Role playing game articles, reviews, humor, links, free downloads and more
I strongly suggest people check out Warhammer Fantasy Role Play if at all possible, though the core book is now out of print (again) and they released it as a PDF to purchase. There are also a ton of free RPG’s people have made and put up online, that each have their own approach: – John Kim’s Free RPGs on the Web, 1KM1KT, The Free RPG Compendium, The Free RPG Blog.
Keep in mind this article concerns free paper miniatures and models and such that can be printed out on paper or cardstock, cut out and folded and glued. Also quite popular are molded and otherwise non-paper things like board game pieces and wargame miniatures, coins, dice, as well as frugal improvised stand-ins such as children’s toys, plastic animals, etc. – but those things all cost money, from a fairly small amount to what some people consider absolutely ridiculously overpriced for tiny metal figurines – we are instead focusing on representations that are practically free, but for the cost of the preparation itself: paper, scissors, glue, crayons or markers, photocopies or computer and printer, etc. These are much like school crafts and can be something the whole family or group can join in on, allowing you to amass a large selection of usable paper pieces, possibly even with each person’s own unique characters and approaches.
Even if you’re a player or GM who doesn’t do a whole lot with tabletop figures, minis and tactics and such, the world of free (and commercial) paper miniatures and models can be an incredible resource, whether used in game or simply studied and skimmed through to give you some sort of concrete visual idea of what a “tavern” or “inn” looks like and how best to describe it, and inspire new ideas, etc. Also, although this article mainly addresses fairly standard fantasy game tropes, free (and commercial) minis and models are available for just about any genre: westerns, sci-fi, horror, modern, superhero, pulp, action, etc.
Paper miniatures are usually of people, animals, NPCs and monsters and other living creatures, and fairly simple vertical (standing up) ,flat (though sometimes triangular or pyrimidal) bits of strong cardstock or paper, decorated with pictures of adventurers, monsters, etc., sitting in a supporting base, usually also paper or cardstock though some people use other materials or objects for bases.
Minis are useful for representing player-characters and everyone and everything else they encounter, and can help keep track of where everyone is in relation to everyone and everything else, in a significant area or encounter or dungeon, combat being one of the most common situations where miniatures are brought out.
In an article in a National Geographic Magazine:
The Real Price of Gold
By Brook Larmer
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/01/gold/larmer-text/3
For all of its allure, gold’s human and environmental toll has never been so steep. Part of the challenge, as well as the fascination, is that there is so little of it. In all of history, only 161,000 tons of gold have been mined, barely enough to fill two Olympic-size swimming pools. More than half of that has been extracted in the past 50 years. Now the world’s richest deposits are fast being depleted, and new discoveries are rare. Gone are the hundred-mile-long gold reefs in South Africa or cherry-size nuggets in California. Most of the gold left to mine exists as traces buried in remote and fragile corners of the globe. It’s an invitation to destruction. But there is no shortage of miners, big and small, who are willing to accept.
I recall there being a well-known assertion in gaming circles that in any one group’s tabletop RPG fantasy campaign lasting a year, they would encounter and maybe even amass something like 10x the real world historical total of gold ever mined, silver and copper and such probably following this trend. Maybe dragon hoards are from that aforementioned gold from the earth’s crust they mine themselves.
As bountiful as RPG’s make it seem, in reality, gold was used for currency in the form of crowns, nobles, sovereigns and the like, but these were fairly rare, comparatively, as usually only the upper classes and trade merchants and royalty had any need or cause to even SEE a gold coin, everybody else dealt in silver shillings and pennies, or similar systems for different cultures, so even then gold was extremely scarce and was worth an awful lot, and wasn’t the “base” coin for familiar monetary systems – silver was, with a troy pound of silver being where the British Pound and lb. abbreviation comes from, originating from the ancient Libre coin.
A gold Crown was worth about 5 silver shillings, a golden Noble about 10 and a golden Sovereign worth a whole pound (373g) of silver. Considering cows and other expensive livestock and tools still only cost in the mid-silver range, and a skilled farmer or laborer being lucky to earn 1 pound per year and a knight only earning maybe up to 7 pounds per year, it is easy to see even in the case of wages, gold never entered into common use, as it would be too easy to lose or have a Sovereign stolen, and most gold coins couldn’t be easily “broken” to pay for items costing less than a pound sterling or major fraction thereof – they were really just impractical for 90% of at least the feudal era.
Your mileage may vary.
In our group, we generally give 100-150 XP (WFRP) to everyone that played, which keeps everyone fairly happy and consistent, with the possibility of a bit more XP for a PC that accomplshed an outstanding feat of some kind, including superb roleplaying. Generally, since we play infrequently anyway, if one of us usual active players misses a session, unless that PC is way, way behind or there is some other solid reason not to, the GM just awards our PC the same XP the others got in the session, maybe with a slight penalty. Although technically not fair to the other PC’s, it is really more of a game-balance and player fairness issue.
Player fairness-wise, if the player HAD been in the session, he would have gotten the usual XP (omitting death etc), and we generally assume a person’s reason for missing is solid and unavoidable, so we feel like the PC shouldn’t be “punished” for something the player couldn’t help – we handwave the PC’s absence as having personal matters to attend to, refreshing skills, working on the side, etc.
It could be argued this retroactive proxy awarding could be “abused” but really, if a player is intentionally going to NOT show up to play and just soak up XP the other players indirectly earned for him, and isn’t actually missing getting to play, then I’d be inclined to think he wasn’t that into the game anyway. What kind of strategy is that, to miss sessions just to get XP? That’s not actually playing at all, that’s helping develop an NPC, which I guess isn’t necessarily bad so in a way there might be no reason to give a player/PC an ultimatum or take drastic action. If the PC is just going to hang out in town or even accompany the party but be useless/ineffective, chances are he is going to CONTINUE to do that for the forseeable future, so if it becomes an expected occurrence, it really shouldn’t affect anything since nobody would be relying on him anyway – with the exception of the GM using the PC as a resource to be kidnapped or provide a vitally useful skill or ability the party needs right at the moment, which I think is well within the GM’s rights if the PC isn’t being played much anyway; like I said, it’s an NPC but one that wouldn’t directly or willfully involve himself in any of the activity, which means he might get XP but miss out on any treasure or coins or possibly social standing upgrades – unless the GM or other players take pity or feel there is a reason to do so.
Long. Apologies and thanks.
I and my friend and GM (I occasionally take turns GMing) were discussing the rest of our gaming group, which consist of his 14yr old step-son and 18yr old nephew and their 1 or 2 friends each.
Besides Assassin’s Creed, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and shoot-em-ups, the kids spend a lot of their time on WoW, one of them is on it constantly for like 9-10 hours at a time and even had to quit in the middle of our last 4 hr tabletop session to go sleep. They “roleplay” constantly in the chat window on WoW, are guild members, do all the social stuff, can type and speak some of the WoW languages fluently, plan out skill trees and calculate weapon stats and “best builds” and such and keep track of experience totals, thousands of locations and quests. But get them at a table, and though they all LIKE playing, suddenly become confused mutes.
