Showing results by narrator "Ray Greenley" in All Categories

The essential elements for building a world. Roleplaying games and fantasy fiction are filled with rich and fascinating worlds: the Forgotten Realms, Glorantha, Narnia, R'lyeh, Middle-earth, Barsoom, and so many more. It took startling leaps of imagination as well as careful thought and planning to create places like these: places that readers and players want to come back to again and again.

Decades of GMing experience! Whether it’s advice from grognards who were running games at the dawn of RPGs, or suggestions from the new generation of game designers, these 21 essays by experts are here to help you improve your GMing skills and create fun, amazing, memorable campaigns that’ll be talked about for years. In this audiobook, master GMs and storytellers give you advice about solo campaigns, shy players, cell phones, and making rulings on the fly.

The Best Role in Roleplaying! Whether you're a new game master or a seasoned vet looking for a new angle to shake up your game, these 19 essays by expert game masters help construct your campaign from the ground up - and keep your players engaged until the dramatic conclusion. Complete with discussions on plotting, tone, branching storytelling, pacing, and crafting action scenes, you'll find all the tips and advice you need to take on the best role in role-playing - and become an expert game master, too! 

You want your games to be many things: creative. Innovative. Playable. Fun. If you're a designer, add "published" to that list. The Kobold Guide to Board Game Design gives you an insider's view on how to make a game that people will want to play again and again. Author Mike Selinker has invited some of the world's most talented and experienced game designers to share their secrets on game conception, design, development, and presentation. In these minutes, you'll learn about storyboarding, balancing, prototyping, and playtesting from the best in the business.

Following the initial Martian invasion of England, President Theodore Roosevelt tries to prepare the United States for the potential of another Martian incursion. As the possibility of a stronger invasion is increasingly clear, the US government tries to mobilize nations to share information and technology to defend humanity. Newly minted ordinance officer Andrew Comstock has been placed in charge of developing new technology that has to be tested on the fly in a race against time if humanity is to survive.

When an apocalyptic catastrophe decimates the land, a lucky few escape on a souped-up cruise ship called the Catalina. After 16 years, the strain begins to show in a floating world of distrust and shifting allegiances. A young mechanic named Esther wants to prove herself, but she tends to bash things up in the name of progress. When disaster strikes the Catalina on Esther's watch, she must risk everything to fix her mistake. She sails in search of help and encounters a mysterious metropolis called the Galaxy Flotilla.

Professor of environmental engineering Daniel Cohan argues that escaping the gravest perils of climate change will first require American diplomacy, technological innovation, and policy to catalyze decarbonization globally. Combining his own expertise along with insights from more than a hundred interviews with diplomats, scholars, and clean-technology pioneers, Cohan identifies flaws in previous efforts to combat climate change. 

As the Martian force tries to consolidate their position in the US, President Theodore Roosevelt gathers the best scientific minds and industry leaders to meet the Martian challenges. Staking everything on a roll of the dice, a joint army-navy force are in the midst of developing a landship to win the war. The big question is if they can complete it in time. 

In any time of disruption or grief, many of us seek guidance in the work of great writers who endured similar circumstances. During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, historian and biographer Robert Zaretsky did the same while also working as a volunteer in a nursing home in south Texas. In Victories Never Last, Zaretsky weaves his reflections on the pandemic siege of his nursing home with the testimony of six writers on their own times of plague: Thucydides, Marcus Aurelius, Michel de Montaigne, Daniel Defoe, Mary Shelley, and Albert Camus.

The Martian invaders have overrun the American heartland. Between the Mississippi and the Rockies, only Texas holds out, written off by the high command in Washington, and with revolution brewing in Mexico. Texas has become the Martians' new target. Across the Lone Star State, soldiers, Rangers, and civilians alike prepare to repel the next attack, outmatched and outgunned - yet undaunted. Governor Colquitt and General Funston plan to build their own weapons, raise their own armies, and perhaps take the war into their own hands.

Sixteen years ago, a volcanic eruption changed the world forever. A small group of survivors escaped on a cruise ship called the Catalina ahead of a choking cloud of ash. Since then, they have been surviving at sea, drifting until the land becomes safe again. The adventure continues in Seaswept, the heart-stopping second book in the Seabound Chronicles.

Esther's seabound world has changed. Her revolutionary energy technology allows ships to sail long distances and has ended the Catalina's isolation policy. With the changes come new responsibilities for Esther - and new dangers for the people she loves.

In the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the American government confiscated the homes, animals, businesses, and personal possessions of Japanese Americans, citizens all. At the Tule Lake Internment Camp, a Japanese American girl sought solace by retreating to the furthest edge of the camp’s barbed-wire enclosure. Outside the barbed-wire-crowned metal fence, with its frightening armed guard towers, a curious American boy one day cautiously approached on his bike to say a nervous hello to the girl who so intrigued him from a distance. This visit started four years of meetings.

While President Roosevelt defends the US, the British Empire rallies to repel their alien foe again, and a young Winston Churchill helps to rally international forces. Not all the world sees the Martians as a threat, though; some see them as leverage against Britain. As the military tries to come up with solutions, the international arena takes the stage. 

This is the second of the three-part series covering the opening salvo of the Great Martian Invasion. US forces recover from the initial shock of the Martian invasion of the Southwest and attempt to set up a defensive line along the Mississippi. The best minds in the US try to come up with ways to defeat the Martians using the little captured technology available to them. Meanwhile, President Roosevelt tries to rally world leaders to aid in stopping the invaders.

Moments before the world ends, two strangers pass each other on the San Diego boardwalk. Simon is taking a walk with his young daughter, Esther. Judith is jogging to relax before her first big job interview. When a cloud of ash descends without warning, swallowing the city behind them, Simon and Judith escape onto a nearby cruise ship and head for open water. The Yellowstone super eruption has begun, and the luxury vessel is their only hope of survival.

A thousand years ago, the sea began to change, and the change spread. Now the boiling, toxic, lightning-wreathed Atomic Sea has encompassed every ocean on the planet, and the creatures that live in it have become mutated and unnatural.

What is the secret of the Atomic Sea? Toxic. Mysterious. Lightning shoots up from it. Just to breathe the air above it causes mutation. Now, in a time of world war, one man will be pressed to discover the truth and unlock the secrets of the Atomic Sea, or the whole world will be plunged into nightmare. Join listeners around the globe in delving into the mysteries of this strange world.

The story of Jet Black continues, and more of the mystery unfolds as Jet and his friends prepare to rescue the remaining children held at Miracle Manor by the sinister Dr. Drexler.

Over a decade after violating the ruthless orders of his superiors in the Basilean military, ex-legion captain Dionne emerges from hiding in the Mountains of Tarkis, leading a force of rebels against the dark forces of the Abyss. Desperate to clamp down on the popular rebel leader, the Basilean Duma dispatches a force to bring the former legion officer to justice. Leading the paladins of this force is Tancred, freshly promoted and harboring political ambitions of his own.