Role-Playing Resources

Essentials

• Wizards of the Coast: The publishers of the D&D role-playing game.
• Wizards D&D Boards: A great resource for players of D&D 3.5E.
• Wizards D&D Boards: A great resource for players of D&D version 4.
• Wizards d20 Boards: d20 System Boards hosted by Wizards of the Coast.

Player Creation

• Guide to Character Personality and Background, by Ash. A clear and simple step-by-step guide to developing a character's personality. In the end, you have a sort of role-playing character sheet that you can bring to a game as a reference.
• Personal Code: A character personality questionnaire by Alesia Chamness.
• The Mother of all Character Questionnaires: A huge list of questions that will help you create a character, from Role-playing Tips.
• Character Backgrounds: Another useful character questionnaire, from hurva.org.
• Character Sheet: 3E Wizard: A super-dense, three-page D&D 3E character sheet in MS-Word format especially for wizards, by me. Includes standard 0th level spells and a polymorph section. The most confusing parts have been filled in with example values.
• Character Sheet: 3E Finesse Fighter: A super-dense, one-page D&D 3E character sheet in MS-Word format especially for finesse fighters, by me. This can be used for any non-casting class, but the armor section is reduced for finesse fighters. The most confusing parts have been filled in with example values.
• Character Sheet: 2E: A super-dense, super-ugly AD&D 2E character sheet in RTF format, by me.

World Creation

• Religion Creation: A quick and dry guide to religion creation by me.
• Mysticism and Shamanism: An article called "The Masque of God," extracted from Imazine Role-gaming Quarterly, Issue 21, Autumn 1994, by Paul Mason. This article discusses Mysticism and Shamanism in role-playing games.
• World Design Tips: Written by me, with help from rec.games.frp.dnd
• City Design: Some useful (but very sparse) notes on city design, compiled by me from various posts on rec.games.frp.dnd.
• City Flavor: Tips on making realistic cities, from Roleplaying Tips.
• Creating a Game World: A list of questions to answer when creating a game world. By Tim Martin.
• Designing Realistic Maps: A few useful mapping ideas, from Roleplaying Tips.
• A bunch of floor plans for palaces, castles, abbeys, etc
• Medieval Demographics Made Easy: Numbers for Fantasy Worlds
• The Medieval Technology Pages
• Ancient and Medieval Law

Stuff, Things and Whatnot

• Lots of Items: A big list of items that might be bought in an AD&D game, compiled from many sources by Vortac.
• Dragon Lady's Open Air Bazaar: Another extensive list of items that might be bought in an AD&D game, compiled from many sources by Dragon Lady.
• Net Book of Poisons: A nice list of poisons, their effects, and how they're used.
• Net Book of Herbs: A long list of real and fantasy herbs and their uses, by Shaun Hately.

Rules

• The Hypertext SRD: These are the official rules of D&D 3.5, along with some house rules. This site includes most the rules from the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual, and some rules from the Epic Handbook and Psionics Handbook, in a well-organized format. Besides the house rules, the content of this site is almost identical to the official 3.5 SRD published by Wizards of the Coast. My second favorite place to get the game rules is this nice SRD, organized with menus.
• The Normal Person: I got tired of the idea that the king's master chef also had to be able to take on half an army single-handed, so I wrote up this new set of rules for NPCs (revised August 2007). This is for D&D 3.5.
• The Psionics Handbook v1.01: Having never seen the official Psionics Handbook, I wrote this up in 1995-96. This is for AD&D 2.
• Abstract Magic System: An interesting magic system for AD&D 2 by Michelle Bottorff, where have a limited amount of magical energy with which you can try to create any effect you want. Michelle was a regular poster to the FidoNet AD&D echo.
• Magical Combat: An interesting idea on making mages more 'magical' in the way they fight. By Bard Valerian.

Role-Playing

• Revenge of the Gamer Chick: Some great advice for role-playing, written by a female gamer.
• Roleplaying Tips: A free online weekly magazine about roleplaying.

Money

• Box of Coins: How much money can a container hold? The original author is unknown, but this was reformatted and appended by me.
• Alternative Coinage: Notes about currency, compiled by me from a thread on rec.games.frp.dnd.
• Coins: A post by Ben Buckner about various systems of coinage.
• Gold and Silver Production: A quick historical note by azothath.
• Investments: Investments in the middle ages, by Rupert Boleyn and Gary J. Robinson.

Miscellaneous

• Measurements: A fairly complete list of British units, compiled by me.
• More Measurements: A fairly complete list of Swedish (?) measurements, compiled by Jonas Eckerman
• Armory Costs: How much does an armory cost? Compiled by me from posts on rec.games.frp.dnd.
• Learning Medieval: Sixty-two tips by Jason Kuznicki on things you can do to teach yourself more about running a good campaign. They generally consist of things that will help you experience aspects of the middle ages. Taken from rec.games.frp.dnd.
• Medieval Demographics: Medieval Demographics Made Easy, an article by S. John Ross. (latest version). 
• Farming: Some useful (but very sparse) notes on medieval farming, compiled by me from various posts on rec.games.frp.dnd.
• Iron Swords: What's the difference between iron, cold iron and cast iron? This will tell you. Compiled by me from posts on rec.games.frp.dnd.
• Apprentices: An Idea for Wizard Apprentices by J. Hawke.
• Cold Weather: Considerations for adventuring in cold weather. Formatted and edited by me, from a rec.games.frp.dnd post by an unknown poster.
• Agriculture and Living Space: Compiled by me from a thread on rec.games.frp.dnd.
• Farming and Weather: A useful rec.games.frp.dnd thread on farming, written primarily by Peter Newman.
• Miscellaneous Ideas: A bunch of stuff I've collected, but have not yet sorted into nice files, including level drain, level limits, living magic, NPC creation, realm defense, taxes, torture and traps.
• Mass Combat: A system of rules for mass combat, by The Sigil.
• Continual Spin: A new spell for tinkers who aren't thrilled with the way physics worked out. By Drew Id.

DM Stuff

• Non-Experience Awards: Too much experience going around? Who needs it? Compiled by me from posts on rec.games.frp.dnd.
• Creating Fear: How to scare your players. Compiled by me from posts on rec.games.frp.dnd.
• Little Monsters: Players laugh at a dragon? Here are some ideas from rec.games.frp.dnd on how to make wimpy little monsters into a real challenge.
• Cutting Out Combat: Tips on making low-combat campaigns interesting, by Sarah E Kahn. This was taken from rec.games.frp.dnd.
• Balance of Power: Notes by Richard Grady and others about fighting powerful PCs with weak NPCs.
• DM Battle Advice: Want to make your battles really thrilling? Read this. By Drew Id.
• Funny Campaign Ideas: A quick note on creating a funny campaign, by Drew Id.
• Horror Tips: Useful tips on adding horror to a roleplaying game, from the WotC boards, by Mole.
• Good Encounters: How to make a good encounter. From Roleplaying Tips.
• Running an email game: Advantages and disadvantages to running a D&D game over email, by me.

RPG Fiction, and Private Campaigns with a Prose Focus

• The Coming of the Zioth AD&D Campaign:  My own PBeM campaign, complete with game turns in prose form.
• The Kingdom of Hurva: A complete world, including a reasonably well-written and very entertaining prose campaign.
• Kismet's D&D: A campaign by Patricia Willenborg. Includes articles on D&D and lots of other interesting stuff.
• AD&D Net Novels: A few AD&D PBeM campaigns in prose form. Hasn't been updated in a long time.

Fantasy Art

• Portrait Adoption: You describe your character and state the amount of money you're willing to pay, and freelance artists compete to draw for you.

Humor and Fun Stuff

• The Order of the Stick: An excellent web-toon about a party of D&D adventurers who metagame in-character.
• Dice Games: Various gambling games for various AD&D races, by Desmond Reid.
• Trolls and Humor: Funny stuff, collected from rec.games.frp.dnd.
• Torture Story: This is a game-segment written up by a poster to rec.games.frp.dnd. It is truly the best-written torture scenario I have ever seen.
• Creative Spell Use: Creative uses for spells, from posters to rec.games.frp.dnd
• Dragon For Sale: A humorous thread on rec.games.frp.dnd started by me.
• I Refuse to Respond: A silly thread by myself and others.

Miscellaneous Resources

• The Unofficial FidoNet AD&D Site: Complete with the Great FidoNet Compendium, a collection of classes, monsters, spells, magic items and whatnot else created by the FidoNet community. I'm editor of the compendium and owner of the site.
• Macray's Keep: A complete gaming environment. Very well-designed site, with message groups, private mail and chat.
• WebRPG: A huge online resource for gamers.
• A whole bunch of random AD&D stuff, including worlds, character sketches and humor.
• A Boke of Gode Cookery: James Matterer's collection of medieval recipes which he has translated and adapted for the modern cook.
• The Dungeon at druidic.net: A collection of interesting spells, feats, races and other D&D stuff. This site also hosts the Great FidoNet Compendium and other FidoNet D&D information.

Is D&D evil?

• A faq that tries to answer the question: Is AD&D evil?
• Jack Chick: A minister who preaches against D&D. Good for a laugh.
• The Evils of Pokemon: A very funny page, meant to be serious. This web page discusses the evils of Pokemon and its occult implications. Watch out for your children! First Pokemon, then Magic, and then (gasp! No, don't say it!) Dungeons and Dragons! In case the link goes down, there's a locally stored copy

Personal pages

• Anthologia Dementis, a page by one of the players in my D&D campaign, with a bunch of short stories.
• Role Playing Games, a page by one of the players in my D&D campaign, with descriptions and links for games in which he is involved.

Visit Zioth.com, a humor site that has nothing whatsoever to do with role-playing!
Visit The Coming of the Zioth D&D campaign
Send comments to the Zioth DM