I was asked to post my links to various crazy and/or useful shit. Here it is. A lot of it is links to stuff I said. If you have genius shit that you said, tell me, and I'll edit the list and add it in. I've refrained from giving links to pages of other links.

I'd like to avoid system-specific stuff. This is for two reasons. Firstly, because I want the links list to be one anyone can use, whatever their game system of choice. Secondly, because with at least 1,500, and probably over 2,000 rpgs ever published, if I were to go for system-specific stuff, the list would expand forever and become unusable...


Getting a game group

• NearbyGamers, where you sign up and appear on google maps, able to see other gamers near you.
  
• GameCircle.org, a campaign wiki, forum and contact service for Australasian gamers.
  
• Wham-bam player recruitment - just go to a cafe, and drag the people at the next table into it.
  
• "What is roleplaying?" and why can't I get a group, boohoo
  
• Why it seems hard to recruit new gamers
  
• Recruiting gamers (rpg.net version, few comments)
  
• Recruiting Gamers (sjgames version, many comments)
  
• A small circle of friends. Instead of game groups, game circles. Bill Stoddard, rpg authour and generally switched-on guy, talks about "What I've done... is to come up with an idea for a campaign, and then pick out people who might fit into it and invite them to play. There is no preexisting group of players: the group is created by the individual players accepting my invitation to play, and lasts only as long as that campaign lasts."
  
• Building a Player Network. "You can call it a club, organization, cabal, or other such name, but ultimately if you want to play more often and play with people who more closely match your gaming preferences you will need to join or form a player network."
  
• Really long discussion on specific things to do to better include women in gaming - zdashamber talks about... you guessed it. Don't ask boys or even men about women in gaming, ask a woman.
  

Keeping a game group or, Running an interesting game

• Uncle Figgy's Guide to Good Gaming. A good general discussion of roleplaying, types of gamers, how to make a campaign, and so on.
  
• An example of sex and relationship as themes in an rpg, talking about some people's campaigns with lots of sex, and others with none, and all in between and why...
  
• A long thread talking about player vs GM power/responsibility. Notable for flames, but also interesting.
  
• Another one about player control vs GM control, it has "protagonization" in the title, but is interesting anyway.
  
• Gnome Stew, articles by GMs about GMing.
  
• Rules light games: what's the infatuation? A long discussion of rules light games, but with most of the discussion focused on freeform vs focus, GM vs player power/responsibility, etc.
  
• Sexism and game settings, and (for my post) whether GMs bother talking to their players.
  
• When campaigns jump the orc, important to know when there's no more hope.
  

Free rpgs and discussions - you don't need a wad of cash or bitorrents to game or get good gaming advice

• John Kim's list of free rpgs, links to over 500 free rpgs, many of very good quality, and almost all with some interesting ideas
  
• Chris's compendium of free rpgs, another link list
  
• 1,000 monkeys, 1,000 typewriters, a host site for free rpgs which tend to the thespy side
  
• RPGNow.com's free rpgs, a website of mostly for-money rpgs, but with an extensive free section.
  
• YourGamesNow.com's free rpgs, another paid-for site with some free rpgs
  
• rpg.net, the largest rpg discussion site - avoid the non-rpg subforums as they are a crowd of communist perverts
  
• thefreerpgblog, a blog dedicated to the discussion and promotion of free rpgs, hosted by the maker of one of the most professional of them, Icar.
  
• RPG Bloggers network, a feed of many rpg blogs.
  

Retro-clones, all with free versions

BRP
   

• GORE
  D&D
     
• Swords & Wizardry (0e)
  
• Microlite74 (0e)
  
• Spellcraft & Swordplay (0e variant)
  
• Epees & Sorcellerie (0e French)
  
• Basic Fantasy (B/X)
  
• Labirynth Lord (B/X)
  
• OSRIC (AD&D1e)
  Gamma World
     
• Mutant Future (GW variant)
  James Bond 007
     
• Double Zero (JB007, .txt draft only)
  Marvel Superheroes
     
• 4C SYSTEM (MSRPG)
  Traveller clones
     
• GAMERS (CT variant)
  

Gaming resources or, making a more interesting character and game

• Treasure Tables' GMing wiki, an excellent series of articles on running game groups, preparing campaigns, and so on - also, they're written by different people so you get different points of view.
  
• The Big List of RPG Plots - sitting there munching your cheetos wondering what to run your group through, and it's ten minutes before the first ones are showing up, half an hour late? Use this!
  
• Roleplayer resources, a page linking to many articles about character creation, development, working with other players and so on.
  
• Gamer Chick articles, including how to roleplay (well) the other gender.
  
• Postapocalyptic media, a site looking at books, movies, roleplaying games and computer games with a postapocalyptic setting; also a forum.
  
• Rules for Party Creation.
  

Games under construction - under development, and inviting input

• MARINER - "Modern-Day Adventure on the High Seas". "... dedicated to the brainstorming and development of a modern-day roleplaying game using the classic roleplaying rules set, Traveller."
  

Character Sheets &c

• RPG GM tools, HexMapper, DiceRoller, RandomCityGenerator, all sorts!
  
• Autorealm, a freeware program for making fantasy maps; it does not offer a random map creator, and is about 3Mb.
  
• Theban Mapping Project, "a comprehensive archaeological database of Thebes [...] the TMP has concentrated on the Valley of the Kings. Modern surveying techniques were used to measure its tombs. From the data collected, the TMP is preparing 3-D computer models of the tombs."
  
• Pyramids and Temples of Egypt, "information on pyramids and temples, which includes computer-generated reconstructions of what the pyramids and temples might have looked like when they were first built [...] many interactive ground plan maps, photos, paintings and drawings".
  
• Mad Irishman Productions, page of different character sheets. The focus is on d20, but there are sheets for Ars Magica, Rolemaster, James Bond, all sorts. Also many other gaming resources, such as maps of Russia for Ars Magica.
  
• Fonts of various kinds, good for getting just the right font for that character sheet for this campaign.
  
• Wasteland: the postapocalyptic photo series. Very inspiring...
  
• Onamastikon, Kate Monk's big list of names of people of different cultures and times.
  
• Wikipedia's list of public domain images online, spice up your webpage or rpg pdf with images without shafting anyone's copyright!
  
• Mike's Images, a big site with screencaps from Xena, Hercules, Firefly, Aliens, Lord of the Rings, etc etc etc. Great for getting just the right character image.
  
• Maps of the Ancient World - even if you're not running anything in the ancient world, you can at least steal the place names for your own game world.
  
• Topoquest.com, Free USGS topographic maps of the US and parts of Canada
  
• Low Fantasy Population Generator, online or downloaded tool to get the number of nobles, charcoalers, cobblers, salters and adventurers in a region of a certain size and type.
  
• UK's Defence Image Database, all sorts of militaria
  
• Illustrated guide to herbs for rpgs - Huge list of herbs usable in RPGs, with information on where to find them, how rare they are, how much they would cost in AD&D terms, preparation, and effects.
  

Soundtrack music - free downloads of public doman or Creative Commons music

• Celestial Aeon Project
  
• Project Divinity
  
• Frozen Silence
  
• Roomful of Emptiness
  
• Warehouse of Distant Dreams
  
• Sounddogs - sound effects, mood music - worth paying a bit for, but there are 30+ second samples of everything, which should be enough for lots of moments in games.
  

Historical resources - for those who like historically-flavoured games

• Armour Archive, a page about armours of history with the aim of making modern examples for reconstruction or SCA.
  
• Warrior Clothing in Ancient China. Better than those anime.
  
• Levantia, site about the late Roman Empire in the Near East. Byzantium is a great place to adventure.
  
• Timeless Myths - about Celtic, Norse and Arthurian myths and stories, very good for getting that flavour to a campaign.
  
• Roman army re-enactment, Legio XV in Germany, and Legio XXX in Italy. The Italian site links to many others.
  
•                           Monstropedia, An online encyclopaedia of monsters from real-world myth and legend
  
• English Historical Recreation, images from modern-day recreators of the Anglo-Saxon era. Very good, many images and authentic
  
• Wychurst, a project to build a reproduction of an old English village of Saxon times.
  
• Viking re-enactment and information
  
• Late medieval re-enactment in Norway, focusing on 1397-1434, with a particular focus on mounted combat (page in English).
  
• Resources for the Suzerain Roleplayer, another big list of links to stuff about Asia Minor and the Middle East in ancient and early history
  
• Streets of Shanghai - webpage of Shanghai in the 1920s, from a roleplayer.
  
• Snowshoemen, a recreation group focusing on late colonial North America. Pop on that Last of the Mohicans soundtrack and grab your dice.
  
• Action Squad. Real life "adventurers" exploring strange old building, tunnels, closed asylums, etc. Good images for a post-apocalyptic or horror campaign.
  
• Military unit organisation, a thread here with discussion of and links to... well, that.
  

e-zines Since magazines are all company-specific now, it's a good thing we have the web

• The Iridia Zine - a general roleplaying zine, with a common focus on GURPS and D&D, publishes in pdf and print weekly - over 40 issues now.
  
• Knowledge - Current Events. A zine taking current events and converting them into stuff for campaigns. Though it focuses on d20, it's of general interest.
  
• ODDS, the Tabletop Roleplaying E-Magazine
  
• Places to Go, People to Be. ...devoted to role-playing and role-playing games. It is put together by gamers, for gamers and contains what we believe to be the highest quality material about our games available. It is dedicated to gamers everywhere, and in particular to those in Australia and Brisbane. Irregularly publihsed (last issue June 2005), but with lots of old issues available.
  
• The Oerth Journal, a zine dedicated to keeping the old World of Greyhawk going.
  

Campaign & setting webpages
Reading "actual play" usually suxxorz, but NPCs, maps and so on are great.

• Tiwesdæg Clíewen, Dark Ages low fantasy campaign. Where magic is magical, and monsters are monstrous.
  
• Northenden, a medieval low fantasy game.
  
• Saduria, "I like gritty campaigns where the players and characters are challenged by their lifestyle, geography and society as much as by huge monsters. Saduria is very much a reflection of that philosophy. Magic is a rare thing and not to be taken lightly..." A very detailed set of pages.
  
• Gehennum,  a fantasy world that breaks the pseudo-European-Tolkien pattern, set in something rather like Polynesia.
  
• John Kim's Buffy campaign
  
• Fallout 3 files. From an abandoned version. May help you run your own Fallout campaign. Docs and so on, not the code stuff.
  
• David Icke, not a roleplaying page, but good conspiracy-horror-scifi campaign material. This guy thinks that the ruling classes of the world are actually all alien blood-drinking reptilians.
  
• Alien abductions - like Icke's webpage, also not a roleplaying one, but with many articles on alien abductions of humans and their plans to create alien-human hybrids to take over the world. Good for a Delta Green campaign, perhaps?
  

Crazy shit relating to The Forge and other RPG loons

• How we gamers are all brain-damaged. Why I Hate Ron Edwards #1
  
• How we gamers are like child sex abuse victims. Why I Hate Ron Edwards #2.
  
• Coming RPG Releases. WHy I hate Mike Mearls #1 - because he hates every game ever made.
  
• IndieGamingSceneBlog. The posts mock the Forge, the comments mock the mockers.
  
• GNS Suxxorz, a Socratic Dialogue, in which I thoroughly and unfairly diss Ron Edwards.
  
• Theory Wars, a play-by-post game in which you take on the role of a wannabe god/guru or roleplaying game theory.
  

Funny shit about roleplaying

• The roots of roleplaying, in which David Wesely talks about how he invented polyhedral dice. Then here is described "The Secret History of Roleplaying" (scroll to about the middle of the long page). And then the dungeon crawl is described by the sole survivor of the TPK. They even LARPed a little bit.
  
• CHEETOISM, the original thread!
  
• Roleplayers as dancing monkeys. This thread depicts different types of players as... monkeys.
  
• "I wear the Viking Hat!" - in which Moochava describes how GMs should deal with argumentative players. He goes on to describe how sometimes it's good for the GM to "just pin the player to the table and hump his hams."
  
• RPG Theory I learned from rpg.net - examples of stupid shit people say about rpgs
  
• The infamous Creepy Gamer thread on rpg.net, now locked after a thousand days with 5,169 sanity-draining and credulity-challenging posts
  
• The Gaming Stories of Al Bruno the Third - links to a heap of stories of El Disgusto, Psycho Dave, and other crazy people Al claims to have gamed with
  
• The Hybrid rpg livejournal - no-one can explain to you what Hybrid is. You must experience it for yourself.
  
• How to use semantics to avoid defending your weak ideas
  
• Flame Warriors Home An illustrated guide to the many types of flame warriors found online. Like astrology, you can't diagnose yourself, someone else has to pick which one matches you.
  

JimBob...you MAGNIFICENT BASTARD.

This list is the gift that keeps on giving.

Regards,
David R

Thanks, mate. Make sure you email if you find another good webpage along these lines, I can keep editing and adding to it.

JimBob, you have just passed Paul Hogan as my favorite Aussie (and no, Yahoo Serious wasn't in the running).

I didn't see this thread on your list yet.

It is shaping up to be a good one.

Non Verbal Learning Disorder (NVLD)


Not to make fun othe poster or anyone with a similar situation, but sometimes you wonder if people try using it to their advantage.

That is indeed a good and funny thread, especially when people are trying not to be funny.

However, it's just a thread with a dumb nerd in it. My big list of links is intended to point to things we can't easily find every day, or that we might not know about. I think that if we browse more than one tiny forum of a dozen members, we can find a thread by a dumb nerd every day. We want truly crazy fuckers.

To make it to the List requires a level of batshit craziness an order of magnitude above the everyday. For example, there was once a guy calling himself Molatar, who claimed to be a reincarnated dragon with the love of Jesus in his heart, and his site had classics like,

QuoteThis site is dedicated to spreading the Gospel in the werewolf and furry communities. It is my hope that many trans-species people will accept Jesus as their Savior through this ministry. ...

    You cannot make yourself righteous and holy on your own. Only Jesus can do that for you. If you are dissatisfied with attempting to be good through your own deeds and find yourself still enslaved to sin, then its time to choose Jesus as your Savior. If you are interested in becoming a Christian, please click on the salvation link to the left. Dear visitor, if you are trans-species, I can sympathize with you.

    I too know the shame and anger about being trapped in a powerless and ugly human body. If you desire a shape-shift, please click on the P-shift essay link to your left and I will guide you. If you desire clarification of God's Word, please click on the salvation, essay, and bibliography links provided at left.

    This is Version 2.1 of Molatar's Castle. I've re-written parts of my essay on vampires. I've removed some links to sites I no longer approve of. Much of the changes are invisible; I've been cleaning up the code to make this site faster. This dragon's been working hard. ...

    I hope that by visiting my website that you will have learned something valuable. If you get Born Again because of this site, that would be even better.

Unfortunately, Molatar's Castle website must have got too much fanmail, and closed down. But that's the kind of craziness we want to see for the List - or at least the "crazy fuckers" part of it. Ordinary "I statted myself as a character, and look I have IQ 170 and am also a martial arts legend" just doesn't cut it. I can walk into any game store and meet a guy like that in thirty seconds.

We want crazy. Like David Icke, who thinks that the royal family of the UK, and that of George Bush, are actually blood-drinking reptilians from another planet. Now he is a crazy fucker, truly crazy. And it's rpg-relevant because a conspiracy of blood-drinking alien reptilians is just perfect for an rpg.

Added a couple of links in the "getting a game group", and one in the "talking online" section.

Nice work, my Antipodian friend.

Added links to two classic rpg.net posts by Moochava, in which he describes how sometimes a GM has to just bend the player over the table and hump his hams. Possibly the origin of the GM "I wear the Viking Hat" thing.

Added an interesting discussion of "Building a player network", for those who find there's no forum, yahoo group, club, etc for their region.

Quote from: JimBobOzTo make it to the List requires a level of batshit craziness an order of magnitude above the everyday. For example, there was once a guy calling himself Molatar, who claimed to be a reincarnated dragon with the love of Jesus in his heart, and his site had classics like,

Unfortunately, Molatar's Castle website must have got too much fanmail, and closed down.

You might want to check out a certain thread over at the RPGPundit's Forum.

RPGPundit

Hey Pundit, is this Sticky-worthy, and perhaps should be moved over to the roleplaying forum, since it's all roleplaying-related stuff?

Edit: added the link to Molatar's page. Thanks for the link!

I don't see why not.

RPGPundit

Added a new category - e-zines, with a few links. I'm sure there must be more, point them out to us!

I have a request for a link, because I found it once then lost it.
John Wick's classic D&D 3.0 rant about the desert and the bar being raised. He really had his shorts in a twist that day and it bacame more than hilarious to read about halfway through.

I'll do some digging on my own, but I'm sending out the word in hopes of more skilled searchers.