Dustin was intrigued by my statements in our first consulting session about character improvement, as well as being suspicious that I would start maundering about relationships as reward enough. I was able to surprise him a little, and the discussion was able to expand quite sensibly into his more general design regarding character death.
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Consulting
CONSULTING
Here's where I post about my current role-playing game design consulting, with the permission of the clients. Sometimes it's a text piece, sometimes it's video or audio. Sometimes it's a discussion, and sometimes it's a playtesting session. Check out the Testimony and What I Do items below to see what it's about.
- If you want to become a client, please click on the "Come into the Lab" link to contact me for initial discussion. If we agree it's a good fit, then the fee is $100.
My current clients are: BPG (Directions Storyplaying System), Tor Erickson (5th edition D&D OGL), Bill Burdick (Death of the Vele), GGstudio (BE-Movie), Jeff Slater (House of Spiders), and Petteri Hannila (Tales of Entropy).
Posted by: Ron Edwards
01 Dec 2018
Games: Heroic Dark, Trollbabe, The Shadow of Yesterday, Zero, The Mountain Witch, Dungeons and Dragons Fourth Edition
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Dustin isn't a naive game designer, having produced Synthicide and generally navigated modern publishing. He asked me how to promote a game which did not fit neatly into "trad or indie," "OSR or story game," or any other dichotomy which people presented to him. Which is a perfect opportunity for me to stomp upon those dichotomies with my hobnailed boots, both for him and as a general PSA.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
24 Nov 2018
3 comments
Game Chef - boon or curse? I've been wondering since its very first days as a one-off "hey why not" by Mike Holmes at the Forge. So far, in official consulting, when someone shows up with "this was in last year's Game Chef," or even more so, "won last year's Game Chef," my count is about 50:50 between that's-cool/oh-fuck.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
21 Nov 2018
Games: Weighting Rooms, Silence Keeps Me a Victim, Once Upon a Time, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, The Dreaming Crucible, Meridian, Fog of Love, Spione
2 comments
This was my first scheduled consult session at Lucca. As usual, I had no expectations, but if I did, they would have been challenged by the degree that people came prepared. Francesco brought a deck of cards that looked ready to print.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
13 Nov 2018
Games: Trincea
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Contrary to a lot of play culture right now, I'm not too invested in single-session, highly staged play. I don't mind the technique itself and have myself written some games along those lines, especially It Was a Mutual Decision, but there are so many of these at present, I find myself attracted mainly to "hey, we make up characters and play them for a long time," at least at the moment.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
13 Nov 2018
Games: Little Katy's Tea Party
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When I finally got to the Indie Palace area at Lucca, in the Palace Hotel, Beatrice Da Vela and Filippo Zolesi, the latter a.k.a. our very own Pippo Jedi at the Patreon, came to see me with their game Quella Volta Che. It's not funny or cute, but head-on, headlong into the thick of sexual harassment as experienced by anyone. It's intended to be published with a collection of survivor/testimony accounts of harassment.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
13 Nov 2018
Games: Quella Volta Che
5 comments
Francesco Zani is busy with lots of game designs, as you'll see in the videos of my consulting sessions at Lucca. Dictat is a joint effort among him, Davide Cavadni, and Francesco Rugerford Sedda, whom (the latter) I met at Modena Play early last year. Dictat's a card game that relies on LARP-like subroutines, "oh shit" card draws that demand attention, and voting, managing to represent and parody the (dys)functions of a distressed democracy at the same time.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
11 Nov 2018
Games: Dictat
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Stefano first talked with me about this game about a year and a half ago, at Modena Play. At the time, he was anxious about how it might be received, about whether or how one might be designated unsuited or ineligible for authoring such a thing, and about representation in general. Dozens of playtests later, and having weathered at least one internet storm based on exactly those things, he's not anxious any more. He's certain now - and pissed off in the very best way.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
10 Nov 2018
Games: Stonewall
4 comments
Consulting for Tales of Entropy has become almost a way of life, considering the multiple sessions, the length of the sessions, and the processing throughout. Especially for a game which is entirely finished and published, thus system development isn't the point, and for a game whose typical play-time is single-session and relatively short, in the two-hours-plus range.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
14 Sep 2018
Games: Tales of Entropy, Fiasco, shock:, S/Lay w/Me
3 comments
"Let's try it out" became a genuine hydra of extended play, especially for a game conceived as a swiftly-coiling drive into final conflict. We ended up with five sessions, some pretty long, and here are the last two.
My judgment calls, consulting thoughts, analysis, whatever you want to call it, are reserved for conversation with Petteri, but here are some things to throw out for general discussion.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
07 Sep 2018
Games: Tales of Entropy
0 comments