My career, or rather hobby, in gaming started in the late 70s when a fellow classmate, and good friend, asked me if I wanted to come to his house after school because his brother and he were looking at this new game called Dungeons & Dragons. That was fifth grade. Three decades later, and I am still enjoying the hobby although my time is vastly reduced thanks to that thing they tell us about as children, but we seem to disbelieve, called responsibility.
Welcoming a New Team Member to the Dice of Life
You may have seen Rob's name among the list of TDoL Staff in our sidebar but without any posts attached to his name until now. Despite the lack of posts, you actually have seen his work. That's because Rob has been our new editor for a bit of time, and just recently a new author for The Dice of Life.
Old Memories, New System
Last Thursday I had the opportunity to play Swords & Wizardry: White Box, and the experience was very enjoyable. It brought back memories of my younger, less hectic life, and it was nice to just role-play without becoming engrossed in minutia of mechanics. Primarily Swords & Wizardry has that old school RPG nostalgia with a certain freshness of simplification.
Gaming with Google Docs, Part 2
In Part I of this article, we covered some basic ways Google Docs can be used to facilitate and coordinate your role-playing game. Specific examples included handouts, campaign notes, and player character backgrounds as well as folders/tagging and mobile access to your documents.
In this article, we'll take a look at some of the more advanced tools available in Google Docs such as forms for collecting or archiving information, spreadsheets for basic accounting, using presentations for campaign intros and segues, using drawing tools for creating maps and illustrations, and accessing your material offline.
Review of Kobold Quarterly #10 (Summer 2009)
This week we take a look at Kobold Quarterly #10, a gaming magazine created by Wolfgang Baur. With the ideas, articles, editorials and even locations, the magazine is a perfect match for the time-strapped gamer.
Sweet Spots for the Time-Crunched Gamer: Weeknights, Nine To Midnight
At R.K. Athey's request, this content has been relocated on his personal blog, Musings of a Role Playing Troll. ~Kristian
Returning to Our D&D Roots: An Experience with Swords & Wizardry
RPGs Designed for Busy Adults
Obviously, that's what The Dice of Life is about, but I found two great posts on two other blogs, one in response to the other, discussing RPGs designed for busy, adult gamers. Hey, that's our target audience! Coincidentally, these were posted on the same week The Dice of Life launched.
Interview with Paul 'Wiggy' Wade-Williams of Triple Ace Games
At R.K. Athey's request, this content has been relocated to his personal blog, Musings of a Role Playing Troll. ~Kristian
1PageAdventures: The Innsmouth Lighthouse
Do Single Parents Game (via Outsyder Gaming)?
I stumbled across an interesting post via the RPG Blogger Network's feed regarding single parents and gaming. With the mission of The Dice of Life in mind, I decided to start that same conversation here as it's something with which I have no knowledge or experience but in which I am greatly interested.
Gaming with Google Docs, Part 1
Google Docs is a flexible suite of online Office-like applications. Its list of applications includes spreadsheets, documents (including PDFs), presentations, and forms. Not only can you create original files in Google Docs, but you can also import files created in your favorite office application including OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office (including 2007).
Google Docs also grants you the ability to save documents to a file on disk and includes formats such as HTML, DOC, PDF, and more. In this article, we discuss some of the basic uses for Google Docs and how they can apply to your RPG campaign.
Interview with Shane Hensley, Creator of Savage Worlds
At R.K. Athey's request, this content has been relocated to his personal blog, Musings of a Role Playing Troll. ~Kristian]
Sweet Spots for the Time-Crunched Gamer: Savage Worlds
At R.K. Athey's request, this content has been relocated to his personal blog, Musings of a Role Playing Troll. ~Kristian
Gaming with Google Calendar
It's probably challenging enough to keep your life organized as is with a full work schedule, keeping your home, spending time with family, errands, social occasions, and so much more. Add your kid's schedule into the mix, and you see your open time slots dwindling away. In between all of that, you want to be able to schedule a game with your gaming friends' who might have busy schedules of their own. Google Calendar to the rescue!
Ignore This Post
Grrr... Apologies for the confusing post, folks. Apparently, Google's advice isn't always the best. While Blogger redirects its own feed to the new feed, it also replaces the feed URL discovered by browsers. In essence, it means that while some subscribers might be using the original URL, others will still be grabbing the Feedburner URL, creating a mixed subscriber base.
Summary: Stick with the Feedburner URL by subscribing to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheDiceOfLife. I promise I'll never switch.
Editorial: The Kübler-Ross Model and You
This article was inspired by a forum post in a thread about The Dice of Life.
I am really digging this blog, but it is totally depressing me. Half of the articles are about why as you grow up you must eventually experience the slow death of your gaming life as your social life is rent into itty bitty pieces and sacrificed to your kids and spouse. The other half is about all the tools that can prolong this slow death by playing your rpgs through various networking media.
I choose option #2!
Interview with Trevor Croft, creator of MapTool
At R.K. Athey's request, this content has been relocated to his personal blog, Musings of a Role Playing Troll. ~Kristian
MapTool for Face-to-Face Role-Playing Games
It's no secret that we're fans of MapTool. Well, did you know that MapTool also works for face-to-face RPG sessions as well as those online? As a followup to the Sweet Spot article about MapTool, I'll tell you how you can leverage this marvelous free tool for your next face-to-face game.


