The Internet Judges D&D Kids – Wrap-Up

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Jan

Some time ago I published an interview with D&D Kids author Uri Kurlianchik on this blog to find out more about what happened when his articles got removed from the homepage of WotC. In the meantime I tried to get some answers from “Kynn”. There is no proof that Kynn took part in the actions that led to the removal (except for writing a negative article about Uri’s “Girls at the table”), but frequently seems to be the cause of insults against Uri. My efforts were not successful. I didn’t get any answer, not even Kynn’s gender. My wishes for the interview got genetic to snotty answers and I was blamed of asking partial questions. I surely did ask somewhat brisky, but I think, I was not partial. If some of you like to check themselves (especially native speakers or better English speakers than I am), you can take a look at my questions. I’ll add them at the end of this article. Continue reading →

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[English] Stephen Michael Sechi (Talislanta)

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Greifenklaue

Welcome international readers. Bangrim interviewed Stephen Michael Sechi, the Designer of Talislanta, for our blog. For all readers who are interested in, here is the englisch original, the german translation you can find here. If you`re interested to read more from german blogs in english, look for the Blog collector Teutonic blogging.

How did you get in touch with the RPG community in the first place?

I started playing RPGs back around 1983 A younger cousin from Seattle kept pestering me to play this new game called DD. I was busy playing in a band and kept putting him off, until one day I finally gave in and tried it. I loved the game immediately, went out and bought the first DD hardcover books, and started pestering some of my friends to play. I soon began designing my own characters, creatures, etc, and after a couple of years I decided to try to start a game company with two friends. That was Bard Games. Continue reading →

Article source: http://greifenklaue.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/english-stephen-michael-sechi-talislanta/

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The Carnival is entering Germany

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Jan

For a multi-author blog a guest article may seem a bit strange, but today we have a post of Michael, who will not be posting regularly here. He will just have this one article. So enjoy our first guest article and know that we will not just be open for other authors to join in but also for single guest articles, if you like to post one. Just let me know in the comments.

Carnivals are common practice in the English-speaking blogsphere and they now also journey through the German rpg blogger scene. One of these last steps has been raising the idea of RSP-Karnveval (German: RPG-Carnival). It works essentially like the RPG-Carnival with slight differences. But before going into details let me first explain what bloggers talk about, when they say carnival. Continue reading →

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Pathfinder follows D&D towards WoW

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Jan

D&D 4 is WoW? More an MMO than a tabletop rpg? That’s over now. Pathfinder will be MMO. It will move up to D&D with its not very successful attempt D&D Online. Lisa Stevens, CEO of Paizo, has let the cat out of the bag yesterday on the Paizo blog: The work on a Pathfinder MMO – working title “Pathfinder Online” – has begun. Together with Ryan Dencey,  former Chief Marketing Officer of EVE Online, one of the biggest and most complex MMOs, and former member of the WotC team for D&D 3, Paizo, and Mark Kelmes, they have founded Goblinworks. Mark Kelmes will throw in his experience for the technical aspect of the game and Goblinworks will be the company to realize Pathfinder Online.

They already have done some artwork and are still searching for investors. But Lisa doesn’t want us to hear in rumors about the game and therefore not tells us upfront about it. The project comes with ambitious goals. It will be centered on the characters and their interactions. Uniting some villages to a great nation, waging war, becoming a world-famous blacksmith and much more will be possible. These are things we have heard about from other MMOs already, but Paizo is a company that comes from a different markets than Lucas Arts or Blizzard and therefore I believe that they will pursue the goal of a flexible open gaming world honestly. And who knows? The technical development is bringing new things to life all the time and other MMOs, like WoW, have moved towards a changing interactive world already. So maybe they’ll be able to realize this game in a way that achieves what the announcement says. Continue reading →

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The oldschool random priest and deity table

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Tarin

The German Original at „Der Goblinbau“

Who is that priest over there, lamenting about the gods, the forces and things to come? Just one of those guys that can be found in every street and every corner of the cities. Most of them fade away with their faiths, others may find believers and become powerful. And that guy is…

Roll a dice set for the priest:

W4: Title

  • 1 Father
  • 2 Prophet
  • 3 Guru
  • 4 Teacher

W6: Level

  • 1 – 4 Level 0
  • 5 Cleric Level 1
  • 6 Cleric Level 2

Continue reading →

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New teutonic blogger: Tarin

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Tarin

Hey out there!

I am new to this blog, so it seems appropriate to type a few words about me. I am a student of german studies and theology and – more important in this context – I am a roleplayer for about ten years or so. My main blog is called “Der Goblinbau”, where I write about fantasy rpg in different styles and genres. Actually, it’s mostly about Dungeonslayers (4. Edition, you find an older english version here) and oldschool gaming. The OSR and oldschool gaming in general are my main reasons to sign up at teutonic bloggers. Most people talking about those things don’t speak german and there is only a small community of oldschool gamers in Germany. There are some oldschool games available in german (Labyrinth Lord, Mutant Future is in progress), but anyway, most blogs, pages, zines and boards are english.

So, what can you expect from my articles? I will write the biggest part in german at my own blog. When I think of an article as interesting for you english-speakers out there, I will translate it and  load it up here at teutonic blogging. If there is some cool oldschool stuff to find in Germany, you will hear!

I will try to write as correct as I can, but english is not my native language and it is a big difference between reading and writing a text. I am sure you will be able to understand my words, but if you find a strange sounding line, just ignore it and replace it with something better sounding in your mind ;)

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The Light Fades From D&D 4 Online Tools

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Jan

WotC’s strategy concerning D&D 4 was subject to many discussions, few of them with a positive regard. The relaunch of the Character Builder and the Monster Builder using Microsoft Silverlight have also been subject to much criticism. Now it may be time for those people to say “I told you so.” I also joined that chorus. And now Mary-Jo Foley reports on ZDNet Microsoft may only be releasing one further version of Silverlight and that maybe only for the Internet Explorer.

Surely the current version will still be available using current Silverlight players, but there will be a point in the future, when the last bugfix to patch a security issue and the last new feature has been released. And WotC sooner or later has to move away from Silverlight. Up to today the online CB has matured to a quite usable but not perfect tool (armor bonuses were recently broken, but else it’s working good), but eventually they have to start all over again. Continue reading →

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Critical Hit on Your Stomach

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Jan
Chocolate dice by chocolatesbyariel.com

Chocolate dice by chocolatesbyariel.com

Today I found an article on the German rpg news blog “Rollenspiel-Almanach” about some really cool gadget: chocolate dice. Ariel Segall hat achieved what every snack loving rpg nerd dreams of. She make real rpg dice from chocolate. From d4 to d100 including the famous d20 every single die can be made eatable and even custom-colored. I don’t know how they behave statistically, but I immediately though of systems like FATE, Savage worlds and d20 modern, where you can hand you “boons” to your players allowing them to narrate certain facts, reroll dice and – that’s what d20 modern does – rolling bonus dice of a fixed type (d6). It would be totally cool to have those bonus dice a eatable ones. Hand one out the player and once he rolled it, he can eat it. You just don’t want to become to hungry. Awesome stuff!

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PiCast — SPIEL 2011 — Matt Machell

Posted on November 2, 2011 by PiHalbe

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Here comes the third of a series of four interviews I did on my visist to the SPIEL 2011 in Essen. All of these shows will be in English (since the Germans managed to evade my microphones). I hope, you can cope with my teutonic English for the sake of the interviewees.

This interview is with Matt Machell who also shared a booth with Arkenstone Publishing. Matt is a British game designer, publishing small games with a British flavor.

We talk about the reception of his games at the SPIEL, his three games published so far (Covenant, Pulp! and the new, revised The Agency) and some minor topics.

As always, feel free to leave comments (if it’s not about my bad English …) and stay tuned for the final interview. Cheers!

Ogg Vorbis · MP3 ·  PiCast · Feed

Article source: http://pihalbe.org/audio/2011-11-01-picast-%E2%80%94-spiel-2011-%E2%80%94-matt-machell-823

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PiCast — SPIEL 2011 — Arkenstone Publishing

Posted on October 31, 2011 by PiHalbe

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Hey, everybody. Here comes the second of a series of four interviews I did on my visist to the SPIEL 2011 in Essen. All of these shows will be in English (since the Germans managed to evade my microphones, somehow). I hope, you can cope with my teutonic English for the sake of the interviewees.

Again, I am sorry for the discrepancy between desired and realized publishing date. On the up side, I think my new mobile recording setup really did its job well so that the interviews should have a far better audio quality than last year.

This second interview is with Eero Tuovinen from Arkenstone Publishing. His company distributes indie and OSR games in Finland and also publishes his own games and translations of indie games. It has been Arkenstone’s third attendance to the SPIEL and they might just be coming again next year.

We talk about how indie and OSR games are received at the SPIEL, Eero’s efforts to spread the word, news from the Forge-scene and some new, recommended games Eero has with him among other things.

I hope you like it! Feel free to leave comments and feedback, and stay tuned for two more upcoming episodes. Hope to read from you!

Oh, and if you like what you heard, feel free to click those flattr buttons to retrocactively fund my recording equipment.

Ogg Vorbis · MP3 ·  PiCast · Feed

Article source: http://pihalbe.org/audio/2011-10-31-picast-%E2%80%94-spiel-2011-%E2%80%94-arkenstone-publishing-813

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