A Role Playing Games Blog
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400 posts milestone
9November 17, 2009
I was so busy in the last weeks that I almost missed that my blog hit the 400 posts milestone recently. And since my last milestone post in July much has happened in the RPG blogosphere. If you haven’t been living under a rock, you probably noticed all the drama around the RPG Bloggers Network recently. For some time now, Duane from A Terrible Idea is now in charge of the network and I wish him all the best!
As with my previous milestone posts I want to look back at the last 100 posts and share some statistics with you. Man, I love statistics! 
These have been the most popular posts since my blog hit the 300 posts milestone:
- My stance on D&D 4th Edition
One of the most popular posts in the last months was definitely my post about my stance on D&D 4th Edition. Of course D&D is always a popular topic, but this time I managed to post something critical about D&D 4E without the comments turning into a flame war. And that’s an achievement I am actually proud of. We all know how easily these posts can turn into quasi-religious debates.
- Breaking News: Roleplaying finally possible in D&D 4th Edition
Alas this post’s comment derailed into a flame war pretty fast. Some people obviously missed the Humor category and started arguing again. Aside from that I still love the Ryan Macklin’s Dramatis Personae power that started all that trouble again.
- Robin D. Laws interview
I can tell you that I was excited like a schoolboy when Robin D. Laws agreed to answer some questions about the Gumshoe system and his other works for my blog. The interview not only gave some interesting insights into the system featured in games like Esoterrorists and Trail of Cthulhu, but also was a very entertaining read. Thanks again, Robin!
- Why play old-school D&D?
That’s a question you probably hear or read regularly. There are a lot of modern games out there, so why should we bother with the granddaddy of all RPGs or one of its clones? In this post I tried to list some of the reasons why I enjoy playing old-school D&D once in a while.
Enough tooting my own horn, let’s have a look at the statistics now:
- Total number of posts: 415 (including this one)
- Total number of approved comments: 1661
- Number of (unique) visits: 89,334
- Active WordPress plugins: 30
- Technorati authority: 126 (Wow, that must be because of the Technorati relaunch)
- Google Page Rank: 3 (no change here)
- Cups of coffee consumed by me during the writing of that post: 0
- Word count of this post: 481
I am currently going through some kind of winter slump, but I think I should get to my 500th post in early 2010 nevertheless. Thanks to all my readers! I couldn’t have done it without you!
I am throwing my hat into the ring!
8November 4, 2009
This morning I’ve decided to throw my hat into the ring to be the community selected representative on the RPGBN Advisory Panel.
If you have no idea, what I am talking about, you should probably check out the blog “A Terrible Idea” by Duane O’Brien. Duane is the new guy in charge of the RPG Bloggers Network and he wants to form an Advisory Panel. Three members of this panel will be selected by him, a fourth will be elected by the community.
Since I very much enjoy being a member of the RPGBN and the great community that has developed around it, I want to give something back by providing some help and advice to the guy in charge!
Duane will post details on the voting process soon, so stay tuned. And I would be honored if some of you give their vote to me.
Stargazer’s World is now on Facebook
0It seems everyone has a Facebook account now. Heck, even my mom is logged into that site all day playing Farmville. 
So I decided to create a Facebook page for Stargazer’s World as well. Currently there’s not much to see on that page, since I am still fighting with some of the settings. But at least you can show your support by becoming a fan of my blog!
Stargazer’s World | Promote your Page too 
If anyone has already created a Facebook page for his or her blog, please let me know how you get your blog’s RSS feed to show as wall updates. Any advice is much appreciated!
The Shiniest Stories on Stargazer’s World Last Month
0October 1, 2009
September was a pretty good month for my blog. Let’s have a look back on your favorite posts from September 2009:
- My stance on D&D 4th Edition
Some of you may remember that I was part of the D&D 4th Edition crowd when it was released but slowly I got more and more skeptical of the latest edition of D&D. In this post I tried to (and obviously succeeded) in describing my thoughts on D&D 4th Edition without starting another edition war. That’s something I am quite proud of. - Why play old-school D&D?
Why should someone play the very first editions of D&D when there are hundreds of modern games available? This post gives a few reasons why it is fun to play like it’s 1974. - Fantasy Craft
In early September I learned about Fantasy Craft, a shiny new fantasy roleplaying game based on the d20 System. While it seems pretty familiar on the first glance, it’s refreshingly different than D&D 3.5 or Paizo’s Pathfinder RPG. That reminds me, I haven’t written a proper review yet. - Follow-up: D&D 4th Edition Firearms
In mid-September I had another look at one of my most successful posts “D&D 4th Edition Firearms”. One of my readers by the name of Perfidius came up with the idea of turning firearms into powers. Although I don’t play D&D 4E right now, I wanted to share that idea with a wider audience. - Robin D. Laws interview
Robin Laws has been a freelance writer in the RPG industry since the early 90s and in this time he has written numerous games and supplements including the GUMSHOE system. And he was kind enough to answer a few questions for me. If you are a fan of his works, you just have to check the interview out! - Home-made GM screens @ System matters
I have to admit I was pretty surprised that this post was one of the most popular articles on my blog in all September. Obviously there’s a lot of interest in home-made GM screens. - Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, man!
On September 9th 2009 Berin Kinsman aka UncleBear posted his ROLPUNK manifesto, and I am one of the people jumping onto the bandwagon! If you want to learn more about ROLPUNK, you should have a look at the manifesto.
I also want to mention my review of Monte Cook’s latest book “The Skeptic’s Guide to Conspiracies” that hasn’t had that many readers yet, probably because I chose confusing title. But if you are a fan of Monte’s work, you should have a look at my review: “THEY are out there!”.
“Roleplaying games as a teaching tool” @ Musings of a ChattyDM
0September 14, 2009
As announced some days ago, my first guest post at Philippe Ménard’s blog has gone live! Here’s a short excerpt:
Some time ago, Barb, a homeschooling mom from California contacted me. She had read about my background in physics and asked me if I ever had ever thought about combining D&D and science.
For some time she has paid DMs with backgrounds in different scientific fields to run D&D adventures for her son. These adventures were always designed in such a way that they were not only fun to play but also taught the players something about disciplines like biology or computer technology.
She asked me if I would be interested in running a game that would combine D&D with physics. I have to admit that I never thought about the possibility of using roleplaying games as a teaching tool, probably because I am no teacher and I don’t have any kids of my own either. But the idea intrigued me, so I asked her if I could ask her a few questions about her concept.
You can read the rest of the article here. And please post your comments over there as well. Thanks!
Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, man!
9September 9, 2009
UncleBear, father figure of RPG Bloggers has started a new movement: ROLPUNK!
So, what’s this all about? Let the man speak for himself:
Rolpunk (one L, no E) is about pure, stripped down, no BS tabletop gaming. It’s about taking your game back to its bare bones roots: play a character, chuck some dice, period. It’s about not letting other people tell you how to play your games. It’s not about telling other people how to play their games, either; don’t be that fascist. Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, man, not other peoples’ and especially not your own. It’s about having fun, because if you’re not having fun you’ve discovered the only way possible to do it wrong. It’s about embracing the do-it-yourself ethic of the hobby and sharing your stuff, even if it’s just with your own game group. But it’s not about rejecting stuff, dismissing stuff out of hand because of whatever pretentious filters other people have set up to dictate what’s cool and what’s not cool. Screw them. Reject attitudes, not games. It’s about accepting the potential of everything, salvaging what works for you and ignoring the rest. It’s about shaping your own identity as a gamer, about letting your group and your campaign and the rules at your table take their own form based on your creative needs. Don’t be a game sheep.
He also has written an uncensored manifesto, which is in my humble opinion pure gold! If you don’t mind a few swear words, you really should check it out! Ah, and before I forget it: The manifesto and the logos are © Berin Kinsman and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. So, join the movement, share the word and have fun!
Stargazer’s World is happily jumping onto the bandwagon!
What’s on the horizon?
0September 9, 2009
Today I want to give you an update on what’s brewing at Stargazer’s World right now. Just today I finished the first draft of a rather long post (1771 words so far) that will go live as a guest post on Philippe Ménard’s blog in a few days. We decided that the topic would make a great post for his blog and perhaps it helps to convince some of his readers to check out my blog too. Actually I am a bit excited since it’s the first guest post I have written for another blog. And ChattyDM is one of the people who helped me a lot since I joined the RPG Bloggers Network last year. His posts and good advice over Twitter or IM always helped me to get over the deepest of slumps.
In the meantime I am reading several RPG books I purchased recently. Alas some of my offline activities are getting into the way. It doesn’t help that I am now actually an elected local politician. I have been in politics for over ten years but it’s the first time I got a parliamentary seat in our town parliament! Yay!
But back to the RPG books I mentioned. I still have to read Eclipse Phase, the new game from Catalyst Game Labs. I got the PDF as soon as it was on RPGNow and printed it out. Alas I haven’t had that much time to read it, yet, probably because I then picked up a copy of Fantasy Craft soon thereafter . Fantasy Craft is a pretty cool d20 fantasy game that was created by the guys behind Spy Craft. If you want to read more about this cool game, you should check out "Life and Times of a Philipine Gamer". But rest assured that I will write reviews of both games when I have finished reading them.
I also got both the hardcover version of Vampire: The Dark Ages and Hunter: The Reckoning from a German blogger’s "Garage Sale" for just a few Euros, so expect some first looks of those games, too. Both books are probably out of print and at least Hunter has a successor called Hunter: The Vigil that sounds pretty interesting. And even if you don’t want to run games using the old World of Darkness rules, you still can use both books as inspiration for campaigns using the new WoD line for example. Hunter (the old or the new version) also sounds like the perfect world for the horror solo game I wanted to run for some time now…
I also started working on a translation of my Dungeonslayers supplement "Fireworks" to English. The booklet contains not only rules for firearms, cannons and explosives for Dungeonslayers but also introduces a completely new class. I don’t know when the translation will be done (this usually takes a lot longer than you think) but expect some previews as soon as I have something to show off.
I am also working on a secret layout project that is way past the initial deadline. Hmm, perhaps I should make this project top priority then…
Aside from all that I also would like to work on a Swords & Wizardry campaign based on the later titles of the Ultima series. But since I am already having too many unfinished projects I will probably put this on the back burner for now.
Phew! This post got much longer than I expected. But you now should have a pretty good overview about my current plans for this blog, so stay tuned. And if you have any comments, questions or advice please let me know! Any comment is highly appreciated!
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