Links · Legacy archive
Interesting Gaming Websites
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To speak or not to speak
#281Sometimes you just need another language. Other languages are good for names, items, and if you are playing historical games... those bits of wording you want to throw in for versimiltude.
The first and one of the best. And a good search engine too.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/
Good for many languages
http://dictionary.reference.com/translate/text.html
One of the most sought after languages is Japanese. It is also the hardest to find. Japanese-English Dictionary Interface or Jedi is what you are looking for. While most dictionaries translate into Japanese characters, this translates into romaji or roman characters for the Japanese words. (romaji is what you need to search for when looking for such a dictionary. Once that key is found, the dictionaries pop up)
http://poets.notredame.ac.jp/cgi-bin/jedi
Others....
http://www.animelab.com/anime.manga/dictionary/
Anime lab is a cool large anime site...
http://www.solon.org/cgi-bin/j-e
More scholarly than some others
Now if I could find an Arabic and Latin translator.... -
Wargaming Stuff
#282The Wargamer's Ring links wargaming webpages together into a community. Presently the ring has hundreds of member sites and is the largest and most popular wargaming ring on WebRing. The member pages include sites on boardgames, computer games, miniatures games, and even military history. The webring makes it easier for wargaming enthusiasts to find pages on the web that interest them
http://j.webring.com/hub?ring=wargamers
These links come highly recomended and are not part of the web ring
Miniature Manufacturers and Sellers
Games Workshop http://www.games-workshop.com/
Command Magazine http://www.umahexagon.com/index_command.html
Reaper Miniatures http://www.umahexagon.com/index_command.html
Battlegames - Not Quite a Manufacturer, but a good site! http://www.battlegames.co.uk/
Wargaming Resources
Wargaming Standards and Banners http://www.warflag.com/
Historical Miniatures Page http://my.erinet.com/~bp/hist.html
Seven Years War Association http://www.warweb.com/sywassoc.html
Web Grognards - Board Wargaming Info http://grognard.com/
Five Star site
French and Indian War Homepage - Historical Info from French Perspective
http://web.syr.edu/~laroux/
Uniformology - the name speaks for itself http://www.uniformology.com/
MagWeb Magazine Service http://www.magweb.com/
Five Star site
Rare Map Collection - Univ. Georgia Library http://scarlett.libs.uga.edu/darchive/hargrett/maps/maps.html
Four Star site
French Site of Napoleonic Miniatures Wargaming http://www.histofig.com/
In French
The Major General's Page - Excellent victorian Era Site http://zeitcom.com/majgen/index.html
General Index of Wargaming Pages
Warweb Site http://www.warweb.com/hist.html
Republique Rules http://wtj.com/games/
Fire and Fury Rules http://pease1.sr.unh.edu/FnF/
Principles of War http://www.rdenning.demon.co.uk/npow/wargames.htm
DBx in Plastic Miniatures - Crisp, Attractive, Site http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Ring/8582/tony_crusade.html -
Interesting Gaming Websites
#283This is a slightly interesting site.
http://www.rpgmp3.com/index.php
This site is dedicated to bringing a unique(ish) experience to roleplayers, gamers and web surfers everywhere. A combination of gaming and sound! The Audio Reviews let you listen to roleplaying games unscripted. You can even download them to your iPod or MP3 player.
RPGMP3 have decided to take up the challenge of AEG's World's Largest Dungeon. It will be a difficult task but we intend to audio review the whole damn thing if we can. :D -
PbP Site
#284http://www.rpgrm.com/index.php
WELCOME ABOARD
To our FREE, Resource and Play by Post ( PbP ) roleplaying site for HARP, rolemaster, Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, Steve Jackson Games and any other non d20 game you want to bring along.
We have an active and vibrant community, developing roleplaying ideas, adventures, worlds and generally having fun.
So if you prefer to have Roleplaying as your emphasis rather than ruleplaying, come along and have some fun. -
Languages
#285http://www.omniglot.com
Omniglot is a guide to written langauge. It contains details of most alphabets and other writing systems currently in use, as well as quite a few ancient and invented ones. It also includes information about some of the languages written with those writing systems, multilingual texts, tips on learning languages, a book store, some useful phrases in many different languages, and a ever-growing collection of links to language-related resources. -
Research
#286http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/
The Internet History Sourcebooks are collections of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts presented cleanly (without advertising or excessive layout) for educational use.
THE INTERNET HISTORY SOURCEBOOKS
Internet Ancient History Sourcebook, Internet Medieval Sourcebook, Internet Modern History Sourcebook, are the main ones. The alternate ones are numerous, but hit upon Internet African History Sourcebook,
Internet East Asian History Sourcebook, Internet Global History Sourcebook
Internet Indian History Sourcebook, Internet Islamic History Sourcebook
Internet Jewish History Sourcebook, Internet History of Science Sourcebook, Internet Women's History Sourcebook, People With a History: An Online Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans* History
One of the more interesting is raveler's accounts of their journeys and the lands they visit are important sources in understanding the past. As outsiders, travelers often note aspects of a culture that are too commonplace for local commentators to mention. More than this, travelers often provide some insight into how their own society understood itself in relation to other cultures. -
Stuff, and lots of it.
#287http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/RPG/
Lots of misc resources from his own rule systems to a huge list of poisons.
Including a fun page on What's Wrong with AD&D.
Also has a page full of design principles and his own Computer Games he designed. -
Interesting Gaming Websites
#288http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html
The Internet Medieval Sourcebook
Sourcebook Contents
The Internet Medieval Sourcebook is organized as three main index pages, with a number of supplementary documents. Each individual section is still large - an organizational goal here is to avoid incessant "clicking" to get between pages and to information.
Selected Sources
This is an index of selected and excerpted texts for teaching purposes. Since it had grown too large for many users to manage, as of October 10 1998, it has been extensively reorganized. For teachers who wish to refer students to the Sourcebook, this page is the best starting point.
Full Text Sources
Full texts of medieval sources arranged according to type.
Saints' Lives
Devoted to Ancient, Medieval and Byzantine hagiographical sources. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#289http://www.ashotoforangejuice.com/gmrisk.html
Sort of gaming. Using Google's Maps you can play a game of risk. -
D20 fans only
#290http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm
A fellow by the name of Jans Carton has taken the free SRD
documents published by Wizards of the Coast and fully
hyperlinked them into a fast, easy to use website. It
contains everything in the SRD (classes, monsters, skills,
feats, treasure, combat, epic level information, psionics,
spells, and more) and various items of d20 Open Content.
The website is astonishingly handy for both preparing
adventures and as a reference when playing. Imagine you are
playing D&D and someone says: "Hey, how do I use overrun
again?" or you suddenly have to know what it means to be
"Fascinated". Well, if you have a computer near your table
you can do a quick search, and boom, you find the
information. This is exceptionally awesome when looking at
spells or monsters. If you are looking up information on
Ghouls you can just instantly link to exactly what
"Paralysis" does, rather than flipping through another
rulebook. That is perhaps the biggest advantage of the
website: it's flip free and he rules are always right at
your fingertips.
If you digitally prepare your adventures, such as with Open
Office, you can easily copy and paste stats of monsters and
spells right into it. It's also quite easy to make your own
reference sheets for your DM screen or what have you. Having
all the rules in electronic format is awesome.
The SRD contains a remarkable amount of information, and
Jans is constantly updating it with things that are not in
the official SRD, but are still open game content, such as
optional rules from Unearthed Arcana. The updates are quite
frequent, despite the site's free status (though you can
help him out by donating a few bucks).
-
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#291http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Role-playing_game_terminology
This is a handy wikipedia category for those of you struggling to follow MoonHunter as he speaks. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#292http://legendaryquest.netfirms.com/
(good even if already mentioned...check out the Design Patterns of Successful Role-Playing Games)
LQ is based entirely on actual European and Mediterranean folklore and mythology. There's no fluff here. It is a work of heart lovingly crafted by history-minded gamers that will blow your mind and just might teach you a thing or two about ancient European beliefs. Even if you're not interested in switching to a new gaming system right now, Legendary Quest offers a slew of fresh ideas to incorporate into your current campaigns. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#293http://www.escapistmagazine.com/
About The Escapist
The Escapist covers gaming and gamer culture with a progressive editorial style, with articles and columns by the top writers in and outside of the industry. A weekly publication, its magazine-style updates offer content for a mature audience of gamers, entertainment enthusiasts, industry insiders, and other "NetSet" readers.
Each issue, The Escapist explores a central theme. Tuesday's main publish addresses head-on the topics relevant to gamers, while the weekend extra, Casual Friday, explores the lighter side of these heavy issues.
Combining print-quality writing and magazine-style aesthetics with the accessibility of the web, The Escapist is available online, via PDF, and through RSS for broad syndication.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/8/3
"The machinery of gaming has run amok... An industry that was once the most innovative and exciting artistic field on the planet has become a morass of drudgery and imitation... It is time for revolution!" -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#294http://jeepen.org/dict/
This is not a manifesto. This is in part a collection of general guidelines, called truths, for writing freeform scenarios, likely table-top and larp scenarios as well. It is also an attempt at describing Jeepform, the subset of freeform at the heart of Vi åker Jeep's games. Further down, we include a dictionary of terms used and some techniques. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#295http://manifestogames.com/
Building a Path to Market for Independent Games
The machinery of gaming has run amok. Instead of serving creative vision, it suppresses it. Instead of encouraging innovation, it represses it. Instead of taking its cue from our most imaginative minds, it takes its cue from the latest month's PC Data list. Instead of rewarding those who succeed, it penalizes them with development budgets so high and royalties so low that there can be no reward for creators. Instead of ascribing credit to those who deserve it, it seeks to associate success with the corporate machine. It is time for revolution.
-- The Scratchware Manifesto
PC Gamers of the World Unite! You Have Nothing to Lose But Your Retail Chains!
I like manifestos -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#296http://bankuei.blogspot.com/2006/02/flag-framing_03.html
This a method I've used to help myself improvise and scene frame, initially an outgrowth of techniques from my Feng Shui days to now. It works with most traditional games and replaces the need to pre-plan events and scenes (whether linear or branching) and cuts down prep time by a LOT.
The Basic Idea
Traditionally improvisation has been considered an advanced technique. Mostly because all the advice we've seen is about preparing adventures either like a videogame level (map, NPCs, monsters go here), or else preparing a set of events, either linear or branching and then trying to engineer the player characters into the events.
The players show up every week with just a character sheet and seem to improvise just fine. "But wait! Players only have to deal with just one character! They don't have to figure out what will happen!"
But that's not the key difference in play. The difference is that the players have prepared a tool for improvisation -the character. With the character, the players don't need to prep a list of possible events and responses, they simply use the character as a focus to improvise with. They can make up on the spot how a "hot-headed young knight out for glory" ought to act without thinking too hard.
What the GM needs is to prep tools that do the same thing. Instead of trying to guess what might happen, what the players might do, what they might find interesting, you can instead prep tools that react to what IS happening, what the players SHOW you they want to do.
The GM's role really boils down to helping make interesting stuff happen. This breaks out into framing engaging scenes (and conflicts) and presenting neat NPCs. So let's talk about how to make that happen...
http://bankuei.blogspot.com/2006/02/conflict-web.html
Yesterday I told you how to make Scene Frame on the fly, with an easy tool. Here's another prep tool to make scenarios full of conflict for your games. This is part brainstorming and part R-map.
How Big?
The first question is how big the conflict is going to be. "Big", not measured by the number of characters, but by the number of potential "sides" and subconflicts that might emerge. If you have armies of millions at war, but there's only 2 sides and no betrayals or secondary motivations- it's a very simple conflict (GI Joe). If you have 3 people with multiple motivations, betrayals and layers, it can be terribly messy (House of Flying Daggers).
You don't need to nail down an exact number of potential sides, but you want a good idea before you get to work, so that you don't end up making an intense multilayered George R.R. Martin level of conflict for a one-shot.
A magic number to go with is 3 sides. 3 sides is enough to make things interesting, but not so many people get confused. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#297http://designwave.co.za/disphere/
Welcome to "The Nemron 5 Mythology" (N5M for short) project. This page is dedicated to the development of the N5M game, a title proudly developed in South-Africa.
The N5M uses the DiSphere game system. The DiSphere Game system and the Nemron 5 Mythology world are both open source. Any documents containing the Creative Commons Licence are free to copy and use, as long as it's for non-commercial uses. Thats right, the core rules for the N5M game are free!
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The Nemron 5 Galaxy is quite old, and also quite advanced in many ways. Over Millions of years, the Galaxy has evolved and grown, and throughout the Galaxy, different races from different places, slowly found their way into the world of space travel and exploration. Eventually these races "Found" each other, and thus a Galactic Community started forming. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#298http://www.wanderersguild.com/
Couldn't find a description and don't have time to write one. Check it out! -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#299Plots...for the love of...
http://www.angelfire.com/nc/tcrpress/plots1.html
This site is designed to help novel, short story, movie, television, play, and video game writers develop new plot ideas. Over 2000 scenarios ranging from the normal to the bizarre are provided as a spark for the imagination. Some plots are sitcom cliches (that might deserve a new twist) while others are unusual happenings gleaned from the world of news and a few odd minds. Other story ideas are subtle suggestions that could be taken several ways - according to your mood or whim at the moment. Some others are everyday situations given an interesting wrinkle. Take a look for yourself.
And since this site will always be a work-in-progress check back for updates. And send us your additions to share with other writers.... -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#300http://www.ropecon.fi/brap/
Beyond Role and Play
Tools, Toys and Theory for Harnessing the Imagination
The Electronic Edition
The book for Solmukohta 2004. Edited by Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros, foreword by Frans Mäyrä.
Beyond Role and Play is a collection of articles by researchers and role-playing game enthusiasts from seven countries, made for the Nordic role-playing convention Solmukohta 04. The book offers practical tools, analytical viewpoints, inspirational game reviews and fresh methodological ideas for all who take role-playing seriously. The book covers both tabletop and live-action role-playing as an artform, a political tool, an educational method and as great entertainment.
As Beyond Role and Play is now out of print, the book is published in the Internet for free, as a courtesy of the authors, the editors and Ropecon ry.
The theory section consists of articles that are mostly of interest to researchers, practice includes tried and true tools for both game designers and players. Games holds descriptive reviews of coompleted projects and analyses of a number of Nordic larps, and finally openings provokes with radical new ideas that are of equal interest to both researchers and game masters. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#301wikipedia is our friend
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Role-playing_games
*sic*
A role-playing game (RPG) is a type of game in which players assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create narratives. Gameplay progresses according to a predetermined system of rules and guidelines, within which players may improvise freely. Player choices shape the direction and outcome of role-playing games.
Role-playing games are typically more collaborative and social than competitive. A typical role-playing game unites its participants into a single team that adventures as a group. A role-playing game rarely has winners or losers. This makes role-playing games fundamentally different from board games, card games, sports and most other types of games. Like novels or films, role-playing games appeal because they engage the imagination.
-
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#302Hey, there's even a reference to us on one page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bag_of_holding
Too bad the link is broken... :( -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#303Update: It's a working link now, and even jumps to the correct comment.
Moon's used as a citation on the Organetto on a Wiki article. Organetto. Also we're cited on something I didn't even know was on the site, a massive collection of netbooks. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#304
Moon's used as a citation on the Organetto on a Wiki article. Organetto.
Holy Crap! These people are desperate for references. Someone read our information here and decided to put it in as a stub! WOW! I added the original reference that I got my information from. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#305http://www.terraficta.net/
Welcome
terraficta is a set of Adobe Photoshop files designed to create digital maps of fictional locations for both print and screen. This site offers categorized files like templates, add-ons, patterns, and brushes as download. They are free for personal use.
Right up AG's alley I would wager. If only I had more time, I love making maps! -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#306http://www.uta.fi/~trmika/gameindex.html
Home of Powergame, a short, free indie game. The focus is on supers games, but can be used for pretty much anything, and gives examples of how to do so. Stresses fast and entertaining/dramatic gameplay over realism, which is fine with me. In addition to English, it's also available in Hebrew, French, and Brazilian Portuguese (I'm not sure why either). Has a couple of other things lying about that might be interesting.
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/freerpgs/
Mostly I'm interested in the list of Free indie RPGs, which thus far seems to be insanely organized and is sortable by keyword. I haven't looked at everything on this site yet, but it looks like there's also a *ton* of other stuff that could be useful- an encyclopedia of published RP books, and notes of all sorts. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#307http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm
The complete text of Machiavelli's The Prince, translated into English. Good to read as background for the construction of governments within a gameworld, particularly if it's a Renaissance setting, or you have a selection of small, fractured kingdoms. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#308I got the paperback and have been debating about a series of submissions using each of his lessons as a background. It is good stuff! -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#309http://www.constitution.org/liberlib.htm
Same site hosting The Prince, has a ton of resources about government in general, including Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#310Technically this one could be considered a 'gaming' link, but fie! It's interesting anyways!
http://forum.cartographersguild.com/
(Post moved around once I realized it belonged here.) -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#311Awesome linke!
Found this site through it which gives lots of cool photoshop tips with great youtube demos.
http://www.zombienirvana.com/ -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#312I thought so too. Actually, they've got some great Photoshop links and tips and whatnot, and not only for Photoshop. The GIMP, some vector-based programs, links everywhere (though most of it will focus on cartography stuff, like photoshopping your maps to look stained and weathered, etc.). In fact, they've also got some great links about medieval demographics and city construction in general. It'd be worth your while to check them out further, if for no other reason than to gain a better sense of 'realism' in how your campaigns/worlds/cities/towns/etc. are set up.
Got this one from Pariah: http://www.thecbg.org/news.php
Unfortunately, I'm not sure if it's somewhere farther down the listing in this thread, as I haven't had the time to read through it all. Still deserves a shout-out though. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#313http://www.unknown-armies.com/
kinda weird and kinda cool. :what: -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#314http://members.lycos.co.uk/officialrpguide/
One of the best guides I've ever found for play by post roleplaying. This was almost as good as holy writ for me a few years back.
Unfortunately, the Land of Mystics site itself is inactive, and has been for a while apparently. My last visit was something like 3 years ago, so I can't really say for sure...Great roleplaying while it lasted though. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#315http://www.treasuretables.org/
Treasure Tables (or just TT for short) brings together a community of intelligent, passionate GMs who are interested in improving their craft and discussing a wide range of game mastering topics.
- Over 800 system-neutral GMing posts in the archives, from full-length articles to quick blurbs. Need advice? You’ll find it here.
- Thousands of reader comments on those posts from fellow GMs, offering tips, ideas and different perspectives.
- Forums for GMing Q&A and game mastering discussion, with more than 650 members. Open to GMs of all skill levels.
- Free game mastering PDFs packed with advice, as well as free adventures written by fellow GMs.
- The RPG Glossary, which defines over 250 gaming terms.
- …and more, including ways to find players, links to useful GMing sites and a GMing wiki full of community resources. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#316http://www.tvtropes.org/
Good for grabbing ideas to use on your players. Such is the nature of tropes. -
Add to the Funny
#317Humor stuff to look at
http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/dir/humorous.html
This page is a summary link farm of other humerous entries. If you want to improve your comedic talents (as a GM or otherwise) go here. -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#318MOVED FROM MAIN SITE SUBMISSION>
The Spring Issue of Fantaseum, the Journal of the Creative Community Alliance has it all! A quality e-zine compiled by three RPG & fantasy sites - The Campaign Builders' Guild, The Cartographers' Guild, and PlotStorming - the journal features two RPG pieces to enrich your game (one mini-setting and a festival), one mapping tutorial, three pieces of fiction, four maps, and one unique monster. Everything a GM, gamer, or anyone who loves fantasy, should enjoy. Follow the link to download:
http://www.thecbg.org/downloads/FantaseumZine-Spring08.pdf
--Ishmayl -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#319http://www.writeups.org/index.html
This site contain the character writeups archives of the dcheroes mailing list - covering characters from comic books, movies, novels, TV serials, etc. All the current writeups use the DC Heroes system - which is also known as Blood of Heroes and MEGS (Mayfair's Exponential Game System). -
Re: Interesting Gaming Websites
#320Sort of a gaming website: move it if it fits somewhere else better.
http://pmog.com/
This unconventional massively multiplayer online game merges your web life with an alternate, hidden reality. The mundane takes on a layer of fantastic achievement. Player behavior generates characters and alliances, triggers interactions in the environment and earns the player points to spend online beefing up their inventory. Suddenly the Internet is not a series of untouchable exhibits, but rather a hackable, rewarding environment!
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Basically you browse the web and you can plant good and bad things on webpages using points you collect. When somebody else stumbles upon that same webpage where you set something they trigger whatever you left. Once you get enough points you can create quests and such too.