I was out of town most of last week interviewing for a job, so no blogging. Looks like I got it, so SENG will suffer for awhile. I'm still hopeful I can make some good progress on 10FF before starting, so if all goes well that will see the light of the day fairly soon.

On to the links that have built up:

John Harris of GameSetWatch has a good article about items in RPGs. The article is specific to roguelikes, but has good information to keep in mind for any RPG designer:

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2009/10/column_play_item_design_part_1.php

Two good articles from Shamus up at The Escapist. First, one about levelling up in RPGs, full of do's and don'ts for an RPG designer:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/6690-Ding-Now-You-Suck-Less

And another about how RPG designers can lose their audience with stupid, logic-defying sidequests. Things like: a wooden door that can only be opened with a certain key, and not with the giant axe that the player character is wielding.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/6745-Quest-for-the-Sidequest

Last, Andrew Doull continues his series on Quest design; lots of good stuff here. I recommend the whole series:

http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com/2009/10/quest-for-quests-part-four-assumptions.html

That's all for now!