We kind of let our one year anniversary come and go without any real fanfare. We feel bad about that. And, since we’ve been trying to come up with a good Hirst Arts dice tower, we have a little something to give away. It’s a not-quite-perfect tower that was an early prototype of the perfect dice tower that is in our head. (It has trouble rolling more than a couple of dice at at time). Convoluded? Perhaps. Let us clarify: it looks a lot like this one, except without the braziers on either side of the doorway. Anyway, if you’d like to win it, just post something to that effect in the comments. The contests lasts until December 3rd.
The Evil GM posted a great spreadsheet that autocalculates monster stats. This is based, of course, on the updated MM3 and following math. Check it out, it’s a Google doc, but you can download it for Excel.
The Action Point has started letting the players roll when their non-AC defenses are attacked, much like the save mechanic in 3.5. Find out what he likes about it.
Over at Wombat’s Gaming Den of Iniquity, they started a new series on running sandbox games. If you’d like to give your players more freedom and fly by the seat of your pants more, this is a great place to start.
Hunter’s Haven had some great advice for all the players out there when it comes to character creation. It’s three very quick bullet points, so even if you don’t have time to read the whole article, it’s worth checking out.
A few weeks ago Sly Flourish posted a set of pictures that he uses to organize his game maps. Instead of opening each map, he is able to flip through the pictures. This week Alphastream added to the catalogue. This is a great resource; if you have a bunch of adventure maps you’d like to organize in this manner, but don’t want to take pictures of them yourself, check out both articles.
Finally, if you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know that we’ve run several adventures on a ship. That’s why we were excited to see Dungeon’s Master‘s list of eight hooks for high seas adventure. Check it out!
Blast from the Past (Weekly Roundup: Daylight Savings Time Edition)
Yax did a guest post over at Critical Hits about body language at the gaming table. Not only did we find this article entertaining (check out the illustrations) and informative, it was on a subject that isn’t usually addressed in gaming blogs. We give it two thumbs up; a must read for all.
Roving Band of Misfits 
Have you seen the dice tower I built out of hirst arts bricks? http://towerofthearchmage.blogspot.com/2011/11/super-secret-side-project-part-2.html
Congratulations on one year.
Liked the body language link.
I would like to be in the running for getting the dice rolling tower.
Hope to hear an other critical hit podcast soon!!!
Good work on your anniversary! I’d be glad to be included in the running for the dice tower!
I’d like to win! It looks super fun. And congrats!
@DelayedSession
to seek a treasure,
a tower of dice rolling
more precious than gold
Always happy to enter a contest, especially for stuff that can be shared with the Grasshopper.
I’m interested in the giveaway!
I’d like to be considered for the dice tower.
Meanwhile, I think I now need to go try to build one out of LEGO bricks…
I’d love to enter the dice tower contest. Maybe with it my kids could keep their dice on the table!
I’d love a tower to intimidate my PCs before I destroy them!
Congrats on making it through a full year! Not all that many blogs survive that long. You should feel rightfully proud of keeping it regularly updated and fresh!
Please put me into the running for the dice tower, too. My homemade cardboard dice tower is just about trashed.
Thanks for the shout out! I’ve got at least 4 more Schrödinger’s Gun GMing articles outlined and in development, so stay tuned and hopefully you’ll get some useful tips out of the series.
Also, winning a dice tower would rock.
I would certainly like to throw my Die Staff +1 into the ring. 🙂
Congratulations on the first anniversary!
I will take this dice tower off your hands.
Always love a contest! Congrats on the anniversary.
Those Hirst Arts bricks are cool – I’ve thought about making some scenery for my games, but I’ve got a mountain of unpainted lead and I think my partner will kill me if I find yet another diversion 🙂
Put me down for wanting to win that kickass dice tower!
I would totally love that dice tower. Congrats on all the hard work over the past year!
I’m trying to build a Fat Dragon dice tower out of card stock, but I can let the players use that. Put me in for it please. New listener to the podcast. I like it.