Even if you live in a cave on a desert island, there’s likely some neck-bearded castaway next to you predicting and complaining about a 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. We’ve heard it for five years and we’ll hear it for five more, regardless of what new games are released. Most recently, 3rd edition veteran Monte Cook returned to the R&D team of Wizards of the Coast, launching all sorts of new speculation.

via Five Wishes for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons : Critical Hits.

BioWare and LucasArts announced the release date for the much anticipated MMORPG during the keynote address at the 2011 Eurogamer Expo in London, England. The massively multiplayer online role-playing game is set to be released in North America on December 20, 2011.Star Wars: The Old Republic, or commonly known as TOR by fans, is set in the time of the Old Republic, thousands of years before the six Star Wars movies, and will allow players to chose their side in a war between the Republic and the expanding Sith Empire. They’ll be able to build their own character based on numerous character classes and partake in adventures that will often require them to partner with other players.

via STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC release date! « Star Wars Books.

Earlier this summer, NPR asked book readers to vote on their favorite 10 sci-fi/fantasy novels/series of all time.

They then compiled those numbers. More than 60,000 ballots were cast. To me, that is a very good representative number. I have to say, the list makes a lot of sense. The good thing about a list, in my opinion though, is seeing how many books you’ve read on it! I have only read 46 of the 100 titles/series though, which leaves me a big ‘to read’ pile coming up.

via NPR Reveals Top 100 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Novels/Series « Del Rey and Spectra – Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Graphic Novels, and More.

As usual, speculation was rampant on what Wizards of the Coast would announce at Gen Con. Given the departure of some high-profile names and based on statements made via the D&D website, the default prediction seemed to be the announcement of D&D 5th edition, or some kind of Basic/Advanced split forked off the current edition of D&D. As it turned out, none of that happened. Sources told me that while that certainly can’t be ruled out for the future (of course), any kind of announcement of that scope will have plenty of advance warning and won’t be conducted in secret (i.e., avoiding the way that D&D 4e was announced.)

via Gen Con 2011: D&D New Products Seminar : Critical Hits.

I think it is fair to say that I love maps. I also think that just about everyone reading this blog probably knows this already.

For the last year I’ve wanted to do weekly or monthly RPG Cartography roundups, but I keep not doing it because I know I’ll miss some awesome maps and feel bad about it. However, I also want to give props to everyone out there who is posting maps to their blogs. After all, this is a community, so I might as well give props to someone other than myself, even if only on rare occasion. You guys and gals are awesome, keep up the good work!

via An Awesome Array of RPG Cartography « A character for every game.

I’m going to clue you guys in to a nifty little secret that I’ve been using for a while now in my RPG encounters – adding height to a tabletop RPG can be one of the best ways to invigorate your encounters. You must be careful, because using something like height in your game can become something of a gimmick or a trick and if overused could become predictable or boring to your players.

via The Architect DM: Give It Some Height : Critical Hits.

Congratulations to Peter Dinklage for his Emmy nomination in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his performance as Tyrion Lannister in HBO’s A Game of Thrones.

via Peter Dinklage Receives Emmy Nomination for HBO’s ‘A Game of Thrones’ « Suvudu – Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games.

Though published in 1977, I know I didn’t encounter Terry Brooks’s The Sword of Shannara until some years later, when it appeared in the house of a friend of mine. His mother was a member of the Book of the Month Club or something similar and this novel was a selection one month. Consequently, it was lying around the house when we got together to game and I often found myself idly reading it while my friends sat around waiting for the rest of our group to arrive to play. My first thought, back then, was “This is just like The Lord of the Rings but with different names.”

via GROGNARDIA: Pulp Fantasy Library: The Sword of Shannara.

The guys over at Gnome Stew came out of the gate strong with their first publication Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters last year, presenting plenty of snippets designed to jump-start the process of adventure creation, with multiple genres available to fit any game setting.

It should be no surprise then that their sophomore publication not only holds up to the high standards of content, design, and variety, but in some ways surpasses. Masks: 1,000 NPCs for Any Roleplaying Game is what it says: 1,000 NPCs ready to be dropped into any game.

via Review: “Masks: 1,000 NPCs for Any Roleplaying Game” : Critical Hits.