Random Reads

A random selection of articles that caught my eye over the last week or so, in no particular order:

• Uhluht'c Awakens does a good job of summing up my reasons for liking original Star Trek over the more recent versions. Adventures (and short skirts)! Yes, Kirk is my favorite captain.
• Monsters and Manuals writes about why people play RPGs. The best part of this article was the awesome example of really hooking a new player with a great experience right from the start.
• The Tao of D&D shows us an image of their gaming environment, showing off a GM / player dual-monitor setup very similar to my usual setup.
• A Character for Every Game shares another set of excellent geomorphs. People like this make me envious, my mapping skills are nowhere near as good as those demonstrated here.
• The Omnipotent Eye talks about drawing dungeons and the difficulties encountered therein.
• Moebius Adventures calls for help with the design challenges they're facing in their game, specifically regarding damage, critical hits and the effects of armor.
• Geek Ken talks about using minions in 4th edition D&D, offering a nice set of tips that can easily be adapted to other game systems.
• RPG Blog II discusses the aftermath of a major disaster on the campaign world and offers up a quick random chart to map out the nasty effects. I really like the proposed chart, and think it could easily be expanded to cover more aspects of the disaster.

So there you have it, the short list of articles that caught my eye. Kind of all over the board here, but hopefully you'll see something interesting.