Category: From the Editor’s Desk

It’s Take a Break Sunday, which means chillin and grillin. Today you won’t get any cool RPG content or insightful gamer musings. In my relaxed state I can barely even get this computer to fix my breakfast.  Stupid computer.  However, as I was sitting here contemplating whether I should eat a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats for breakfast – or a bottle of Gummy Bear Vitamins, I was reminded of a conversation I had with a player, oh about a decade ago…

• Me: “Dude, this is Spycraft, not Flycraft.  I don’t care what you made your Speed out to be, you can’t run full speed through all that terrain and obstacles.  Your PC is a spy, not Spiderman.”
• Player: “But I have all these feats…”
• Me: “I don’t care!  It’s not possible, not even plausible!”

Then, later that week I watched a video clip, probably this one…

EDIT: Since the original posting, the prices have come down on regular horses. The prices below reflect that.

I made a bunch of horses for a special role playing game project awhile back, and they’ve been sitting around ever since.  They are our normal Horse Minis, except that the top-bases are coated in sand (some of them have a little bit of grass).  These are great for a horse encounter or campaign set in the desert or dry-land area (or, if you simply want to get some Horse Minis at dirt cheap prices, pick these!).

These are not new, and they come “as is.” You have two options when buying these sets.

A – the A set includes all 12 Horse Minis for $21.55.  This is 55% off the regular price. As of this posting, there are two sets of “A” available. There is only one set of “A” left!

B – set B does not consist of each of the 12 Horse Minis, but there are 18 horses total.  This set is $25.14, and comes in at 65% off regular price. Remember, even though set B has 18 horses, it does not include each of the 12 normally available.  There is only one set B available.

International Shipping: For orders going to Europe (including the UK), there is a +$5.50 charge.

Why are you offering these horses at such a low cost?

These horses were made for personal use, and are thus “used.”  They are not perfect, and they do not come with tacky for your character (though tacky certainly  isn’t needed).  Shipping in the U.S. is free!

There are a total of three two sets: two sets one set of “A” and one set of “B.”  As they get sold, I’ll edit this page to delete the Paypal buttons.  If you happen to order a set just before I delete a button, your order will be canceled and your money immediately refunded (sorry, I only have three two sets!).

I’m making it very easy to order these three sets of horses. There are two Paypal buttons below.  Simply pick your set and you’re good to go!  If you’re ordering from outside the U.S. and Canada, make sure to select the “Ship to Europe” option in the Paypal button drop-down menu.

You can read more about Horse Minis here, as well as customer comments…

 

PayPal buttons disabled

Okay, not really mucho importante, but I thought I’d take this opportunity between our RPG Site of the Year award and our Snakes Theme Week to tell you about… our Snakes Theme Week!  And other stuff!

Next Week

A while back, we kind of stumbled into a theme week involving Lizardfolk (Brian Liberge is the man).  It went pretty well, and we decided to do it again – this time with Snakes! All next week we’ll have several articles covering ideas and thoughts surrounding the snake theme to help inspire your game.

1. Serpent Student – Brian Liberge brings us a Heroic-tier set of snake-inspired Primal powers for your 4E character.
2. Minion Madness – Guest writer Alton from 20 ft Radius brings us a snake trap for your Heroic-tier characters.
3. The Cult of Eternity’s Path – Anthony Laffan from Reality Refracted brings us a snake-worshipping cult that can pretty much fit into any game.
4. Snake Plisskin, the Role Model – Charisma Keller goes into what makes Snake Plisskin such an iconic character, giving ideas for your own Mr. Badass.
5. Playing with Fate: Creating a Giant Python – We continue our series of Playing with Fate, in which we show you how to create a monster using Strands of Fate.
6. Minori, Mistress of the Unseen Serpent – Jonathan Baldwin from Powergaming for Dummies provides us with a nice assassin for the Mutants and Masterminds game.
7. Plot Heavy Patrons – Brian Liberge finishes off the week by bringing us a few new snake-themed deities for your characters, and how they can be used in-game.

Last Week

Last week we saw the award for our now annual RPG Site of the Year contest go to Critical Hits.  Really, a great site and well-deserved.  Thanks to the judges, and to all those who participated.

Site Look and Navigation

Thank you to everyone for being patient as I tweaked the site’s look and features.  I simply want the site to look nice and clean, and be easy to navigate.  I think after all the tweaks, we’ve finally gotten there.  All of our content is clearly categorized, and easily accessible through our main navigation bar.  Our Table of Contents was the solution we’d been missing, so it’s finally good-bye to the clunky old format.  Also, our slider (on the front page) is working out well, acting as both our news reel and portal to our featured content.

There are a few more (small) cosmetic changes coming soon, but for those I’m going to be enlisting the help of a friend.

Our Store

Our Store is still doing well (it’s what pays our writers and funds most of our contests).  If you haven’t been there, you should check it out (fair prices, free shipping, fast delivery).  I’m very proud of the products there, and promise that we will always only sell stuff that is cool and useful.

What does the future hold?

Lately we’ve had a few posts offered up as PDF downloads, specifically a few of our Steal This… posts.  These PDFs make the content more useful and convenient, enabling you to copy them to your computer for easy reference, and even printing them out for your game.  It’s my intention to make all of our future Steal This… material available as PDF, as well as all of our previously posted content (now that’s going to be an undertaking).

If you haven’t taken a look at Brian Liberge’s 9-page Epic level one-shot adventure, in which the PC heroes stand alongside gods while storming Asmodeus’ fortress, do it now.  Also take a look at The Id DM’s fantastic NPC (with four pages of useful material to go with him).  Both are available as downloads.

My group is very big on 3D Terrain.  Very soon we’ll begin offering 3D Terrain sets and pieces as a licensed Hirst Arts retailer.  I know I announced this a while back, but it’s a slow process – mainly because I want to do it right.  There are other sites out there that offer Hirst Arts / Castlemolds products, but ours are going to have our own distint style, be truly well-crafted, and be available at the best prices (that’s our goal, anyway).

Another project that I’ve been waiting to get off the ground is a series on “how to set up and run your own gaming website.”  I’m waiting on a single change from my hosting server before I get started, but I think it will be worth the wait.  I am – in no way – an expert on setting up and running a website, but I like to think that I’ve learned a thing or three.  The series will cover everything you need to know from start to finish (the basics), but will differ from other instructional series in one important way – I’m going to show you what to do, step by step, as if you have never seen a computer before.  I’m definitely looking forward to it, because we can’t have enough gaming blogs!

Final thoughts…

I like running Stuffer Shack.  It’s fun.  It’s challenging.  And it’s rewarding.  It’s also a pain in my wife’s butt, but I’m slowly converting her.  I like pulling up my dashboard and seeing that there are new comments and links pointing to our site.  I like pulling up my email and seeing that someone has sent in an article, asking to have it posted on the Shack.  And I like meeting people and making new friends.  The online gaming community is fantastic, and filled with gamers just looking to enjoy a great hobby.  That’s the kind of crowd I enjoy.

Thanks for reading, an take it easy.

-Tourq

Looking for a little inspiration for your game?  How about sssssnakes?  It seems that snakes have been a part of every culture across the globe, most notably for their role in religeon and mythology, astronomy, cryptography, music, and film.  It only makes sense that the subject of snakes can have an impact on your game.

In the second week of May (9th – 15th), we’ll have a series of game inspiring, snake-themed articles.  A snake fighting style, snake trap, monster, and others will be posted as the week progresses.  So, put on your boots, step lightly, and learn a thing or three about about these 150 million year-old animals.  Then come back May 9th for some good old fashioned snake fun.

• Snakes are not lizards.
• Most have only one functional lung.
• Their eyelids are permanently closed (their transparent eyelids).
• Their length ranges from 4 inches to 28 feet.
• A fossil was recently discovered measuring 49 feet!
• There is a standing offer of $50,000 for a live, healthy snake over 30 feet long by the New York Zoological Society.  No attempt to claim this reward has ever been made.

Hi, my name is Chris Stevens, and I’m a gaming blogaholic.

My vice of choice is a blog that offers useful ideas and content, one that helps me with my games.  Well, A Character for Every Game does just that.  I mean, it’s all in the name!

Not only does Dyson Logos provide characters, but he also provides a huge selection of maps.   Stick around via his RSS and you’ll soon see other regular, useful content.  Really, A Character for Every Game is a blog that I categorize as “very useful.”  Can you ask for anything more?

Here are some words that I stole from Dyson’s About page:

“When you have a collection of 200+ RPGs, sooner or later you find yourself with the urge to make 200+ characters.  A Character for Every Game started off as a collection of the characters I create during this project.  The goal is to create two characters for each game I own. One “standard” starting character, and one “sufficiently advanced” character to see what an experienced character would look like.

The blog has also become  the repository for all my other RPG pursuits – house rules, commentary on games we are playing, and currently the home to my home-brew game, Adventures in the New Kingdoms.”

And then he had this to say:

“Tourq… as for the site of the month, you kick ass, thanks.”

No, Dyson, you kick ass.

A Character for Every Game, check it out.

I love finding new gamer blogs, especially well-written gamer blogs.  HELD ACTION is one such website.  Here’s a bit I’ve borrowed from his “About” page:

“My name’s Tyler. I live in Burlington, Vermont, on the western edge of the group of states collectively dubbed New England. This is my blog about tabletop games I like — mainly roleplaying games with a bit of board games on the side — and the kind of gaming goodness we get up to here in Vermont. Sometimes I’ll report on the games I’ve played recently, or RPG books I’ve read. Other times, I’ll have campaign ideas or character concepts I want to type out.

Being a bit of a convention hound, there will certainly be news and reports from the various conventions in Vermont, New England and surrounding areas. As staff for several different conventions over the years — Lorecon, Northeast Wars and now Carnage — I have a bit of insight into the process of planning and putting on events for the nerdly.”

His site doesn’t have some weird gimmick, and there’s not a lot of bells & whistles – just solid, well-written articles about gaming.  I like reading his stuff, and I’m sure you will too.  Stop by HELD ACTION, say hi, and go back often!

Hi.  My name is Chris, and I’m an RPG-site-aholic.

I love finding cool RPG sites and adding them to my Reader.  I especially love it when, later, I start poking around their site and find all sorts of golden nuggets.  It’s like a double win!

Well, that happened the other day with Dungeon’s Master, and I’ve been loving it.  Not only do they have a TON of cool, useful resources for your D&D game, but those resources are easy to reference as well.  For that, Dungeon’s Master is Stuffer Shack’s Site of the Month for February!

Here’s Ameron with a few words, in case you aren’t familiar with their site:

“I’ve really enjoyed your Site of the Month feature and am really excited that you’ve chosen Dungeon’s Master for February. Your timing couldn’t be better as February 1st is our second anniversary.

Wimwick (Neil Ellis) and I (Derek Myers) have been friends for over 30 years. We’ve been playing RPGs together since we were teenagers. When 4e D&D came out in the summer of 2008 we found ourselves going to the internet a lot for ideas, resources and clarification on rules. After a few months we realized that there were a lot of gaps in 4e D&D. Not only was Wizards not filling in those gaps (at the time), but neither was anyone else. So we decided to step up and do something about it.

Our number one objective has always been to do our part to make your D&D experiences better. We felt we could do that by offering tools, resources, advice and anecdotes about our gaming experiences. The more articles we wrote and the more readers we gained, the more Dungeon’s Master became the place that other gamers were coming to find all of those things missing from D&D. The real trick was to keep up the quality of our material (we weren’t going to post just for the sake of posting). Two years later we feel that we’ve lived up to that goal. Our traffic and our subscriber numbers continue growing, so we must be doing something right.

We deliberately choose to focus exclusively on 4e D&D. This really helped us find a solid, core audience. Our readers know that when they want 4e D&D content, we’re the place to visit.

As we move into our third year, we’re going to keep following the model that endeared us to so many gamers. We’ll keep publishing new material every day, Monday-Friday. Our goal is to become the number one D&D website behind only Wizards of the Coast themselves. By continuing to publish top quality articles on D&D, we feel that we’re well on our way to meeting that objective.”

I only wish that I would have started reading their stuff sooner!  Anyway, as Ameron said, today is Dungeon’s Master’s 2nd anniversary, so stop by and congratulate them.  Also, if you have the time, check out this Spotlight Interview they gave to Wizards of the Coast.

See you there!

Good day, my fellow chummers. It’s Monday, the start of the first full week of the year, and I’d like to address you of our agenda…

The Shack is sailing along, smoothly, with a few hundred consistent hits a day.  I think that’s pretty good for a blog that’s not yet one year old, and I’m happy with that (hopefully, in the future, we’ll get consistent mega-hits).  Of course, who wouldn’t want mega-hits?  -But I have to remind myself that hits aren’t the reason the Shack is up (or fame, money, or world domination).  Stuffer Shack is up because I’d like a corner of the blog-o-world to call my home, somewhere that a group of us can provide material that others find useful. -And, to make new friends, of course!

Something that I find interesting – Stumble is an unusual beast.  Without fail, we have two articles that get Stumbled day after day after day.  They  outweigh our other articles by a mile, but it’s not because they’re some deeply, awe-inspiring posts.  No, one’s just funny and the other’s just cool.  Check out Deck of Many Boons and 3D Battle Maps with Pics, and you’ll see what I mean.

If you haven’t checked out The Crew yet, you should.  We have a nice mix of ten writers!

• Myself – Chris Stevens
• Charisma Carpenter
• Colin Dowling
• John Lewis
• Greywulf
• Jade
• Dixon Trimline
• Jonathan Baldwin
• Spiralbound

Brian Liberge just joined up, and will be bringing with him a treasure trove of Monsters to Steal and other content.

Stuffer Shack would not be where it is without the help of our writers.  I can’t thank them enough.  So, I’m happy to say that we share the loot.  That means that a good part of the money the Store makes goes toward our Stuffer Shack Crew.  That’s right, we make enough to pay our writers.  Woo – hoo!  Speaking of our Store…

Thanks for reading,

It’s that time again! And what better way to start not only the month, but the year with a nod to one of the best gaming blogs out there?  Gnome Stew!

You know you’ve been there, and you’ve probably wondered what they put in their stew – other than gnomes.  Well, it’s the vast number of GM-related gaming articles, of course!

Also, I haven’t read it, but I’ve heard a lot about their product for sale, Eureka.  The fact that it’s their only product (currently) tells me that they put a lot of effort and love into it – so you know it has to be top-notch.

Gnome Stew – Go there.  With articles coming out almost everyday from a large pool of veteran GMs, you won’t be disappointed.