Monsters & Manuals Gets Its First Award!

Matt, also known as arcona (of The Dwarf and Basilisk fame), has very kindly given my blog a Superior Scribbler Award. Matt must have been at the absinthe again, because he had this to say about my unhinged ramblings:

I’m gonna call it right now. With all apologies to James at the infinitely readable Grognardia, THIS is the best RPG blog on the net (plus Brian already gave Grognardia a SS Award). Well written and straight from the heart, M&M has a good mix of games outside of D&D being discussed, in addition to a number of downright barmy ideas/monsters/scenarios/etc that one can’t help but admire. Perhaps the only blogger I’ve ever seen that actually posts thoughtful photo dumps too (with more apologies to all the guys who post babes in chainmail bikinis every other day).

Should we be worried about the man's mental health or what? In seriousness though, Matt was very kind to say such things. Cheers.

Anyway, according to the rules I now have to nominate five other blogs. This is a difficult task, as I have 69 RSS subscriptions in my Google Reader tray. Many of those relate to cricket, however, which I'm sure has limited appeal to my mostly American readership, so I suppose I'll at least be able to narrow it down to the 30 or so RPG related blogs that I regularly dip into. (I should say first of all that I would ideally nominate every blog I read for an award; that's why I read them, as opposed to the horrendous shite that gets purveyed around much of the blogosphere. Also, I've deliberately chosen blogs that haven't already been nominated, which rules out the excellent Grognardia, Sham's Grog and Blog, and of course The Dwarf and the Basilisk.) Well, here goes:

My Superior Scribbler Awards

Exchange of Realities, which dubs itself "an attempt to bring the worlds of table-top roleplaying and writing closer together by illustrating techniques usable in both formats." Always interesting and readable, it's given me lots of inspiration and ideas about putting a new spin on gaming. The author, Ravyn, is also I think one of the most skilled and intelligent bloggers in terms of writing ability, and her stuff is worth reading for that reason alone.

Worlds in a Handful of Dice is the work of Jukka Särkijärvi, a Finn with a better command of the English language than 90% of its native speakers. He's a writer of excellent rants, thoughtful commentary, and industry insights that are always compulsively readable. The only criticism it's possible to make is that he doesn't update regularly enough!

World of Thool, which is just the kind of blogging I like to read - an ongoing account of the creation of a campaign setting, from the ground up. What helps is that Scott, the author (well known from his now apparently defunct Wilderlands of OD&D) is clearly slightly bonkers - in the best possible sense of the word - and his eponymous setting has the sort of hallucinatory genius which that kind of madness brings.

Another excellent but too damn infrequently updated (post more, Max, damn your hide) blog is Malevolent and Benign, which more than makes up for this one shortcoming with always funny and interesting posts. Max is one of the few bloggers beside myself and Jeff Rients who seems to ever mention Risus, which is in and of itself important, but besides that his work covers everything from Encounter Critical to Mutant Future to spooky Doo-wop music, and much more besides.

Advanced Gaming and Theory, which I never seem to comment on but always keep up to date with. The blog is a witches' brew of gamesmastering tips, actual play reports, new ideas, and the occasional rant, all of it good - although in keeping with most of my other selections, it needs updating more often!

I'll now set about informing the blog writers and putting up this nice little picture in my sidebar.


EDIT: Like a chump, I forgot to add the rules for my awardees. Here they are:

• Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.
• Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.
• Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to this post, which explains The Award.
• Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List (scroll down). That way, we’ll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!
• Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.