100 thoughts & observations on RPG's, The RPG Community, and other musings.

Here are 100 random thoughts on RPG's The industry of RPG's and a whole bunch of other stuff.

As if anyone asked ...no-one did.

I know it's excessive..

No explanations for these. They are just statements written as I thought them. 

There will be a wagon load of links to things I find interesting in this post, please use them.

Go to the comment section to discuss accordingly.
(BONUS: Can also be used as a handy D100 "Why is Mark an A-hole" chart!)
There will be no secrets after this  Alice.
Tl;DR

1. $4,402,267 this is Hasbro's 2013 year end total assets as shown in their 2013 year end statement found here 
2. Q3 2014 report states 243 million net income for  Hasbro. Also found here.
3. Out of both documents Magic The Gathering is mentioned once and shown pictorially twice.  Dungeons and dragons in not mentioned at all that I could find in my quick view CTRL-F. Nerf guns, ponies, transformer movies, comics movies in general, and a working relationship with Disney involving Frozen understandably get way more play. Not sure why this matters to me, take from it what you  want. (Hey Wizards hurry up and make some cool stuff. The boss aint looking.)
4. Old school games, Indy games, and story games, are all games we should stop acting like they are more than games.
5. Self publishing has gone form cottage industry to industry industry in the past 5 years. This is good and bad. This article is from 2013 but still relevant.
6. I am ignorant of what goes into actual game development, the  more I learn the less I seem to know. 
7. I have not used anything but the basic players rules PDF for developing and playing my 5th  edition fighter. I own the  players handbook and have only opened it twice. What does this say  about 5th Ed? Here is a direct link to the PDF (Warning this will start downloading said PDF)
8. On a similar note the  last time I touched my 5th ed GM's hand book was when I wrote this.
   I have not  touched it since. Not sure what this means in terms of the game. Is 5th ed so accessible and easy that I don't need the books? Am I getting more closed minded as I get older and really don't have the  patients for rules reading? Is just not that good? 
9. With all the great blogs out there. (Charles Akins lists many of them in his "Great Blog Roll Call.")  Why  hasn't anyone communicated with some of these talented blog authors and started compiling the good articles into a "blog-zine" for sale on lulu or something? 72 pages of game ready material. With all the stuff on the net a motivated person could  put out one issue a month. It's a good idea that I could never pull off, but there are better people out there more suited to it than I am .
10. In fact why don't bloggers work together more often? I did a post with three guest writers once and it was great.
11. I think the arguments about sexism and the projection of racial stereotypes into role playing games are bunk. Considering the GM and Players have 100% control over the content of their games, I will be hard pressed to change that opinion. 
    Read this Blog it's exceptional, and  has a well stated opinion on this issue that is the opposite of mine. And here is another, this time about sexism, and while I'm at it here s yet another Post on the topic..
12. Current RPG "Zines" are better than Dragon was especially at the end when dragon magazine got all sad and uninspiring. Here is a list of some of them. Another link, to the  RPG Zines Google Plus community.  Do people still use the term "zine." Am I dating myself?
13. Most of Frank Zappa's discography is in some way game-able, "Civilization Phase III" more so than average.
14. Sometimes when I whine about a game system, I'm just being a dick because I didn't think of  it first. Truth.
15. I think this whole community would be better served if the idea, "Simply because I don't like something  does not mean it is the suck,"  were to become more prevalent. For example I don't much care for or about D&D 4th edition. That does not mean it's a bad game. In-fact it's quite the opposite, its a great game that's not to my taste. How hard is that?
16. The internet lets people record, break down, and obsessively examine anything. Sometimes things just are what they are.
17. I would say the balance between  "I want to play a role playing game" Vs "I just want to enjoy time with my friends regardless of what we're doing," Has hit about 30 - 70.
18. Why is Nathan D. Paoletta the only person out there taking a serious shot at a wrestling game? It seems like a slam dunk for role playing. ..1..2..3.. I backed that sucker and I'm looking forward to it...OHHH YEAHHH!
19. Some Day I will write an "Are You Being Served?" Role playing game and you will all hate it...until the Black Adder expansion, then you will all come back. All kidding aside, why not character driven comedy in an RPG? Not Paranoia gonzo stuff, but more like Fawlty Towers. Doing that kind of  humor and dialog on the fly would be damn challenging right?  Or even stage it like a caper as in "A Fish Called Wanda?" Oh yeah  never mind, not Metal Enough. Everything has to be Metal as fuck or it isn't worth anyone's time. 
20. Frog God Games makes some awesome stuff. Nuff said.
21. One of the best places I know to find RPG source books is the bargain table at Barnes and Noble. "Harper's Past Worlds Atlas of Archaeology" Got it dead cheap and it's full of useful info and great images, Hogarth the complete engravings, yeah like five bucks hard cover, full of images that are just great. Chancellor Press "World Atlas of Architecture?" yes please. A book on Chinese full of kick ass landscapes and demons, sure I'll take that for 7 bucks.. and so on. 
22. Players have this tendency to think their characters should be bad ass, because they imagine them as bad ass. In fact they expect the characters to be bad ass. I wonder how much of that thinking informs games like D&D 4th edition, Dungeon World and Numenera in which the characters start out pretty bad ass and just get more so form there on. It makes games like   Basic D&D or DCC in which the characters start weaker or watered down harder to sell to some players. Is this actually a mechanics difference or an aesthetics difference? Both? Why is it that in my experience the more recent the game the powerful the starting characters?
23. As a GM I  improvise allot of stuff, which makes it hard to use traps without feeling like I am punishing the players. It's one thing to stumble on a trap it's another thing for me to just decide this particular door is trapped. How do I fix that? 
    I roll 1d10 when ever a character comes to a possible trapped object if the roll is a 10 it's trapped and I take it from there. So yes, before you point it out 10% of my world can arbitrarily kill your character.
24. Jack Chicks "Dark Dungeons" did more to make me want to play D&D than it ever did to make me not want to play  D&D. Further more that's a diverse table he drew all those years ago. Female GM plenty of girl players..They all seem to be having a good time, except for Marcie, she's fuckin dead. 
25. I can't figure out why people like Drake.... 
26. My favorite RPG characters of all time  was produced with our house rules game "Phase Abandon."  His name was Muhadin and he was a huge Arabic, Muslim, freed-slave, warrior who wanted nothing more than to buy land and settle down to raise animals, except he had some unfinished family business to deal with. This all ended up with him freeing slaves, punching all of the things, chopping wood, and eventually german suplexing his twin brother off a sand skiff. Long story short he was awesome. Hooray for RPG's!
27. I can't stand power creep. I think that if a group can play a game with just the core books do it. Want to play TORG? Never use anything but what came in the original box and the group will be fine. So many games go to hell in a hand basket when the publishers start piling on splat book after splat book. I feel it often times dilutes what was originally good about a game.
28. If the players in our group are in combat and one of them says, "I'll hit it with my sword, again." I feel like I am failing as a GM.
29. Shaking your dice for way to long is the  Role playing hobby equivalent of a slow player in golf.
30. Tracking arrows, oil, torches, rations and all that jazz is something that gets streamlined from the  vast majority of games I have ever played in or run. Why don't more games come up with a streamlined way to handle resources? In our games of AAIE for example, a bundle of torches will get the  party through the game, as long as nothing destroys them. Simple. If the party wants to rest they need rations, also simple. 
    I hear Torchbearer does a good job of this sort of thing but I have not read it. Yet
31. I love giant robots and Sci-fi but have never had the opportunity to run a sci-fi game. If I ever do get the chance I think I will use the original "Star Frontiers" solely because of the red-head in fringed boots on the cover.
32. Man this Ragnarok is a pretty game. If you are wondering I will totally buy a game book based purely on how damn pretty it is. (update: I bought it)
33. Back in October of  2013 I wrote a post called "Rewards There Can be Only One" In which I  lay out that the only reward that matters the table during a role playing game is creative input in one form or another. Experience? It's only a reward when used as a route to getting more cool things to do in the course of the story. (Kewl skillz N' Powerrz.) It's one of my favorite posts and I still stand by it today. 
34. The Golden Voyage of Sinbad is way more D&D to me than  The Lord OF the Rings or the Hobbit movies. I think it's because that's what I watched as a kid. Looking at it from a game perspective The pacing is like a D&D game, and the Ray Harryhausen stop motion monsters have a kind of D&D aesthetic that for me modern CGI just misses. See also, "7th Voyage of Sinbad," "Thief Of Damascus," "Son of Sinbad," Sinbad and the  Eye of the Tiger," and  throw in "Jason and the Argonauts" for good measure.
35. The last Gasp Choose your Own Generator Page is amazing, fun, and awesome, and seventeen   other positive expletives. I'm sure I could whip up a D20 table of them. Long story short it is web widget that allows you to create, use and save random lists that you can pull random results from. There is a growing library of  random generators other people have made making it a great resource. While I am on the  subject of great resources check out The Links to Wisdom, for OSR house rules, spells, monsters, blogs, and  other quality role playing game stuff.
36. Why is Blood Bowl still played today even though it's a flawed game?  How did Dread Ball do so well during their kick starter? Why is Elf Ball even a thing? Let me tell you why. Writing a legit sports board game is HARD! 
    Given that, the fantasy sports board games that are somewhat acceptable have developed followings. Over the years I have tried several times to write a table top game based on Basketball and it has just never stuck. Sports things are hard things to emulate. Even though I have come up empty several times the idea still creeps into my mind from time to time. 
37. Low hanging fruit post number 1: Palladium and Games Workshop should go into business together to plan a line of 17 overpriced books. This line would including one 500 page core book and 16 splat books to cover things that were not in the core book. None of this line will ever be completed. 
38. Yes observation / statement 37 is a cheap shot at two companies I'm not really impressed with. In the name of inter-web Karma I will say this Kevin Siembieda (Boring Wikipedia link because it was hard to find any one being  halfway civil about the guy anywhere else.) has been put through the ringer by the game industry and the internet hate machine as often and as badly as anyone in the game industry I can think of. Even if he deserves if the fact he is still at it  at all amazes me. I just wish he would bring his views of intellectual property more into line with the current times. There is allot of good stuff to play with in the  Palladium back log, and the only thing anyone will ever get for supporting them is a cease and desist notice. 
    I still have nothing positive to say about Games Workshop.
39. An article "Patent Absurdity..." Mostly about Patent vs Copy-write as it applies to game mechanics. A Good read.
40. I  kind of wince at the idea of "can I port this setting to this system or is it allot of work?"  Just use the setting. I know that sounds trite but if a GM wants to play Shadow Run using the first edition rules from tunnels and trolls, they can. Just take it one game at a time and situation to situation. Hit rolls are hit rolls. I know this entry sounds trite and dismissive, but I think allot of people have great ideas then get analysis paralysis before they ever try. (myself included.)
41. I have my best game ideas in the shower and while shoveling snow.  Mowing the lawn not so much, not sure why.
42. Mentioning the  Lord of the  rings on the internet is risky, there's always someone who knows more about it and they are more than eager to share that tid-bit, and point out your ignorance. Then again  if it were not for internet experts I would never have known Aragorn's left nipple is made of  the finest alabaster.
43. Two people have messaged me that they read my AAIE game. Which coincidentally is exactly enough to keep me working on it.
44. I have read  posts about how Dungeons don't make any sense, how to make your dungeon make sense, and various variations on that theme. Heck I even wrote one. I have grown to feel that Dungeons are one of those RPG tropes that just exist and defy explanation. Why ask how the orcs in the caves eat, where do they put their waste, and how the hell did that dragon egg get down there? Is that a spaceship? Don't worry about it, just keep exploring. Very few things are as tempting and enjoyable for players as a good dungeon, I have finally embraced that.
45. I don't have to "like" someone to enjoy their creative works. In "like" I mean would  I want to sit and talk with this person in person?  I don't have to answer yes to be able to enjoy someones  blog, or their games, or their ideas. Everyone works with or have worked with someone about whom they say, "That guy / girl is an asshole but they are damn good at their job." That's exactly how I see the internet.
46. Charisma includes how good looking a character is, unless you use comeliness, and we should use comeliness. It matters.
47. Echo chambers are horrible things. Even the smartest person can loose the perspective of everything outside the echo chamber. If for example I immerse myself in a community that only talks about D&D naturally it will appear the D&D is the only thing going.  I try to avoid that and get out and read / play as many games as I can. I don't always like the games, but at least I'm not ignorant of what's out there.
48. Play D&D 5th. give every one at your table 100 points, have them secretly distribute  the points among the attributes then hand their character sheets to the gm.
    for each attribute give the person who dedicated the most points to the attribute and 18, the second place player a 15 the third place player a 12 and any one else a 9.
    in the case of ties make a call based on the character, give the  second place character one point lower.
    Do that for all the characters all the attributes. 
    Write it all down.
    Give back the character sheets with the attributes blank.
    If a character with a higher attribute fails an attribute check, no character with the same attribute at a lower value will be able to succeed.
    Play.
49. Random Charts are all fine and dandy for prep. I enjoy random charts as a way to kick start my creativity while I am working on an adventure. However I dislike referencing too many of them in the middle of the game. Roll ahead!
50. Play any D&D:  Xp is earned as per normal methods.
    Make a list of characters possible level benefits. (might be easiest with 5th ed considering it hasn't bloated yet.)
    Give each benefit a price in XP.
    Give the players opportunities to spend XP after each game on improvements to their characters, their equipment and their environment.
    Eliminate levels.
    The game will end up with spell slinging dwarf priest thieves.. but who cares? (see 51.)
51. The greatest single balancing agent in any game is the GM.  In that even if a particular class becomes what is considered out of balance, the game master can adjust. It's the thing that separates RPG's from Computer RPG's. 
52. I'm going to buy an Oculus rift and just disappear into it ... 
53. If I were going to re-write the monster manual every entry would include 12 rumors and myths about each creature in the  form of a D12 Chart. Sort of like I did with  my joke monster the  "Slug Goblin"
54. D&D characters should die of exposure far more often than they do, but what fun would that be? 
    "Here lies Brave Sir Geoffrey, died shivering in these caves, bravely."
55.  I think it's important to not wed myself too strongly to any given system. I will pick an RPG game system simply because it's something all the players in the current group will or want to play. For example There is a player I play with  that really is tired of all the D&D systems editions and variants. I'm not going to  ask him to swallow a nasty pill and Play a game he would prefer not to. I would rather just run Dungeon World, because I know everyone in the group digs it, including him. Players are a valuable commodity, the last thing I want to loose one to is my own stubbornness / habits / pride.
56. Games like Rifts, The strange, TORG, Even GURPS with all of it's splat books cast too wide a net for me as a GM. I prefer to focus on one genre at a time. In a game like "The Strange," a group could create characters and play forever in one recursion however that would sort of be missing the  point. It's a matter of taste.
57. I am not the best writer in the world (SURPRISE!) So this might be a me problem and not a them problem. I get crazy when someone interprets something I write in an unintended manner then when I try to explain  what I meant, accuses me of  back pedaling. 
    No, incorrect. I am simply restating my point so I can be better understood, because I probably fucked it up the first time. The internet being what it is apparently there are people who know what I mean to say better than I do. (Number 57 not game related)
58. Magic users in D&D 5th ed are crazy good at low levels. 
    Here is a thought  "May cast a number of cantrips per day equal to their intelligence + proficiency bonus." 
    Wait! I hear it!
     "A Fighter can swing her sword for  2D6 damage every round forever! What gives! That's not fair to the wizard! wahhhhh!" 
    Magic is special, its harder than swinging a sword, the wizard should suck at low levels because they will be the setting power brokers latter on. Pay now crush your enemies latter. Plus 90% of the characters out there would still end up with  like 20 cantrips a day. Not enough?
59. While I am on D&D 5th edition house rules. Why not just make passive checks equal to the  characters attribute?  Ohh the  number might jump from 15 to 18? Big deal. That said, I like the passive check rules, I feel like it's a good mechanic for something GM's have been doing for years anyway.
60. Shocking grasp definitely conducts through iron poles, puddles, and chains.
61. I prefer campaigns over one shots, because I like a continuing story. With that in mind my own game AAIE is geared pretty much exclusively towards one shots... it confuses me too.
62. G+ is just about the best thing to happen to gaming in the past 10 years. The communities structure, hang outs, hangouts air, integration with roll 20, it all seems a custom fit to the rpg hobby. I admit G+ reinvigorated my interest in the hobby, kicked this blog into motion, and renewed my desire to write games.
63. This is my most ridiculous self indulgent, masturbatory post to date. Just so you know that I know. 
64. There is a tendency in some game design to put in  "bread Crumb" mechanics. 
    IE: Your character hates the security guards in your building , so any time you do something  shitty and passive aggressive towards them you get +1 on the die roll!"
    Some Players / designers like this sort of thing, others don't.
    I have used it myself Phase Abandon's  (the best game you've never played) System of guiding principles (players get bonuses for abiding by the characters principles and take penalties when you they don't.) is exactly a bread crumb mechanic.
    What gets millage for me is a  bread-crumb mechanic that fades into the background while still rewarding the players for doing cool things with their characters. Having characters work towards their own individual story based goals, and  rewarding XP for highlights at the end of the game are both examples.
65. I like a good drink while I play, usually Bourbon. This is the worst idea ever for a GM and I strongly advise against it. 
66. I enjoy "story games." I enjoy that people are thinking about RPG games in ways that are different than the Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror tropes. There is a segment of the Gaming community that would  have others believe that creating games that do not embrace traditional RPG forms and subjects is a bad thing. I'm not down with that. I play D&D 2nd edition and now some 5th edition, so that's what I write about around here allot of the time. That does not mean I think the gaming pallet should end at D&D and it's derivatives.
67. I enjoy "Old school games." I enjoy that people are thinking about classic RPG games in ways that shed new light on the Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror tropes. There is a segment of the Gaming community that would have others believe that creating games that continue to embrace traditional RPG forms and subjects is a bad thing. I'm not down with that. I write my own games, so that's what I write about around here allot of the time. That does not mean I think the gaming pallet should not include  D&D and it's derivatives.
68. Gnolls are thralls of werewolves. Created when a werewolf feeds a small amount of it's own blood to a common wolf. Once there are enough Gnolls they can reproduce among themselves and do so at a high rate. When gnolls are raiding the borders of our land, it's a safe to say that something darker still is lurking in the mountains.
69. None of us are all that important in the grand scheme of the game business. The vast majority of the people in this hobby are not us, they're not here. They go on playing  whatever game they enjoy without the need to be enlightened by our thoughts. 
70. Have you ever read The Tao of D&D? Say what you will about the blogs author, he can be acerbic at times even hard to read when he really decides to go after a person or group. At the end of the day however, I wish I could catch just smidgen of his drive and dedication when it comes to world building. "Stand Up And Take Your Dissonance Like A Man!" After the dissonance there is good stuff to be found.
71. Many times caves exist in the vertical plane as much or more than they do in the  horizontal. Most RPG's that deal with dungeons and caves as locations for adventure give little service to the amount of climbing and descending  actual spelunking involves. We should change that.
72. I will never buy another Monster manual.
73. To save myself some time when I'm DMing most of my enemies have max hit points. If there is a group of seven 1HD orcs I just assume they are all warrior types and have 8 hp's each. I know that's lame, but over the years I have never heard any complaint that my "Orcs are just too darn rugged!"  I can always adjust or randomize enemy AC to make them take hits more often. I find it easier to justify differences in equipment than I can a scrawny 1 hp orc running around in a battle.
74. Related to the above post: Sometimes I will have "mook" monsters who all have 1 hit point, they are there as descriptive fodder. Some Gm's would rail against that. I look at it this way, sometimes the fighter needs to plow through a few mooks before she gets to a real baddie it makes that real bad look  "badder."
75. (Low Hanging fruit number 2:) One of the biggest things that kills campaign play is not being able to play often enough. I would rather have a short weekly or bi-weekly online session instead of waiting for months to get the group together. It's so difficult to get a games momentum back when no one remembers what the hell they were doing, where their notes are, or who the NPC's are.
76. I haven't found a random dungeon generator for paper and pencil that really does it for me. I was even working on a die drop random dungeon maker of my own and I still haven't come up with anything that grabs me. If anyone out there knows of a great random dungeon system please let me know.
77. For the record one of my favorite online dungeon generators is Dave's Mapper.
78. Whenever someone plays a bard my inner eye pictures their character dressed like Russel Westbrook.
79. I went to a place this morning that charges $10 bucks for two pancakes. When I got them I felt exactly the same way I did when I saw the  paper and print quality of the Dungeon-world book. I like the game but boy does that book need a re-issue.
80. I have not been on RPG.net in years. Even when I did read there I was never much of an active poster. For this post I went there and read a few forum posts, browsed the forum sections, and thought for a few seconds about pimping my blog there. I had to consider there are thousands of  viewers on RPG net who for better or worse have never heard of this blog.  I decided against it.
81. I own a core rule book from the game Exalted (I think it's second edition but I don't care that much.) It's just a mish- mash of impenetrable setting and sloppy mechanics. I'm not going to hammer on the game but whenever I see someone on the web spouting off about their deep understanding of some games obscure lore, I think of Exalted and why I never even thought about playing it.
82. I still love Deluxe Car Wars.. Does that make me a bad person? The game has so much old school style, is still fun to play, and an  turn 15 seconds of game time  into a full day of gaming. Rock this bitch like it's 1986.
83. One of the most channeling things is creating a game system that supports the details of a setting. Not including universal systems, many systems fall into the categories of catch all systems like D&D,  a fantasy rpg that can be used to run any kind of fantasy. There are games like Shadowrun, exalted, or  Eclipse Phase which are detailed settings with systems dropped over the top. Then there are those rare games like Ragnarok or even some of those early vampire games, where you can't see the system ever working for any other setting. It has never been one of my design goals to marry system and setting that strongly . I find it an intimidating goal. 
84. I think the band GWAR rather than KISS should be recognized as the reason hundreds of bands have decided it makes them more interesting if they dress like morons.
85. So I'm wondering, to what advantage would it be for one of the bigger publishers to troll (in a fishing sense) the blogosphere, find awesome stuff, contact the authors, and somehow aggregate it back to a central site? Not everyone is going to post ideas on some companies "community creations" forum. It might be worth while for a company to be active in seeking out  the creative folks who back their game. How cool would it be to  have a WotC 5th edition "best of the web" site to visit? Just spit-balling. 2015.
86. For me RPG's are all about telling stories. When the group I game with and I talk about past games it goes like this. "Remember that time Rik was fighting Meylvin in his office and Rik threw his knife into the frick'n door's lock to stop Meylvin's escape?"
    The conversation is not:
    "Remember when you made a stupid hard roll to interrupt that NPC's action!"
    We remember the stories and the moments, not the mechanics.
87. It's too simple to make all bandits misguided highwaymen. I am guilty of this. Most of the time if I am running a game and I use a bandit ambush as part of the  game, those bandits are going to be of the cannon fodder variety. I need to work some devious skilled as hell bandits into my game.
88. This post will not make best reads of the week...but I'm glad best reads of the week is back!
89. Correction: Forget entry 41. There are absolutely no positive effects from shoveling snow.
90. 5thEd (insert name of fighting style here "speed archery?") Say after a successful attack with a short bow, any further attacks on the same target are rolled at advantage, until the target takes cover. Based on this
91. I was reading  an old " Star Frontiers book the other night and started wondering why have  percentage based systems (ie D100) fallen out of vogue? It seems there are many possibilities there for manipulating the chance and action is going to succeed in a very direct way. It almost makes more complicated die mechanics seem like unnecessary trickery.
92. I have three games in my Google drive right now that I am working on. "Nova 74," a game of 1970's cinematic America. "Loot Box A Go Go"  A shoot and loot table top game. and "A town Called Murder" which a real RPG set in the world of my AAIE game. If that makes any sense at all?  Not sure if I will ever finish any of them, but it's good to know I can open my G drive and  just hack away at ideas when I feel the urge.
93. Looked at the shelf next to my desk this morning.
    D&D 5th ed PHB and GM's Guide,
    Sorcerer
    A Red and Pleasant Land
    Ragnarock
    Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 
    DCC
    Numenera
    Dungeon World soft cover.
    Tome of Adventure Design
    I'll bet many of us have similar stacks of books near their desks or on book shelves. I mean seemingly random disparate RPG products form all over here and there. One of best things about our hobby is all the different ways it can be approached and how darn pretty some of the books are.
94. It's ideal to have a good brick and mortar store nearby. My store of choice is  Zombie Planet (I don't think any one is  doing much with their website..) in Albany N.Y. While it is not technically close to my house, I'm in Albany often enough that I can visit the store a few times a year. I wish it were closer so I could take part in game days and that sort of thing, I think I would. 
95. This one is tough, and hard to put into words. The web can be exert a deceptively strong influence over how people view things. When I first started getting into G+ groups I had never heard of  the OSR or anything like it. I knew I like old games, because I was there I played them for the most part when they were new games. Once I started reading more widely on  G+ and looking more deeply into the blog scene, I started to get more into the idea of  running, writing, and playing more old school games. I was reading almost exclusively  Old school gaming blogs, because I could relate to them , I enjoyed them, I still do. 
    Here's the hitch, that's not what I do. I don't write story games or OSR games or anything like that. I write what I like, and I write things I think the people I game with will dig.
    In all walks of life the inherent danger of surrounding  one's self with only one thing is a person could start to think that one thing is the only thing. It's never the only thing.
96. 5th ed DM's guide has 64 pages of  "normal" magic items (pages 150 to 214)
    • Take your DMG and some  page markers, Mark each magic item page and number each label 1 to 64.
    • Roll 1d6  and 1d10 read them % die style (d6 as the tens place and  the d10 as the ones place.) If you roll over 64 roll again.
    • Find the  page you rolled.
    • Count the number of  items on that page, for example Page 206 has four complete items on the page. Roll a random item from the page. (I rolled "Sword of life stealing.")
    • Do the  last step again to find a second item, ( I got page 194 "Robe of stars.")
    • Mash those items together.
    Robe of  The Vengeful Night:

    
    

    (Wondrous item,  Very rare, Requires Attunement, whatever the hell that means) 

    This black or dark blue robe provides is embroidered with  five silver stars. 

    Once a day the  wearer may spend an action to travel with all he or she is carrying to the astral plane where they may move freely until they spend an action to return. The will return to the same place the were occupying  before they traveled, if that spot is now occupied they will  appear in the nearest free space.

    While in the astral plane if the wearer of the cloak dons the cloaks hod they can see into the material plane and may make one and only one attack against any  creature by lashing out of the astral into the material plane. This is a normal attack in every way except as follows. It does Necrotic Damage, and if it hits the damage done is  transferred to the attacker as healing (up to  10 + the attackers proficiency bonus).

    If this attack is successful the  attacker has until dusk to raise the cloaks hood and be shown one memory stolen from the enemy attacked. The contents of the memory is up to the GM. 

    
    
97. My most popular blog post is a 5th edition character background, My second most popular post is not even about role playing games. The fastest way I have found to make sure no one reads a blog post is to post about my own work. Cie la vie.
98. I enjoy reading other people blogs immensely. I spend more time reading blogs on the internet than I spend doing any thing else. Anyone new to the hobby should be done the service of having a friend share a bunch of links with them that will open to them the world of home brew gaming resources. The stuff out here on the internet is way better.
99. Speaking of that I was impressed with Narcosa. A crowd sourced supplement that is as good as many professionally published works. That's what the web can do, and it's awesome.
100. I am stunned you are still here. Atlas Obsura and NYPL Maps as your bonus links.

     
     

So that  is that 100 little RPG tidbits, about games, game design, and the community waters I game in.

As always I hope you have enjoyed the post.

Please feel free to leave comments below!

There is comment caveat this time, one I rarely make. I posted many opinions in this post, my personal opinions. I have no doubt that a careful reader no matter who they are will be able to find something that they strongly disagree with or which makes them sad inside. I'm sorry. I also reserve the right to not defend any of these opinions as I see fit.

Thank you for reading

-Mark.