Samuel Wright's page

Inclusion in arts and entertainment is important, it can alter how we are viewed and how we view ourselves. I am a fan of historical role-playing games, but there is not a lot of good content from a Jewish point of view. So I have started a group for sharing and collaborating on Jewish oriented content in RPGs, both D&D and other systems. Check it out:
The Jewish RPG Workshop

Okay, I'm sensing some resistance to the idea...

...But my question is, would it be watched by the general public (not necessarily hard-core gamers)? Bloods who do real gaming don't need to have someone show them what it is like, there's no mystery. Doing is always more fun than watching. But I think it would expose a lot of new people to the hobby, dispel a lot of myths about gaming, and improve the image D&D has among the masses. Tell me it wouldn't at least be more interesting than celebrity poker...

Okay, yes, I may be crazy, but that does not mean I'm wrong, and I think a Celebrity D&D tv show would be a major hit. Also, I am not alone, as a quick search on Yahoo reveals:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22Celebrity+D%26D%22&toggle=1&ei= UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&b=1

Unbeknownst to me, Wil Wheaton had actually pitched this idea to Comedy Central when I thought of it on my own. Recently, other celebrities ranging from Vin Diesel and P. Diddy to Lindsey Lohan and Lexa Doig have admitted being fans of D&D. Celebrity Poker has had high ratings and spawned a renewed interest in card games. But seriously, is watching people play poker anywhere near as exciting as watching people role-play? I think not! Role-playing is improvisational acting and storytelling with dice, an opportunity for a skilled actor to create any character he wishes, a chance for an entertainer to have fun doing what he does best. With a good DM to run the game and a good editor to make the best parts of the game shine on tv, Celebrity D&D could show the viewing audience what RPGs are really about and how fun it can be to role-play a character in an adventure. And any chance to see Lexa Doig can't all bad either... :-)

Koomori wrote:

Or maybe just a couple new mags(I know that's asking alot, but it is a good idea) call them something along the lines of Sewer(dungeon) and i dont know about modern dragon...

I'm not sure if I would buy a magazine called "Sewer"...

How about "City" or "Metropolis"? Hmmm... "d20 Modernity"? {scratches head, tries to think of something better...} Ugh. If someone can think of a better title, I'll buy a copy...

I know Maztica was someone else's baby but I'm hoping they will work with me on that. I can make it more than Faerun dressed in beads and feathers. I would like to see articles that tie the Continents together. A sort of world traveller series.

{Climbing back atop soapbox...} Yes, we definitely need some type of adventure path to tie all of the continents together into one contiguous campaign setting. I think we should start with a Silk Road campaign, connecting Faerun, Zakhara, and Kara-tur together along one trade route. This would also allow gaps in the mythic Earth that FR has developed into to be filled {*cough* INDIA! *cough* POLYNESIA! *cough*} as well as helping update things like the Horde. PCs could be merchants and caravan guards, build forts and caravansaries, clear roads and construct bridges or tunnels (possibly travelling through a stretch of Underdark), explore and map newly discovered territories, and become involved in the conflicts between the nations and merchant houses of the territories travelled through...

Hmmm... Sheens were really just robots that developed there only ecology and grew feral when they ended up masterless. Try converting the robots from a setting like d2o Future or Star Wars, with a little added nastiness in the attitude...

"What kind of kung-fu do you study?"

"Oh, five animals, of course, the wushu. Trained a little with Grandmaster Al Thomas too. Learned some buddojuijitsu with him. Yourself?"
"Raging cockaroach style, yo. Da bomb, fresh from Yonkers, New...

I'm a practitioner of Cheeky Monkey Kung Fu myself... ;-)

...But with reference to the main subject of this debate, what I'd like to see is more suggestions on converting material from other games to make it useful in D&D to make better use of the materials that are out there. I also think notes on adapting materials to different types of campaigns and even to other games would be really helpful...

Hehe... Regarding the language filter (lol!), just remember, Pussy is a town in France, and F$$~ing is village in Austria...

Once a year is like so not enough...

...I miss Zakhara! :-(

You and me both! Zakhara and Kara-tur should be fully integrated into the Forgotten Realms (a name that applies to them far better than Faerun, with its huge piles of content...), and coverage of the setting should explore and detail the WHOLE world, not just one continent...

That said, the most hack-n-slash player I ever had was a young woman who had a barbarian known as "Bloodaxe." So, there's just no generalizing.

Actually, your exception to the generality is what proves the generality true. MOST women are not interested in slaughter as much as MOST men are. The violence in RPGs turns off many potential buyers, especially, but not exclusively, female buyers. Any marketing campaign aimed at expanding the hobby has to take this into consideration or the hobby will never expand into new markets...

We need an adventure path based on the historical Silk Road. It would go from Faerun through Zakhara to Kara-tur, connecting all three continents with a single trade route. PCs could help build forts and caravansaries along the route, work as merchants or guards, clear monsters and other hazards in the path of the road, and have other adventures while exploring new lands they've never been to before...

...Specifically, I'd like to see a monthly or at least regular column devoted to updating and expanding campaign settings that have been left on the wayside, like Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and Al-Qadim. I know many fans of these and other settings that have simply resigned themselves to searching for material on the net and have given up trying to get new official material on their favourite campaign worlds. But trust me, if something was put out there every other month on a different out of print setting, those issues would sell like the proverbial heated flat flour-based food item...

Al-Qadim roc'd! The sha'ir was a fascinating alternative to the standard spellcasters. But have any of the other spellcaster kits been updated to 3.5E? I thought the Mystic of Nog and Clockwork Mage were tarmy! I would love seeing them updated...