| complete kobold guide to game design: Kobold Guide to Game Design , 2019 The first edition of the COMPLETE KOBOLD GUIDE TO GAME DESIGN laid out concepts, techniques and advice for designing roleplaying games and enhancing adventures. This second edition brings together essays from the original volume, many updated to reflect the changing game design landscape, as well as new essays by veteran designers Jeff Grubb (Dragonlance,Forgotten Realms, Guild Wars), Kelly Pawlik (Midgard Sagas, Empire of the Ghouls), Amber Scott (Dungeons & Dragons, Eberron) and Ray Vallese (The Kobold Guide to Magic).Between these covers, you’ll find practical, thought-provoking essays on worldbuilding, creating magic systems, conflict, and compelling stories, what to expect when you work as a design professional, and much more. Conceptual chapters examine what game design is and how good design can create the best games. Concrete examples provide models to help youcreate well-rounded designs and exciting adventures.In his essay -- amazon.com |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Kobold Guide to Board Game Design Mike Selinker, David Howell, Jeff Tidball, 2012-09 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. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding Wolfgang Baur, Scott Hungerford, Jeff Grubb, 2012-12 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 |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Kobold Guide to Magic Wolfgang Baur, Monte Cook, Ray Vallese, 2014-03 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! |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Complete Kobold Guide to Game Design Wolfgang Baur, Ed Greenwood, Monte Cook, 2012-12-01 This collection explores monetary institutions linking Europe and the Americas in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Kobold Guide to Plots & Campaigns Margaret Weis, Wolfgang Baur, Jeff Grubb, 2016-07-17 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. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: KOBOLD GT GAMEMASTERING Frank Mentzer, Various, 2017-06-13 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. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Empire of the Ghouls for 5th Edition Richard Green, Wolfgang Baur, Christopher Lockey, Jeff Lee, Kelly Pawlik, Mike Welham, 2020-06-09 Dark Motives and Darker Alliances Citizens of Zobeck are going missing. Catacombs beneath the urban abodes may have answers, but what lurks in them may not enjoy company... Rumors swirl of an unholy marriage between blood thirsty factions. As haunting dreams and prophetic utterances swell, the danger becomes clear. Such a union would be catastrophic... Who will uncover and stop these foul and ghoulish workings? Will your adventurers have the fortitude and ambition--or the greed and cunning--it takes to put a stop to them? Empire of the Ghouls is a complete adventure for characters level 1-13 for the 5th edition of the world's first RPG. You'll also find a gazetteer detailing the Ghoul Imperium in the depths of the Underworld--complete with map! --and appendices filled with new cults, creatures, magic items, and NPCs. Sharpen your blade and conjure magical light, and root out the foulness below the earth! |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Kobold Guide to Combat Wolfgang Baur, Ed Greenwood, 2014-09-30 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! |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Characteristics of Games George Skaff Elias, Richard Garfield, K. Robert Gutschera, 2020-12-08 Understanding games--whether computer games, card games, board games, or sports--by analyzing certain common traits. Characteristics of Games offers a new way to understand games: by focusing on certain traits--including number of players, rules, degrees of luck and skill needed, and reward/effort ratio--and using these characteristics as basic points of comparison and analysis. These issues are often discussed by game players and designers but seldom written about in any formal way. This book fills that gap. By emphasizing these player-centric basic concepts, the book provides a framework for game analysis from the viewpoint of a game designer. The book shows what all genres of games--board games, card games, computer games, and sports--have to teach each other. Today's game designers may find solutions to design problems when they look at classic games that have evolved over years of playing. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Tabletop Drew Davidson, Greg Costikyan, 2011 In this volume, people of diverse backgrounds talk about tabletop games, game culture, and the intersection of games with learning, theater, and other forms. Some have chosen to write about their design process, others about games they admire, others about the culture of tabletop games and their fans. The results are various and individual, but all cast some light on what is a multivarious and fascinating set of game styles. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: The Art of Game Design Jesse Schell, 2014-11-06 Good game design happens when you view your game from as many perspectives as possible. Written by one of the world's top game designers, The Art of Game Design presents 100+ sets of questions, or different lenses, for viewing a game’s design, encompassing diverse fields such as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, puzzle design, and anthropology. This Second Edition of a Game Developer Front Line Award winner: Describes the deepest and most fundamental principles of game design Demonstrates how tactics used in board, card, and athletic games also work in top-quality video games Contains valuable insight from Jesse Schell, the former chair of the International Game Developers Association and award-winning designer of Disney online games The Art of Game Design, Second Edition gives readers useful perspectives on how to make better game designs faster. It provides practical instruction on creating world-class games that will be played again and again. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Eurogames Stewart Woods, 2012-08-30 While board games can appear almost primitive in the digital age, eurogames--also known as German-style board games--have increased in popularity nearly concurrently with the rise of video games. Eurogames have simple rules and short playing times and emphasize strategy over luck and conflict. This book examines the form of eurogames, the hobbyist culture that surrounds them, and the way that hobbyists experience the play of such games. It chronicles the evolution of tabletop hobby gaming and explores why hobbyists play them, how players balance competitive play with the demands of an intimate social gathering, and to what extent the social context of the game encounter shapes the playing experience. Combining history, cultural studies, leisure studies, ludology, and play theory, this innovative work highlights a popular alternative trend in the gaming community. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: The Complete Guide to Creating Epic Campaigns Guy Sclanders, 2018-10-23 This book will help you design, manage, and adjust your campaign like a master storyteller. Designed for use in all role-playing systems, and for all genres, the book is packed with information on designing campaigns, epic villains and henchmen and for creating memorable NPCs. Used primarily in role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons the book provides inside into any creative space that needs a world and a master plot! |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Kobold Guide to Monsters Kobold Staff, 2021-06-08 The ENNIE Award-winning Kobold Guide series returns with The Kobold Guide to Monsters! This definitive tome about tabletop RPG creature creation and their use at the gaming table contains invaluable insight and advice from some of the top minds in roleplaying game design today. A wide range of philosophy and perspectives are on display in these pages, including how to design monsters based on mythology, literature, or pop culture; how to balance a monster's flavor with functionality; how to reskin monsters for any genre of campaign; how to make friends with even the most snarling beasts; how to tell a story with an encounter; how to best pace an encounter, and much more. With essays grouped by subject matter, from monster design to encounter design, and presented in thoughtful progression, this tome is the perfect companion for Game Masters and players alike who want to learn from the very best. It's a great gift for budding game designers, and it's the perfect impulse buy for games of all stripes! |
| complete kobold guide to game design: The Game Inventor's Guidebook Brian Tinsman, 2008-11-01 A guide to developing and selling your game idea from a game design manager at Wizards of the Coast, the world’s largest tabletop hobby game company. Do you have an idea for a board game, card game, role-playing game or tabletop game? Have you ever wondered how to get it published? For many years Brian Tinsman reviewed new game submissions for Hasbro, the largest game company in the US. With The Game Inventor’s Guidebook: How to Invent and Sell Board Games, Card Games, Role-playing Games & Everything in Between! Tinsman presents the only book that lays out step-by-step advice, guidelines and instructions for getting a new game from idea to retail shelf. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: GameTek Geoffrey Engelstein, 2019-02-01 What games can teach us about life, the universe and ourselves. If you shuffle a deck of cards what are the odds that the sequence is unique? What is the connection between dice, platonic solids and Newton's theory of gravity? What is more random: a dice tower or a number generator? Can you actually employ a strategy for a game as basic as Rock-Paper-Scissors? These are all questions that are thrown up in games and life. Games involve chance, choice, competition, innovation, randomness, memory, stand-offs and paradoxes - aspects that designers manipulate to make a game interesting, fun and addictive, and players try to master for enjoyment and winning. But they also provide a fascinating way for us to explore our world; to understand how our minds tick, our numbers add up, and our laws of physics work. This is a book that tackles the big questions of life through the little questions of games. With short chapters on everything from memory games to the Prisoner's Dilemma, to Goedel's theorems, GameTek is fascinating reading anyone for who wants to explore the world from a new perspective - and a must-read book for serious designers and players. PRAISE 'Math, physics, psychology and all the other stuff you didn't even realise you were using while playing board games! Dr E has opened the door to the game under the game in fascinating, fun detail. Now you have NO reason to ever lose again! Rock!' Tommy Dean, board-gamer and stand-up comic |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Board Game Design Advice Gabe Barrett, 2019-07-09 Take your games to the next level with advice from more than 100 of the best board game designers in the world. Game design is hard. We all need sound advice to guide our work and help us become better at the craft. In this book, you'll find incredible wisdom and insight from the top designers in the industry today. You will learn: The advice Rob Daviau would give his younger self.How Matt Leacock gets into the zone and flow of design.Lessons Jamey Stegmaier learned from his biggest failure.Donald X. Vaccarino's advice on pitching a game to a publisher.The behavior that has helped Ryan Laukat's designs dramatically improve. What Bruno Cathala would tell you after a discouraging playtest.And much more! |
| complete kobold guide to game design: The Board Game Designer's Guide Joe Slack, 2023 Do you have a board game idea, but can't get it out of your head? Use my 4 I's Framework, and you'll get your game to the table and quickly discover if it will be the next Cards Against Humanity (hint: good!) or the next Trump: The Game (hint: not so good!). Have you made a game, but it's just sitting in a closet somewhere? Dust off that box and let The Board Game Designer's Guide get you unstuck and finish your game for good! Is your game done but you don't know what to do next? In section 6, I'll walk you through all the options available, so that you can finally figure out which one is right for you, and grow a huge legion of fans all proclaiming Whoever invented this game is a friggin' genius! Don't let your board game idea sit on a shelf or in your head. There are thousands of people out there who want to play it. You need to share your amazing game with the world! And now you finally can ... |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Tome of Beasts Wolfgang Baur, 2016-11-08 Whether you need dungeon vermin or a world-shaking personification of evil, the Tome of beasts has it. Here are more than 400 new foes for your 5th edition game--everything from tiny drakes and peculiar spiders, to demon lords and ancient dragons.--Back cover. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Adventures from the Potbellied Kobold Jeff C Stevens, 2021-04-02 Adventures from the Potbellied Kobold provides you with fifteen adventures to use as one-shots, additions to your current campaign, or as inspiration for a new campaign. We've even included a way to link several of the adventures, providing you with a mini-campaign. The adventures range in difficulty from low to mid-level, and many include adjustment suggestions, allowing you flexibility with the adventure's difficulty. The adventures are short and sweet, targeting play times of 1 to 3 hours. Of course some adventures may run a bit longer depending on your play style, group, and how often your adventurers debate over who gets what magic item. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Live to Tell the Tale Keith Ammann, 2020-07-07 From the author of The Monsters Know What They’re Doing comes an introduction to combat tactics for Dungeons & Dragons players. In his first book, The Monsters Know What They’re Doing (based on his popular blog), Keith Ammann unleashed upon the D&D world a wave of clever, highly evolved monster tactics. Now it’s only fair that he gives players the tools they need to fight back…and prevail! An introduction to combat tactics for fifth-edition Dungeons & Dragons players, Live to Tell the Tale evens the score. It examines the fundamentals of D&D battles: combat roles, party composition, attacking combos, advantage and disadvantage, Stealth and Perception, and more…including the ever-important consideration of how to run away! Don’t worry about creating a mathematically perfect character from square one. Survival isn’t about stats—it’s about behavior! With four turn-by-turn, roll-by-roll, blow-by-blow sample battles, Live to Tell the Tale breaks down how to make the best choices for your cherished characters so that they can survive their adventures, retire upon their accumulated riches, and tell stories about the old days that nobody will ever believe. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Midgard Worldbook Wolfgang Baur, Richard Green, Jeff Grubb, 2018-10 Pathfinder roleplaying game compatible. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: The Monsters Know What They're Doing Keith Ammann, 2019-10-29 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. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Achievement Relocked Geoffrey Engelstein, 2020-02-18 How game designers can use the psychological phenomenon of loss aversion to shape player experience. Getting something makes you feel good, and losing something makes you feel bad. But losing something makes you feel worse than getting the same thing makes you feel good. So finding $10 is a thrill; losing $10 is a tragedy. On an “intensity of feeling” scale, loss is more intense than gain. This is the core psychological concept of loss aversion, and in this book game creator Geoffrey Engelstein explains, with examples from both tabletop and video games, how it can be a tool in game design. Loss aversion is a profound aspect of human psychology, and directly relevant to game design; it is a tool the game designer can use to elicit particular emotions in players. Engelstein connects the psychology of loss aversion to a range of phenomena related to games, exploring, for example, the endowment effect—why, when an object is ours, it gains value over an equivalent object that is not ours—as seen in the Weighted Companion Cube in the game Portal; the framing of gains and losses to manipulate player emotions; Deal or No Deal’s use of the utility theory; and regret and competence as motivations, seen in the context of legacy games. Finally, Engelstein examines the approach to loss aversion in three games by Uwe Rosenberg, charting the designer’s increasing mastery. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Dungeon Master's Guide II Jesse Decker, David Noonan, James Jacobs, Chris Thomasson, Robin D. Laws, 2005 Building upon existing materials in the Dungeon Master's Guide, this title was specifically designed to facilitate play, especially when the Dungeon Master has a limited amount of preparation time. Chapters include discussion on running a game, designing adventures, building and using prestige classes, and creating campaign settings. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Party Backstory Generator Justin Sirois, 2019-01-03 The Party Backstory Generator is a collaborative storytelling supplement that's a helluva a lot of fun for you and your players. It's sort of like a workbook from your college lab class in that you get to draw out the starting region for your campaign, but everyone gets to collaborate and add their own touch so your whole group is invested in the setting. This book is a fun improv exercise that will get your group off to a great new start. -- LUKE GYGAX. How did everyone in your party meet? What alliances or tensions exist? Who screwed over who and what will you do about it?For D&D, Pathfinder, and other systems, the Party Backstory Generator solves this problem quickly and easily. This is a simple, straightforward guide of limitless customization.Build meaningful alliances and tensions between multiple party members with this map making, backstory and one-shot off-night story builder. Choose two characters... - it's the prompt in this unique book that will bond your party in fun and meaningful ways. This book doesn't create individual characters. It solely focuses on unifying your players with randomized background, conflicts, skills, and tragedies. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: The Everything Tabletop Games Book Bebo, 2019-07-16 Tabletop and board games aren’t just for rainy days or awkward family events anymore. As the game industry grows, people of all ages are jumping to play “the original social network.” In our ever-increasing technological world, playing old-school games is a welcome retreat from the overexposure to Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and the rest of social media. Over the past few years, board games have become the hot new hobby. Instead of friends sitting around the same table and staring at their phones, they are now either working with or against each other. Millions upon millions of new fans have begun to join their friends in real life for a fun game of Pandemic, 7 Wonders, or Ticket to Ride. The Everything Tabletop Games Book shows how to play some of the best tabletop games in the world, from classic strategy games like Settlers of Catan to great new games like Gloomhaven. Throughout the book, you’ll learn the different genres of tabletop and board games; how to play each game; rules and strategies to help you win; and even where to play online—including new expansions to keep your favorite games fresh and exciting. So gather up some friends, pick a game from this book, and start playing! You’ll be having a blast in no time. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: The CRPG Book: A Guide to Computer Role-Playing Games Felipe Pepe, 2019-09 Reviews over 400 seminal games from 1975 to 2015. Each entry shares articles on the genre, mod suggestions and hints on how to run the games on modern hardware. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: The Art of Game Design Jesse Schell, 2008-08-04 Anyone can master the fundamentals of game design - no technological expertise is necessary. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses shows that the same basic principles of psychology that work for board games, card games and athletic games also are the keys to making top-quality videogames. Good game design happens when you view your game from many different perspectives, or lenses. While touring through the unusual territory that is game design, this book gives the reader one hundred of these lenses - one hundred sets of insightful questions to ask yourself that will help make your game better. These lenses are gathered from fields as diverse as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, writing, puzzle design, and anthropology. Anyone who reads this book will be inspired to become a better game designer - and will understand how to do it. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Races of the Dragon Gwendolyn F. M. Kestrel, Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, Kolja Raven Liquette, 2006 The Blood of Dragons Flows through Your Veins In ages past, dragons ruled supreme. Now their distant scions, the races and individuals who carry their blood, live among the great empires of the world, where they forge their own glorious legacies. You can be among them. Embrace your draconic heritage, and the spoils of the world can be yours! This supplement for the D&D(R) game provides detailed information on the psychology, society, culture, behavior, religion, and folklore of the dragonblooded races, including kobolds and half-dragons. This book introduces two new player character races: the dragonborn (existing characters reborn in a new draconic form to combat and destroy the spawn of Tiamat) and the spellscales (artistic, philosophical beings with a penchant for sorcery and a thirst for new experiences). It also provides new prestige classes, feats, spells, magic items, equipment, and guidelines for crafting adventures and campaigns involving dragonblooded races. For use with these Dungeons & Dragons(R) core books Player's Handbook(TM) Dungeon Master's Guide(TM) Monster Manual(TM) |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Book of Lairs for 5th Edition Wolfgang Baur, Steve Winter, James J. Haeck, 2016-10-25 Fight the Monster in its Den... If You Dare! Book of Lairs brings you 24 great monster lairs for 5th Edition play of the world's greatest roleplaying game! Each of these exciting and unusual battlegrounds comes with a complete short adventure, including a hook, area hazards, tactics, and treasures. Stage your 5th Edition fights in unforgettable locations like: Alchemist's Guildhall Necromancer's Cistern Den of the Rotten Kings Lost Halls of Everforge Citadel of the Void Dragon Tomb of the Scorpion Prince Imperial Ghoul Outpost Umbral Vampire Lair Sky Stairs of Beldestan And 15 more! Designed by some of the top names in the RPG industry, Book of Lairs is sure to add an aura of wonder and mystery to your game! Book of Lairs uses standard monstesr as well as surprising new creatures from teh Tome of Beasts, and both monster books are required for maximum playability. A DM's version of each lair map is included with numbered locations. An additional digital map pack is available from Kobold Press for use with a projector or for online play |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Players Making Decisions Zack Hiwiller, 2015-12-09 Game designers today are expected to have an arsenal of multi-disciplinary skills at their disposal in the fields of art and design, computer programming, psychology, economics, composition, education, mythology—and the list goes on. How do you distill a vast universe down to a few salient points? Players Making Decisions brings together the wide range of topics that are most often taught in modern game design courses and focuses on the core concepts that will be useful for students for years to come. A common theme to many of these concepts is the art and craft of creating games in which players are engaged by making meaningful decisions. It is the decision to move right or left, to pass versus shoot, or to develop one’s own strategy that makes the game enjoyable to the player. As a game designer, you are never entirely certain of who your audience will be, but you can enter their world and offer a state of focus and concentration on a task that is intrinsically rewarding. This detailed and easy-to-follow guide to game design is for both digital and analog game designers alike and some of its features include: A clear introduction to the discipline of game design, how game development teams work, and the game development process Full details on prototyping and playtesting, from paper prototypes to intellectual property protection issues A detailed discussion of cognitive biases and human decision making as it pertains to games Thorough coverage of key game elements, with practical discussions of game mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics Practical coverage of using simulation tools to decode the magic of game balance A full section on the game design business, and how to create a sustainable lifestyle within it |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Your Best Game Ever Monte Cook, 2019-07 |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Creature Codex Wolfgang Baur, Dan Dillon, Richard Green, James Haeck, Jeremy Hochhalter, James Introcaso, Chris Harris, Jon Sawatsky, 2018-10-02 Compatible with the fifth edition of the world's first roleplaying game!--Back cover. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Tales of the Old Margreve Wolfgang Baur, Richard Green, 2019-06-11 Tales of the Old Margreve takes your 5th Edition game deep into the ancient, magical forest, with new spells, monsters, magic items, and wondrous locations by Richard Green and Wolfgang Baur; a monster appendix by Jon Sawatsky and James Introcaso; and twelve challenging adventures for heroes level 1-10. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: The Game Master's Book of Random Encounters Jeff Ashworth, 2020-09-15 For many tabletop RPG players, the joy of an in-depth game is that anything can happen. Typical adventure modules include a map of the adventure’s primary location, but every other location?whether it's a woodland clearing, a random apothecary or the depths of a temple players elect to explore?has to be improvised on the fly by the Game Master. As every GM knows, no matter how many story hooks, maps or NPCs you painstakingly create during session prep, your best-laid plans are often foiled by your players' whims, extreme skill check successes (or critical fails) or their playful refusal to stay on task. In a game packed with infinite possibilities, what are GMs supposed to do when their players choose those for which they're not prepared? The Game Master’s Book of Random Encounters provides an unbeatable solution. This massive tome is divided into location categories, each of which can stand alone as a small stop as part of a larger campaign. As an example, the “Taverns, Inns, Shops & Guild Halls” section includes maps for 19 unique spaces, as well as multiple encounter tables designed to help GMs fill in the sights, sounds, smells and proprietors of a given location, allowing for each location in the book to be augmented and populated on the fly while still ensuring memorable moments for all your players. Each map is presented at scale on grid, enabling GMs to determine exactly where all of the characters are in relation to one another and anyone (or anything) else in the space, critical information should any combat or other movement-based action occur. Perhaps more useful than its nearly 100 maps, the book's one-shot generator features all the story hooks necessary for GMs to use these maps as part of an interconnected and contained adventure. Featuring eight unique campaign drivers that lead players through several of the book's provided maps, the random tables associated with each stage in the adventure allow for nearly three million different outcomes, making The Game Master's Book of Random Encounters an incredible investment for any would-be GM. The book also includes a Random NPC Generator to help you create intriguing characters your players will love (or love to hate), as well as a Party Makeup Maker for establishing connections among your PCs so you can weave together a disparate group of adventurers with just a few dice rolls. Locations include taverns, temples, inns, animal/creature lairs, gatehouses, courts, ships, laboratories and more, with adventure hooks that run the gamut from frantic rooftop chases to deep cellar dungeon-crawls, with a total of 97 maps, more than 150 tables and millions of possible adventures. No matter where your players end up, they'll have someone or something to persuade or deceive, impress or destroy. As always, the choice is theirs. But no matter what they choose, with The Game Master's Book of Random Encounters, you'll be ready. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: ZWEIHANDER Grim & Perilous RPG Daniel D. Fox, 2019-06-11 Powered by HTML, this Zweihander eBook edition is published with a nuanced reflowable document layout. It includes: Reflowable text and images Sidebar navigation via device contents Hyperlinked Table of Contents and Index for fast, easy searches Hyperlinked cross-references throughout the book Tap and zoom illustrations This digital format differs from standard fixed layouts and PDFs. We highly suggest users download a sample before purchasing. WELCOME TO GRIM & PERILOUS GAMING Featured on Forbes.com, ranked one of the best-selling fantasy tabletop role-playing games at DriveThruRPG, and having sold over 90,000 copies worldwide, ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG is a bloodier, grimmer, and grittier version of classical tabletop role-playing games. This revised edition is published in celebration with Andrews McMeel Publishing and features a refreshed layout, new artwork, rules clarifications, color plates by Dejan Mandic, and errata. ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG is a game where your characters will: Live in a gritty, realistic fantasy world Make morally grey decisions & enact vicious reprisals Uncover insidious plots & political intrigue Take part in heart-pumping chase scenes Venture into the wilderness & survive its perils Desperately fight in clandestine & open field combat Defend themselves from injuries, madness, & mutations Encounter sanity-blasting creatures & their minions Using the Powered By ZWEIHÄNDER d100 game engine, you will create grim characters, write perilous adventures, and build your own low fantasy & dark fantasy campaigns. These rules are a perfect fit for Renaissance and medieval-styled adventures, too. You can also use this book to create your own home-brewed worlds, whether inspired by the works of Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher, George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, Glen Cook’s Black Company, Myke Cole’s The Armored Saint, Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane, Scott Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastard series, or other grimdark-inspired media. This all-in-one game includes most of what you need to play: a character creation guide, game mastery rules, and a bestiary brimming with creatures both fair & foul. All that’s left are a few friends, pencils, and a handful of dice. ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG awaits, and the fate of your grim & perilous tale hangs in the balance! |
| complete kobold guide to game design: It's All a Game Tristan Donovan, 2018-11-01 Board games have been with us longer than even the written word. But what is it about this pastime that continues to captivate us well into the age of smartphones and instant gratification? In It's All a Game renowned games expert Tristan Donovan opens the box on the incredible and often surprising history and psychology of board games. He traces the evolution of the game across cultures, time periods, and continents, from the paranoid Chicago toy genius behind classics like Operation and Mouse Trap, to the role of Monopoly in helping prisoners of war escape the Nazis, and even the scientific use of board games today to teach artificial intelligence how to reason and how to win. With these compelling stories and characters, Donovan ultimately reveals why board games have captured hearts and minds all over the world for generations. |
| complete kobold guide to game design: Into the Odd Chris McDowall, 2015-01-10 Into the Odd contains everything you need to create a character and explore an industrial world of cosmic meddlers and horrific hazards. This is a fast, simple game, to challenge your wits rather than your understanding of complex rules.You seek Arcana, strange devices hosting unnatural powers beyond technology. They range from the smallest ring to vast machines, with powers from petty to godlike. Beside these unnatural items that they may acquire, your characters remain grounded as mortals in constant danger.The game is 48 pages, containing:Original artwork from Jeremy Duncan, Levi Kornelsen, and others.The fastest character creation out there, getting you playing as soon as possible.Player rules that fit on a single page, keeping a focus on exploration, problem solving, and fast, deadly combat.The complete guide to running the game as Referee. From making the most of the rules to creating your own monsters and Arcana. Sample monsters, arcanum, traps, and hazards.Character advancement from Novice to Master Rules for running your own Company, and taking it to war with an original mass combat system.Complete guide to the Odd World, from the cosmopolitan city of Bastion and its hidden Underground, through to backwards Deep Country, the unexplored Golden Lands.The Iron Coral, sample expedition site to test the players' survival skills.The Fallen Marsh, a deadly wilderness to explore.Hopesend Port, a settlement to regroup and sail on to further adventure.Thirteen bonus pages of tools and random tables from the Oddpendium. |
COMPLETE Synonyms: 390 Similar and Opposite Words | Merriam ...
Synonyms for COMPLETE: finish, perfect, finalize, consummate, accomplish, get through, fulfill, fulfil; Antonyms of COMPLETE: drop, abandon, quit, discontinue, forsake, desert, begin, start
COMPLETE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
COMPLETE definition: 1. to make whole or perfect: 2. to write all the details asked for on a form or other document…. Learn more.
COMPLETE Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
Complete definition: having all parts or elements; lacking nothing; whole; entire; full.. See examples of COMPLETE used in a sentence.
Complete - definition of complete by The Free Dictionary
complete implies that a unit has all its parts, fully developed or perfected; it may also mean that a process or purpose has been carried to fulfillment: a complete explanation; a complete …
Complete: Definition, Meaning, and Examples
Mar 16, 2025 · As an adjective, "complete" denotes something that contains all necessary or required components. This usage often describes physical objects, systems, or groups that …
Complete Definition & Meaning - YourDictionary
Complete definition: Having all necessary or normal parts, components, or steps; entire.
COMPLETE definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
complete implies that a certain unit has all its parts, fully developed or perfected, and may apply to a process or purpose carried to fulfillment: a complete explanation. entire means whole, …
COMPLETE Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of COMPLETE is having all necessary parts, elements, or steps. How to use complete in a sentence. Synonym Discussion of Complete.
COMPLETE | definition in the Cambridge Learner’s Dictionary
COMPLETE meaning: 1. with all parts: 2. used to emphasize what you are saying: 3. finished: . Learn more.
COMPLETE | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary
COMPLETE meaning: 1. to make whole or perfect: 2. to write all the details asked for on a form or other document…. Learn more.
COMPLETE Synonyms: 390 Similar and Opposite Words | Merriam ...
Synonyms for COMPLETE: finish, perfect, finalize, consummate, accomplish, get through, fulfill, fulfil; Antonyms of COMPLETE: drop, abandon, quit, discontinue, forsake, desert, begin, start
COMPLETE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
COMPLETE definition: 1. to make whole or perfect: 2. to write all the details asked for on a form or other document…. Learn more.
COMPLETE Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
Complete definition: having all parts or elements; lacking nothing; whole; entire; full.. See examples of COMPLETE used in a sentence.
Complete - definition of complete by The Free Dictionary
complete implies that a unit has all its parts, fully developed or perfected; it may also mean that a process or purpose has been carried to fulfillment: a complete explanation; a complete …
Complete: Definition, Meaning, and Examples
Mar 16, 2025 · As an adjective, "complete" denotes something that contains all necessary or required components. This usage often describes physical objects, systems, or groups that …
Complete Definition & Meaning - YourDictionary
Complete definition: Having all necessary or normal parts, components, or steps; entire.
COMPLETE definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
complete implies that a certain unit has all its parts, fully developed or perfected, and may apply to a process or purpose carried to fulfillment: a complete explanation. entire means whole, …
COMPLETE Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of COMPLETE is having all necessary parts, elements, or steps. How to use complete in a sentence. Synonym Discussion of Complete.
COMPLETE | definition in the Cambridge Learner’s Dictionary
COMPLETE meaning: 1. with all parts: 2. used to emphasize what you are saying: 3. finished: . Learn more.
COMPLETE | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary
COMPLETE meaning: 1. to make whole or perfect: 2. to write all the details asked for on a form or other document…. Learn more.
