hope it sticks around?

Finally, at Cinerati this week, a mystery of gaming history was brought to our attention. Who was Gigi D’arn? Even if you’ve never heard of her, by the end of the article, you’ll probably want to figure it out…

Blast From The Past (Weekly Roundup: D&D Perfume Edition)

At-Will had a discussion of what sorts of challenges you should throw at your epic tier players.  No, not what sorts of monsters.  What sorts of challenges.  Check it out if you’re struggling with your epic tier storyline.

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May of the Dead: Horde Zombies

May 4th, 2012


Zombie Horde by The Meat Grinder at DeviantArt

This post is part of the May of the Dead blogfest being run by the guys at Going Last. There are a lot of other bloggers contributing all sorts of undead content for all sorts of RPG games. For more of this May of the Dead goodness (badness?) you can click through to the blogfest homepage here.

Haven’t zombies been done to death? (Pun intended) In the compendium, we have 61 zombies. 61! of just one type of creature. What more can I add to the mix? I don’t suppose too much, but let’s take a crack at it anyways. It is, after all, May of the Dead… Read the rest of this entry “

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