Welcome, welcome to the first Saving Throw of 2006! With the new year comes a somewhat redesigned format intended to better emphasized the submitted content, especially guides, adventures, and reviews, which were more difficult to find before. The timing works well since this Saving Throw has two guides and only one hall of fame entry. As you'll see, the featured hall of fame story no longer has its full text posted in the column itself, but it still gets a more prominent link than the other content. This redesign also makes for some minor changes to the Submission Guidelines, as blurbs and teasers are no longer used.
Eggman gives us this week's featured story where three mages visit a island where magic doesn't work. Beaudoin comes back with his first guide describing seven ways to be a bad roleplayer. Finally, I give you the next guide on my series on diceless adventures; in this installment, I talk about character creation.
And now, I invited Falor from our role-playing forum to say a few words here:
Forum RPG: A type of role playing game which uses either an agreed apon set of rules (i.e. D20, World Of Darkness, etc...) or roleplaying based actions where description determines action (i.e. Player 1 does this, Player 2 reacts with this.) A gamemaster is required to moderate both, providing impartial opinion to determine sucess or failure of a given action. Games are conducted on a post-by-post basis, which means all personas involved in a particular scene should all have equal chance to respond to a particular event (i.e. wait till all others post before posting again.)
Now that that's out of the way, I have volunteered myself to be the first gamemaster for the RPGamer.com forum RPG. This is a fantasy based game and is open to all forum users. At the present state, the game is open roleplaying. Just make a personality and play it. No character sheet or background is required (though it is optional).
The game world is called Anadeal, a once prosperous realm which is now caught in a losing war against evil. Some source stories are linked in the forum thread and availible for reading. Additional world information will be provided based on player response and necessity.
Feel free to come by the forum roleplaying section and roleplay away. I find that forum roleplaying is a good way to pass time, have fun, and zone out when necessary. The door is open, just come on in.
At any rate, this is just freestyle roleplaying, meaning that you don't need to know any roleplaying system to join in on Falor's game. The game starts here. If any other gamemasters wish to start up a forum game, the section itself is here.
With that, it's time to move onto the column!
Gaming Tip of the Week
"If you should decide to play a druid in Dungeons and Dragons, Second Edition, do remember that druids can cast spells."
Eggman delivers a brief story from a Dungeons and Dragons, Second Edition adventure where three high-level mages visit a island where magic does not work. Normally, this would be quite the challenge, but a little ingenuity saved the day.
Tournaments are being held in many areas worldwide, including North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America, on January 21 and 22, 2006 to promote the release of Guildpact card set for the Magic: The Gathering trading card game. Those who enter will receive one Ravnica: City of Guilds Tournament Pack and three Guildpact boosters. The main tournament will be a modified Swiss-style structure, while many side tournaments consisting of single-elimination rounds will be offered throughout the day. Some locations may also be offering three-person team and two-person Two Headed Giant formats.
Entry fees for participants and prizes for the tournaments winners are determined by local tournament organizers. More information is available here.
And so it ends. . .
Wondering about the tip of the week? Well, I have a friend who forgot that druids could cast spells. Yes, really. I couldn't believe it either, since he'd been playing Dungeons and Dragons far longer than I ever had.
Well, I finally got some gaming in this weekend. Unfortunately, it was a lot of dice-rolling rather than much roleplaying, so it wasn't quite worth the nasty cold, or whatever it was, one of my friends gave me. I mean, that illness basically incapacitated me the next day. Fortunately, I'm feeling better now, but I at least wish this adventure had been more than just basically a lot of fighting against ogres (hence the name of the column). It might have been worth it, then.
Anyway, please feel free to share your opinions on the new format. I'll be back next week with yet another edition of the Saving Throw.