funky dice

During a recent visit to MASS MoCA, the museum in North Adams, MA, Jerry Gretzinger met Jerry Gretzinger.The CBS 6 anchor had often been told about another Jerry Gretzinger in New York state, one who was an artist and had created something of a masterpiece. 

first time I've heard of the Gretzinger map! h/t to G+ - I find it interesting that the creator has no specific story for the map and as a result it grew organically to mostly his whims. The scale suggests that it could certainly be used for fantasy, but it could be used for any setting up through the 1800s.

Minas Tirith as drawn for MERP by Iron Crown Enterprises. MERP, or Middle Earth Role Playing, is a franchise-specific version of Rolemaster most notable for its use of somewhat silly open-ended percentile tables that accounted for a wide variety of damage types and severity. This was the type of system when you could fumble by backpedaling over an invisible turtle, or a commoner making a swing with a sword lucky enough to instantly decapitate someone of any level.

We used to joke that during one of the siege scenes in the original Lord of the Rings movies there was the standoff between the Uruk-Hai and there was an old dude with a nocked arrow that fired from the walls of (probably Minas Tirith actually) and struck an orc in the throat from over 500 yards away because his bow arm got tired.

The map for my most recent adventure, the Necromancers' Wish. What's not to love about a haunted old mine with a leviathan isopod at the bottom? Like the others, it's free (for non-commercial use) under the CC-BY-NC license. Have fun with it!

heh heh doom diorama

this prompts a discussion or maybe just thoughts about using 3 dimensions when handling miniatures in an RPG context. terrain is one thing and representing it on a map is fine, but it always has that certain tactile enjoyment when you're moving around full color miniatures in a space with actual ups and downs!

here's a long-ass video from gen con about 13th age adventure design (about an hour) with 13th age people.

i have no idea who is actually reading this but since i've been queuing stuff to post at a rate of 2 items per day and other posts here and there, i have to wonder if that's too much, not enough, or right on the money