Exercise: Excise "Story"
This weekend a friend of mine who plays in a game I'm not in was telling me a tale of woe and how she was getting rather frustrated with her fellow players. My friend wanted to frame a scene that would...
View ArticleGaming History
Mark Causey over on Runic Empyrean is doing an interesting thing, reconstructing his Gaming History with insights as to what stayed with him from his earliest gaming experiences. Mine is about a...
View ArticleRoleplaying Game -- A Definition
So Ben Lehman is poking fun at Rich Forest's tongue-in-cheek definition of a roleplaying game which is, simply "A game that resembles D&D." Which is all very funny and ha-ha. It has been dubbed (by...
View ArticleRPGs, Pulleys, and Microwave Ovens
So every once in a while we talk about two broad-based philosophies of game design, that being (a) designing for what matters in your game, and (b) designing away what doesn't matter in your game. So...
View ArticleFruitful Void versus the Monolith
Brand suggested in passing that, by contrast to Design What Matters which pushes you towards Vincent's Fruitful Void, Design What Doesn't Matter tries to clear away all the brush from the foot of the...
View ArticleWhat Is Out of the Box?
So Andy's actually had to take out the big Moderator Mallet on Story Games for the thread Games and Gaming: Ready made out of the box?. The thread is on 24 hour hold and he suggests that the...
View ArticleHope
So you're reading a book, right? And there's this character who's cute and engaging and he's had some hard lumps so far, and in the part that you're reading, things are finally turning his way and it...
View ArticlePush Me, Pull You
And the whole push/pull thing keeps going, most recently in Story-Games'Clear and Concise Actual Play Examples of Push/Pull. Tony is jumping up and down making the arguments that I've always had in a...
View ArticlePlayer Skills
Over on Story Games, some folks helped me do some brainstorming to compile a list of Player Skills. Much like GM Tasks, these are things that players are commonly asked to do in different games. Also...
View ArticleGamex!
This weekend at the LAX Westin is Gamex, one of Strategicon's triannual cookie-cutter conventions. I'll be there running Dogs, Primetime Adventures, and Capes, and playing Nine Worlds, Shab al-Hiri...
View ArticleBack from Gamex!
Hot damn why did I not get around to attending gaming conventions until now? All the years of unexploited opportunities! It makes me weep.I'm back from Gamex, and despite coming down with a little Con...
View ArticleScrewing with "The Industry"
Simon Rogers did a little stint of interviews among RPG publishers and compiled it all into an article, View from the Pelgrane's Nest: Is the RPG Industry Screwed?, which is pretty interesting and you...
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The Design-o-sphere of Late
A pictoral representation of the state of conversation regarding game design available through the internet.
View ArticleMark Twain versus the Owlbears
WTF?In case you're wondering, this is all Jason's fault.Welcome to Alexandria Prime. You may be somewhat disoriented, especially if this is your first visit to a noological construct. That will pass --...
View ArticleGender in Games
Important Distinction:Sex - biological dimorphism; male and female; irrelevant to this articleGender - social identity; man, woman, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, transexual, polyamorous, and...
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Start 'Em When They're Young
Doyce played The Princes' Kingdom with his 6-year-old daughter, and she produced the Cutest Character Sheet Ever.Awwww.
View ArticleDear Roleplayers: Please Get Over Yourselves.
Greetings, fellow roleplayers.Over the last few months, there has been a series of discussions about how “geeky” roleplaying is and how roleplaying is ostracized from the respectable adult world. Folks...
View ArticleThey Never Listen
So the other day I went to France, right, and let me tell you, I couldn't understand anything that anybody was saying. It was all fromage this and quel horreur that, and no matter how much they said,...
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Have Games, Will Travel Interview
At Gamex, I got interviewed for Have Games, Will Travel by the inestimable Paul Tevis. I would say that I sound funny and that I don't normally sound like that, but I think it's mostly just how you...
View ArticleA Plea for Podcasters
In the light of getting my new price-adjusted iPhone, I have a request for the podcasters out there:Get some art on your podcasts! My podcast line-up is a long row of black squares because only the...
View ArticleYou Shouldn't Use Mechanics to Force Characters' Choices.
Beware: crotchety old man ranting.So recently, there's been a lot of threads and podcasts and discussions about how various games (notably Sorcerer and In a Wicked Age [AKA Sorcerer 2.0]) do not allow...
View ArticleSecret Project: Bloodfire
So the game-after-this-one, the game that is gobbling up design-brainspace as Agora is retreating to the land of playtest-and-publish, is presently called Secret Project Bloodfire. It's at that...
View ArticleLittle Game Chef '09 — Burn, Midnight Seahorse!
Graham has announced the design parameters for "Little Game Chef" on story-games.com.THEME The theme is immersion.INGREDIENTS Write a immersive game incorporating three of the following ingredients: *...
View ArticleEpic Interview with Master Plan
I'm on Ryan Macklin's podcast Master Plan, in an interview about designing epic games that is so epic... (how epic is it?) ...it's so epic, it had to be split into two episodes.Click the following to...
View ArticleGamex 2009!
The local Los Angeles Strategicon was this last weekend. We attended (with little Prudence, her very first con!), and had a blast. I did not run the IPR booth at Gamex this time around, which was sort...
View ArticleVs Klitorectomy
Dear Blizzard Support:I just had the, ah, "pleasure" of being matched up with a player whose username was Klitorectomy, which is rather obviously a mispelling of clitorectomy, or female genital...
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Red Shirt Guy: Geekdom Does It Right For a Change
So maybe you've heard of this "Red Shirt Guy" thing. Maybe you heard about the first YouTube video, maybe you've heard about the others. But it is a great story, and I think it needs to be put...
View ArticleThe City Provides
Whether it's Lankhmar or Camorr, San Angeles or Mega-City One, even Ankh-Morpork, the city has long been a favorite setting for genre fiction. It's a comfortable bridge between our own urban lives and...
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Steampunk is not a Genre
For the Atlantis Risen project, I've been doing a lot of reading and watching (more reading than watching) trying to get to the bottom of the steampunk genre. I've done a steampunk game before in Full...
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