Kobold Guide to Plots & Campaigns


Book Description

The Best Role in Roleplaying Whether you're a new gamemaster or a seasoned vet looking for a new angle to shake up your game, these 19 essays by 13 expert gamemasters demonstrate ways to construct your campaign from the ground up and keep your players engaged until the dramatic conclusion. Within this volume, masters of the art show you how to begin a new campaign, use published adventures or loot them for the best ideas, build toward cliffhangers, and design a game that can enthrall your players for month or even years. Want to run an evil campaign, or hurl the characters into unusual otherworldly settings? Want to ensure that you're creating memorable and effective NPCs and villains? We've got you covered. Complete with discussions on plotting, tone, branching storytelling, pacing, and crafting action scenes, you'll find all the tips and advice you need to take on the best role in roleplaying--and become an expert gamemaster, too! Featuring essays by Wolfgang Baur, Jeff Grubb, David "Zeb" Cook, Margaret Weis, Robert J. Schwalb, Steve Winter, and other game professionals.




Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding


Book Description

The Essential Elements for Building a World Roleplaying games and fantasy fiction are filled with rich and fascinating worlds: the Forgotten Realms, Glorantha, Narnia, R'lyeh, Middle-Earth, Barsoom, and so many more. It took startling leaps of imagination as well as careful thought and planning to create places like these: places that readers and players want to come back to again and again. Now, eleven of adventure gaming's top designers come together to share their insights into building worlds that gamers will never forget. Learn the secrets of designing a pantheon, creating a setting that provokes conflict, determining which historical details are necessary, and so much more. Take that creative leap, and create dazzling worlds of your own! Essays by Wolfgang Baur, Keith Baker, Monte Cook, Jeff Grubb, Scott Hungerford, David "Zeb" Cook, Chris Pramas, Jonathan Roberts, Michael A. Stackpole, Steve Winter, with an introduction by Ken Scholes. NOMINATED FOR TWO ENNIE AWARDS: Best Writing and Best RPG-Related Book Praise for Prior Kobold Design Guides "Highly recommended for gaming nerds everywhere." --CityBookReview.com "If you're an aspiring pro this book is a must. If you're a rules hacker like me, this stuff is solid gold." --Berin Kinsman, UncleBear Media "A fantastic collection ... A solid 5 star rating." --Joshua Guillion, AdventureAWeek.com "An amazing collection ... from some of the best designers and writers creating role-playing game material today." --Brian Fitzpatrick, BlogCritics.org




KOBOLD GT GAMEMASTERING


Book Description

The latest in the award-winning and fan-favorite series of Kobold Guides tackles gameplay head-on, with advice from everyone from veterans to talented newcomers on how to make a tabletop RPG session snap, crackle, and shine! Writers on include Frank Mentzer, Keith Baker, Zeb Cook, James Jacobs, Monica Valentinelli, Shanna Germain, and many other well-known industry vets and long-time GMs.




Kobold Guide to Board Game Design


Book Description

Winner of the 2012 Origins Award Pull up a chair and see how the world's top game designers roll. You want your games to be many things: Creative. Innovative. Playable. Fun. If you're a designer, add "published" to that list. The "Kobold Guide to Board Game Design" gives you an insider's view on how to make a game that people will want to play again and again. Author Mike Selinker (Betrayal at House on the Hill) has invited some of the world's most talented and experienced game designers to share their secrets on game conception, design, development, and presentation. In these pages, you'll learn about storyboarding, balancing, prototyping, and playtesting from the best in the business.




Kobold Guide to Combat


Book Description

At the heart of every adventure lies conflict. A Full-Throated Battle Cry, the Clash of Swords, the Smell of Smoke & Blood... COMBAT! Whether it's between a cursed knight and an elf prince at swordspoint, adventurers facing down an ogre, or two great armies clashing for ultimate power, combat changes everything. Between these covers, more than 15 master game designers and storytellers get into the thick of it. These essays cover strategy and tactics, and the history of military systems at war. They demonstrate how to increase the tension in a conflict, and use monsters, magic, and war machines on the field. And these creators show you how to create great combat on the tabletop and in your storytelling. Open these pages and enter the fray!




The Monsters Know What They're Doing


Book Description

From the creator of the popular blog The Monsters Know What They’re Doing comes a compilation of villainous battle plans for Dungeon Masters. In the course of a Dungeons & Dragons game, a Dungeon Master has to make one decision after another in response to player behavior—and the better the players, the more unpredictable their behavior! It’s easy for even an experienced DM to get bogged down in on-the-spot decision-making or to let combat devolve into a boring slugfest, with enemies running directly at the player characters and biting, bashing, and slashing away. In The Monsters Know What They’re Doing, Keith Ammann lightens the DM’s burden by helping you understand your monsters’ abilities and develop battle plans before your fifth edition D&D game session begins. Just as soldiers don’t whip out their field manuals for the first time when they’re already under fire, a DM shouldn’t wait until the PCs have just encountered a dozen bullywugs to figure out how they advance, fight, and retreat. Easy to read and apply, The Monsters Know What They're Doing is essential reading for every DM.




Midgard Worldbook


Book Description

"Pathfinder roleplaying game compatible."




Courts of the Shadow Fey (5th Edition)


Book Description

Friends or Foes? A Game of Shifting Dangers The Shadow Fey arrive and turn the city upside down--and their ambassador demands that the player characters explain themselves for interfering in a legitimate assassination! So begins the looking-glass adventure that takes 7th to 10th level adventurers to the Realm of Shadows. This inventive take on courtly combat and sandbox roleplaying includes: More than 60-location map of the Courts, fully detailed with 100+ NPCs More than 40 combat and roleplaying encounters Dozens of new monsters your players have never seen! Demon lovers and dangerous liaisons for those who seek them Jealous rivals, a quick-play dueling system, and the King and Queen of Shadows A Status system to track player character prestige--and new Status powers! Enter the world of shadows, and play the 5th Edition of the world's first roleplaying game on a whole new level! More than 140 pages of real action and adventure by designers Wolfgang Baur and Dan Dillon.




Kobold Guide to Magic


Book Description

Kobolds Work a Little Magic The popular and wildly useful Kobold Guide series tackles the biggest subject in fantasy: Magic! What makes a fantasy fantastic? Magic, of course! Whether it's unearthly beasts, scheming sorcerers, legendary swords or locales that defy logic and physics, a compelling fantasy story needs magical elements. The tricky part is that in order for the story to work, you have to get your reader or player to believe the unbelievable. The Kobold Guide to Magic takes you behind the scenes to learn the secrets of designing and writing about magic from 20 top fantasy authors and game designers. Find out how to create more compelling, more interesting, and more playable magic at your table or in your stories-with the word from some of the most talented creators working today. The topics are wide-ranging, from the secrets of Irish magic to tricks of impractical magic, from how to generate a sense of wonder at the gaming table to how to rejigger the teleport spell for stronger adventures tohow to sell a character's soul and how to run a game with visions and prophecies. There's even sections on the magic of J.R.R. Tolkien and the tools available to a game master for making magic their own. The Essential Guide to Magic in Fiction and Games This essential companion for fantasy gamers and readers alike feature essays by: Wolfgang Baur Clinton Boomer David Chart David "Zeb" Cook James Enge Ed Greenwood Jeff Grubb Kenneth Hite James Jacobs Colin McComb Richard Pett Tim Pratt John Rateliff Thomas Reid Aaron Rosenberg Ken Scholes F. Wesley Schneider Amber E. Scott Willie Walsh Martha Wells Steve Winter This latest volume in the best-selling and award-winning series of Kobold Guides tackles the mystery at the heart of the fantasy genre. Improve your game and expand your magical power with the Kobold Guide to Magic! This book ships early in 2014 and will be in high demand. Don't miss out, and get it in print before everyone else!




Scarlet Citadel for 5th Edition


Book Description

Once a functional fortress where wizards honed their eldritch craft, little now remains of the Scarlet Citadel--on the surface. The place now has a sinister and deadly reputation among adventurers and lorekeepers, and for good reason. The dungeon's well-trod stairs have seen few return from their journeys below. Here, deep underground, dwarven mercenaries once bred their owlbears for war, sorcerers from the White Forest practiced their arts, and strange cults from other realms drew from mysterious nodes of power. Ancient treasures and secrets are still scattered everywhere. Malevolent creatures spin shadowy webs, enchant foul magics, and summon forth dark gods. The Scarlet Citadel for 5th Edition hardcover is: * A massive hardcover tome containing a classic-style adventure for 10 levels of play, fully compatible for D&D 5E. * Easily paired with the Scarlet Citadel Map Folio, a fold-out set of playable battle maps from Kobold Press. * Suited for newcomers to tabletop RPGs as well as long-time Game Masters. * Optimized for evocative combats and magical mysteries, and brimming with plots and subplots to uncover. * Full of original traps and new monsters as well as a complete write-up of the nearby town of Redtower, where the adventurers can set up a home base.