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Everyday Life in Earlier Eras ~ La Conquista/The Conquest ~ Weapon, Equipment, Building, & Armor Compendiums Central Casting Character Background Creation ~ Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlases ~ Generic Aids  I think of gaming as akin to the "cooperative authorship" of a book. The referee and the players write a story that can be more powerful than the creation of any one person alone. The referee designs and moderates the adventures and the overall campaign, but the players always add their decisions to the mix. To adapt a cliché: A referee's plans seldom survive contact with the players. Nevertheless, the referee is responsible for the creation of a living, breathing world. Resources below should help. Central CastingWritten/Illustrated by Paul Jaquays, released by Task Force Games, this popular series helps flesh-out characters with a rich background. Out-of-print and difficult to find. Hole Delver's Catalog (All-System Catalyst Series)
"Players, are you tired of going into a shop and only being able to buy a sword, a shield, a pack, a tent, a-nother generic piece of equipment? Wouldn't it be nice to get hold of something special for a change? GameMasters, want to offer something different? Then just peruse this paltry portion of paraphernalia we propose you purchase! Then just peruse this paltry portion of paraphernalia we propose you purchase! Then just peruse this paltry portion of paraphernalia we propose you purchase! That's right, say it three times in a row and win the opportunity to buy this little beauty. EASY ENTRY ANIMALS How often have you been welcomed into your enemies' stronghold with open arms? (Us, too.) But we at Trojans found a way in easier than fighting and even easier than sneaking! In fact, the enemy actually will invite you in! What we do is build an image of their favorite animal god big enough for you and your friends to hide in! Don't worry> we can make the animal large enough for a small army! All you do is roll it up to the enemy gate late one night, jump in, and..." 1987 ... 68 pages ... TFG 8531  Central Casting: Heroes of Legend
(Fantasy Characters) "Until now, beginning heroes have been flat, lusterless characters with no sense of history or depth of personality. A warrior was a fighting machine, a wizard provided the heavy artillery, a thief acted as a mobile lock pick, and an elf just had pointy ears. With Central Casting: Heroes of Legend, characters take on lives of their own. They gain families, friends, enemies, personalities, detailed past histories, and most importantly — gain motivations for life and adventuring. Central Casting is a detailed, stand-alone system of tables, charts, and roleplay guidelines for creating thoroughly individualized roleplay characters. By following simple, step-by-step instructions, both game masters and players can give life to player and nonplayer characters alike!" 1988 ... Paul Jaquays ... 96 pages ... TFG 8542 ... ISBN 0922335001  Central Casting: Heroes of Legend (2nd Edition)
Extremely rare 2nd edition of Heroes of Legend has literally double the pages of the first edition. "Are your heroes flat, lusterless characters with no sense of history or depth of personality? With Central Casting: Heroes of Legend, characters take on lives of their own. They gain families, friends, enemies, personalities, detailed past histories, and most importantly - gain motivations for life and adventuring! Central Casting is a detailed, stand-alone system of tables, charts, and roleplay guidelines for creating thoroughly individualized, involved and invigorating backgrounds for both player characters and non-player characters." 1995 ... Paul Jaquays ... 192 pages ... TFG 8546 ... ISBN 0922335702  Central Casting: Heroes For Tomorrow
(Science Fiction Characters) "Unlike Fantasy genre roleplaying, Science Fiction games have studiously depended upon character backgrounds to give their heroes skills and professions. Yet like their fantasy brethren, SF adventurers are usually nothing more than two-legged weapon platforms or the under-utilized organic parts of 50 ton battle machines. Sure, they served with the space marines, picked up a few skills and a gigawatt microdoom blaster, but they're still just a bunch of lifeless statistics—nothing but flat, lusterless characters no different from a hundred other ex-space marines. With Central Casting:™ Heroes for Tomorrow, characters take on lives of their own. They gain families, friends, enemies, personalities, detailed past histories, and most importantly—they gain motivations for life and adventuring. Central Casting is a detailed, stand-alone system of tables, charts, and role-play guidelines for creating thoroughly individualized role-play characters. By following simple, step-by-step instructions, both game masters and players can give life to player and non-player characters alike!" 1989 ... Paul Jaquays ... 100 pages ... TFG 8543 ... ISBN 0922335036  Central Casting: Heroes Now!
(Present Day Characters) "They're not stereotypes - nor are they cloned from a motion picture or television screen. Real heroes are unique. Even when made larger than life, they still vibrate with that last keyword: "LIFE!" Yet so often, role players fall back on stereotypes - flat, un-original, cliché characters. If characters are developed at all, it's in terms of their possessions or powers. Can someone really be defined by the car they drive or how well they throw a punch? With the Central Casting:™ character creation system, characters take on lives of their own. They gain families, friends, enemies, personalities, detailed past histories, and most importantly, - they gain motivations for life and adventuring. Complete a Central Casting history for a character and you will know where she carne from, what she's done with her life, and who she knows - both her friends and her enemies. You'll have a real character on your hands. The Central Casting system is a stand-alone network of tables, charts and roleplay guides for creating thoroughly individualized characters. By following step-by-step instructions, Game Masters and players can give life to any character. All you need is dice." 1991 ... Paul Jaquays & Randall G. Kuipers & John Terra ... 112 pages ... TFG 8544 ... ISBN 0922335117  Central Casting: Dungeons
"Suitable for use with any fantasy role-playing game. Central Casting: Dungeons has been designed to enhance your gaming experience by taking the drudgery out of creating a dungeon from scratch. Central Casting: Dungeons contains over seventy different types of rooms and mapping examples, dozens of role-playing suggestions, and literally hundreds of tables to take you, step by step, through the basks of constructing a unique and entertaining dungeon! Your underground world of adventure awaits!" 1991(?) ... 192 pages ... TFG 8545 ... ISBN 0922335524 Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlases Atlas of the Land: Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
"THE LAND WHERE THOMAS COVENANT THE UNBELIEVER EMBARKED ON AN EPIC QUEST AGAINST LORD FOUL THE DESPISER, WHO SOUGHT UTTER DESTRUCTION! Here's the perfect companion and guide for Stephen R. Donaldson's celebrated Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Karen Wynn Fonstad brings out every detail of the geography of the Land in riveting graphics and engrossing text. • TOUR THE LAND, WHOSE ONLY SALVATION LAY IN THE HANDS OF ONE UNWILLING HERO! Detailed two-color maps showing every place visited by Thomas Covenant in his travels across the Land • FOLLOW THE TREK FROM MITHILSTONE TO REVELSTONE! Pathway maps detailing the routes taken by Covenant in his travels across the Land • EXPLORE REVELSTONE, ONCE LORD'S KEEP, LATER SEAT OF THE SUNBANE! Schematics of the fortresses and villages where the people of the Land lived and worked • LEARN HOW SOARING WOODHELVEN WAS SHAPED FROM A LIVING TREE! Fascinating descriptions of the geography and architecture of the Land" 1985 ... 201 pages ... ISBN 0345314336  The Atlas of the Dragonlance World
"Accompany the Heroes of the Lance on their epic travels across Krynn in this magnificently illustrated volume. Behold the beauty of the King Priest's Hall of Audience in the Temple of Istar. Smell Raistlin's herbs as you wander the hallways of the Tower of High Sorcery at Palanthas. Become hopelessly lost in the thirty-five levels of Mount Nevermind. Karen Wynn Fonstad, author of The Atlas of Middle-Earth, The Atlas of Pern, and The Atlas of the Land, draws you into the lives and places of the DRAGONLANCE Saga as never before." 1987 ... 172 pages ... TSR 8448 ... ISBN 0880384484  The Forgotten Realms Atlas
"TORIL...Visit the exciting and fantastic world of the Forgotten Realms. Join adventures renowned as they trek across Toril in the detailed, beautifully illustrated atlas. Ride with the Ffolk in the magical Moonshae Isles. Brave the brutal elements of Icewind Dale. Follow the gods as they wreak destruction from the Dales to Waterdeep. Watch as empires of East and West collide. Karen Wynn Fonstad, author of "The Atlas of the Dragonlance World", "The Atlas of Middle Earth", "The Atlas of Pern, and "The Atlas of the Land", now brings you the spectacular and dynamic settings of the Forgotten Realms." 1990 ... 176 pages ... TSR 8442 ... ISBN 0880388579 Generic Aids Apothecary on the Street of Dreams (Little Shop of Poisons and Potions Book 2)
"That Master of Alchemy, Griswald Grimm is back, with 60 new poisons and potions for the fiendishly discriminating player-character or Gamemaster! Delightful destruction, rude revenge, fearsome fogs, drastic disguises, and all manner of environmentally safe forms of magical and non-magical chemical compounds await the adventurous, the curious and the bold. Check this out: * MASQUE - disguises for the truely desperate. * POWER - for that barbarian muscle tone. * BLOATBELLY BEANS - now you’re cooking with gas. * LIVING DEAD POWDER - when no cleric is handy. * CAPTURE - if you ever wanted to be a sword. * GRIMM'S REAPER- there's no poison like it!" 1989 ... 68 pages ... Bob Liddil ... ISBN 0926895001  Heroes of Yesterday and Tomorrow: Fantasy and Science Fiction Character Illustrations Suitable for Use in Roleplaying
I profiled this book with a flip-through on YouTube. -Wayne "This book collects the works of many fine artists, including some of the gaming industry's favorite illustrators: • Rob Caswell • Liz Danforth • David R. Deitrick • Dan Engwall • Rick Harris • James B. King • Phil Morrissey • Blair Reynolds • Richard A. Tomasic • David L. Transue • Michael Vilardi. Players and referees alike will find this collection of fantasy and science fiction character illustration to be a handy sourcebook, as the illustrations under this cover will serve nicely as both player and non-player characters. This is the kind of book players can browse through and say, "Oh! Now that's me — that's my character!" Even art fans will be pleased to own this book!" 1991 ... StarLance Publications 1003 ... ISBN 0962703028  30 Sided Character and Other Tales
"THE 30 SIDED CHARACTER singing the p.r. blues species with embelishment the way you are family and kinsmen who influenced you what the gypsy read in the cards how tall, how heavy and how unusual you are things that make you different childhood trauma affecting you things you love and hate the profession of your choice things packed in your knapsack by your mother combat wounds and traumas THE 30 SIDED NON-PLAYER CHARACTER people you meet out and around people you meet in a bazaar people you would find in a tavern more people in a tavern conversations with tavern owners more conversations with tavern owners conversations and encounters with gate cards men, nearmen and notmen who can spoil your day groups of men and notmen looking for trouble encounter with a wizard people you meet in a village animals domestic or otherwise the undead, near dead, never alive & very, very bad THE 30 SIDED LAND swampland and jungle trails specialized terrain (mountains) weapons, weapons more weapons treasure, treasure alternate worlds other alternate worlds magic spells you never heard of on scrolls mondo magic spells cryptic clues and signs of the times more signs of the times close encounters of th indoor kind yes-no table too weird to classify" 1986 ... Bob Liddil ... 45 pages ... Armory 8002 | Everyday Life | La Conquista Campaign | Weapon books | | 2300 AD | 7th Sea | AD&D | Aftermath! | Albedo | Aliens | Arduin | Alternity | Amazing Engine | Amber Diceless | Ars Magica | Atlantis | Babylon 5 | Battletech | Boardgames / Wargames - Other | Boot Hill | Buck Rogers | Bushido | Call of Cthulhu | Castle Falkenstein | Chill | Chivalry & Sorcery | Conan | Cyberpunk | Cyborg Commando | Dark Conspiracy | DC Heroes | Deadlands | Doctor Who | DragonQuest | Dream Park | Dune | Dungeons & Dragons | Dying Earth | Earthdawn | Elfquest | Elric / Stormbringer | Everway | The Fantasy Trip | Foreign Language Roleplaying Games | Game of Thrones | Gamma World | GangBusters | Gear Krieg | Ghostbusters | GURPS | Harn | High Fantasy | Indiana Jones | James Bond | Jorune | Judge Dredd | Justifiers | Living Steel | Lords of Creation | Man, Myth & Magic | Marvel Super Heroes | Middle Earth Role Playing | Midkemia | Military Roleplaying Stockpile | Millennium's End | Miscellanea | Morrow Project | Mythus - Dangerous Journeys | Nightlife | Pendragon | Phoenix Command | Powers & Perils | Red Sonja | Renegade Legion | Riddle of Steel | Ringworld | Robotech | Rolemaster | Runequest | Shadowrun | Sovereign Stone | Space 1889 | Space Master | Space Opera - Other Suns | Star Ace | Star Frontiers | Star Trek | Star Wars | Super Hero RPGs | Talislanta | Talisman | Tekumel | Terminator 2 | Thieves' World | Timemaster | Top Secret | Traveller | Tribe 8 | Tunnels & Trolls | Twilight: 2000 | Villains & Vigilantes | Warhammer | Whispering Vault | Willow | Witchcraft | Ysgarth | CAMPAIGN BUILDING | RPG MAGAZINES | Avalanche Press | Avalon Hill | Bard | Chaosium | Columbia Games | Dream Pod 9 | Fantasy Games Unlimited (FGU) | FASA | Flying Buffalo | Game Designers Workshop (GDW) | Gamelords | Gamescience | Games Workshop | Judges Guild | Leading Edge Games | Mayfair Games | Metagaming | Pacesetter | Palladium | SPI | Steve Jackson Games | Tri Tac | TSR | Victory Games | West End Games | White Wolf | Wizards of the Coast | Yaquinto Publications | | Return Home | What's New | Contact WaynesBooks.com | |
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