I shared some recently discovered resources for gamers (GMs and players alike) with the Good Omens group, and one of our more astute members suggested that I should share them here as well. And after all, who I am to question one of Sean’s brilliant suggestions?

Here are three sites that could benefit any roleplayer:

1) I stumbled across a webzine called Daedalus that provides articles on gaming (building worlds, good settings, interesting systems, etc.). The good news is that there’s a decent amount of material there, the bad news is that the ‘zine has been discontinued (for reasons disclosed by the editor in the site’s “About” section). But there are two issues available as PDFs, and two more that are viewable on the site.

Here’s the link: http://www.chimera.info/daedalus/

2) Based on a recommendation by the astute Sean, I started listening to Have Games, Will Travel which is a weekly podcast by Paul Tevis a free lance writer in the gaming industry. His style is on the dry side for my tastes, but his shows are very informative. At 20-30 minutes on average, it’s not a lot to listen through to pick out the interesting bits. You don’t have to own an iPod or use iTunes to listen. Episdoes can be downloaded as MP3 files on the website.

If you want to sample some of the good stuff before you commit to listening to all the available podcasts, try episodes 32-34, in which he reviews the nominees for the Origin Awards for Card Games, RPGs and Boardgames.

Here’s the link: http://havegameswilltravel.libsyn.com/

3) The final item I have to share is Gamer: The Podcasting. It’s a group of three people who get together weekly to share their ideas, experiences and advice in gaming, primarily focusing on LARPs. Even though the podcast is mostly about LARPing, they do reviews of table top, board and card games as well. And their advice on LARPing can easily be transposed into table top settings. The only potential downside is that the episodes are long (which I don’t mind because it makes for great commute listening), averaging 1 hour and 15 minutes per episode.

They have a very fun, easy going style to their presentation which I enjoy. I find myself listening to sections that aren’t at all applicable to my own gaming interests because I’m fascinated by their discussion. What I find particularly cool is their F/X section where they talk about affordable special effects and costuming. Who knows, I may actually get back into LARPing thanks to their influence.

Here’s the link: http://www.somniturne.com/gtp/index.html

If anyone reading this list has recommendations of their own, please leave them as a comment or email them to me (otherdarkmeat@yahoo.com). I love discovering new resources for RPGs.