Friday, 1 January 2021

Join the January 2021 Blog Carnival: Characters, Stories, and Worlds

Happy New Year! 

Image (cc) victoriaclare
I'm pleased to be hosting the first RPG Blog Carnival of 2021, to join in simply write a blog post on any of these topics...

  • Character or NPC creation
  • Writing character backstories and motivations
  • How you play interesting/fun characters
  • Plotting campaigns or story arcs
  • Tips or tools for writing adventures
  • Your favourite adventures or setting books
  • Worldbuilding resources or tips
...or any topic of your own choosing that loosely fits the theme.  At the moment I'm particularly interested in how we can build player backstories and goals into the campaign story and world and would love to know how you build your characters, your stories, your worlds.

Leave a comment on this post with a link to your submission, and go check out everyone else's while they check out yours.  At the end of the month I'll wrap up all the submissions in a debrief post and hand over to the next host, so be sure to check them out and take part in February's carnival too!

Not a blogger? If you're inspired to start a relevant thread on Reddit or Discord or a forum or Twitter (etc) then please post a link to it in the comments too!

If you are a blogger and would like to host the Carnival one month, or anyone who wants more information or to view the carnival archives, just head on over to the official RPG Blog Carnival home page on the OfDiceAndDragons blog.

Note: Due to the arcane inner machinery of the Blogger platform, you'll need to add an HTML tag when you comment for your links to show - like so:

<a href="http://plasticpolyhedra.blogspot.com/post-url.html">Name of your blog post</a>

(or just post the URL and I'll sort you a link ;) )

Looking forward to reading your submissions already, and I wish you all a great year!

at
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30 comments:

  1. Tom H4 January 2021 at 09:36

    Coincidentally, The Other Side and various other blogs are doing the #charactercreationchallenge in January - if you are too then good luck, and please let us know how you're getting on!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mike4 January 2021 at 16:30

    Hi Tom, this is an article I was going to do anyway, but it seems to connect to your Carnival theme (maybe a little off to one side of it). I may get something else up before the Carnival moves on as well. Blog Carnival Jan 2021: Pandemic Reflections. Sharing a link in case you don't get a pingback (which seem to be very hit-and-miss these days).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom H6 January 2021 at 14:58

      Hi Mike, I don't think pingbacks have ever worked for me!

      Interesting reading, and you are of course welcome to come back later in the month too.

      Delete
    2. Mike6 January 2021 at 16:09

      Ten years ago, they were reliable. Five years ago, they were semi-reliable. These days, they are almost completely unreliable. Worse, site settings and URLs now contain 'opt-out' options - making pingbacks a dying phenomenon. Glad you enjoyed the post :)

      Delete
  3. Timothy S. Brannan4 January 2021 at 18:16

    Excellent! I love participating in the Blog Carnivals.
    Here is my post for Day 4 of the #CharacterCreationChallenge and the Blog Carnival.
    Character Creation Challenge: Dungeons & Dragons, Basic Edition

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom H6 January 2021 at 16:59

      Thanks Timothy, good luck with the challenge!

      Delete
  4. Sean Holand6 January 2021 at 14:29

    I hope to write something up specifically for this Blog Carnival, especially as I am hosting next month's Carnival! But the review of did for The Sixth Shotgun touches on several of the subjects above: https://seaofstarsrpg.wordpress.com/2021/01/05/review-the-sixth-shotgun/

    Thanks for hosting!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom H7 January 2021 at 14:26

      Thanks Sean, any ideas how to go about building a campaign/adventure from a novel(la)?

      Delete
    2. Tom H18 January 2021 at 22:53

      Link

      Delete
  5. Jeremy Friesen8 January 2021 at 00:35

    I wrote A Situation and Adventure Design Process: An Approach that Works for Me

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom H9 January 2021 at 14:46

      Thanks Jeremy, it's always interesting to see people's process - and I think Kevin Crawford sets the gold standard for random tables, nice to see them being used.

      Delete
  6. shutteredroom17 January 2021 at 20:30

    I think this might overlap on more than one category, and it was your kind comment on the original post that brought me here (hope the tag works):

    https://shutteredroom.blogspot.com/2021/01/d66d36-introductions-for-replacement.html

    ReplyDelete
  7. Rodney @ Rising Phoenix Games18 January 2021 at 20:20

    We looked at why leveling in RPGs is broken!

    Player characters have tons of story potential within themselves, but how do you harness that? I suggest a mechanical way to make leveling about more than just gaining new skills and feats:
    https://www.risingphoenixgames.com/blog/rpg-leveling-is-broken/

    Great topic and thanks for hosting!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Gonz25 January 2021 at 00:31

    I wrote my article focusing on new things happening in old campaigns, as well as how to make a character fit into a campaign that has already started.

    http://codexanathema.com/2021/01/24/new-year-new-campaigns-new-characters/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom H27 January 2021 at 23:12

      Sounds like a good start to 2021, and many interesting stories to come!

      Delete
  9. Roll425 January 2021 at 02:51

    We've come up with a 3 step plan for dead simple, on-the-spot NPC creation! Interesting NPC's in as easy as 3, 2, 1

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom H27 January 2021 at 23:21

      It does sound easy when you put it like that! Easy but effective, thanks.

      Delete
  10. Mike25 January 2021 at 13:35

    As promised, here's a second serving from Campaign Mastery: Function with style: 10 thoughts for NPC Creation http://www.campaignmastery.com/blog/function-with-style-bc-jan-21/

    ReplyDelete
  11. Sean Holand / Sea of Stars25 January 2021 at 19:30

    Created some questions to, hopefully, inspire character background building here: https://seaofstarsrpg.wordpress.com/2021/01/25/questions-for-characters-venturing-into-the-sea-of-stars-kinship-and-kine/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom H27 January 2021 at 23:33

      Good questions, I hope that they raise interesting answers!

      Delete
  12. Tony Bro00126 January 2021 at 17:01

    Hi Tom, I wrote an article about using nodal design to map out your encounters and make your life easier when GMing. - https://roleplay-geek.blogspot.com/2021/01/encounter-by-encounter-nodal-design.html

    ReplyDelete
  13. Unknown30 January 2021 at 19:52

    I put together some tips on how to name characters Three Way to Generate PC or NPC Names. I'm a big advocate for having a selection of NPC cards available for when your party surprises you, so I'm going to plug an older story regarding Creating NPCs for social and exploration challenges.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom H1 February 2021 at 22:42

      Thanks - the second link is broken however :(

      Delete
    2. Unknown2 February 2021 at 00:07

      Ooops. Here it is raw
      https://fullmoonstorytelling.com/2017/03/09/npcs-for-social-and-exploration-encounters/

      Delete
  14. Scot Newbury31 January 2021 at 19:23

    Made it, just under the wire.

    It's been far too long since I've posted as part of a Carnival, here's my entry.

    RPG Carnival Post – They’re people not stats


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom H1 February 2021 at 22:51

      Thanks Scot, and one I very much agree with too.

      Nice to see you and thank you for dropping by!

      Delete

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