Friday Links for October 2, 2009

Hi all…

It’s time for another episode of the Friday Links! No, we’re not talking about golf here. We may however be talking about chain mail, perhaps a ball and chain, or just another link in the chain… Wow, it just gets worse from there.

Anyhow… Here’s the list of interesting links I found this week while perusing the ‘net…

Ben McFarland on the Dungeon Mastering Blog came up with some awesome ways to enhance villains in any campaign – just think of the flying monkeys!
http://www.dungeonmastering.com/campaigns-adventures/crashing-hill-giant-parties-and-other-fun-activities
Looking for treasure? Look no further than Badelaire’s Tankards and Broadswords blog with links to a real-life treasure hoard found in Starffordshire, England this past summer. There’s pictures, descriptions, and everything when you follow the links in the article.
http://tankardsandbroadswords.blogspot.com/2009/09/real-life-treasure-hoard.html
Ravyn at Exchange of Realities is suggesting that we sweat the small stuff for a while to encourage a mental change. Often as gamers – players and GMs alike – we lose track of the little things. Ravyn proposes a little exercise to help train a part of your head to look at things… differently. Change is good! Even if you don’t use this as a gamer, this sort of exercise is excellent for those of us who choose to write now and then.
http://exchangeofrealities.today.com/2009/09/25/mindset-exercise-learning-to-see/
The latest in a series of blog articles on “Building Better NPCs” was posted on the Evil Machinations blog this week… Here’s that one and the two prior to read up on making NPCs memorable.
http://www.rpggm.com/blog/2009/09/21/building-better-npcs-i-extras-walk-ons-bit-players-and-major-characters/
http://www.rpggm.com/blog/2009/09/23/building-better-npcs-ii-8-steps-to-memorable-npcs/
http://www.rpggm.com/blog/2009/09/25/building-better-npcs-iii-character-webs/
Continuing the NPC improvement theme this week, Ravyn says it’s time to get some better minions!
http://exchangeofrealities.today.com/2009/09/27/the-generic-villain-on-the-qualities-of-a-good-minion/
Every GM now and then has issues coming up with an original adventure idea… The Abstract XP blog suggests you ask yourself a few questions…
http://abstractxp.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/coming-up-with-original-adventure-ideas-part-2/
For anybody looking for a game, whether as a GM or player, The Free RPG Blog came up with an awesome list of resources to check out. I’m now using a couple of these to find a group here in Colorado Springs willing to let me torture them GM a campaign…
http://thefreerpgblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/free-resources-to-help-you-find-players.html
And finally, on RPG Centric, an article showing that our schools are not a wasteland devoid of roleplaying humor. How to support reading, creativity, and gaming in school… This is hard to ignore and impossible for me not to applaud!!
http://rpgcentric.com/when-rpgs-meets-theater-everybody-wins.html