rpg blog carnival logoMarch 2011’s RPG Blog Carnival covered Life and Death in RPG. Full XP to everyone who participated with insightful and inspirational articles, and thanks for your contributions.

Readers, you are in for a treat as you have many articles to choose from this month. I encourage you to read through them and make life and death more memorable elements of your games.

  • “Despite how much the hobby has grown, it is hard not to notice how much of each core book for each game is devoted to the taking of life, as opposed to living it.” That is the central issue discussed by Casting Shadows in their post, To Live and Die in Roleplay.
  • In Burial Customs of the RandomDM, we are treated to some sweet tables to generate death rites in your game’s cultures. I am always a sucker for good random tables.
  • Moebius Adventures explores the carnival topic in two parts. In Pt. 1 – Life, he talks about the importance of backgrounds in character development. Pt. 2 – Death discusses how the death of all things should have an effect, and to not fall into the video game mindset of infinite lives and foes.
  • Is healing too easy in D&D? Mike Bourke poses that question and delves into fluff and crunch commentary in his article, Too Much Life for The Living.
  • Tower of the Archmage muses over past campaign situations in their blog post, Life and Death in RPGs. Is life cheap?
  • Casting Shadows philosophizes on the matter in his post Turning the Wheel. I like his tie-in with gaming experience and the changing nature of RPG, a mini turning of the wheel itself.
  • In Life, Death, and Life Renewed, Mike explores the consequence of rules changes because of a switch to game editions on the same world. And rather than take one of the common solutions other gamers came up with, he chose The Third Way.
  • Dvoid Systems handles the tricky matter of why the PCs risk their lives in the post Life and Death in D-Jumpers. I’m glad this is talked about. It has always seemed strange to me that PCs laugh at death and never suffer from stuff like PTSD. I guess that’s the escapist element of RPG.
  • The Action Point teaches us to ensure NPCs will be missed and grieved for in their good article, Murdering Your NPCs.
  • The carnival of life from the Fame & Fortune blog explores how changes in birth and mortality rates might affect your game. And the carnival of death discusses the other side of the coin, including funerary rites, veneration of the dead, and death of species.
  • RandomDM treats us to more tables in Rites of Passage, covering random life events.
  • Hey, undead are people too. Shouldn’t they get personality, backstories, and intriguing goals like the rest of us NPCs? Check out the Undead Foe Generator.
  • Late To The Party offers this excellent opening line in their post about game balance, Life is Cheap: “I tend to run dirtbag games and resurrection is generally off the table.”

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