While being egotistical enough to look for my own stuff on Google, I came across a free RPG called Catgirl Avengers, which I can’t believe I missed before. It’s a very simple traditional game, but it has a nice gonzo manga kitchen sink thing going, and some nice artwork too. I really can’t believe I never saw this before.

Also, I mentioned this briefly in the comment thread of my last post, but Guild of Blades is planning to offer POD services for cards. (Original Thread, Update). Aside from the fact that it’s just plain cool, I’m mentioning this because one of my back-burner projects suddenly got a lot more viable. I conceived Moonsick as a superflat-inspired RPG (Junko Mizuno’s Pure Trance was a particularly strong influence). The design of the game has evolved quite a bit since I started working on it, and as it stands now it’s more or less going to be a card game with strong RPG elements. And it’s something that’d be a massive pain to work on without a good way to print up the cards. Although I could make do with running thin cardstock through the inkjet printer, a POD solution makes me much more inclined to bring the whole thing to fruition.

Which isn’t to say it’ll be getting done soon… I’m getting close to being ready to make an announcement about something that’ll keep me entirely too busy over the next several months.

Lastly, I decided to get the $6 PDF of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia the other day. I have to say, the people who are complaining that D&D4e is going to be too different apparently need to get a better historical perspective. Just from D&D to AD&D a whole hell of a lot of stuff got changed:

• It’s basically assumed that at 9th level a character has the option of becoming a land-owner. For the higher levels, most classes list land-owning and traveling paths. If you play a fighter, when you get to 9th level you can choose to become a land-owner, or become a paladin, knight, or avenger, depending on your alignment.
• A lot of people already know that races (Elf, Dwarf, Halfling) are treated as classes. These have strict level limits (for “balance”), though they do still gain certain benefits for amassing XP beyond what it takes to get to level 10.
• Druids are some kind of freaky prestige class type thing for high-level neutral clerics. Monks are called “Mystics.”
• The game includes explicit rules for high level characters seeking immortality, for strongholds and domains, for mass combat, etc.
• The section on the planes is short and when it comes to the outer planes very, very vague. (“There are planes where dragons come from, planes where Immortals live, planes where many undead spirits collect…”) Heroes turned Immortals are an important part of the milieu, but deities aren’t really mentioned.
• There’s a default game setting in the appendix. That’s Mystara.