Iron Man 2′s Secret Sauce: 3-D Printing

Iron Man 2 opens today! Are you excited? Really? Huh. Well, keep reading anyway. You know someone’s gonna drag you into a showing.

On screen, with all those suits whirling into place, you’d probably assume that the “costumes” are merely virtual. Actually, they’re not: Maybe the most cutting-edge facet of Iron Man 2‘s production was the real-life fabrication of the suits. Using 3-D printers, the film’s production company, Legacy Effects, was able to have artists draw an art concept–and then physically make that concept in just four hours.

The “Eden” printers, which are made by Objet, work by using an inkjet cartridge to print a layer of powdered plastic, which is then fused with UV light. Each layer is just microns thick, and the product gets printed from the bottom up. Here’s video of the process, though not an actual Iron Man costume:

Arneson has died

The Dungeon Delve supplement introduces the delve style of adventure to anyone who hasn’t had the fortune to be at a convention featuring our RPGA delves. Coinciding with Dungeon Delve‘s release last month, we are pleased to offer the following “missing” delve—originally set for party level 2 1/2.

In a time long before the current age of the world, fomorians began magical experimentation with myriad life forms, fey and otherwise, to produce nefarious guardians and soldiers. Such experimentation inevitably results in successes and failures. Loath to part with their failed experiments without sowing some form of wickedness, the fomorians devised mystical prisons for their underwhelming monstrosities. These they built upon or near the surface of the world, where their castoff pets could do harm to the fomorians’ enemies.

100 Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games You Should Play Before You Die

Pen and paper roleplaying games are now a small-ish hobby. But if you’re a fan of this type of recreation, there are a few pen and paper roleplaying games which might be considered essential. Here’s my list; check off the ones you’ve played, then give the rest a try.

All pen and paper roleplaying games are “fantasy roleplaying games”, but this particular subcategory refers to “fantasy” in terms of the more traditional sense of “sword & sorcery” type fantasy.

It helps if you pronounce the hyphen

From Jacob:

DM: The marilith disarms you.
PC: But I’m a monk. I’m not using any weapons.
DM: My bad. Let me do this again… she dis-arms you.

As Columbus writes “Spain” on the right edge of the paper…

DM: The passageway ends. You can go left or right.
David: Let’s go left.
Jacob: Wait. Let’s go right.
David: Why right?
Jacob: Well, I just think that because we fought the trolls back in a room that was on the right, we should go right.
David: [Incredulous] What?
Jacob: I’m on the edge of the paper. If we go left, I’ll run out of paper.
David: OK, let’s go right.

Spelling counts

From Bob:

A player passed me a note to tell me that he was disguised as a “pheasant.” He was extremely surprised when the bad guys entered the tavern to see his character in a bird costume, trying to be discreet.

Tim Duncan, Judi Dench, John McCain

What is ObsidianPortal?

Obsidian Portal allows you to create Dungeons and Dragons campaign websites and other tabletop role-playing games. Rather than trying to automate the playing of the game, Obsidian Portal provides tools to help facilitate the storytelling. Every campaign gets a shared blog/wiki to showcase their story, as well as integrated tools to help track NPCs, locations, treasure, and all the other minutae that makes up an RPG. Check out this video for more details.