Obsession of the Week: The Prose Edda

I first learned of Snorri Sturluson in college, when I took a class on religion and mythology. It was the first semester of my freshman year, and the class was at 8 AM. For an 18 year old kid, that's basically the crack of dawn. I managed to stay away for most of the classes, thankfully (though there were days where the same classmate was waking me up at the end of the class). It was a wonderful class, and one of the required readings was Sturluson's Prose Edda.

 

You may have noticed in my post yesterday that I've become enamored with the Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok RPG. As is my wont, I've become obsessed with all aspects of the object of my obsession. This means that I absolutely had to dig out my copy of The Prose Edda from my home library. The copy of the book I got for that college class (lo those many years ago!) is still in good shape. I can't wait to dig into those tales again! If you haven't read The Prose Edda, treat yourself to this telling of Norse mythology!

Dave's Mapper!

Ever heard of Dave's Mapper? If not, check out the coolness!

Obsidian Portal

In my post yesterday about the campaign I'm brewing up, I mentioned setting up a Yahoo Group for the campaign. But I think that I need to get current with my technology, so to speak. So I think I will be creating a campaign page at Obsidian Portal instead.

Anyone else use this? I am exploring it now and it looks pretty cool. If anyone can share their experiences with OP, that would be appreciated.

I wanted to create the Yahoo Group in order to facilitate open communication with the group, as well as have a permanent home on the web for the campaign (which will be web/chat-based). But I also wanted to use the Yahoo Group in order to post images/maps and especially for sharing documents (in multiple formats but most likely PDFs). So far, I haven't seen a way to upload documents to Obsidian Portal. Is this possible?

Online Dungeon Generator

Sorry I've been so quiet the last few days. Me and the family took a trip "down the shore" as we say here in South Jersey (which is an entirely different state from North Jersey, but I won't get into that at the moment).

At any rate, I wanted to give you a heads up (if you haven't already heard of it) regarding a resource that has been mentioned elsewhere on the blogosphere. There's a really cool dungeon generator that you should definitely check out! Take a look and let me know what you think!

Game with A Thousand Faces

I have to admit, for a while this year I was sort of stressing out about the fact that I don't quite have a handle on the vagaries of the development of D&D. Or maybe it's clearer to say that I don't really have the mental power anymore to commit the D&D "family tree" to memory. Or maybe I don't have the time. Or the interest. I am sure if I really put my mind to it, I could get it more orderly in my head.

Many of my fellow RPG bloggers, especially James Maliszewski at Grognardia, make it seem so easy. They seem to be D&D scholars/geneologists! Mr. Maliszewski is especially regarded as something of an expert. He and others have written detailed, in-depth reviews/analyses of the various versions of D&D. But then again, James and his scholarly brethren seem to have been continuously gaming for many years and/or are either currently creating/publishing D&D-compatible materials. Things I certainly have not been doing.

But as it turns out, I really don't have to become a scholar of the game. For one thing, there are plenty of resources on the Web that one can refer to if one needs to delve into the twisting path of the oldest role-playing game's development. And for another thing...I really don't need to know all of this stuff in order to enjoy the game! So, I convinced myself to stop worrying about it!

So, in the interest of trying to compile a nifty list for my own reference (and perhaps the reference of others), here's some links I think are handy in keeping track of things:

D&D History:

Lyberty.com D&D History

Tome of Treasures
TSR Archive

D&D's Early Years by Erik Mona and an accompanying Riposte


The following are links to charts that try to map D&D's evolution:

Adventures in Gaming

Jeff's Gameblog


Retro-Clones:

RetroRoleplaying

Old is New Again

Attack of the Retro-Clones

Video Overview at WittySparks (this last link is pretty comprehensive, touching on more games than the other three links above)

There you have it, folks. Now, on to worrying about actually gaming, rather than about the game itself!